Turn Your Pain Cave Into a Pain Orchard: The Apple TV Review
from ironvan.com
Most of us are fully bunkered away in our pain caves, spending evening after evening sweating out intervals. for hours. Needless to say, having some good distraction in our “pain caves” is a necessary defense against insanity. Triathletes have tried everything: Boombox, iPods, cell phones, and TV’s. Before long, with all these electronics lying around our bikes and treadmills, our cave looks like a smelly, sweaty Circuit City…..or just Circuit City. Wouldn’t it be cool if we could combine everything together in one nice little package without having to watch it on a screen smaller than a Joule? Behold, my tech conscious tri geeks, the fully operational battlesta….I mean..Apple TV!
The Basics:
So, I would consider myself a techie, but not a super techie by any means. So I am going to skim over most of the useless details and cut to the chase: whether it works or not. Basically, Apple TV is a tiny little box that you connect to your TV via a HDMI cable. It wirelessly connects to the internet, and in turn streams things like movies, tv shows, music, and photos to your presumably big ass TV. Prior to the current version of Apple TV, you had to download materials and sync with the Apple TV Unit before watching it. Now, with the dimunitive black Apple TV all that inconvenience is avoided.
Now with the new model, you can stream movies from any Mac or idevice. So iPad to TV. iTunes on your MAC to TV. iPod to TV. So, per the folks in Cupertino, you could be sitting on your trainer, iPod in hand, and beaming tunes or Ironman videos to your TV during Zone 4. So, does it work? Lets get unboxing..
Unboxing
Boxing is in true Apple fashion. Simple. Clean. Same on the inside.
Still simple on the inside.
Underneath the TV Unit is the swank remote.
Sexy, dont you think?
Out of the box, two cables in…..
And there we have it:
TADA
And how well does the streaming work you ask?
Since installing it last night, the family and I have been exploring a whole new world of entertainment. HD Youtube Videos, Netflix, iTunes movies, iTunes music. It works. It works very well. And no, it does not upload movies on a geological time scale. 20 seconds max for a full HD film. TV shows in 15-20 seconds.
Another quick point that initially led me away from Apple TV is the fact that it puts out in only 720P. For some reason that maybe the guys at Best Buy can tell you, it doesn’t matter when it comes to streaming video. HD video looks SUPERB.
My only negative so far is that you need to have a good router for this thing. I had a two year old N+ draft router, and that made load times a little too long. So I upgraded to the “pretty fast” router today, and now things work like clockwork. So in short…
PROS:
It works. It works well.
Its a no brainer.
Installation takes about three minutes.
CONS:
Make sure your wireless network is up to date.
Still cant stream videos taken with your iPhone camera or third party apps. Well, not legally.
And does it make riding indoors a whole lot better? Im sorry, I cant hear you over the awesome I’m controlling on my big screen with my iPad.
Comments
I'm literally drooling....
Thanks for the review!
Glad you guys are liking this stuff. One week in and Im still loving it!
Greg, you're an enabler!
@ Scott: Thats what all the ladies say!
I have lots of Mac stuff around the house so I know Apple TV will be cool, but.... I already have my DVD hooked to the internet so I get Netflix streaming, You-Tube, etc. I only use Netflix and think most of the other stuff is just not yet ready for prime time. I've got an iPod dock on my stereo so I can play most anything. It doesn't stream wirelessly, but it works well.
Do you need an Apple TV for every TV? We've got one TV in the house and one really small one in the garage/pain cave, so does that mean two box tops?
Looks like you can pull up podcasts and other stuff. Do you listen to them or are you hooked on Netflix? It may be nice to pull everything from the Mac rather than just what's on my iPhone/iPod. What's your main source of entertainment? Music? Netflix? Something else?
Getting interested......
tom
Hey Tom,
Right now, I mainly use Netflix, YouTube, and music. My main source for streaming is the iPad, just because I can control it from the aero bars. Being able to stream the music wireless without any weird cords and such is by far the best thing pain cave wise.
Right now, each TV needs its own box I think.
Ideally though, the best place to stream from is your PC or Mac itunes. Then you could stream pretty much everything.
I also have a PS3 which does the internet, Netflix, and such. While it works, it was somewhat a pain to have to sync my PS3 with my desktop PC and use a PS3 controller for navigation. In addition, you cant stream your itunes stuff.
I think the best feature is simplicity. Ive returned to my love of finding weird youtube videos, like this.
Wow, love the video you found there. Post more please!
I have been debating apple tv for a while but the 720P was putting me off, I guess for streaming videos it doesn't make a difference. I currently have an acer revo connected to the tv , so can use that for netflix, youtube, itunes but it craps out on HD stuff. Apple TV might be a nice in-box replacement.
Being a huge mac user I like the fact you can stream from any other apple device. Only negative I see is that I can't get hulu or other content providers on it. Wish apple had opened up the platform so users can create apps for it.
Ah...but read this Atif:
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010...s-airplay/
I might still get the apple tv for Christmas for my wife (read myself )
it sounds like it can do most the stuff the acer revo does now except better and easier to use.
The iOS referenced in that review refers of course to iPhone and iPad, which don't support Flash, thus no hulu or other websites. You'd want that feature on your Mac computers instead. I don't think Mac OS allows Safari based videos to transmit to Apple TV (for Hulu, network web sites, etc). Netflix and You Tube will work thru special apps on both mobile devices and Mac computers, but regular TV shows are only accessible thru iTunes, for $0.99 each.
I'm sticking with my jury-rigged previous generation MacBook hooked up via cables to my TV. Apple TV is literally not yet ready for Prime Time.
Yes, I do miss my Hulu....of course, if your savy....