Apple TV: First impressions
by Volker Weber
I am very late to this game. The Apple TV has been out for a long time, but I never got to play with it for a simple reason: I did not have a TV to connect it to. That has changed last week, so it was time to give it a go.
Management summary: I am not impressed.
My expectations were not very high. I would have been happy with a stand-alone FrontRow equivalent. That is a simple interface to all your media, and it ships with every Mac. As you add more codecs to Quicktime you get access to more media, since FrontRow just makes the files in your home folder accessible.
Apple TV is different. It is an iTunes client. Whatever is in iTunes can be played. Version 1 had to sync content to the local disk, version 2 is somewhat smarter since it also can stream content over the network. It syncs from one iTunes library, but it can stream from up to five. However, I cannot connect it to my ReadyNAS iTunes library since it requires a handshake where I have to enter a number at the other end. To iTunes, the Apple TV is a device like the iPod, and not another iTunes instance.
As you can see above, the Apple TV has a USB port. But you can't just plug a thumbdrive in there and expect to play the content. This already requires an extensive hack. I don't want to go into all the details, but it was a time consuming effort with a lot of trial and error.
After a couple of hours I finally have the Apple TV on the same level of service that I enjoyed on my EVA. Time to watch some movies.
From the short experience I have had with the device I can honestly say that it feels very much underpowered. And it has no feedback when it's busy. You can see it registering remote commands, but nothing happens. Often for a minute or so.
I know a couple of people who bought an Apple TV as a Sonos replacement. And I pity you. :-)
Comments
No Market for this device in France. All the DSL providers in France provide DSL boxes. These devices connect to the TV via a HDMI or a Scart cable. Mine ( http://www.free.fr/) features a 40 GB Drive for features such as timeshifting, it can play Divx movies that can either be streamed from a computer or uploaded to the HD. You can plug a thumb drive or any USB HD for that matter. These devices are provided free of charge as part of the DSL service typically 29.99Eur/Months for up to 24mbps bandwith , TV (including HD), and unlimited phone service to landlines.
No market for it in my life.
A quick trip to IstarHD is all that is required.
Interesting, Joel. Deutsche Telekom has also started to push their entertainment package, hoping to sell you content, of course.
Same Here, my ISP is already providing premium content:
- Major American TV Shows (the day they air on US Networks 1.99 Eur
- Blockbuster movies 3.99 (3 viewings, over a 7 Day period).
- Infomercials (free of course, but u can click to buy via the remote, the ISP knows who u are, where u live and they have access to your bank account).
Great news - clearly the investment I made in MediaPortal was a sound one! :p
Apple TV usage is fairly limited outside the U.S. However, if you happen to have an U.S. iTunes account you'll be able to rent (HD) movies. We do that all the time and for me this feature alone makes Apple TV worthwhile.
As I mentioned a couple days ago in the blog comments Apple TV is a lot more fun once you dared to hack it so that Boxee (http://www.boxee.org/) runs on it. It then plays almost any video format (e.g. DVD rips - VOB files) from any source. Just map it to your ReadyNAS share(s).
How does one get an Apple Store US account these days? Will the VISA / Mastercard gift cards work for the registration, knowing they check your address to match with the card normally and it has to be a US one of course? I would really love to get an Apple iTunes US account for the sake of the movies, sometimes it works better than the other means to watch the usual TV series' episodes.
Markus, I did try boxee and I did not like it. I have no use for the "social" features that boxee adds to the XBMC which it was forked from. And if I wanted to run a different media center, I would not really need to go for the Apple hardware.
There are things I like very much about the Apple TV, for instance that it syncs with my iPhoto library and offers to play slideshows of these albums. I just wish it was easier to augment the existing feature sets without adding new layers of UI.
And don't get me started on the nonsense of carrying physical distribution models into the Internet age ...
> "extensive hack"
au contraire:
Simply plug and hack:
http://www.applecorellc.com/product_info.php?products_id=27
Peter
@Alexander Koch: You'll have to purchase gift certificates (e.g. via ebay). That works like a charm.
Volker, I'd like to learn more about how to add codecs to Quicktime. I hardly ever use Frontrow, but this could quickly change. Can you recommend any link/site/tutorial? Thanks in advance.
Philip, easiest way is to start with Perian
Hi,
I love my AppleTV as I am renting HD movies and buy some TV series from the iTunes store right from the AppleTV - easy and fast. I have not yet seen a store which carries so many movies, so I stick with it, especially since I do not need any additional features.
- jan
I mainly use it to watch Flickr photos with music - better than TV! The photos look so much better on 1080P than on a computer monitor. Also there is browsing YouTube, great fun.
This works quite easily: http://code.google.com/p/atvusb-creator/
I like boxee on it, mostly because it adds hulu.com support and a nice interface around network share browsing.
Also, 2.3 just came out and apparently is auto-updating from 2.2. I have stayed at 2.1 until they work this out.
Indeed. I have used this creator. However, I had to find out the hard way that the ATV does not work with every brand of USB stick.
Hulu does not serve content outside the US: So it's absolutely useless here.
And if the ATV 2.2 auto-updates to 2.3 destroying all the things that made it useful, it turns from a slight annoyance into a piece of shit. How does one downgrade to 2.1?
Downgrading shouldn't be a problem. AFAIK all you need to is a factory reset -> this gives you a ATV 1.0. You can then load the update you want (I needed to do this as I had 8GB of "other" files).
I have found that I can do everything I want using the ATV - yes, converting the files is a pain. The only thing that I am missing is a DVD drive - not all my content is in digital form. I also often download movies from the iTunes Store (USA). I also play HD content all the time so am not quite sure why people are complaining that HD does not work (on your other blog entry) - I "only" do 720p so maybe Full HD is the problem. I currently have very little Full HD content.
I don't get peoples resistance to this device? Sure, I understand that it would be cool if it played all internet content so we had access to hulu and some of the networks but out side of that, what format would you use instead of h.264? And anything in h.264 drops into iTunes and works great with AppleTV. Is it really such a big deal to use itunes to organize your media? I guess I just don't get it. I rip my DVD's with hand brake to h.264. My home movies are h.264, even YouTube is h.264.
And I I understand correctly, in a couple hours you were using a $200 device just as effectively as a $400 device......sounds pretty good to me!
Also, one correction. AppleTV 1.0 allowed for both streaming and syncing. It is just you could tell which was witch back then and now you can't tell where the sync'd content ends and the streaming content begins.
Lastly if it feels sluggish, I'd suspect your network. I'm hard wired but it appears to be very responsive over 802.11n as well. If you are wireless over b or g, that might explain the problem.
Ben, thank you very much for the link!
I would have loved you to compare it to a Vista and MCE Bundle.
