AppleTV

AppleTV Review - Not Your Average Media Center

June 2007 By Marshal M. Rosenthal

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The problem with the whole “MediaCenter” idea isn’t the hassle of getting a computer and home theater to work together, but about having something that’s worth watching on a big screen in the first place. So getting an AppleTV makes sense because I already have a lot of media stored on iTunes. Only now instead of my iPod, I’ll be watching it with AppleTV.

Unlike other media bridge devices, AppleTV’s secret weapon is a 40GB hard drive. All your iTunes content (Movies, TV shows, Music, Podcasts, Photos) that lives on your computer gets transferred/syncronized to the AppleTV—so there’s no waiting to watch something because of network interference or slowdowns. Up to 5 other computers can work with AppleTV as well; streaming their media to play in real-time (with the exception of photos). The main “synced” computer has this option also.

Now the above might sound complicated, but the process is as simple as 1, 2, 3.

1) Connect to a widescreen HD display. The thin, squarish AppleTV can be placed anywhere but needs to be left uncovered (it runs very hot). Use Component or HDMI to attach it to an HD display—there’s no S-Video or Composite output. Audio goes along through HDMI but you also have the choice of using an optical out or analog stereo RCAs (stereo sound is all that’s outputted for now). I chose HDMI to go into my Samsung 1080p display.

2) Connect to a network. AppleTV automatically connects to a wired network if the Ethernet is plugged in (mine was and this took less than 2 minutes). For using wireless instead, there’s the new and fast 802.11n standard, as found on most Intel-based Macs already (PC-based 802.11n cards should work as well, although I didn’t have one to try out). Wired/wireless can’t be used at the same time though.

3) Connect and sync AppleTV with iTunes. A PIN number is generated to enter on the iTunes running on my Macintosh G5 (showing AppleTV as a device to click on). This syncs the two to work together (every computer being used will need to also enter a PIN). I deactivated automatic syncing, since I prefer manually choosing what to send to the AppleTV’s hard drive, as otherwise it will automatically update/sync with every change made to iTunes. Or I could have been selective as to what media should be transferred over, such as the last unwatched movie, or a specific album of photos, etc.

AppleTV’s graphic interface works off a very simple small remote. You can directly download and view movie trailers and previews, some in standard and others in high-definition, and bookmarking for videos allow you to return to where you were watching when exiting to other menus. Another nice touch is that artwork of your media is displayed. Transferring over a few movies and music videos purchased from the iTunes store, I found the quality as expected: low-rez showing their deficiencies while higher resolution looks quite good (as example I streamed across the standard-rez 2007 MLB.com Season Preview, whose quality my wife found more than acceptable for watching on a big screen).

I also loaded into iTunes the live action Underdog movie trailer in 720p and 1080p HD. The 720p version both transferred as well as streamed without incident, but AppleTV wouldn’t even acknowledge the 1080p’s presence. So Apple isn’t joking when they say 1280 x 720 resolution is it, at least for now (to get this full resolution the video must be running at 24fps, as 30fps’ limit is 960 x 540).

Switching over to a wireless network, the overall experience was the same even though it was with 802.11G (my PC laptop running Windows XP and iTunes only encountering the occasional “stutter” when playing video).

AppleTV isn’t without faults: you can’t buy anything as you can in iTunes, nor can you visit web sites. And the USB port on the back is only for maintenance and can’t be used to attach anything like a keyboard or a TV tuner. But it does make watching and listening to your media a simple thing to do and an extension of the whole iPod experience, only now much larger. And since AppleTV can be updated off the Internet, possibilities exist for delivering more features at a later date. yy

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