AppleTV, watch it on your big screen (Apple TV 160 GB)

Member Name: davomrmac

Product:	Apple TV 160 GB
Date:	18/08/08 (152 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to use and set up, clear picture

Disadvantages: More movies to buy would be good

It seems as though the Apple TV never really caught the attention of massive amounts of people in the UK, but listen up, this tiny device has seen some great improvements in the way of content.

Apple always seem to do things with style. I own a lot of Mac equipment and one of these sits underneath mt TV. It stands about 4 CD cases high (28mm) and 197x197mm in width and depth. The sleek lines show just the infrared receiver lens on the front. Around the back you have connections for USB, ethernet (to connect to your computer network for internet connectivity), HDMI, component and composite video and an optical audio (toslink) connection.

The idea behind the AppleTV is threefold and each work very very well. Firstly, you can synchronise the device to your main computer, to either pull across media files (music, TV programmes, movies, photos) to then play from the AppleTV onto the display of your TV, or to leave the files on your computer and stream them across your computer network. This works very very well. I have around 80GB of media files on my iMac and they stream without a problem (this also works with a PC).

Secondly, you can buy content from the Apple iTunes Store. This again includes music, some great TV shows and full length standard definition movies. The user interface for both buying and playing back the content is very easy to use. It is the ease of use that makes using the AppleTV such an awesome experience.

Finally, you can rent high definition movies (HD). You then start watching the film and you get 24 hours to watch it as many times as you like. The other nice feature is when you are downloading content, you can start watching whilst it is still downloading, this makes the waiting time as short as one minute if you have a fast broadband connection. In my experience the wait is quite a bit longer for renting HD content, I have sat around for almost an hour on one occasion, but I must admit it was worth the wait.

So, is it worth the money. Well, if you are into movie watching, then a definite yes. If you have a lot of music, video, photos and other content on your PC and want to make that watchable on your main TV, then yes. The AppleTV delivers a great quality picture and really good sound, what makes it a winner in my books is the ease in which it does this. Well done Apple!

Summary: Movies, photos and music on your main TV is great

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