Customer Reviews

Apple MA711LL/A TV with 40GB Hard Drive [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(55)
4 star:		(38)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I was a little hesitant about the AppleTV when it was first announced, with the unofficial named of iTV, back in August of 2006. However, once I got one, and have had it for about a week now, I have become convinced. It does exactly what it was was designed to do, does it extremely well, and is utterly hassle free. If only everything were this simple!

Now, I have a huge DVD collection counting well into the hundreds, and I would rather own the movies I like on disc than download them. Then again, working in the Animation and Visual Effects industry, I tend to be very interested in watching all the DVD extras which are not available on the iTunes store. I don't care about watching my photo albums on my living room TV either, but what I DO enjoy immensely is being able to watch the numerous video Podcasts I already subscribe too... In fact, it is so much more enjoyable to watch them this way, I have subscribed to numerous more.

Again, working in the industry, the incredible ease with which one can subscribe to video Podcasts and get them on the AppleTV really struck me. With increased resolution, and better production values, this is the future of TV! Pick your shows, paid, free or ad supported, via iTunes and watch them in your living room.

Anyhow, all that aside... Here are some things to know about the AppleTV.

- The Apple TV is utterly silent.

- It is NOT a game console. If you want to play games, buy a Wii, PS3 or Xbox360.

- It is not a DVD/BlueRay/HD-DVD player. If you want to play DVDs, but a $50 progressive scan DVD player. If you also want to watch BluRay discs and HD-DVD discs, get the LG BH100. it's the ONLY player available that plays all three formats!

- It is not a DVR. If you want to record live TV and watch it later, get a TiVo (don't waste your time with those crap cable and satellite DVRs though - pure garbage)

- You need to buy the cables to connect it. The best connection, because it is digital all the way, HDMI is the best option - If your set has that connector, then get an HDMI-HDMI cable. If your set only has DVI, then get an HDMI-DVI cable. If your set only has component video, get an RCA component (aka RGB) video cable. For the audio, the best connection is the optical digital interface, which is usually not present on TVs, but is fairly common on better receivers. Otherwise, just use a a standard left/right DCA audio cable.

- Contrary to even Apple's own information, you do NOT need to have a wide-screen display to use the Apple TV. It WILL work with 4:3 televisions, though you MUST have component (i.e. RGB) video connections on your TV or A/V receiver (if used). However, it will not function in full-screen mode. It uses a letterboxed presentation style.

- It can support any audio format that the source recording happens to have. The iTunes store programs are all encoded with Dolby Pro Logic II surround sound, which is 100% backwards compatible with two-channel stereo (such as built-in TV speakers). However, if you connect up the optical digital audio connector to a DTS/Dolby Digital receiver, AND the program has DTS or Dolby Digital 5.1 (or higher) surround sound encoding, the AppleTV will pass this through to the receiver to be output properly. Just note that it is EXTREMELY unlikely that programming with digital audio encoding will be available to download from pretty much ANY source in the near future due to it's incompatibility with analogue 2 channel stereo.

- One last thing. If you are a user of a Mac that features Front Row and they are in the same room as the AppleTV, then remember to pair the remote for the AppleTV and Mac independently, so they will not interfere with one another.

Anyhow, all told, I think the AppleTV is really great, and will likely help to change the face of television as we know it.

I picked one up the first week they were available but haven't really used it until the past few weeks. I'm sync-ing (inappropriate use of the word for reasons I'll explain soon) with my family room iMac on a 802.11g network.

There are 2 ways to add content sync or stream. Sync will load content to the Apple TV and stream allows you to store content on the computer and access "as needed". I choose to stream (photos will only sync, but once loaded they'll stay on the Apple TV).

I added a 500GB external drive to the iMac solely for media content. I've also started converting my DVDs to a compatible format (takes a while, so I start one before I go to sleep and it's ready when I wake -- not really that dramatic, process takes just over an hour).

My wife loves it because she can play her music through our sound system (if that's all you want to do, the Airport Express will do it with digital output for $99).

Over the weekend we watched a couple of movies on it, with 5.1 sound (you must encode it that way) and it couldn't have been easier. The streaming is seamless, initially it takes about 20-30 seconds to load the buffer and thereafter plays without a hiccup. Is it as crisp as a good DVD, not exactly, but unless you're watching side-by-side it's a very good image on HD.

ONE LAST THING: HDMI cables are available for under $10 online, as are component cables and optical audio. So Apple doesn't include them, big deal. If they threw a 6-footer in there someone would complain that it's not long enough -- or too long. It's a minor added expense that's not worth complaining about.

