timz blog

Apple TVUpdate:

I got around to dumping some video, photos and screeshots of my latest toy. This definitely 'sucks less' than the Aiport Express! (old iTunes streaming solution that didnt work well)





I'm running a wrt54gl linksys router "g" and network speed for streaming is not an issue.

Initially, hooked the box up with no net connectivity as a freak March thunderstorm took out the VDSL router. It must do a lot of talking back and forth to the iTunes Music Store (iTMS) as there were lots of initial delays, and network waits, only to come back reporting the obvious.

At $100 these would sell like crazy.. at $299 it might be a bit steep for what it does. The biggest disappointment is the size of the internal drive. 40Gb is not much, heck an iPod is larger these days! Also, the remote could really use a scroll wheel. Getting through a long playlist is painful, the clicker will wear out in short order I'm thinking! No power switch either, to shut down you have to yank the cord. WTF? seems a bit atypical for an Apple design. Guess you're never supposed to turn it off!?

There is also some confusion about 'syncing' versus 'streaming'. For folks with a really large collection of music in iTunes, you want to stream the music, and only sync photos/video.

There also is no way to override the default prefs. of syncing priority. Movies, TV Shows, Music, Podcasts, Photos. In that order only, so if you fill up the HD you'll get only a portion of, or none of your Photos sent over. Not sure why they did not implement the iPhotos 'photocast' capability into the device.

Apple TV & iTunes - Flickr photoset

Unit runs really hot, so you need adequate space around it.

The HDMI connection, (cable not included) worked perfectly when paired to a 37" SCEPTRE LCD HDTV (the one from Costco last winter? 2005/2006)

iPhoto content/slideshows look stunning, early iTMS video downloads show pixelation. .mp4 rips from DVD using handbrake are okay, although you may want to step up to 2 pass H.264 encoding for files that you want to keep around a while!

One video (an .mp4 file) did lock it up.. ironically enough, it was Steve Jobs stanford commencment address from a few years back. Completely locked the unit up.. had to pull the power cord to reset.. DOH! :-)

Overall though, once the internet connection to the outside world was restored, the thing works prettly flawlessly, and is a great way to get the content from the upstairs office computer (a dual G5 2.7Ghz PPC PowerMac) to the famliy room downstairs!