Plex is slick. I’ve yet to try a Roku of my own, maybe soon now that you’ve inspired the bug. 
I’ve been looking at the Roku 3, but I keep coming back to the Apple TV for 1 channel and Airplay w/ my iPad Air. The 720p vs 1080p isn’t really a big deal to me due to streaming issues anyways. I know I’m going to spend more on the Apple TV, but it also looks like it does more for me.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Why did you want a jailbroken Apple TV?
That will probably help determine what exactly you’re looking for
Don’t you need another media source for Chromecast? I was using it and had to have my Nexus or Macbook on to send content from an app on it so it was more of a second display than a home theater device. It isn’t really a home media station that the Apple TV is that can run apps in standalone mode.
I still say you can’t beat a real HTPC. It’s not limited by anything and you’re never stuck waiting for some firmware update. I spent about $400 on my last build with a Core I3 and would bet you could shave $100 off that easy by now especially if you have a copy of windows you could use or run a free OS like Ubuntu.
That said, I did just buy my mom a Roku 3 and you really couldn’t make a device any easier to use for streaming Netflix and Plex.
If airplay is a must-have, then apple tv is going to be a must. I should warn you though, I was airplaying Arrested Development the other day using Amazon Prime Instant Video as the source. I found that without being on the wired network, it sucked. It was choppy and could not keep up with being played in full screen and sent to the Apple TV via airplay on wifi. On wired it worked well.
I feel like I have come this far with the iPad Air and iPhone 5, I would stupid not to stick with the ATV2 vs. the Roku3. Yes, it will be more, but I can do an untethered jailbreak and have access to XBMC vs. just having Plex. Being able to use it with airplay is very appealing to me.
Poverty home network 
LOL yeah, it seriously is. I just made do with the standard u-verse router and wifi. I have cat5e run to my office and TV. That’s pretty much the extent of the effort put in. I want to improve it, but that’s way down on the list of house projects to work on.
same here. I have mine in the basement with an HDMI cable up to my living room. I like not being limited by anything ever and also having 9TB of storage.
I use windows media center with a ceton 4 channel tuner for cable TV. Content is extended elsewhere in the house with old xbox 360s which are almost free now.
The nice part about the ATV2 is that you can add the repositories that have movies, shows, basically anything and stream from that. With a server, you basically have to save everything to watch it.
You can still do all that streaming stuff with a server
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Time to pull your nerd card
As long as we’re whipping them out for measurement…
My home system now consists of an AMD quad core “server” running Win7 Ultimate with 6TB of storage. This is connected to 25" monitor in my office/workout room as well as a 25’ HDMI that goes into my family room with the 100" projector screen and Epson 8350 1080p projector. The projector goes through a Onkyo HT-RC460 doing HDMI switching for the PC and Xbox as well as powering the surround sound. In the living room is my main HTPC, the core i3 I mentioned before, outputting HDMI to the 58" TV and optical audio to the receiver. My router and cable card tuner (HDHomerun Prime) live behind that entertainment center, giving me 3 cable tuners available to anything on my network. In my bedroom I’ve got my first HTPC, an Atom/Ion2 powered micro. In my daughters room is her AMD quadcore desktop on a 23" monitor. I rewired the entire house for gigabit lan using cat6 quad shield cable (got a deal on the cable through work).
All the PC’s have shared access via XBMC, meaning if we start a movie in the living room and decide to finish it downstairs when you hit play downstairs it asks if you want to resume exactly where you hit stop at the other PC. All the PC’s can tune into live TV via FIOS using the HDHomeRun box. Everything but the Atom can stream Hulu (Hulu has some shitty codec that the Atom struggles with). Youtube plays in 1080p flawlessly on all. I can stream any random I find because they’re all real computers.
With a usenet sub and Couch Potato and Sickbeard configured anything I want to download (TV’s and movies) gets grabbed automatically, extracted, renamed and dropped in the proper folders for XBMC. Those two programs even send the update command to XBMC so it refreshes it’s library. I simply go to recent in XBMC and there they are. I have Couch Potato set up to send me an email when it downloads a new movie as well.
This has been a slow evolution. It started with a netflix DVD sub and burning copies of them before sending back, then the Popcorn Hour streaming appliance, then a single HTPC then where it is today. For almost 2 years I went with no TV service but found I missed the random shows I would catch on Discovery, A&E, Military etc. For as little as it cost me to package in Fios TV with no hardware except the $4/month cablecard it made sense to get cable back. I’m paying $100/month for 50/25 internet (that speedtests consistent at 60/35) with their digital cable/HD pack.
Looks like you can Airplay to a PC with this:
http://www.airserver.com/
I remember doing that… man, we are getting old.
Actually, I guess it started with the burning blockbuster DVD’s which makes me feel even older.
I can’t wait to finish my home theater room and put up a build thread. It would have been done by now except I had to do a roof right in the middle of it, full tear off of 2 layers and all new plywood. Put a serious dent in the remodel budget considering we were just paying cash for everything and doing it ourselves.
Def. post pictures of that, JayS…
XBMC has supported Airplay for sometime as well though sometimes apple breaks it on them. My setup is quite similar to Jay’s minus the awesome 100" projector (curses to not having a basement that can really be finished)
To the OP I really think it is foolish and waste of money to spend the extra money on a ATV2 so you can jailbreak with when there are far better options now.
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It can also be had in a really small AppleTV/Roku form factor now courtesy of Intel NUC.
Intel NUC (Next Unit of Computing) NUC D34010WYK1 NUC Kit - Newegg.com (This is using Haswell i3)
Intel NUC Kit DC3217BY Black Body and Dark Red Top Next Unit of Computing Kit - Newegg.com (This is using Ivy Bridge i3, only downfall of this gen was they were a bit loud considering there size.)
I will sell my jailbroken ATV2 for $160 shipped 
it is an older jailbreak and hasn’t been used in about a year or so.