The Apple TV Pocket Guide [Paperback]

Jeff Carlson (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0321510216 | ISBN-13: 978-0321510211 | Publication Date: June 24, 2007 | Edition: 1

The new Apple TV is an easy to use and fun way to wirelessly play all your favorite iTunes content from your Mac or PC on your widescreen TV, including movies, TV shows, music, photos, and podcasts. Using Apple TV's stunning new interface, anyone can quickly browse and view their entire collection of digital media from across the room using the simple and intuitive Apple Remote. Apple TV features a 40GB hard drive for holding up to 50 hours of video. It easily connects to almost all modern widescreen televisions, and is slated to ship in February 2007 for $299. New Apple TV users will want to start using their devices as soon as they get their hands on them, and this guide shows them how. The Apple TV Pocket Guide reveals the secrets to using Apple's latest popular invention. This handy guide offers the quickest way to learn the Apple TV features, from syncing your iTunes movie and photo collection wirelessly to Apple TV to connecting Apple TV to your widescreen TV to playing your movies and showing your photos directly on your TV! Readers will also find thorough coverage of using the handy Apple remote. Along the way, the author offers hints for making the most of Apple TV and troubleshooting advice for when the gadget become uncooperative.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jeff Carlson is the author of all editions of the iMovie: Visual QuickStart Guide and Making a Movie with iMovie and iDVD: Visual QuickProject Guide. He divides his time between his Seattle Web design company, Never Enough Coffee Creations, and writing for publications such as Macworld, I.D., and HOW Magazine. He is also the managing editor of the weekly electronic newsletter TidBITS, which covers Macintosh and Internet issues.

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Peachpit Press; 1 edition (June 24, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0321510216
• ISBN-13: 978-0321510211
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #978,708 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I'm a freelance writer and designer. I've authored and edited a number of best-selling books about video editing, Web design, the Mac, and Palm devices. I'm a columnist for The Seattle Times, contribute regularly to magazines such as Macworld, HOW Magazine, and Photoshop Elements Techniques. The closest thing I have to a real job is Managing Editor of TidBITS.

See my personal weblog at http://www.jeffcarlson.com/, and my iMovie/video editing weblog at http://www.jeffcarlson.com/imovievqs/. More information about my work and current projects can be found at http://www.necoffee.com/.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I like the trouble shooting and sync vs stream info, January 28, 2010

By 

Tenna Merchent (Noblesville, IN USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Apple TV Pocket Guide, The (2nd Edition) (Paperback)

This book was a worthwhile purchase. I downloaded it onto my kindle, love that instant gratification. I was having trouble with my Apple TV and the book was able to shed some light on it for me. The book has a lot of description about how to hook it up, then the simple stuff like setting up a screen saver, and using the iTunes store.

One of the things I was struggling with was syncing and streaming which he helped clarify. Syncing is when you copy information such as music, movies and photos from your computer to the Apple TV box. Streaming is when you set your Apple TV to look at your computer for content. Syncing can take a long time the first time, but then the files are there whether the computer is turned on or not. But because the Apple TV probably has less storage than the average computer, your whole library may not fit on the Apple TV. If that is the case, you can set it to stream. A computer can only stream or sync, it cannot do both.

I ended up setting my desktop to stream because I can leave it on all the time. Warning, in Apple's settings, make sure under energy saving you have it set to never go to sleep. If it goes to sleep, you won't be able to stream. I then set my laptop up to sync, and I just synced my favorite things like photos, some tunes, and a few of my children's favorite shows.

He explains where to get software (handbrake) to rip your DVD's to your iTunes account so you can watch it on Apple TV. He also provides guidance on how to rip your home movies so they can go into iTunes. This requires you spend a little bit of money on software ($23-$30 at the time of writing).

He has a trouble shooting section that I found helpful. He explains how to restart the unit by holding down the Menu and Menu down/scroll (-) buttons for several seconds to put the Apple TV into recovery mode. After a minute you choose your language, then TV resolution and the Apple TV recovery screen comes on where you can restart, run diagnostics, or factory restore. Restart is safe, it just reboots the machine, if you choose diagnostics, and get an error message, you need to contact your Mac dealer. Restore factory settings wipes everything and put the machine back to the state it was in when you took it out of the box.

The only thing I didn't like about the book was that the screen shots were of a previous version of Apple TV. But other than that I found this book to be a good investment of my time (I blew through it in about 2 hours) and money.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Reference Manual, May 5, 2009

By 

Tom "ontrac1" (Flemington, NJ United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Apple TV Pocket Guide, The (2nd Edition) (Kindle Edition)

Got this as a Kindle download to my iPhone. Nothing in here that isn't available on line at Apple help, but it's more organized and easier to read. A good reference and once you read through this book, you'll be an Apple TV expert.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars INFORMATIVE, June 29, 2008

By 

J. Harwig (LITTLETON, Co USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Apple TV Pocket Guide, The (2nd Edition) (Paperback)

Since there are very little instructions with the Apple TV this Pocket guide was very informational. It not only helped explain set-up possibilities, but also explained the difference between streaming and syncing. This guide gives one the ability to use their Apple TV to the fullest.