OKAY, ONE LAST, LAST THING: I have the 40GB model and as I said above I chose not to sync my content, meaning it's all stored on a 500GB drive attached to an iMac. The Apple TV only stores about 5GB of photos right now. I suspect at some point they may add functions that require more storage but for now the hard drive is unimportant and the movies stream so rapidly that I don't even notice that they're not stored locally on the Apple TV.

I purchased the Apple TV, and for the most part it has lived up to my expectations. It was very easy to set up, the interface is very simple and user friendly, and I have had no problems with use on my Wireless N network. That being said, I have two complaints. The first is when viewing photos you cannot sort through thumbnail pictures. So if in a folder you have 100 photots and want to see photo 98, you need to scan through the first 97 to get to. My second complaint, which is my major complaint and the reason why I am giving the Apple TV only 2 stars, is the movie function. Apple decided that it would support only two movie formats, MP4 and H264 (although the IPod has its own music format, it did support MP3's, imagine if the IPod only supported this format and not MP3's...). Most videos that I have are AVI, Divx, MPEG, etc... so I was forced to convert over to Apples format. This is not as simple as it sounds. Apple added in the functionality to convert via Itunes. However this process is extremely slow and only recognizes certain video formats in the first place. I purchased external software to help converting video files (ImToo). Also, Videora has free software to download which I recommend. To convert a high quality Divx movie (approx 700mb) to the highest quality Apple TV format, depending on your computer this is going to take anywhere from 2-6 hours. Also, the Apple format video file will be double, if not more, the size of the original file, eating up precious space on your hard drive. And did I mention, it turns out that Apple TV does not support files greater than a certain size (I think 2GB) so if you want to convert a movie to the highest quality, this will easily be over 2GB and you will essentially have to create 2-3 individual files for 1 movie. I just bought a Sony harddrive camcorder, thinking I could easily download the videos to my computer and watch them on Apple TV. Now I am forced to spend hours converting the videos before I can even watch them. I have not actually purchased any movies yet from Itunes, as the selection is horrible. If you are looking for a system that is easy to use and set up, and provides basic functionality for music and videos, the Apple TV is a solid product (although I wonder, do you just buy an IPod and simply hook up to your TV?). If you are looking for something more, especially in the video front this is not the machine for you. Given how innovative Apple has been over the past years, this product is a dissapointment

Think of the Apple TV unit as transforming your television into a large-format video iPod. All of the menus are very similar to how you use an iPod. It comes with a "front row" type remote control that allows you to select what you would like to play. The remote control is very simple, and uses an interface very similar to the standard iPod.

The Apple TV is capable of playing from either its internal hard drive, or streaming from your computer. The beauty of it is that you rarely know which it is doing. After syncing with the computer all of your titles are immediately available. If the title you choose has not been copied to the internal hard drive, then it is streamed. The hard drive only keeps what you frequently access. If your computer is off, you will only be able to play what you have downloaded.

Make sure that your television is compatible. There is no coax or s-video connection! Your TV must support either HDMI or component. You can also use optical audio if desired.

This is not a replacement for a Tivo or your DVD player/recorder. This device only supports playback from iTunes compatible files. If you would like to record or play DVD. But if you would like to watch your iTunes video at HD resolution, this device is great!

I waited for a year for the 2.0 upgrade. It's just amazing! My overall user experience is 10 of 10. I had a high expectation based on my experience from other Apple products I have used. But it still exceeds my expectation. I'm not going to give a complete overview, which you can find from lots of other places.

Apple TV can take everything from your iTune library to your big screen. Here I would like to focus on one feature outside of iTune: Connection to the Flickr Photo site. I would like to share how Apple TV 2.0 closed the loop of my digital photo solution, a beautiful and convenient way from processing to organization to sharing.

When you switch to digital photograph from film, you will notice that the number of photos you collected increased very fast, especially if photograph happens to be your hobby like me. Over the years I have tried different ways of organizing and sharing those photos with your family and friend in your living room. I am happy to report here that I finally found the solution with the arrival of Apple TV 2.0
Here are the tools and site I use to closed this loop: Picasa from Google to processing the photos, Flickr site to load up photos, Apple TV to connect to the Flickr site and display the photos on TV screen.
The new version of Apple TV added the feature to allow you to connect to Flickr site with one click. You will not only be able to see your own photos on the site, you can also see your friends or other public group's photos on the site. It even automatically plays music from yout itune library while photos are displayed in slide show mode. Another feature I liked is that when you play music from Apple TV, it starts display your multiple photos in a random fashion in size and number on the TV screen.

