Apple TV... nope!
I anticipated this here.
I swung by the Apple Store today to a) buy a charger for my nano and b) checkout the Apple TV since Scoble and others were raving about it. What an utter disappointment. The interface looks like a weak version of Media Center and the video quality was so poor I couldn't even make out Capt. Jack Sparrow's grin in Pirates from less than a few feet away from the TV. I must be spoiled by HD - or even DVDs - because I'm at the point where picture quality that looks straight out of 1975 just doesn't interest me anymore. Blurry TV isn't always better than nothing at the price of this thing + the price of the show. I expected more from a company that pushes the envelope on HD in other areas (displays, iMovie HD, etc.)
Having said that, I find myself wanting to buy videos from iTunes more and more just because it's convenient. As mentioned a few weeks ago, iTunes saved us when our Comcast DVR ate an episode of Lost. And now that we're approaching the end of Season Two of Grey's Anatomy, we need a way to catch up on Season Three before the DVDs come out 6+ months from now. iTunes provides crappy quality shows at a relatively high price, but it provides them instantly. Which is something. So I may find myself buying a season pass to Grey's Anatomy (wishing the whole time I could do this from the Xbox). Blurry faces and all.
Someone has to do better than this. Someone has to provide direct-to-the-screen commercial-free HD television immediately after the show airs. Comcast OnDemand doesn't do it well enough and Xbox doesn't have a big enough TV library yet - when it does, I will be all over it; it's HD quality, it's easy to use, and it's already wired to my TV and surround sound system. And it's a much better value than a standalone set-top like Apple TV.
Anyway, now I'm going off on a tangent. The point is: I won't buy or recommend an Apple TV to anyone. If you want to know what the picture quality is like, do a couple Tequila shots, spin around a few times, bang your head against the floor, and then watch broadcast TV on an old 19" JVC. Don't skip a step.
BTW, expect a series of posts about Windows Live Spaces coming up soon. I have a bunch of stuff piling up in my head to write about.
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