Apple TV: The First 48 Hours

I had no intentions of buying an Apple TV for several reasons. First, I didn’t buy all that much video content from iTunes, second, I thought the $299 price tag was a bit steep, and third, I didn’t have a “compatible” TV according to Apple’s specifications page. Nevertheless, the device intrigued me, perhaps I was just caught up in Steve’s “Reality Distortion Field” but when the opportunity came to win one at our local MUG meeting I jumped on it. Now, 48 hours later, I must say I’m enjoying the device much more than I initially thought.

First, let’s talk about the “unsupported television” that I’m using the box with. According to Apple, the Apple TV requires an Enhanced-definition or high-definition widescreen TV capable of 1080i 60/50Hz, 720p 60/50Hz, 576p 50Hz (PAL format), or 480p 60Hz and must have an HDMI or Component input. My television is a standard 4:3 36” RCA MM36100 capable of only 480i (standard definition) through it’s component input jack. This particular model TV was one of the very first “High Definition” TVs that supports an odd form of HD via an SVGA input which can be very difficult to find today. Yet much to everyone’s surprise, initial reports from early adopters of the Apple TV have found that it does have a 480i or standard definition mode. Since I had component inputs on my TV and the Apple TV supported 480i I decided to give it a try and was thrilled to find that it works. Note that Apple does not support any TVs other than widescreen high definition models, so if you purchase an Apple TV knowing your TV doesn’t fit that bill, you can’t complain to Apple if it doesn’t work.

Most of the content I’ve bought from iTunes has been television shows, most of which are still formatted for 4:3 TVs and these shows play beautifully. I have run into trouble when trying to watch a widescreen movie in that the edges of the screen on the left and right are clipped, but this typically isn’t a huge problem because most of the action is designed to occur in the center of the screen. I’ve also run into a similar problem when watching video podcasts designed for widescreens. Since I know I’m pushing my luck running the Apple TV on a 4:3 TV when it was designed for a widescreen, I suppose I can’t complain too much. The menus show up fine on the 4:3 TV and it looks and works great when listening to music, viewing photos, or watching the mesmerizing screensaver.

The first thing you need to know about setup is that Apple doesn’t include any cables other than the power cable in the box. You’ll need to buy your own HDMI or component cable, an audio cable (analog or optical) and possibly an Ethernet cable if you’re going to hook your Apple TV to a wired network. Apple has partnered with XtremeMac to sell very high quality HDMI and Component cables through the Apple Store for $20, which is a very reasonable price for such good cables. We’ve debated the issue of Apple including cables back and fourth. On one hand, it seems cheep for them to expect us to buy our own cables after already spending $300 on the product. On the other hand, even printers today don’t typically come with USB cables in the box, and Apple has no way of knowing how you’ll be hooking up your Apple TV to your home theater system so then that leads the question of what cables should they include in the box as there are several different setup options.

Once you get past the lack of cables, setup was extremely simple and I didn’t have to crack open the instruction manual included (although that’s typical for me!) I simply connected the component and audio inputs to my TV and plugged in the power cable. The Apple TV setup walked me through the other steps including connecting the Apple TV to my home network, entering my wireless password, and then told me to download the most recent version of iTunes (which I already had), launch it, and setup the sync between my computer and the Apple TV. Once connected to iTunes, the Apple TV syncs just like an iPod would, you can tell it to sync everything, to sync only certain playlists, or to sync only a specific number of TV shows or Movies. For example, I’ve synced all of my music (about 7GB) and told the Apple TV to sync only unwatched television episodes, podcasts, and movies.

I setup the Apple TV to sync over my 802.11g wireless network. Be warned, that the first sync will take a while, you probably just want to expect to let it run overnight if you have a large library of items you want to sync over. However I was surprised to find that streaming content over my 802.11g network worked surprisingly well and after only a few seconds of lag time to buffer shows started up right away. Because the TV shows downloaded form iTunes have no commercials, I didn’t really have any reason to fast-forward or skip around in the show. Movie trailers, and the iTunes Top 10, which is streamed from Apple’s servers over the Internet, also worked very well. I had contemplated taking apart my original MacBook apart and installing an updated 802.11n card but at this point that doesn’t at all seem necessary.

