As promised earlier my review of my Apple TV. First there’s a whole interface overhaul after the 3.0 update. The update (3.0.1) ironed out a nasty bug which removed all media files from the Apple TV after syncing. The menu structure is logically horizontally organized: Movies, TV Shows, Music, Podcasts, Photos, Internet and Settings. If you’re lucky enough to live in a country which has TV Shows and/or Movies you can order these in the iTunes Store. We aren’t that lucky here, so we have to use other ways to get our daily digital fix.
Apple’s Podcasts is a welcome add on, you can watch some digital broadcasts from providers like BBC, CNN, Discovery, Comedy Central and some local broadcasters. The internet radio is amazing! I’ve hooked up my Apple TV to my Harman/Kardon AVR we use this very often.
There are some major improvements: when you put your Apple TV to sleep it actual works a whole lot nicer, the power light turns down and your Apple TV hibernates until reactivated. There is some room for improvements: I miss the iTunes visualizer, I like the cover art visualizer, but I like to be able to switch to an other occasionally. It just gets boring. Then there is the video file format Apple has chosen 720p (1280 by 720 pixels) at 24 fps as maximum size. Though my Sony Bravia can handle native HD 1080p, in most cases it’s just enough. I can understand from a hardware/streaming/download perspective there is whole less data to be moved. So it’s a consensus between quality and speed, but i want to be able to view my ripped content in all his glory.
To rap things up the Apple TV is well add on in your digital lifestyle and we give it a thumbs up. It’s not a PVR as long as you accept this you’ll be satisfied by it’s ease of use and possibilties.
