IMG_1583

Hands On: Apple TV

By on November 7, 2009 in Digital Media Receiver Reviews, Digital Media Receivers, Reviews

Tale of the Tape

Let’s take a look at the Apple TV’s hardware specs.

Processor:Intel Pentium M 1.0GHz (Codenamed “Crofton”)
Graphics:NVIDIA GeForce Go 7300
Memory:256MB DDR2 SDRAM
Storage:160GB 2.5” PATA Disk
Networking:10/100 Ethernet
802.11 b/g/n Wi_Fi
Connectivity:HDMI
Component Video
Analogue Audio
Digital Optical Audio
USB 2.0
Video Output:1080p/1080i (max video resolution 720p)
720p
576p/576i
480p/480i
Video Format Support:H.264 (Unprotected/Protected)
M4V
MP4
MOV
Music Format Support:AAC
MP3
Apple Lossless
AIFF
WAV
Photo Format Support:JPEG
BMP
GIF
TIFF
PNG

Whilst the hardware is certainly capable from a processing point of view, the first thing you’ll be looking for in a digital media receiver is decent video format support – certainly for DIVX, XVID, and MKV. No, no and erm, no. Stick within the Apple iTunes ecosystem and you’re golden. Stray outside (if you can climb the walled garden) and you’re on your own. Improved options are available when (not if) you hack the box, but your choices are sorely limited without.

Configuring the Apple TV

Okay, so HDMI cable connects the Apple TV to the Samsung TV, power cable connected and Ethernet connection made. Let’s fire up the Apple TV and get started!

Select your language and the Apple TV configuration begins, finding the network connection, and playing a short video before displaying a code to pair the device with a PC or Mac running iTunes 7.6 or later.

IMG 1606 thumb Hands On: Apple TV IMG 1607 thumb Hands On: Apple TV IMG 1608 thumb Hands On: Apple TV IMG 1609 thumb Hands On: Apple TV IMG 1610 thumb Hands On: Apple TV

Type in the passcode into iTunes and you’re ready to go. The pairing process is very simple.

ap thumb Hands On: Apple TV

Once pairing is complete, the Apple TV menu appears. Options include Movies and TV Shows, Music Podcasts and Photos, online video from YouTube and a Settings menu. A range of search filters are listed on the right hand side to help you to navigate to specific content more easily.

IMG 1611 thumb Hands On: Apple TV

Behind the menu, a scrollable list of movie posters provide access to the latest and most popular video content.

IMG 1612 thumb Hands On: Apple TV IMG 1613 thumb Hands On: Apple TV

Each movie comes with a synopsis of the plot as well as a trailer which streams almost instantaneously (over Ethernet anyway). From the Summary screen you are also able to drill down and navigate the movie selection by actor and director.

IMG 1614 thumb Hands On: Apple TV IMG 1615 thumb Hands On: Apple TV

The overall experience is very slick with the menus responding quickly to your commands, and navigation simple to use. Movies can be downloaded in full from £6.99 in the UK, and rented from £2.49 for standard definition and £3.49 for HD – pricing varies by the movie itself.

The variety of TV content is excellent, with programming available from a huge range of UK and US providers including the BBC, Fox, ABC, Cartoon Network, Channel 4, HBO and many others. Content can be expensive (HD Season Pass to the new season of House is yours for just £48.99) although individual episodes can be purchased from £1.49 – handy for filling in those episodes you missed.

IMG 1616 thumb Hands On: Apple TV IMG 1617 thumb Hands On: Apple TV IMG 1620 thumb Hands On: Apple TVIMG 1619 thumb Hands On: Apple TVIMG 1618 thumb Hands On: Apple TV

TV programmes are bang up to date with what you’ll find on the current TV schedules, so it’s a very decent alternative to paying out for a Sky TV subscription if you only want to cherry pick particular programmes.

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About Terry Walsh

Terry Walsh is the founding editor and owner of We Got Served. Since February 2007, the site has provided detailed coverage and analysis of the emerging home server category, and has subsequently grown into a trusted outlet for digital home news and reviews.
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  • fasthair

    Terry,

    Since I don't won any Apple stuff I don't know how well this works. But Ed Bott gave it a +1 the other day on his ZD Net post when someone commented on it. Give Media Monkey a look for syncing your Apple stuff.

    Like you I just hate Apple software on a PC. I have gone as far as even finding other players to replace QuickTime cause it sucks so bad. When I look at new digital cameras one of the first things I want to know is what format it records movies in. If it is in the .MOV format it gets crossed off the list.

    fasthair

  • Leslie

    Bought a refurbished Apple TV from the Apple website for $200. Yes you can get a Mac for $200. This product is much maligned as it is a closed box just like a cable box, rather than being a PC you can tinker with. Though there are now plenty of hacks. Product works very well. If Apple upgrades this with more memory, storage and Blu-Ray they have a chance to own the living room. ITunes streams music, movies and TV programs however no Netflix and Pandora, which I believe are killer apps. That being said Media Center is now embedded in Win 7 and it has come a long way. it even includes NetFlix streaming.

