The new AppleTV looks very tempting. We are currently paying for the FIOS triple-play as part of their 1-year promotion, so once our contract on that expires I’ll be looking for ways to ditch cable altogether and move to a more internet-oriented TV delivery system. AppleTV is now based on streaming vs. buying, which means there’s only 24 hours to watch a show or movie multiple times. I’m thinking this isn’t a huge deal for Jen or I (especially since we already have a Netflix account, which is supported in the new AppleTV) but for Finn, who will most likely want to see shows or movies multiple times, this could be a challenge. It would also mean giving up a few channels I’d like to have for her, including the kids’ music channel and Disney-free cartoon channels (in the rare event we let her watch TV).
I think the other thing I’d do with it is drop another terrabyte drive into our media server and load our DVD collection on there, along with as much kids’ programming as I could get my hands on in order to stream it to the TV. It would be so nice to retire the DVD player completely and subtract a big box from the TV stand; apparently there is a way to use the XBOX as a DVD player but I need an “XBOX DVD Movie Playback Kit” to do it.
Speaking of Apple, Jen’s new iPhone should be arriving on Friday, which is excellent news. Her old Motorola will be relegated to duty as Finn’s new toy, which is, sadly, about all it’s good for.
You can still use DVR with AppleTV, though, right? Or does the on-demand nature of it make DVR redundant?
My thought is that DVR is a separate entity from the AppleTV entirely–it has no hard drive, so it can’t record anything. I think you’d wire the DVR in parallel with it and switch back and forth; the AppleTV becomes sort of a smart DVD player as opposed to an inline recording/playback device. So no, I’d keep the DVR if you’re keeping your cable subscription in order to timeshift content, or lose cable entirely and use the AppleTV for on-demand content.