Its not the same thing, but I picked up a composite cable for my iphone, the idea was to use the wifi on the phone, so that my dad could watch his internet tv shows on the big tv , instead of the monitor.
It works sorta, but that thing with Steve/apple and flash is a real pain in this regard, however porn did stream really well from some sites, go figure.
Declan
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As others have said, there are a ton of threads about this topic. I personally use the Western Digital TV Live for streaming all my content. I still have DirectTV, but mostly because the kids shows aren’t readily available online. Good Luck!
My $99 Apple TV hockey puck came in today 
And I couldn’t be happier.
I wish I could play around with the Roku as well in order to see the pros and cons of each unit, but my first day with Apple TV was a very good one.
As soon as the guy dropped it off I had the box ripped open and, pausing to take in the classic Apple packaging, then removed the device from its careful wrappings.
Apple TV consists of the small hand-sized block, a slender AC cable (no wall wart), and an elegant aluminum remote.
I plugged in the HDMI cable and started it up. Within about five minutes I was on my wireless-N network, I had entered my Netflix and Youtube credentials as well as my Apple ID for purchases and “Home Sharing”
I downloaded the remote control app for my iPhone, which allows you to control iTunes or an Apple TV from your iPhone or iPad. It is not too useful for the main menus, but comes in quite handy when you want to type in some text. Using the arrow buttons on the remote to select letters from the alphabet gets old quickly—use the iPhone and you can type on the keypad.
The kids are going to love the immediate access to current movie trailers as well as the rentals (to be doled out carefully).
Netflix is much easier to work with on the Apple TV—gone is the Netflix interface, you now use a menu system like the Apple TV itself. Searching, viewing previously seen videos, finding new stuff, all much better.
And YouTube is smooth. It was cool to look up some guitar licks, watch them on TV, and then use the remote to add one to my YouTube favorites.
The Apple TV can see computers in the house that run iTunes, if you enable Home Sharing on each one. I did so, and was pleasantly surprised.
I can watch videos that are on my iMac as well as listen to music.
I enabled photo sharing, and was able to bring up my entire photo library in a few clicks of the remote. I showed my wife an artfully created slide show of our last trip to Brazil, complete with Bossa Nova soundtrack.
In short, if you own Macs and are in an Apple household, with iPods abounding, then Apple TV will be a nice addition.
On the down side, the TV show selection is not stellar, and the fact that it can’t play common video formats is a pity. Netflix fills in these gaps somewhat, but I really wish I could watch other formats with it.
As I said, I wish I could see Roku in order to compare, but I imagine that the devices will differ in much the way that Apple/PC or iPhone/Android differ: the former have the slick UI and one set way of doing things, while the latter have more flexibility in exchange for more interface quirks.
Video quality from my iMac was wanting. I plan on running gigabit Ethernet cable to the Apple TV, to lessen the load on the wireless network, so hopefully the streaming quality will improve. Currently, Mythbusters has to stream from my iMac over Wifi, to the router, then over Wifi to the Apple TV—maybe too many wireless hops.
You should consider a powerline ethernet adapter.
Fortunately, there is a fairly simple run from a gigabit switch in the basement to the room where the Apple TV lives.
I’m doing my best to trick out my home network with CAT-6 cable and gigabit switches, though that is probably overkill for many things.
If it were any more difficult, I would be looking into options like powerline ethernet.
Congrats on taking the plunge. Since you mentioned the video format issue, I’ll mention that the free program Handbrake has presets for AppleTV built in that do a great job of converting to a file to a format that you can then load into iTunes for play on the appleTV.
Good Luck, and I hope you enjoy!
Just tried it out and it worked like a charm. Finished running the CAT6 cable too, so I think my TV project is done for the time being.
WTF?
I don’t know the best options as far as getting streaming media to my television, but I know all about bittorent and Usenet.
You are not the OP, who I was referencing.