Adam Turner12 April 2007, 2:40 AM
Apple is aiming for lounge-room domination iPod-style with its new AppleTV set-top box. But is your lounge room ready to make good on Apple's tough requirements?
Apple is finally ready to push into your lounge room with the $A449 Apple TV, but is your lounge room ready?
The Apple TV's demands are high. It only sports component and HDMI video outputs, the latter of which can be converted to DVI.
 Scart adaptor: shown here in an RGB+sync configuration, but others are availble |
If your television only has composite or s-video inputs you're out of luck. Televisions with a YPbPr-compatible SCART input should be able to use a component to SCART converter, although most SCART inputs are only RGB-compatible.
A widescreen display is also essential, as there is no 4:3 mode.
If your television meets Apple's approval, setting up the Apple TV is ridiculously easy.
On the first startup it checks for available Ethernet or wireless networks. Once online you select "Connect to new iTunes" and the Apple TV automatically shows up as an attached device in iTunes 7.1 on any Mac or PC on the same network.
The Apple TV now gives you a five digit code that you enter into iTunes on your computer and the process is complete. You can also stream content from up to five other computers on the network running iTunes.
The Apple TV features a 40GB hard drive (32.84GB free) so, like an iPod, you can synchronise content for watching when your computer is offline.
Through iTunes you can separately configure the sync settings for movies, TV shows, podcasts, music and photos. Using Apple TV with a PC is just as easy as with a Mac. If it detects Adobe Photoshop Elements, Adobe Album, iPhoto or Aperture it offers the option of importing from their photo databases.
The Apple TV offers the elegant ease of use we've come to expect from the Cupertino crew, but the real disappointment is content. Our copy of Pirates of the Caribbean "sourced" from the US iTunes store looked surprisingly good even on a 42 inch LCD HDTV, slightly less than DVD quality but still very watchable.
Sadly Australians can't buy movies and TV shows from their iTunes store and have to make do with music videos, short films and video podcasts.
Vodcasts aren't restricted according to region and many are already optimised for the Apple TV, but there's not a lot to get excited about if you want to be entertained rather than informed.
You can also play movie trailers from the Apple website, along with snippets from the iTunes Store's top selling movies, TV episodes, songs and music videos.
The Apple TV only plays MPEG4 (.mp4) or H.264 (.m4v) files and only from iTunes - you can't browse folders on your computers. Converting to these formats is time consuming and we found just because files will play in iTunes is no guarantee they'll play on the Apple TV.
iTunes has a "convert for iPod" option but not for Apple TV.
 Lathe: can convert videos to play on AppleTV |
We had mixed results using third party apps such as
Wondershare,
Lathe and
Videora to convert from DivX. The "Export to Apple TV" H.264 option in the latest version of QuickTime Pro produced very good results.
While the Apple TV can output video in 1080i, disappointingly it can't actually play 1080i/p video files. It only handles up to 1280x720, which is scaled to your chosen output resolution - 576p, 720p, or 1080i. Nor does it handle 5.1 surround sound.
The Apple TV doesn't have any trouble streaming HD files over 802.11n or even g, nor should it considering they're only 720p at most.
Insistence on widescreen and HDMI/component seems hypocritical considering the Apple TV doesn't support the highest quality audio and video formats. Even so, the Apple TV is an elegant solution that does exactly what it promises to do - play content from iTunes on your television - and does it extremely well.
If you love the simplicity of the iPod, iTunes and the iTunes store - and don't care about the dearth of content - you'll love the Apple TV.
If you like to find your content elsewhere, or are looking for true high definition, you'll be frustrated by the Apple TV's limitations.
If, on the other hand, you have a modern flat screen TV and don't mind spending some time converting your videos into a format that can play on AppleTV, you'll probably love it.
Us? We're waiting for the arrival of the BitTorrent client with any-format-to-Apple-TV conversion and automatic iTunes /AppleTV sync built-in after download.