    Where we are heading is IP TV cutting out the satellite and cable monopoly middlemen. The internet will turn into a giant DVR. I can't wait!

  • Gordon Jackson

    I have to dive in here as I owned an apple TV before I bought a Home server. The combination of both for me is great. I have itunes installed on my Mediasmart server. I then have all my itunes content on there too. This is now around 2TB and will grow as I step into HD. The beauty of the server is that this single folder of media can now spread over more than one physical drive thenks to the server!
    You can install 3rd party software onto apple tv like Niti TV and sapphire and then you can stream avi/divx/xvid and a load of others (i've tried em all!) I found mixed results doing this. sometimes the software would slow or crash the Apple TV unit and other times I'd have trouble getting the unit to see the shared drive where I'd placed all the AVI files.
    I find by far the most reliable way is the standard apple itunes.
    Its worth taking the trouble to encode your movies into .mov format, then use "Metax" to add all the medadata and artwork etc. add them to an itunes library on the server
    Then once you've paired the apple tv unit to it, you'll have no problems.
    Of course you now have "Home Sharing" with itunes 9. This means that this content can not only be streamed to other pc's/macs (or anyting runing itunes) in the house, but you can get new media onto the server via these PC's etc as the sharing is now 2 way.
    The network relationship is virtually indestructible, I don't need a computer on to stream movies and the UI looks cracking.

    I'm not an apple fanboy and indeed have windows 7, server and mac, but having tried Windows Media Centre, for watching and selecting my movie collection I vote for the apple TV

    Hope this is useful

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/urmaster urmaster

      Not a fanboy here either, I haven't used apple TV but it does look better than Media Centre. That being said without out the box support for Divx/Xvid and WMV it would be useless in my house.

    • MattWascak

      Gordon I am contemplating the same type of setup. Are you running WHS PP3 and iTunes 9 to Apple TV? Also are you running any hacked software or is the standard WHS and Apple TV setup working? I will converting all of my media to "iTunes" format and want to be sure the Apple TV route will work.

  • http://dbone1026.blogspot.com DamianP

    I've owned an AppleTV from when it first came out. I still own the same one and it is nothing more then a paper weight. The lack of file support if horrible (yes, I do have it hacked but honestly I am a strong believer that you should not have to hack a product just to get functionality out of it). The AppleTV is definitley tops when it comes to giving you a device that is ready to play out of the box and anyone could understand. The Music and Photos side are definitely great, but unless you want to be part of the Apple Ecosystem video is horrible. Right now the only time I even power up my AppleTV is if I want to catch some trailers. If you are already part of the Apple ecosystem then the AppleTV is probably the perfect device. If you are looking for a fully capable media player that can handle all sorts of video content, don't even give this a thought and look elsewhere.

    • gordyjackson

      chuck it my way then!
      i'll send you a big rock out the garden for your paper!

  • Tuxster

    Well, the AppleTV in my home is an integral part of our life. I have hacked it and run XBMC on it exclusively now. That means it supports pretty much all sorts of video content. Coupled with my WHS, which hosts all my content, it can pretty much stream all my videos, music and photos without any hiccups.

    • Kevin

      Have you been able to successfully stream movies from WHS to AppleTV? If so, are you running FireFly, iTunes right on the server, or something else?

      • http://intensedebate.com/people/tezzer Terry Walsh

        Stay tuned – working on a post which covers this.

  • Chunk

    Terry, I think personal music search has been included since version 3 – at least that's when I noticed it on mine.

    I find the ATV to be the perfect device for streaming media and music as long as you don't mind encoding to an apple format or hacking the box.

    Chunk

  • Duke748

    When the latest Itunes installed , or rather failed to on my WHS it messed up the CD-Rom Upperfilters in the registry resulting in a drive that couldn't be detected by WHS.

    Just have to clear it out if you come across this

  • Alisdair

    I had an Apple TV. I put it on ebay and sold it. I used the money to buy an Atom Ion based mini itx box. I have never looked back. I have all the functionality of the apple tv plus much, much more. I installed Windows 7 on it, it plays very nicely with my Server.
    All of that being said, if I were an average home user the Apple Tv is a simple easy to use box that is second to none for what it does do.

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  • terry

    please can anyone explain in simple terms how to transfer my pictures from pc to apple tv ive given up

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