New Apple TV

[TuxRacer]

LukeBird said:

Looks good and I would be interested, but as mentioned the Mac Mini makes better sense as an HTPC.

£649 instead of £99 worth of better sense? I'm not convinced. I've got a Mac Mini running Ubuntu and Boxee and I'm tempted to get the new Apple TV and regain the Mac Mini as a desktop.

[LukeBird]

It can do a lot more though.
I know it's not like-for-like, but I'd look at a used or refurb Mac Mini, I think the price is too high for a new one now.
At £400-550 they made sense, but at £650 they're getting a little pricey.

[TuxRacer]

A second hand one of these will be even cheaper too.

What extra can the mini do though? 1080p and a small amount of local storage is all I can see. And there's a rumour that the hardware can handle 1080p, it's just the content isn't there.

Edited by TuxRacer on Saturday 4th September 12:44

[Murph7355]

TuxRacer said:

...
What extra can the mini do though? 1080p and a small amount of local storage is all I can see. And there's a rumour that the hardware can handle 1080p, it's just the content isn't there...

Optical disk drive. A decent amount of onboard storage. Quite a bit more freedom to use whichever software you want without resorting to hacks. More ports on the back (handy for IR extenders and other expansion etc). You can obviously also use it as a reasonably powerful desktop computer via the TV.

Whether it's worth the difference in price now though is debatable. When I bought my Minis a while ago, I'm sure the Apple TV was 150 quid, and a decent Mini could be had for around 3-350.

[GarryA]

I was thinking that the new one would run Iphone OS4.

[TuxRacer]

Murph7355 said:

Optical disk drive.

I'd rather use the USB port that the new Apple TV has.

Murph7355 said:

A decent amount of onboard storage.

I'd rather use the TBs of NAS I have.

Murph7355 said:

...More ports on the back (handy for IR extenders and other expansion etc). You can obviously also use it as a reasonably powerful desktop computer via the TV.

Possibly.

Murph7355 said:

Quite a bit more freedom to use whichever software you want without resorting to hacks.

This is the make or break for me. If it becomes apparent that you can put a Linux distribution on it relatively easily then it'll have all the freedom I could want from a TV front end. If not, it leaves it virtually worthless.

[Murph7355]

TuxRacer said:

Murph7355 said:

Optical disk drive.

I'd rather use the USB port that the new Apple TV has.

Murph7355 said:

A decent amount of onboard storage.

I'd rather use the TBs of NAS I have.

Murph7355 said:

...More ports on the back (handy for IR extenders and other expansion etc). You can obviously also use it as a reasonably powerful desktop computer via the TV.

Possibly.

Murph7355 said:

Quite a bit more freedom to use whichever software you want without resorting to hacks.

This is the make or break for me. If it becomes apparent that you can put a Linux distribution on it relatively easily then it'll have all the freedom I could want from a TV front end. If not, it leaves it virtually worthless.

Tend to agree with you on most of this (though a built in DVD drive is handy - BluRay would have been even better - despite me thinking downloaded media is the future for distribution).

Irrelevant for me as I've had Minis in use for some time. They work very well, but the price differential is now obviously significant if someone were considering one against an Apple TV.

I'm sure hacks will be very quick coming.