iLounge gives Apple TV a ‘B’ in hands-on review: ‘recommended’

46 Comments

1. This seems a pretty reasonable review to me. I’m thinking that version 2 of this product will be far more interesting, so I’ll likely wait til then to purchase it….

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2. If you are willing to compromise and watch crap quality on your TV and be tied for a lonnnnnnng time to buying downloads from iTunes, then go for it!

   I will be waiting for about version 3.

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3. Yea, unfortunatly without HDCP the video quality will always be poor.

   Perhaps HDCP is in the AppleTV, anyone check?

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4. Apple TV device doesn’t use DRM

   An anonymous friend at an MPAA member-company sez,
   Now that my NDA issues are gone, a little tidbit for you.
   The Apple TV device has HDMI and component outputs. As of the launch, it doesn’t have the HDCP anti-copying technology.

   As you might imagine, this is an issue to media companies and they aren’t sure if they’ll supply HD content. They want money but they want ‘security’.

   Consider that the Xbox 360 has video component HD out (no HDCP) and the Apple TV will have HDMI and component out (no HDCP).

   Is the de facto standard now set by Apple & Microsoft?

   Funny to hear that Apple is refusing to put DRM on its high-def TV offerings — expecially after Steve Jobs told the entertainment industry never to release HD material on DVD, unless tech companies promised not to make HD-capable DVD burners.

   http://www.boingboing.net/2007/01/10/apple_tv_device_does.html

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5. Here’s the link of what Steve Jobs told the Hollywood execs about DRM on HD type DVD’s.

   http://www.macobserver.com/article/2004/06/15.13.shtml

   Then again Steve Jobs mentions “DRM can’t work”.

   Seems he is sure sending a mixed message.

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6. wiseguy = macdude = andy = not-quite-right-in-the-head

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7. I checked it out at the ocal Apple store yesterday. I was interested. I need to know whether I could play DVDs from my MacBook Pro through it to my TV. The answer was, of course, no.

   I will wait til I can do that.

   I think that Leopard will probably add that functionality. It won’t be long now.

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8. At the apple store here in tucson this morning to check one out. The thing is definately built by Apple. Beautiful design and warm to the touch. The lack of volume control sucked. The menu is goergous, of course. It seemed pretty seemless, and the video quality was good. By the time I left, there were 6 shoppers outside the store watching the window display, all pointing and asking questions of each other.

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9. @ cptnkirk

   well you’ll be waiting for a long time. most everybody that will buy an apple tv will already have a dvd player hooked up in the same entertainment unit. the point of the apple tv is to play content already on your computer within iTunes…this will never be a wireless DVD player…this will replace the dvd player all together.

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10. Tthis is so cool. I finally got my dirty mouse ball to work. Tried everything I had read, and still nothing.

    Why I didn’t think to use contact cleaner a long time ago I don’t know. It’s not like I work on electronics and have cans of it sitting around…

    Sorry, what were y’all talking about?

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11. If you want to play your DVD’s then rip it using Handbrake and import it the DVD or Video_TS folder into iTunes. The quality is acceptable – not HD but acceptable. If your renting DVD’s it beats the problem of burning coasters while making copies most of the time.

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12. @cptnkirk

    You may as well wait for your Tricorder to add DVD playback. It’ll happen right around the same time.

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13. I don’t know why no-one is mentioning this, but there’s one big reason I won’t be buying an TV any time soon; it places an arbitrary limit on how many computers I can stream content from whether there’s DRM or not.

    One major reason I bought an Express/Airport was that there was no limit to non-DRM’d file sharing or streaming via Bonjour. As people come into my house they can simply log onto the network and we can share everything without restrictions because we don’t use DRM.

    Apple has chosen to pre-emptively punish the consumer with the TV. If I make an original movie in iMovie and export it into iTunes, I should be allowed to share it freely with anyone’s TV without having to be “authorized” as one-of-five possible sources. This smacks of movie industry interference.

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14. >Tthis is so cool. I finally got my dirty mouse ball to work. Tried everything I had read, and still nothing. >

    Is your white keyboard grey?

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15. ron
    no, my 3.5 year old grandson isn’t big on using it. Yet.
    I have thought about using a ‘puck’ mouse from an iMac G3 and putting the wireless Mighty away. They both work at the same time, which is cool.
    There, it is done!

