Oct
09Ever since the Apple TV was released into the world i have read how to hack it’s software, how to upgrade it’s harddisk and how bad it sucks because some functions are not there or very limited.
Today i played with it since people are buying it and started asking questions about it. This system is completely new to me and Me and later on a colleague joined me gave it a spin to find out how it works and if it works.
Also for personal benefit i wanted to know how it worked to see if it really was that bad and really needed those hacks.
My setup and initial hickups:
So as said above today i gave the Apple TV a spin and found out it’s quite picky on screens.
It doesn’t work on a Apple Cinema display for one. Another regular monitor (VGA) wouldn’t work either. All because of the digital signal and/or connectors not existing. Logical in a way, why name it Apple TV if regular computer screens work with it.
A “component > DVI” cable however should work on a DVI monitor. This i could not test though. But such a cable does exist.
After some digging in our storage i managed to dig up some 23-ish inch widescreen television and used a component and audio RGA cable to connect the Apple TV to it.
This went swimmingly. I used the 1080p setting.
I then went on to try and control the Apple TV. Of course my setup had been used and wasn’t brand new so someone already made some settings. This resulted in some tampering with the Apple remote to make it work. Turns out it was paired with some remote which was gone missing a long time ago. And it was looking for some non-existent iTunes library.
This could easily be solved by un-pairing with a new remote and then pairing it again.
First impressions:
Smooth design, it’s completely silent and just boots up like it should. It’s all very easy and hassle free.
I use wireless where I’m at for temporary devices this was easy to set up. However, there is no keyboard so it shows an onscreen thing which you have to navigate with the Apple remote. This is very much the same like entering your screen name on consoles.
Another thing i noticed is that it doesn’t show a list of resolutions like on a computer but a list of HD formats rather and some form factors like 4:3 and such. This is a nice touch.
Also there are some screen savers and the interface is easy enough. Although some menus are maybe 5 layers thick… Which can be a bit hard or lengthy to navigate with just 6 buttons on a slow remote. Not that big a deal tough.
Setting up iTunes was a tad bit more tricky than expected and involves a pairing process similar to pairing two bluetooth devices. That is, if your Mac or iTunes installation finds the Apple TV which is only made visible after you have initialized the pairing process on the Apple TV. It then should show up in iTunes under devices and from there you can pair it and then sync your media.
On second thought:
As one of my first complaints was the lack of a keyboard. This turned out to be just fine as is. The remote works just fine. This is because you do not actually enter the file system but stay within the Front Row-ish menus all the time. This makes it a convenient and easy to use device.
I played a bit, ran the updates and a thing i noticed was the lack of system information shown. Things happening to the system are only made known by a spinning gear. But only on the top layers of the menu or at some specific options like updates.
For example; you cannot see that the music is being synchronized other than a spinning gear on the top menu where you choose to browse music or movies. I think a translucent pop-up or information bar should be added to show certain events. Even a progress bar at some tactical spots would help a lot!
Synchronizing media:
Once the Apple TV is set up to work with a mac Synchronizing data is as easy as updating your iPod. A similar screen handles what to sync and what not. Which playlists or movies and what music or images and all that. Also some general information is shown on there. Just like with iPods.
Synchronizing is turned off by default. This I did not notice right away so i was happily streaming my media instead of synchronizing it. I did notice the sync was awfully quick. D’oh…!
After enabling, synchronizing which is done on the Apple TV you can press the button to do so in iTunes and off it goes. Showing a progress bar in iTunes just like it does for iPods. But it’s not really shown on the Apple TV. This i kept finding annoying since my colleague kept adding things that i could not play right away because the file wasn’t completely added yet.
After we did so however, you have 2 options to browse the iTunes library and stream media of of it or go back up one level and browse the Apple TV and play that media on there. This was a bit confusing at first but we figured it out soon.
Playing media:
We also decoded some movies to Mp4 with a program named iSquint. Apple in all it’s wisdom did not include any support for other things than Quicktime formats which includes MP4, AAC, MP3 and apparently Flash since there is a YouTube option.
Our Divx and even some MP4 files, for yet unknown reasons, needed to be converted to MP4 in order to be added to the Apple TV. Which then plays the files in fullscreen without black areas like on so many Computer screens.
Added some photos, these can be used for screen savers and it’s a nice feature to show of your latest holiday pics. But serves no other useful purpose in my opinion. Music can be nice. But looks a bit dull without Cover art. I also kind of missed Coverflow. However in the main music menu the covers slide by in a sort of slow motion effect next to the menu. To liven up the thing a bit of course.
The YouTube option is not worth having really in my opinion. I’m no particular fan of the website and most movies are really low quality or have equally bad sound. We did try it and it works really nice though. Apple TV comes with it’s own “browser” which completely blends in with the system. So you dont really notice you’re online instead of in the local library. Some filters like top viewed movies and recently added and some more options are available. It then pre-loads the movie and plays it full screen. It’s simple and it works.
Final thoughts:
So my conclusion is almost the same as before i started with it. It’s a nice device. Many options but it’s not complete. If AVI, Divx and, well, more codecs would be added it would be a great improvement. Adding 5.1 Dolby or various other types of surround sound would be awesome as-well. The Component and HDMI option would suffice for most people but i can imagine a RGA option would be well useful for many.
The lack of a DVD player also makes this thing a very pimped up iPod rather than a useful home cinema device.
Although the Apple TV does lack some things i think it certainly can be a great addition to the multimedia set up of your home.
