Apple TV 2.0 Review

[dang]

Checkout our latest review of the Apple TV

[Ioman]

Jason, great review. It answered 99% of the questions I had about the Apple TV. I do think it's weird that your HDMI picture looked worse than when connected to the component video connection. Did you try tweaking the settings on the TV to see if that helped it? What do you think was the problem?

Issues I see with the Apple TV:

- It runs super hot (would not work for me as I use a cabinet)
- Supports only iTunes, not other file formats
- The Syncronizing part sounded like a mess
- $299 at first sounds like a lot, but it does have a 30GB hard drive and Intel processor, so its basically a mac mini right? $299 sounds cheap for a PC

[harvid]

While I agree that the unit is a bit limited out of the box, I think that there will be an extension of its features over time (whatever is that USB port for?). As well, it would appear that the race to modify the boxes function has exploded out of the gate, such that it may be one of the mosty flexible homebrew tools since the original XBox. Already, there are reports of it running different video formats than those associated with iTunes.

I have a feeling that we won't truly be able to judge what this box will do until a good month or two have passed.

[Ioman]

I would agree with you there, I am curious to see what people are able to get the Apple TV to do. 40GB seems pretty small for a system like this, so perhaps it will support an external hard drive via the USB port?

Any idea if Apple plans on introducing a media server like Microsoft has?

[KaplanMike]

Great review, and from what I've read elsewhere, a very fair one.

One question you DIDN'T answer -- and a deal-breaker with me -- is the issue of closed captions. There's no way to view closed captions on the network shows available via iTunes, but it hasn't been clear if that was due to the lack of support for captions in QuickTime, or if the iTunes store somehow stripped out the closed caption information embedded within the regular symbol.

There are more than 30 million Americans (late-deafened and hard-of-hearing) who rely on captions to enjoy television and movies. I'm anxious to learn if a downloaded episode of Lost "displays" captions when hooked up to a TV set with the decoding chip is activated (all TV sets larger than 13-inches sold since 1993 have closed caption decoders build in). This gets even more interested with HD programming, which has two completely different sets of captions supposedly included(!?).

Anyway, would love to read a review (or hear from an early adopter) about whether iTunes shows that were captioned on the network are STILL captioned when using Apple TV.

Thanks!

[Ioman]

I posted a thread here: http://forums.digitaltrends.com/showthread.php?p=68282

About the Apple TV being hacked to support DivX and Xvid videos.

[Ioman]

The review has been updated to relect software update 2.0. The changes to the review include the following addition:

Doing the Update

So we’re going to install the update now - and besides a reworked interface we expect the optical out to add the ability to transfer Dolby Digital surround for multichannel sound as well as the upscaling of video to now go to 1080p. But the biggest change will be to cut the cord from iTunes and let the Apple TV stand on its own four rubber feet. The Apple TV begins the download, which takes about 20 minutes with our broadband connection via wired Ethernet. It then reboots itself a number of times before finally displaying a new and splashier opening screen (which like the earlier one doesn’t ever show itself again unless it loses power or there’s a factory reset). The new home screen comes up and that it’s simplified is an understatement: being text columns with sub menus to choose from. Of course the individual menus still feature graphics.

The Apple TV hadn’t lost its connection to our network or iTunes, which means we can continue to copy over our stream content. Still unchanged is that the Apple TV can only display up to 720p resolution, but it does so in 24 frames per second which is perfect for films. So videos imported into iTunes (as opposed to being downloaded from the iTunes store) must continue to be properly converted using, in our case, programs like Handbrake and VisualHub whether they’re to be in standard or higher definition. We should also mention that while there’s now a resolution setting on the APPLE TV for 1080p (when using a HDMI connection), it’s just a continuation of upscaling the image to more closely match the native resolution of the HDTV display. It’s no different than that setting being found on a DVD player; you still can’t create resolution when it’s not there.

The quality of the video being presented that we have stored on the Apple TV’s hard drive hasn’t changed either. Standard-resolution still looks bad to fair, with plenty of artifact problems to put up with. Converted DVD movies continue to look good, although they continue to have resolution issues tied in to the particular titles (any Harry Potter DVD for example goes mushy when smoke or magical sizzle CG effects show up). And being able to upconvert to 1080p now matches the resolution of our Samsung LED rear-projection display, but doesn’t really make a differ-ence in any of the video as we see it. But now we can access surround sound from the optical output which really does beef up the audio. That is, of course, provided we convert titles over that way from now on.

Music continues to be streamed in stereo when we select a playlist or song, plus cover art is displayed as it was be-fore. Photos can be copied over or streamed from the computer directly - unchanged is that you are limited to streaming from iPhoto or Aperture (on a Mac) or PhotoShop Album or PhotoShop Elements on a PC - streaming either the entire photo library or selected albums.

YouTube seems the same as well, with viewing from thousands of titles with predetermined choices like “Most Viewed” and “Top Rated” or searching for specifics. But now we can sign in with our existing account.

CH, CH, Changes

So let’s get to the real changes - starting small and working our way up the media chain (as it were). First, the Apple TV is now an Airtunes device - similar to Apple’s AirPort Express internet module. What this means is that first, you can now send iTunes music wirelessly to it, and so audio can then be played through the speakers of the TV or audio amplifier connected to the Apple TV. Additionally, software such as Rogue Amoeba’s Airfoil 3 improves upon this by enabling any audio that can be played on a Mac or PC to be transmitted through for listening to. It works as stated and we like being able to easily hear our Sirius audio this way - taken from the internet-based player on our Mac.

Podcasts may have started out as audio shout-outs, but they quickly became video based and, more recently, in high-definition as well. Besides being able to watch/listen to those that have been downloaded and stored on iTunes, the Apple TV can now access them directly - again furthering its independence from a computer.

Also directly accessible from the Apple TV are photos from a person’s .Mac gallery as well as viewing those from the photo website Flickr. These are “public” galleries where the user doesn’t mind strangers viewing them.

[Ioman]

AppleTV Update 2.1

Apple quietly released a 2.1 update for the AppleTV last Friday - one that owners might have missed had they not gone into the settings to check for an update (or seen the info on the internet). A few changes have been noticed; among them the addition of “Genres” now being found un-der the “My Movies” submenu (helpful for organizing). Other changes include being able to skip a particular song or sound during “shuffle” play in iTunes and subsequent acceptance of this in AppleTV. You can also now press the remote’s Plus buttron during playback of a movie/TV show or Podcast and see a progress bar.

Also some have reported that the general overall response of the menus seems a bit smoother and faster.