One item to note is that just because content will play in iTunes doesn’t mean that it will play over Apple TV. One notable example is audiobooks downloaded directly from Audible will not transfer over to the Apple TV. Likewise, video content that you’ve downloaded or created yourself that may play in iTunes (by use of the QuickTime plug-in) also may not play on the Apple TV if it does not meet Apple’s specifications. However if you have content that can be opened in QuickTime, using QuickTime Pro you can choose the “Export to Apple TV” option which will create an Apple TV friendly file for you, although keep in mind that every time you make a copy from a copy you’ll loose some quality. If you right-click (or control-click) on an file in iTunes you can also convert the file to an Apple TV friendly format.

My biggest surprise with the Apple TV was that although I can sync the content with one computer and stream with up to five, I found that I can keep content on an external hard drive and as long as it’s linked to iTunes through my primary computer for syncing, will sync to the Apple TV. For example, I have a laptop with only an 80GB hard drive. Therefore, I don’t want to keep more than a handful of television shows or movies on my MacBook’s internal hard drive at any one time because they’ll take up a significant amount of space. However, I purchased a whole season of one particular TV show from iTunes which means that I have 22 files that each take up about 500MB of space for a whopping 11GB of total storage. I’ve found that I can store the Television shows on my external Hard Drive, then link those files into my iTunes library without actually storing them on my MacBook drive, and the external Hard Drive only has to be powered on and attached during my initial sync with Apple TV. Now that I’ve synced all 22 episodes over to the Apple TV, I can unplug and disconnect the external drive, and I don’t need it again until I want to sync more content. The TV shows on my Apple TV don’t disappear the next time it sync with my MacBook, even if the external drive isn’t attached, because the shows are still linked (although not accessible) through my iTunes library.

Watching video podcasts on the Apple TV is wonderful, I’m finding that because I’d much prefer to watch shows on the TV rather than my computer screen, I’m watching more video podcasts than I have in the past. Photos also show up beautifully on the Apple TV. I’m getting ready to go on a 16-day tour of Europe next week and I can already see myself inviting friends over to watch a viewing of my photos set to music on the Apple TV upon my return. Music is also fun on the Apple TV because it provides a very easy way to browse through your music connection and listen to music in your living room. While I don’t have a very elaborate setup, you could hook up the Apple TV to your home theater system and practically be done with the need for a CD changer. Music is even more fun if you have gone through your iTunes library and updated or added album artwork to all your music. And the screensaver, all I can say is…wow. I currently have the screen saver set to display my highest rated photos from my iPhoto library and I could almost sit and watch it for hours.

Two minor gripes thus far, both of which Apple could fairly easily solve with a software update. First, the buttons that you typically think of as volume buttons on the Apple remote are useless when you watch a video or play music. This means you have to have your television or stereo remote with you while you watch TV. It would have been nice just to deal with one remote. Second, television shows and movies are arranged alphabetically, not by the sort order in iTunes. This is annoying because if you're trying to watch an entire season of a show you have to know which order the show is in. I'm not sure if this is something I've done in iTunes to mess it up or if this is standard behavior. If anyone else has any experience or possible fixes, please email me and let me know.

Overall, I’m very happy with my Apple TV and I’m very excited about the prospect of future functionality that may be coming. Apple has a built-in software update feature, and there’s that mysterious USB port that we’re not quite sure what future uses Apple may have planned. If Apple so choose, they could theoretically update the Apple TV software to include even more features as they have with the iPod over the years. Keep in mind that despite its appearance, the Apple TV truly is a small computer and the possibilities for upgrades are endless. While the Internet is full of Apple TV Hacks, I’m more curious to see what Apple’s future plans are.

There’s no question that the Apple TV is a little pricey for the functionality that’s currently built in. And I must admit, I’m a little put off by the idea of the consumer having to buy a $299 set-top box from Apple to play content that they’ve legally purchased off the iTunes store simply because the embedded DRM doesn’t allow burning of iTunes Store video content to DVD for easy playing on current home entertainment systems. But if you have a fair amount of iTunes video content, or you’re simply looking for a way to get all of your iTunes music in your living room, then the Apple TV may be an item worth giving close consideration to. Knowing what I know now about the Apple TV I’m still not sure if I would have plunked down the $300 to buy one, but if you took this one away from me, I’d have to very seriously consider it.

Here are a few photos of the setup and interface I've posted to our Flickr account: