Apple TV Review: Digital Distribution for Everyone

February 3rd, 2008

I’ve now had quite a bit of time to explore the abilities of AppleTV. There are many things I like and, of course, some quirks that I think could be improved.

For those who haven’t read any of my previous posts or been watching the news, AppleTV is a small box that sits next to any widescreen television in the same way that you hook up your DVD player or cable box.

The main difference is that there is no slot for DVDs. There is no cable in connector. The only way to watch content is from a hard drive either inside the device or on another computer on your home network. It hooks up to your iTunes library and will play all your content in your library.

Want to watch a movie or TV show that you purchased from iTunes? You simply use the very simple remove and pick the show or movie you want to watch and click play. The show then streams from your main computer onto your television.

What makes this device different from a cable box or DVD player is that it has the ability to play movies in HD. And this is the big one: it has the ability to play podcasts.

As I’ve written before, podcasts are truly a wonderful thing for independent content creators. We are now in an age where anyone can record a show, edit it and broadcast it to the world.

The problem up until now was that content would be seen on a small iPod screen or computer screen. Now, these video podcasts are side by side with content from the big three networks and all the cable networks. Pretty big change!

So how well does the AppleTV work?

Hooking it up was a breeze. You simply plug in either an HDMI or Component video cable to your tv. It looks for any iTunes libraries on your home network and asks to which one (if you have more than one) you want to connect. From there, you can watch YouTube, any podcasts and any movies/tv shows on your main computer.

The quality varies depending on the content you are watching. At this moment, the podcasts are shining. Many podcasts are being filmed in High Definition (for example, MacBreak and The Washington Post). They are downloaded to the main computer automatically and are ready for you to watch at any time.

The HD content looks spectacular on our set. I have an older Sony HD set that is capable of 1080i. The AppleTV can connect to a 1080i set, but is only capable of playing 720p at 24 frames per second.

While this seems like a black eye on the AppleTV, it isn’t too much of a difference. Most people cannot tell a difference between 1080i and 720p unless the screen is larger than 60 inches and they are closer than 10 feet. I’m safe. I’ve got a 42″ screen and sit back pretty far.

Movies look great also. There is an optical digital audio cable in the back of the Apple TV to hook it into your existing sound system. Sound is very good. Not all of the movies on iTunes are surround (I’ll have to look up details on this).

In the end, the AppleTV provides the average person the ability to stream their content to the world instantly.

So we can go out and create films, episodic shows, documentaries and much more. And this can be delivered in HD for free to the world. This sidestep of Blu-ray and HD-DVD is a great boost to the independent producer. Blu-ray and HD-DVD are, technically, a higher resolution, but Apple TV offers something today that is infinitely cheaper and faster for most people to implement.

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