astroglide's home theater: what i own, what i would buy today - Page 30

bobman0330 · #**291** 10-25-2007, 02:04 PM

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I totally appreciate the effort that you obviously put into your post, but I'm pretty firm on the price and simplicity criteria. That's why I assumed that an HTIB would be the way to go. Do you (or anyone else) have any recommendations along that line?

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I just ordered this for $214.10 shipped (10% sale on refurbs + $10 off for joining the site + free shipping). You will not find a better deal.

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Bought one, thanks!

Slow Play Ray · #**292** 10-25-2007, 02:08 PM

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Bought one, thanks!

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Haha, wow you're easy! I researched for weeks before finally pulling the trigger this morning.

Rick Nebiolo · #**293** 10-25-2007, 03:10 PM

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My interest in a PC/Home Theater combo mostly has to do with music; I doubt I'd ever be playing/storing video off the PC. I love the iTunes interface and want it in my living room but with top notch sound

have you looked at the apple tv? it sounds like a slam dunk for your interests.

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Just looked at the link and the review on CNET. The Apple TV seems like a neat device and better for music than for decent high def (or at least DVD level) TV; right now I'm confused/concerned about a few things:

1. I noted that only a 40G and 160G model available. My mostly lossy .mp3's and .m4a's already take up 80gigs. Re-converting about half the existing collection from source CDs to a lossless format (looks like it would have to be Apple Lossless) would increase my storage needs for a completely synced Apple TV to about 200 or 300 gigs. Yet 300 to 500 gig hard drives sold alone are in the sweet spot on price (i.e., you don't save much going smaller). Why doesn't Apple have an AppleTV with a 300 to 500 gig drive?

2. I have no experiences with wireless (e.g., I've hardly even touched a laptop computer) so I guess I would have to add a wireless card to my existing desktop PC. Guess my question is what is the approximate cost of adding wireless to a desktop?

I do like the idea of automatic syncing with what's in iTunes on your PC.

~ Rick

bobman0330 · #**294** 10-25-2007, 03:49 PM

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Bought one, thanks!

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Haha, wow you're easy! I researched for weeks before finally pulling the trigger this morning.

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If you can't trust the judgment of some guy on the internet, what can you trust?

Rick,
If you google "apple tv new hard drive" there seem to be a lot of sites that explain how to swap out the HDs. I did it for a tivo once and it wasn't really that hard.

astroglide · #**295** 10-25-2007, 03:58 PM

Why doesn't Apple have an AppleTV with a 300 to 500 gig drive?

it uses a 2.5" drive. the largest available is 250GB, and those currently run $169.99 at newegg. compare to $109.99 for a 500GB 3.5".

Guess my question is what is the approximate cost of adding wireless to a desktop?

it looks like you can't use an external usb drive with the apple tv, although there is apparently a technical hack available. you can still stream directly from an itunes pc. since you don't have wireless, one straightforward avenue for expansion might be an airport extreme if the drive sharing feature is actually compatible with the apple tv. if not, or if you're not interested in that feature, i'd probably look for cheaper options. you won't need to add wireless to any existing systems, though, as any wireless router will cable into your network.

Rick Nebiolo · #**296** 10-26-2007, 12:41 AM

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Why doesn't Apple have an AppleTV with a 300 to 500 gig drive?

it uses a 2.5" drive. the largest available is 250GB, and those currently run $169.99 at newegg. compare to $109.99 for a 500GB 3.5".

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Then why did Apple go with such a small expensive hard drive? This product doesn't really require a small footprint (or the fast access times associated with small drives); anything less then the size of a regular cable box, DVD player or receiver seems to me akin to a refrigerator that doesn't fill it's opening. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

Read a couple other reviews of the Apple TV since my last post, I think I'll wait on this. It seems like a product that is a good idea that simply isn't' ready for prime time (although it may be very good at playing my iTunes library of music in my living room).

This rant is really directed at Steve Jobs; I know he has many hits put sure can swing and miss now and then [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img].

Meanwhile I'm putting off building a new PC for a while. My emergency desktop (a souped up eMachine running under Vista) is working fine and although I'm OK with Vista I'm not sure why it's taking so long to get established (other than the fact that it appears only marginally better than XP). The hand me down of this fairly fast PC would have given me the real old PC I'd tinker with to drive iTunes in the other room.

I'll look at your other links tomorrow; need to go out and celebrate Red Sox victory number 2 now [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

~ Rick

astroglide · #**297** 10-26-2007, 11:00 AM

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Then why did Apple go with such a small expensive hard drive?

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presumably because it makes the box svelter, less noisy, and gives it a lower power draw.

perhaps they wouldn't want a mongo version to usurp sales from their other products as well.

Slow Play Ray · #**298** 10-26-2007, 03:15 PM

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Bought one, thanks!

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Haha, wow you're easy! I researched for weeks before finally pulling the trigger this morning.

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If you can't trust the judgment of some guy on the internet, what can you trust?

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those bastards sent me a mismatched set - black receiver and sub, silver everything else. i hope yours works out better, now i have to figure out how to sort it out for myself.

Rick Nebiolo · #**299** 10-27-2007, 03:38 PM

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rocketfish product i linked doesn't eliminate all cables, but it does eliminate the front-to-back need. that's the only way i've seen rear wireless setups work: wired speakers and sub, wireless signal to the rear, rear speakers wired to each other. but like i said, i have no personal experience with them. 

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For someone with a nice stand or piece of furniture running against a wall 3.1 doesn't require that many wires in plain sight. But the rears and sides for a 5.1 and or 7.1 are usually mounted higher and well apart so even with Rocketfish you have to run wires from the receiving unit to the actual speakers. That's still covers a lot of wall and is hard to hide for most people.

~ Rick

Rick Nebiolo · #**300** 10-27-2007, 04:03 PM

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Guess my question is what is the approximate cost of adding wireless to a desktop?

it looks like you can't use an external usb drive with the apple tv, although there is apparently a technical hack available. you can still stream directly from an itunes pc. since you don't have wireless, one straightforward avenue for expansion might be an airport extreme if the drive sharing feature is actually compatible with the apple tv. if not, or if you're not interested in that feature, i'd probably look for cheaper options. you won't need to add wireless to any existing systems, though, as any wireless router will cable into your network.

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Astro:

Thanks for the links in the above paragraph - learned a lot.

With the streaming capabilities it sounds like the Apple wireless router to a Apple TV is a good choice and may not be all that expensive. But since it's so new I'll probably wait a while; I'm simply not a version 1.0 type guy. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

~ Rick