There are some other tools you might be able to find to do the similar, but again, Apple's solution is just 1 or 2 notches up when comparing to others in terms of functionality and convenience.

There are quite a few other nice features from Apple TV 2.0 like YouTube and direct movie download /streaming.

This is a very well-done product and the best Version 1 that I've ever seen. It will do what it says, and without fuss and with the smallest of setup. Out of the box, it's two cables and three clicks away from entering your network password, if you have one enabled. It then starts to sync with iTunes--all your ripped and bought music, your purchased videos, television shows, movies, from an ever-expanding list. It also syncs your photos from iPhoto. Like a good maid, it does Windows too.

If you have more media than its 40GB drive will handle, and I have a great deal more, it fills up with photos last, which is shame for they make a really nice screen saver--your life in photos, rising from the bottom of the screen, large pictures in front and fast, smaller ones in the rear and slower, nice false perspective.

It can be set to stream all your content from up to five iTunes computers at a time. You can control the syncing to limit it so the photos stay on. Syncing is important only if the computer(s) with the iTunes are off, for Apple TV can play anything stored on it and stand alone. You could schlep it along on a vacation.

Problems and suggestions. Three times the living room one has lost contact with Orpheus in the office while it was syncing but streaming from the playlist, and I couldn't get it to download the playlist again without surgery. This is a software problem and this is Version 1.

Suggestion. Allow the user to specify the priority of things to be kept, giving photos higher priority if you wish. Even better would be a different sort of syncing. Order all the playlists from all your iTunes, or even just the computer you're syncing with, and let Apple TV load as much as will fit, and use it as a disk buffer. This might cause thrashing of the WiFi though. But it would give access to everything when the computer was on and the most important things when not. And you could take your most important stuff on vacation. It's a small box.

Also every playlist has as its first option "Shuffle." The second option ought to be the repeat option stored on the iTunes playlist instead of having a system-wide option.

This is a model of very complex technology made very simple indeed to use; I don't think that anything, except possibly the iPod, even comes close, and that's not nearly as complicated a thing to do. I predict that this will do to DVDs what the iPod did to CDs. Neither will die but both will have to think. And cable companies will, I suspect, start to give more attention to faster download speeds and hasten Internet2 and perhaps lessen the number of channels flogging crap. Do you think? This may be the killer app/box. After all, if music is now sold as being the number one album on iTunes and then CD sales as an afterthought, and the iTunes store was launched in April of 2003, can you imagine what Apple TV might do? Death to dial-up.

Apple really needs to advertise and explain this thing better. It's an awesome device that does many things, but it's easier to understand it if you think of it really having only two distinct functions:

1) It's for renting HD movies. Give that new HD TV something to make it shine. Sure Blu-ray has won the format war, but what format war is next? Skip the wars and just stream the video. No clutter of DVDs and players to buy. Yes the selection is small now (it just started a month ago) but it will soon build up to include newer movies as they are released. Beware of old movies being released as HD. Renting "Blazing Saddles" in HD is not going to impress you. So, the only REAL new HD movies are the ones in theaters now and will soon be released for rental. We actually kept our Netflix account for renting the bulk of the older movies and TV shows we still like. Renting an HD movie for $5 is a cheap night of entertainment. I have a 6.0 Mbps internet connection and the HD movies are ready to play in about 1-2 minutes. You watch the movie as the rest of it downloads. I never had it stutter during playback.

2) It's an iPod for your TV. If you use iTunes and have photos, music, and home movies, this makes it easy to view them on your TV. I made my last vacation video in HD by using Final Cut Express and exporting it in the Apple TV format. Just drop that movie into iTunes and it will sync with the Apple TV. Viewing the still shots in HD is really amazing. Being like an iPod, Apple TV only shows content that you already have in iTunes. Don't think of it as some kind of backup drive for your music or movies.

Sure it does some other stuff like watching You Tube, but if the top two features are what you need, then this is for you. The simple "spouse friendly" remote is great too. My wife can now easily play our music collection without my computer being on.

ps: I bought the 160GB "take one" version of Apple TV. All I had to do was run the firmware updater and mine is now the same as the Take Two version (5.1 sound and all). The old and new Apple TV's have the same hardware.

One last thing - rentals are paid through the iTunes store so you can use iTunes gift cards to pay for movies!
Enjoy!

