Apple TV User Reviews

[amardilo]

I don't have an Apple TV but I wondered what people on here thought of the Apple TV.

I am planning on getting a Macbook Pro (for the net and general stuff) and a Mac Mini (with as big a HDD available to rip all my CDs to at a high bit rate) when Mac OS X 10.5 comes out.

I was thinking of getting an Apple TV to stream my music and audio podcasts to my AV receiver and stream my video to my HDTV but is it worth it? I was thinking about getting the Apple TV as it would mean I could leave my Mac Mini in another room and leave it plugged into my PC screen and stream all my AV stuff on it to my AV equipment in my living room.

Is the sound quality any good? Is the picture quality for video podcasts (varied quality) any good?

Does anyone know if Apple plan to sell anything more than music in the UK as I might be interested in downloading 720p TV shows (I doubt I would buy films as I have a HD DVD player and plan on getting Blu-ray when/if the price drops, but then again I would download HD film trailers if they're free).

[ancientgeek]

I have one on order, but they don't arrive in UK until Monday/Tuesday, so far as I know (in Holland on friday according to TNT tracking). Meanwhile people in the US have had them a couple of days.

Technically, this is just a PC in a box with 802.11n, HDMI, and optical sound out, and a good enough graphics chip to play HD video (but not 1080p). It currently runs a cut down OSX Tiger (10.4.7). It appears to be eminently hackable (http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2391956), and we should see a lot of that. Hackers have already a. upgraded the 40G 2.5" hard disk to 120G b. gained ssh login for remote command-line access c. shown that it responds to a keyboard on the USB at boot up (but not afterwards) d. installed Perian (http://perian.org/) and shown that it plays avi and other Perian supported formats e. got file sharing running. This is all in the first 24 hours.

In addition to the lack of 1080p, it currently does not support full surround sound, although it's not clear why not; the hardware seems capable. It does handle prologic surround. Users seem to be delighted with sound quality, ease of use and picture quality (with reservations about resolutions available). The photo viewing is particularly recommended; your custom Ken Burns effects etc in slideshows transfer correctly.

Apple is currently blocked in negotiations to distribute content, and even in the US mainstream content is not distributed on iTunes in HD. The longer the studios delay this, the more people are going to get set up ripping DVD's to AppleTV format on a large hard disk using, for example, Handbrake (http://handbrake.m0k.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=7), instead of click to buy on the iTunes store. Sky for one is very much threatened by the direct purchase model for TV shows. if you live in the US, one click on the iTunes store and you get the next series of Lost or 24 delivered to your Apple TV. When it comes here, I'm afraid that's the end of my Sky sub. It's just not worth £60 a month. I suspect freeview plus £10 a month will get us everything I want to watch. This not something that can be stopped; after all, there's always bittorrent for the thwarted consumer.

(If you're reading this a week or more after Apple TV shipped, it's probably out of date)

[amardilo]

Thanks for all that info.

I know this might sound cheeky but when you get it and set it up (and if it's set up to do so) could you tell me what the sound qulity is like for ripped CDs being played from the optical connection?

[Chris Muriel]

There's some interesting news around about hacks for it :
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=472&tag=nl.e622

or http://www.appletvhacks.net/

Chris Muriel, Manchester