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16. Oh come on. What does this guy want? For Apple to buy everyone everything they will need to plug it into your 20 year old Zenith? How the hell are they going to know what everyone has?
    Guess what, not everyone has an HDTV and I bet if they took a poll, they would find that the HDTV folks are still in the minority. Let’s see, I have a older TV that has RCA and S-video and I’m not about to spend a lot of money on a TV until the prices come down and “everything” is being broadcasted in HD and that was suppose to happen years ago. Yes I know the Government is going to require it but all the ma and pa broadcasters can’t afford to buy the equipment upgrades to broadcast everything in HD.

    I’m not a couch potatoe, I don’t eat at McDonalds but I like DVD’s every once in a while. I bought one and it works perfectly fine for me. Even my old content will work and if you haven’t heard of Mactheripper then you aren’t paying attention. Content…..get real….what do you want? Buy it, rip it or just watch Jerry Springer the way you always do. What movie or show content do you get when you use an Xbox? Ah, the same freak’n content. Oh yeah, you can play games. Guess what, I don’t play games any more either.

    So for me, this thing is great. I watch and party with MTV style video’s with my friends. I share my home movies and pictures with people I spend actual time with and I don’t have to waste time hooking crap up or transfering it to other devices.

    As for the hard drive, I believe there was an article the other day about hooking up an external drive to expand your hard drive. I will look for it and do it myself and let you know.

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17. I say boycott AppleTV and buying video of iTunes.
    It just locks you up to the Apple digital monopoly.

    Heck, if I buy a DVD I can take it over to friends and watch it. I can give it away or even sell it.
    Try doing that with your payperview AppleTV programs.
    Don´t you guys see how you are all building the prison wall on your content and lifestyle?
    You don´t own it, it owns you!

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18. “Don´t you guys see how you are all building the prison wall on your content
    and lifestyle?”

    It amazes me that they don’t seem to see it. They seem to walk blindly right into the DRM traps for the promise of a bit of cheese.

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19. This is the first honest review of the AppleTV I’ve seen so far, which is more than I can say for MDN’s coverage of it – the review wasn’t nearly as glowing as the Pro/Con exerpt indicates, and the grade was “B-“, not “B” (nice try MDN).

    I could go on my own rant – again – about what AppleTV is missing, but I’ll just let the professionals at iLounge do the talking for me:

    “[Compared to other A/V devices available] Apple suggests that the usage model for Apple TV is different [thus better]: you’re supposed to use your computer as the main repository for content, and synchronize only portions of your media to Apple TV at a given time. We respectfully disagree. Most users have no desire to keep shuttling content from device to device, and would do much better with a central networked storage drive that holds all of their home or office iTunes content. Apple TV gets us no closer to that goal, and what it does do, it does slowly [with 4 to 8 hour synching times for video].

    A balanced view of the Apple TV’s … capabilities must credit Apple for creating a great video viewing interface with clean, simple … controls, while knocking it for failing to deliver the format support, content, and consistent presentation the average user would expect from a $300, high-definition-ready media player. Despite … its other features and impressive design touches, video support is the tentpole of a device that all but demands a high-definition television … and we can’t say that we’re fully satisfied with what Apple TV accomplishes so far…

    We were surprised to discover that some of the H.264 movies we’ve tested without problems in iTunes and on iPods do not play properly on Apple TV … [exhibiting] serious macroblock and stuttering issues … we’ll leave it for you to decide whether this is a bug, or Apple’s way of making users “prefer” iTunes Store or other authorized content…

    We … judge products on the performance and value provided by their actual features, rather than the ones people wished were included, and so you won’t see in our list of “Cons” many … things readers have been begging Apple to include …: a … digital video recorder, a disc player, or even the ability to play games. But that doesn’t mean that we wouldn’t like to see them, or that they wouldn’t have helped Apple TV tremendously. We would have loved the ability to record TV … with this device, and … equipped with a DVD or next-generation disc player, Apple TV would [be] … an ideal bridge replacement for the players people have been using for years. Absent these features, it doesn’t really replace anything in a home AV setup as much as compete with them for … [A/V] ports. That’s a big contrast with Apple’s competitors’ approaches; Microsoft’s Xbox 360, Sony’s PlayStation 3, and other offerings like the Linksys 1600 all … think bigger …

