Comments on: Apple TV vs. Blu-ray: How do they stack up?

By: John Harper, Danville, CA

John Harper, Danville, CA — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 14:45:56 +0000

No, but I am giving serious consideration to abandoning my PC. MS's Vista continues to be slower than GW's synapses.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 16:10:24 +0000

for additional information -

bulman.wordpress.com

By: Daniel, Vancouver, WA

Daniel, Vancouver, WA — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 23:11:19 +0000

#1 No scratches- I'm tired of renting discs by mail or in store and not being able to enjoy watching a movie because of scratches on the disc.

#2 Sure Apple TV costs about $200, how much does a Blue-ray player cost?

#3 Cable/Satelite on-demand? Well I think what others have said covered that pretty well as far as costs/quality are concerned.

#4 As stated by others as well- Apple TV = TV shows (Rent or buy), Movies (Rent, buy or self-produced), Itunes, Photos ( yours, others, Flickr, slideshows), Podcasts, Music Videos, You Tube, works with EyeTv (PVR for Apples).

#5 The only drawback is they don't have the 60,000 titles (yet) that were available to rent from the likes of Netflix/Blockbuster but again if you can't watch them anyway because of all the scratches what's it worth?

#6 Apple TV is eco-friendly in terms of production and delivery. What are those discs made of? What kinds of fuels are used to deliver discs to your door or to your local store?

By: Kyle Mo Ofallon

Kyle Mo Ofallon — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 21:19:30 +0000

Dave, i like how you say Blu ray was "forced on the consumers" how many weeks last year did HD-DVD out sell blu-ray…yah thats a big ZERO. And HD-DVD does not offer the same quality audio. They run out of room so they can not put lossless audio on longer movies…

We will also see how CH-DVD does. I am sure it will sell well when in a few months almost no studios will be making movies for it…

By: David, Flagstaff, AZ

David, Flagstaff, AZ — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 20:40:11 +0000

I have both an Apple TV 2.0 and a Sony PS3. I love my Apple TV for listening to music, pod casts, viewing photos and maybe even the occasional TV show that I might of missed, but for movies Netflix and Blu-Ray are way better. First off Blu-Ray does look a lot better on a 1080P TV in my experience. Two, downloading a movie to ATV is kind of slow and if you don't wait long enough for a good buffer the movie freezes occasionally. Three, 24 hour rentals on ATV. With Netflix I keep the movie as long as I want without extra charges. Apple TV is great overall, but is not my first choice for movies.

By: Charlie, MN

Charlie, MN — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 20:36:21 +0000

Considering the cost of a Blu-Ray player, I think that $229-$329 for an Apple TV player is right in line with what the market can bear. Add in the convenience factor and you have a real winner in Apple TV.

By: Steven Kippel, La Quinta, CA

Steven Kippel, La Quinta, CA — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 19:32:58 +0000

Michael Davias, you are wrong about the down-conversion to 480p without HDMI. Let me explain:

AACS (used in both Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD) has what they call an "Image Constraint Token" (ICT) which can be applied by the content owners that would downconvert the video over analog outputs to 480p, however it is not mandated. No disc in the USA has had the ICT applied so far. Only one HD DVD has so far used it in Europe.

By: asdf,asdfasd, as

asdf,asdfasd, as — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 19:16:51 +0000

apple tv was a dud before, and is still a dud. the specs just dont match up…

By: RJ, SF Cali

RJ, SF Cali — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 19:07:20 +0000

I understand how Blue Ray should be better than AppleTV, and it's not a totally fair comparison. I don't understand why I should go out and pay extra money for an AppleTV box, when I can order from my cable subscriber for the same price, about the same quality,and not have pay extra(since am already paying cable). I understand the appeal of AppleTV, but I don't see how it's "Special" enough for me to get it in addition to my cable box. If I could download my own movie files(and not from Itunes only) from my computer and send it to my TV, then I'd be more interested. For those who love Apple, I know you're loyal, but I don't see it's appeal for the general public.

By: Akin, Chicago, IL

Akin, Chicago, IL — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 18:13:46 +0000

commenters only cite resolution but not compression. Apple TV content must be more compressed than bluray content to keep file sizes down. This inevitably affects picture quality to a noticeable degree, regardless of resolution (720p/1080p). It is noteworthy that the quality is better than expected, but unless you're willing to download movie files from 25 – 45 gigabytes in size the quality will never match that of blu-ray. Not to mention all the added features that blu-ray offers such as bonus content, interactive features, etc.