Apple TV

[MickMcGeough]

Originally Posted by J Diddy

It's your device...you can do whatever you want with it... It's not illegal to jailbreak.
You need a 2nd Gen model in order to jailbreak and they now go for around $250.
Jailbreak will get you xbmc and Plex.
I too found apple TV to be unstable after jailbreak. Lots of freezing and crashing apps.
If you are going to legally pay for the shows and movies you watch then apple TV is your best option. Otherwise roku and chrome cast are options.

Wow - looks like I'll be selling mine too. Thanks for the tip.

[oilyfan]

Yes I sold three of my ATV 2's, jailbroken, for between $200 and $275 on ebay. they are a hot commodity.

Replaced them with three rokus and three ATV 3's, and money left over!

[opendoor]

I'm actually curious, what exactly does jailbreaking provide? Are people really paying $275 for a several year old 720p box just to run XBMC on it?

[smoothpops]

Originally Posted by opendoor

I'm actually curious, what exactly does jailbreaking provide? Are people really paying $275 for a several year old 720p box just to run XBMC on it?

I've had 2 apple tv 2's. jailbroke them both while running the 5.3 software, but at different evolutions of the hack. the first one, would lose the jb anytime the unit lost power and would have to be re-done, so i factory restored it and sold it (without a remote or hdmi) for $200. the second unit the jb was updated so it wouldn't do that so i sold it for $260 (with a remote, but no hdmi). The reason i sold them both below market value, was i wanted a quick sale and was worried the atv3 would finally be hacked and my at2's would lose all value.

There's tons of reasons to JB hop on youtube and search reasons to jb atv. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvPcynrnJj8 (excuse the nsfw music). the main being Xbmc (so you can play local content from your pc/mac in ANY format and live streams of tv/movies/sports), but music streaming and last.fm is a huge bonus. navi-x and third party remote ability doesn't hurt either. If you're unsure about just how great xbmc can be when set up correctly, i recommend downloading it on your pc/mac, setting it up (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITl00InGqNY) and like most people, you'll find it to be mind blowing.

[opendoor]

Yeah I use Plex all the time and have used XBMC in the past. It just seems odd to me that people will pay that much for a used and somewhat out of date and underpowered piece of hardware primarily to just to use XBMC and stream radio. Some of the prices people are paying are getting into used Mac Mini territory.

Though like I said above, I guess it goes to show that there really isn't a perfect set top box out there. Rokus are close, but the interfaces of anything made from their SDK are generally pretty ugly and there are some definite limitations. Hopefully it's an area we see some progress in the near future.

[smoothpops]

Originally Posted by opendoor

Yeah I use Plex all the time and have used XBMC in the past. It just seems odd to me that people will pay that much for a used and somewhat out of date and underpowered piece of hardware primarily to just to use XBMC and stream radio. Some of the prices people are paying are getting into used Mac Mini territory.

Though like I said above, I guess it goes to show that there really isn't a perfect set top box out there. Rokus are close, but the interfaces of anything made from their SDK are generally pretty ugly and there are some definite limitations. Hopefully it's an area we see some progress in the near future.

I think it has to do with the Apple Brand name. they're known as offering high tech solutions for low tech people. really with atv's you don't have to jb it, you can just plug and play. 2-3 years ago, i couldn't tell you what a roku is, and im pretty tech nerdy. now with the roku, the raspberry pi, wd, and google tv/chromcast i think we're going to see some major progression in that area.