    …Apple TV ultimately doesn’t feel like a mainstream accessory: it’s billed as a music, photo, and video player, yet [while] … very focused on video, … [its] not the type of video that’s sitting on most iTunes users’ computers. [Also] … customers outside of the United States still can’t buy TV … or movies from [iTunes] … and though … [they] may … unlike Americans … legally rip DVDs to Apple TV, there’s not yet a guarantee that the device will … play [them] … videos we converted with ADS Tech’s hardware H.264 encoder Instant Video To-Go proved unwatchable, [thus] the fastest iTunes-compatible transcoding solution we know of has been rendered useless…

    In our view, Apple TV isn’t, as some have suggested, a solution in search of a problem, but rather a partial solution in need of being completed.”

    If all Apple is interested in is selling this to the Apple-faithful, fine. They’ll sell a bundle & make a lot of money, I’m sure. But if they really want to be THE major player in digital video, as they are in digital audio, they need to relearn some iPod lessons. iPod succeeded by giving people what they wanted in a portable audio device, NOT by giving them something that would herd them towards what Apple wanted to sell them through iTunes. That’s always been SONY’s mistake & why they’ve been failing so miserably of late.

    Yet for video, it’s clear Jobs is taking that successful paradigm & turning it on it’s head. AppleTV is a device that sells content through iTunes first & foremost, and does just the bare-minimum of what people would like it do do otherwise. They were so focused on that mission they actually forgot to include a volume control, for crying out loud.

    AppleTV could have been so much better than the stock-price booster it is now. I just hope someone at Cupertino is listening and makes the appropriate changes.
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20. Excellently expressed [Odyssey67]. Those last three paragraphs really hit the nail on the head. That Sony comparison is perfect. There’s a fine line between giving people what they want and trying to herd consumers into a captive corral.

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21. It seems to me that Apple had planned a hi-def video roll out with this product, but that it didn’t materialize. The movie producers are trying to level the playing field with Apple.

    MDN “quite” as in: I’m sure.

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22. Sorry, but I couldn’t disagree more with the above review. I knew from the keynote and the specs released beforehand exactly what TV was, what formats it supported, and exactly why I wanted it. I did not create a mental laundry list of unannounced features that I hoped it would have, and I am supremely unconcerned with being “locked in to Apple’s walled garden”.

    TV does one thing extremely well – it takes my media and puts it on the big screen TV. With Handbrake, an iMac, and a few background cpu cycles I can rip a DVD into an h.264/AAC .mp4 video at full resolution that will stream flawlessly from an external USB media hard drive mounted on my desktop to the living room TV. Oh, and it also does music and photos.

    Nowhere in the keynote or in the specs did TV claim to be:
    >”a central networked storage drive that holds all of their home or office iTunes content”
    >a DVR
    >a disc player
    >a game machine
    >something that’s sure to play videos from ADS Tech’s hardware H.264 encoder Instant Video To-Go [whatever that is]

    As for the silly insinuation that TV output has been crippled to force people into “prefering” content from iTunes – rubbish! I have a 300GB hard drive full of non-iTunes, non-DRM content that streams perfectly, without stutter. Hell, it even scrubs better than it does on the desktop.

    And the remote – it is true – has no volume control. Luckily, the TV remote right beside it probably has one.

    Excellent device.

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23. Stopped by the local Apple Store and messed around with one for a while. What I found impressive is that the TV menu does not bog down with a large library like Front Row does on Macs. Maybe the new version of Front Row will share the snappy interface performance.

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24. @ Up Close

    Are you sure about this? I’ve never been to an Apple Store where they’ve had more than a couple of hundred (at most) tunes and a dozen or so videos. When lots of people have libraries of 10,000+ songs, the ‘real world’ experience with iTunes (and I guess Apple TV) is not as smooth and flashy as the Apple Store demo.

    I got around the speed issue in iTunes by ditching a (perfectly good) PC and moving to a (perfectly better) iMac.

    I’d be interested to hear from anyone who has an Apple TV and a mega media library if speed is an issue.

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25. Ranu –

    I’ve got 12,611 songs, 231 movies, 111 TV shows, podcasts, audiobooks, etc. – I have seen great performance out of my AppleTV. It would be better if the movies section were broken down into better search categories – but the speed is fine…

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