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One must see these videos to even believe that they come from a $200 video camera no larger than an Apple remote controller.My entire music library has been copied to the Apple TV and permits me to play my music on my Bose stereo system. In addition, I own a FLIP HD Mino, which I use to create videos of my grandchildren.I store my photos in iPhoto on my Macbook and crop all of them to 16 x 9, thus creating the dimensions for high definition TV's. The Apple Store (at least, the one in Danbury, CT) uses unregistered units and therefore cannot demonstrate all its functions.(such as cropping, followed by syncing).DanDanbury CT I then sync them to the Apple TV. I have chosen classical music to view the photos and let the Apple TV choose the particular composition each time I run a slideshow. This is because I have connected the video portion of the Apple TV to the component video inputs of my TV and the audio portion directly to my receiver, which allows me to use my Apple TV to play music without even turning on my TV.Finally, I downloaded the new "Remote" application to my Itouch. Before considering this purchase, I checked out my local Apple store for a demonstration.
It makes the setup far simpler and user friendly.One last word. Unfortunately, they could not really do justice to the demonstration. All of them totally fill the TV screen because they have been cropped the 16 x 9 before syncing to the Apple TV.I shoot my videos with my FLIP video camera, then load them into iMovie on my Macbook. I bought the Apple TV primarily to view the photos that I have taken with both a digital SLR and a point and shoot digital camera, as well as listening to music for which I have created playlists in Itunes. I then sync them to my Apple TV and view them with music. I then transfer them into Itunes, using the "large" setting.
Using this device, I can directly control all the music from my Itouch.In summary, the quality of every aspect of the Apple TV is outstanding.Do as I did. This is due to the fact that in order to use all the functions of the Apple TV, they must register their unit. I can honestly say that this is one of the best purchases that I have ever made. The quality of the images on my TV is superb. Read the manuals for the Apple TV online before purchasing the unit.
The AppleTV/iTunes combo makes it very easy to set up a wireless media storage and playback combination through your living room home theater system.The only slight complaint I have is that the appleTV isn't always automatically found by the remote iTunes server after a re-start, meaning I have to go through the code entry nonsense again. Otherwise, I might suggest the bigger drive. The combination of AppleTV, an iTunes server, and an iPod Touch remote for the whole system has made our music and movie enjoyment much, much greater. However, this is rare, and doesn't otherwise detract from a great system.Oh, and 40 gigs is more than plenty if you are using an external system to stream content to the AppleTV.
It was easy to set up and it so far has worked almost flawlessly.Pros:Easy to configure: i hooked it up to a wired ethernet, so I can't speak to the wireless part, but I have HDMI going into the TV and Optical going into my receiver, and the sound and pictures are great. There was no warning that my ATV ran out of space and nothing to indicate that, so once it was full it can't download movies or trailers, but does not give a reason, just an error. I ended up having to restore factory settings and start from the vanilla set up.Overall, this is a nicely-designed piece of hardware and software that does what you'd want it to do. It can take a while to download them especially on Saturday nights when I'm sure the wires are busy, but the quality is excellent and no problems with buffering. Otherwise, the automatic screen saver slide show is great, I set it to a large Photo Album in iPhoto of my kids, and now I see pictures of them that I took years ago that would otherwise stay locked in my mac for ever.YouTube: nice way to play YouTube videos, although it's obviously not as fast to find them as on a computer because there is no keyboard, you have to select a letter at a time, but viewing them was great.Cons:Space issue: I mistakenly tried to sync my whole photo library and ran out of space.
I have everything on an iMac upstairs and am able to listen to any of my songs or watch any videos just fine.Photos: I really liked the fact that you can synchronize your photo library to the ATV. I only figured it out by doing the download test and following a rather torturous trouble-shooting process. I got it to work with my multi-function Harmony remote control without a problem. It is a small form factor, sitting unobtrusively under my TV. It's a bit slow to start up (about 25 seconds) so be prepared for a "no video signal" error from your TV for a few seconds. Be aware that not every movie is available to rent, some can only be bought, and they cost the same or more than buying the DVD from your local Target.Great way to listen to your iTunes songs. Easy to set up, easy to use, elegant and sparse in its function.
None of the sync problems other people have seen.Easy to rent movies - we've rented Dark Night and Night At The Museum. The only reason I dropped a star on this review was for space control (see below). this replaced my Squeezebox for playing my music (since Logitech acquired it they've royally screwed it up) and I couldn't be happier. Otherwise, great. So far this device from Apple has been exactly what you'd expect from a device from apple. I also like that you can watch the trailers of virtually every movie, even the really old ones. Once I did figure out that I was out of space I tried to change the photos I had synchronized to just a few albums, but even when I synched the ATV I could not get it to free up the space it had used.
I don't ever deal with CDs anymore. This unit has really changed the way I play music at my house. But the 40 GB capacity wasn't nearly enough so I got an upgrade from WeaKnees (you can now buy pre-upgraded units on Amazon from WeaKnees).I got the unit for the music, but now we've been renting and watching HD movies on here too - it's pretty amazing.
Since I did not have a BRay Player, this was a quick solution to have HD content on my TV right out of the box.Its installation is simple and it found our macbooks easily.No monthly fee --although you could spend $$ on buying TV shows, movies and rentals if you wanted.An easy hack allows more content from sites like Hulu, Jooks, et cetera. The GOOD:For our first HDTV, I did not want to wait for the cable company to come out and install an HD Box. The amount of content, especially tv shows, on sites like Joost are just mind-blowing.We are strongly considering canceling cable now.The BAD:iTunes has very limited HD movies for rent/purchase.Sometimes it hangs or goes slowly--this could be my internet connection.The HD TV shows can be as expensive as the DVDs (but you can watch them before the DVDs come out)It supports only 60hz whereas my TV is 120hz.don't know if this matters.Not sure the surround sound is true Dolby or DTS surround.
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