Apple TV peeves

_{(or "Things that'll make you wish you picked Media Center")}

1. Limited format support - If you have movies or TV shows that you ripped in DivX, XviD, etc, get ready to pull out the originals and re-rip them again. All video is limited to h.264 or MPEG-4 (simple), and can't have too high a bitrate or resolution. Audio's also limited, but to common formats anyway (mp3, aac, aiff, dolby digital passthrough). You can also use Quicktime or another program (VisualHub for example) to transcode your existing rips, but at the cost of at least a little quality, and time.
2. No plugin support - No codecs, no plugins, no customizing no nothing. The only changes to the software come from Apple's periodic updates.
3. No upgrades - The unit's sealed up. You could get in there, but you're not supposed to and you'll lose your warranty if you try. Updates to the software and supported codecs could potentially be limited down the road if the processor, video card etc start getting taxed since they're not upgradable.
4. Small hard drive - the base model is 40GB. Anyone with an average movie or video collection will not be able to sync all their videos. This would be fine because you can just stream everything, except that there's also....
5. The iTunes requirement - iTunes must be open on the computer that's streaming. That means that if you stream, iTunes is going to have to always be open on the computer that's doing it if you want the most possible uptime on the Apple TV. Not the end of the world, but an annoyance that you can't shut down the computer without cutting off the Apple TV's access to stuff. Also, importing videos, listing episodes, etc all has to be done within iTunes. iTunes must become the center of where you handle all your media if it isn't already.
6. Limited video management - As a few people will attest to, if you have a very large movie collection, you simply have to scroll a really long way to go through them all. It's not bad for a small collection.

Apple TV Pros

1. Clean menu - Simple, easy to navigate, designed well.
2. Reponsive - Doesn't suffer from the same random delays as Media Center
3. Apple Remote - only 6 buttons, and yet very well thought out. Navigating YouTube was a breeze.
4. Small & Quiet - Silent, and isn't an eye sore. Much better than most HTPCs.
5. Flickr & YouTube - Personally, I don't care a lot about Flickr & photos, but the YouTube part of it is pretty cool. Something there, popular, and extra that just adds to the whole experience.
6. Decent codec choice - While I'm not thrilled that DivX/XviD aren't supported (nor can you add codecs), MPEG-4 and h.264 are in my opinion pretty good standards.
7. Easy updates - the update to Take2 was quick and painless. Hopefully Apple rolls out more updates as time goes on.
8. Can buy TV shows and rent movies (eventually). Just like iTunes was as the start - use it for your own media, and/or use it to buy some. Even if you don't use it, the option is nice anyway.