Logo Rob Buckley – Freelance Journalist and Editor

MacFormat investigates… Apple TV

MacFormat investigates… Apple TV

Rob Buckley takes a look at the new-look Apple TV and asks whether it’s as good as it gets or if there are better options available

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The Apple TV is beautiful. It’s a small square box, a little over an inch thick. It has a few sockets for connecting to a TV, and can deliver pictures in high definition. It’s very minimalist.

Too minimalist for many people.

The accusation: the Apple TV is an expensive (£219), under-featured way to put whatever you have in iPhoto or iTunes on your TV, when there are more powerful alternatives out there. Looked at objectively, the Apple TV does have a few issues that make most people scratch their heads. You will need a TV that has an HDMI, DVI or component video input to use an Apple TV. For content, it syncs with one Mac or PC and streams content with up to five others. If the content is in iTunes, iPhoto or a Windows iPhoto equivalent, you can play it on your TV using the Apple TV.

Usually.

Unfortunately, that’s a big ‘usually’ since the Apple TV needs your media to be in very specific formats and very specific resolutions. Try syncing an AVI movie or an OGG audio file to an Apple TV and you’ll get the digital equivalent of a blank look from it.

But, it has to be said, the Apple TV is a great way to take advantage of your large, high def, widescreen TV. The old Front Row-style interface has been phased out in favour of a far more appealing look in the free version 3.0, which is available through a software update from the Apple TV menu. Now all the menu options are more intuitive and run across the screen rather than downwards. TV shows, movies and photos look great in high def, and your TV or connected audio system make better audio players than your Mac – you can also show iTunes LP content on the Apple TV, something your stereo would be pushed to do.

The Apple TV’s Internet connection means it can also access Flickr, MobileMe galleries, YouTube and, with version 3.0, Internet radio stations for additional content. Indeed, with the Apple TV able to purchase content from the iTunes Store directly, not only can you bypass your computer to get content, you don’t have to go out to the local rental store any more. If you have a reasonable broadband connection, in just a few minutes, you can sit back and watch anything from a huge range of Blu-Ray-quality movies and TV shows, usually including whatever is on Sky Box Office at the moment, but without the need for a Sky+ HD box or subscription. Unlike Sky Box Office, version 3.0 of the Apple TV software offers playback of movies with iTunes Extras, giving you a DVD-style menu full of additional content, such as deleted scenes.

But is that really enough? There’s no way to record content directly to it. It’s not expandable with plug-ins for additional content sources or video formats, not even Flash, so the likes of the iPlayer, 4oD, Sky Player and ITV Player are strictly off limits. The 160GB hard drive is still a little pokey for the average film buff. There’s no DVD or Blu-Ray drive, no web browser. In short, it’s limited.

So why not just get a Mac mini, pimp that up and use Front Row as the front end? The mini lacks none of these limitations. You can add as many Elgato, Miglia et al video devices to it as you have USB ports. iPlayer et al work fine with a Mac mini. It has a DVD drive that can play as well as record. It has a much bigger hard drive that you can expand with an external hard drive. Output is genuine 1080p. Surely that’s perfect?

Well, it is – almost. If you’re renting or buying content on the Apple TV, it can start playing content when only a few percent of it has been downloaded; with iTunes, you have to wait. This makes the Apple TV far more useful for someone who really wants to watch a movie once they’ve clicked the “Buy” button, rather than wait half an hour or longer until it’s all downloaded.

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