Roku / Apple TV - the dead horse?

[heffneil]

I was thinking of implementing a HD PVR with an apple TV or Roku and use the iphone app to control it. I really really like my roku for netflix viewing. I already own one Roku and truthfully I could just buy another roku for one or even two for two other rooms I might ever use it and save the trouble of buying a HD PVR. Anyway I was wondering if anyone has played with this and had any input?

I have playon for sage and hate that searching is't really available. It is very limiting. If I am going to break out the laptop to load up my netflix queue I already wasted too much time on finding that movie at that point...

Neil

[ccsmoke]

I have 2 appletvs (2nd gen) and itouch (4th gen) IOs 4.3.1. Running itunes on sage server and seem to be playing well with one another. The main reason I got the appletvs was for Netflix.

-Netflix UI on appletv is pretty good as well as the performance both wired and wirelessly (2.4 GHz). Compared to my Panny blueray netflix, apple easily out performs in both speed and quality. Keep in mind, netflix has a limit of devices connected and one time (5) as well as how many different streams you can pull down. I have successful done 2 with the 1 out blu ray plan...that may vary on location/plan. The 5.1 is a nice add but not too many titles are available on Netflix with 5.1 atm. I'm sure there is a you tube clip of the UI.

-The remote app is nice add but has some quirks. While it's nice to control with iwhatever, the touchpad is very sensitive leading to alot of misclicks. Being able to multizone audio as well as some video is a welcome plus and sync up well. Sometimes, however, the airplay source can put the remote app in a confused state. Also some videos, like from CNN, don't all play... some do some don't.

-The appletv won't read native HD PVR m2ts files so conversion is needed. Sage does the very well with the appletv setting as well as using Sagetv mobile web service plug-in. I just tested 2 videos, since I have HD200's in the same zones have no use for it, just wanted to see if it would work.

-The Netflix app for iphone/touch seemed to take a step back from what is was a rev ago. It is nice to be able to add movies to instant query while watching a movie and not interrupting it. The latest rev took away the dvd query which I thought was a shame.

Overall, I think its a great addition along with sage, certainly not a replacement, though an on demand on steroids for a pvr.