PS - one more reason - the $0.99 movie of the week. Apple has started offering a $0.99 movie rental each week. We've had Escape from Alcatraz, The ghost and the darkness, The Dead Zone and others. Not blockbusters, but certainly worth $0.99 and gets you used to the renting experience in an easy way.

My husband requested this for Christmas and I bought it for him, but it quickly became a treasure for the entire family.

In terms of the user experience, Apple TV gets a perfect score. Aside from the set up, which was a little frustrating, the device is extraordinarily easy to use. The remote has one main button and the menu is easy to navigate and it's very easy to search and find what you are looking for.

The selection is wide and diverse. There are very few TV shows or movies that I wanted that were not available. The Apple TV has virtually eliminated our need for our Blockbuster account, and anything other than basic cable. Most movies are available on the day they are released on DVD; however, they are not immediately for rental. If you want to see a brand new movie, you'll have to buy it. If you're willing to wait a month or two, you can rent the movies for less than you'll pay at Blockbuster or on demand with your cable/satellite provider. With all purchases, you have the choice of regular or HD. Movies take a few minutes to load, but then they play without any glitches and the picture quality was great, in my opinion.

The Apple TV is great for all ages. We have a 2 year old and all of his favorite Disney and Nickelodeon shows are available - we can purchase full seasons of more than 15 episodes of favorites like the Little Einsteins, the Backyardigans and Go Diego Go for $40 or less. We were paying $15 or more for DVDs with 4 episodes before, so this definitely saves us money.

You're also able to store your pictures and music on the device, which is pretty neat. We were able to show a slideshow of our wedding pictures to family and friends that could not attend using the Apple TV. I can also play my music through the sound system which was great, too. All in all, I'm very happy with the Apple TV.

Things to know -

1)Your television must support HDMI or component input.
2)You will need to BUY THE CABLES to connect the device to your TV, because there are none in the box. You may as well add them to your cart now for less than $[...], because they will cost $[...] or more at a retail store.
3)Synching the Apple TV to your iTunes account on your computer can be a little frustrating. Knowing this in advance makes it little less irritating when you're doing it ;-)
4)If I could go back, I would order the 160 GB version. The 40 GB only holds about 20-25 two hour films and if you're a movie lover, that will likely not be enough. For an extra $[...], you can have 4x the space.

The more I use it, the better I like it. It isn't perfect, but it does what it does very well. I see there is an "AppleTV for Dummies" book. Man, if you need a book to get this thing up and going, you have w-a-y bigger problems! You need a decently fast internet connection and an iTunes account. Then, open the box, plug in the power, connect the HDMI cable, and if you are wireless, wait a bit and you are ready to go. There are a few very simple steps the AppleTV walks you though. Piece of cake!

I am using this with a Comcast internet connection, that averages 5Mbps and bursts higher. I have an Apple Extreme Router set as "N" only, but have tried AppleTV with a good ole' reliable Linksys "G" WAP and it works just fine. I am using a Costo Visio 37" LCD - nothing very fancy.

Quality? This isn't for the purist videophile. The image quality is about the same as a DVD played on my Sony upconveting DVD player; in other words pretty good- less sharp than good broadcast HDTV, but very watchable.

We had a DirecTV account we have had for about 10 years. Ten years ago, that was pretty zoomy- today, not so much. There are very noticeable compression artifacts and other problems. I was already spending north of $60 a month with no HD and no premium channels on Directv. We also subscribed to the Blockbuster by mail movie rental. That works pretty well, by the way. At least for the summer, we dumped both Directv and BB mail rental. I really like the Apple TV arrangement that there are NO ONGOING FEES! for using it. You pay for what you rent or purchase - nothing more. At 4 to 5 bucks a movie from iTunes, we save money over DTV and BB combined. Five or 6 movies would be a big month for us, and that comes in in the $20-25 range. Plus, no hassles driving to get it, losing the dsk, late fees, driving to return the disk, etc.

Enjoy!

If you are considering Apple TV after February 2008, you should ignore pretty much all of these reviews. The original product was very good, but lacked a bit and was somewhat overpriced. Apple TV is now more affordable with more usable features. The movie rental service is great, photos are amazing, music is easy and high quality, tv shows are ok, music videos are awesome and other features are nice as well. Everything Apple TV can do it does well. This is absolutely worth the price tag. Do not let reviews here or anywhere else talking about poor video quality get you doubting the product. On a great Samsung 32" LCD, these videos look very good. Worth it, no doubt.