Everyone is racing towards being the champion of the new “Digital Home” craze going on right now, with more media becoming digital including pictures, music and now even movies, companies are trying to find a stable yet easy way to bridge the gap between the Pc and TV. The two products that have the best chance right now seems to be the Netgear Eva8000 or the AppleTV, both of which have unique features but the real question is which one to choose? I think apple could have run away with the market on the appletv just like they did with the ipod, but the problem with this is that you are tied to itunes for all of your media which means every file you want to stream has to be in your itunes library which if you have kind of movies that are not mp4 you are out of lucky, and who wants to spend the time to convert a entire DVD collection? That is what leads me to the Netgear Eva8000, which does not have as good an interface as the appletv but can play just about any kind of file you throw at it without the need for any type of conversion at all. Here are some pros and cons of each unit.
Netgear Eva8000
Pros: Extensive format support for a wide variety of audio and video files, including high-def content; streams purchased iTunes songs from Windows PCs; lightning-fast onscreen user interface; streams YouTube videos, public Flickr photo galleries, and Internet radio straight to your TV; can schedule TV shows and stream recorded content from PCs with TV tuners; excellent connectivity options provides compatibility with all TVs and stereo systems.
Cons: No 802.11n Wi-Fi, and wireless performance was not flawless; protected iTunes songs take 15 seconds to load; interface isn't quite as simple as Apple TV's; would occasionally freeze up and require unplugging and plugging back in; large compared to Apple TV; no built-in hard drive.
AppleTv
Pros: Sleek external design and elegant user interface; simple, streamlined setup; streams music and video files purchased from the iTunes Store; capable of HD video output; includes state-of-the-art 802.11n wireless networking while maintaining backwards compatibility with older Wi-Fi and wired networks; smooth, hiccup-free streaming.
Cons: Only streams iTunes content--leaving it up to you to get your videos into iTunes; current crop of iTunes movies and TV shows look much worse on a big-screen TV; no HD content on iTunes Store; no support for surround sound audio tracks; can't connect to older non-wide-screen TVs; small 40GB hard drive has only 33GB of usable disk space; oversimplified remote can't control other devices; no ability to purchase iTunes Store content directly through Apple TV; no A/V cables included; no Internet radio support.
While I do believe that both units have great features I also believe that they both have room to improve.
