I tried, I really did. Then I gave up and called Apple to take their underpowered, overprotected media box back. This is the first Apple product I absolutely and unreservedly hated. It made iTunes look bad, and that is one of my favorite applications.

Okay, so it’s hackable. But it turns absolutely buggy and crashes a lot. Plus, I don’t want to spend another night trying to coax it to do what it should do in the first place: play whatever media I throw at it, and iTunes syncing isn’t the way to do it.

Enter WD TV. It should arrive tomorrow along with a 320GB pocket drive. It costs £100 less than the 160GB Apple TV and it should play movies with popular codecs without complaining or transcoding. As a bonus, it plays 1080p instead of just 720p.

I really hope this is the answer otherwise it’s back to the Apple Store to buy another Mac Mini and install Plex.

Our little girls need a computer for their homework. The only “spare” Mac in the house is our media server which sits underneath the LCD and runs Plex. That Mac Mini will now become the girls’ play room computer.

I just ordered a 160GB Apple TV and I’m looking forward to trying out iTunes HD TV shows and film rentals. I’ll post my thoughts once I drive the box for a little while with wireless streaming and try hacking it with Boxee.

And yes, I am excited by A New Toy.