So, you may remember my post, here, where I mentioned that our beloved TiVo box had suddenly stopped working. Well, after reading said post by lovely wife decided to put in her 2 techno-savvy cents. Lo and behold, our digital converter had suffered an untimely death. Well, now we had a decision to make. The TiVo box, beloved as it ma have been, was antiquated technology. All of our TVs are HD and digital but our little TiVo box was still of the analog generation. It seemed silly to purchase another converter for a piece of equipment that was already quite outdated. So a new converter was off the table. But then what? You know we have long since given up cable at the advice of Dave Ramsey as we pursue financial freedom and continue to push our debt snowball downhill. Recommitting to that outrageous monthly cost wasn't really an option either. A new TiVo box? Talk about expensive. Any other DVR? Same case.
With our options dwindling we (mainly Amy) began to research. Apple TV? We'd heard of it and you know we (I) are huge Apple fans (the new iPhone comes out in September!!!)! The more we read about it, the more we were convinced that this was the option for us. Inexpensive, no monthly cost, an Apple product, untapped future potential. Ding! We had a winner. We headed straight out to the Apple store and got one!
I'll pause here to talk a bit about Apple TV if you are not familiar with it, I already had to school my mom on it (sorry mom!). It basically connects to our wireless network and allows us access to Netflix, iTunes, and all of the content already on our computers and iPad. There's more to it but that is a good brief rundown. You can read more about it and all it's glory here. No, it doesn't have a DVR feature, although who knows about a later inclusion of that feature? But that was one thing we were willing to sacrifice. Since Amy is a few weeks out of finishing her M.Ed. (yea Amy!) we will have far more time on our hands. Plus with Amy's better schedule we will also get home at a more decent hour, also giving us more time. So this means we may be able to watch more live TV without the need for recording. If we do miss something we can rent/purchase via iTunes. All still being less than cable or TiVo service! Voila - our solution!
Once we got our Apple TV home we set it up. True to Apple fashion we were able to do so immediately within a few minutes! However, here is where we ran into our first roadblock. We decided to rent our first movie in iTunes, Transformers. The estimated time was several hours! WHAT?!?! Turns out our Internet connection was ridiculously slow. We figured this since we hadn't upgraded in a while, but we didn't realize it was the same connection cavemen used a millennia ago! Once again my wonderful wife stepped in and upped our connection. This solved our problems for the most part, although I will be awaiting an AT&T technician between the hours of 8-12 tomorrow because our service has, for seemingly forever, been intermittent and randomly stops and starts with no rhyme or reason (can you tell we are frustrated with this issue?). Hopefully said technician will bring me a new router box or something and solve our problems once and for all! But I digress.
Apple TV is awesome! I am totally in love with it and am extremely pleased! As for our dear pal TiVo, we just finished the Grey's Anatomy episodes we had stored on it. When we clean everything else off (several Glee episodes) we will put it to rest. So, the moral of this story is Apple TV is awesome. Oh, that and Amy is a techno-genius! I was so enamored with our purchase I took pictures! See below! :)
All is well, iConnected, in Drosche Land.
This little box houses a lot of awesomeness!
iLove! Small, cute, powerful! Plus the remote controls every other Apple device!
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