said by rugby
:Here's what Apple's bringing to the table:
1) your music. Got iTunes on a computer in your house? AppleTV can either sync or stream the music directly. can Tivo do that?
2) Pictures. Got iPhoto? AppleTV can sync iPhoto albums or your entire library.
3) Ease of use. No getting out the mouse to control the AppleTV. I have a windows HTPC using BeyondTV, so when I want to stream something from netflix I have to get out the mouse and hope that MS's DRM doesn't decide to lock me out (for some reason it does that with the streaming feature every now and then).
4) cross platform compatibility. Does Netflix streaming work with Macs? Does Tivo support anything advanced on Macs?
I've had a Buffalo Link Theater DVD Networked Player for years that does all this with a Remote. It streams DVD quality video at 1080i from PC or Server over Ethernet. It does not play DRM protected video well, even though it does try to work with Microsoft Windows Media Connect. This unit came out years ago, and I think it is way better than AppleTV.