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Laptop Mag reviews Apple TV: ‘The best digital media adapter yet,’ 4.5 out of 5 stars

Apple Store“Apple TV’s simple menu structure and eye-boggling graphics make trolling through the various features and content a joy. Videos from iTunes have a resolution of 640 x 480 pixels, described by Apple as ‘near-DVD’ quality. The Apple TV upconverts this resolution to the native resolution of your HDTV. On our 50-inch 1080i Hitachi P50T501 HDTV, we saw mixed results for television shows; some were full 16:9 aspect ratio, some should have been but were just 4:3, and many looked to be barely VHS quality. But only the platinum-eyed will be able to tell the difference between a DVD and an iTunes movie. Along with your own content, you also get dozens of current movie trailers and music-video clips,” Stewart Wolpin reports for Laptop Magazine.

“But it’s what Apple TV does with your digital photos that’s worth the price of admission. Seeing your shots on a large-screen HDTV is a revelatory experience. The Apple TV automatically supplies your HD slideshow with a soundtrack from your iTunes library, often with eerily appropriate selections. You can choose from 13 transition effects and can select the amount of time each photo is on the screen. Your pictures also become an animated 3D sliding-tiles screen saver. The one caveat is that it’s hard to locate specific images. Apple TV doesn’t supply a thumbnail view or submenus, and it can’t stream photos, since images aren’t stored in iTunes. We hope this drawback will be addressed in the next software build,” Wolpin reports.

Wolpin reports, “We have a few other items on our wish list, including the ability to order new movies, TV shows, and music directly from the sofa (as opposed to your PC). Other than that, and as long as you’re content living and playing in an iTunes world, Apple TV more than lives up to its hype. It’s the most elegant digital media adapter yet, and one that we assume will only get better with age.”

Full review here.

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