Supporting PLII is not really supporting 5.1. You can get 5.1 from any stereo source using PLII...

Geez... first the iPhone and now AppleTV...

What is the syntax for ignoring "threads" that you are not interested in (I'm obviously going to need it)?

I hear you jcase - but technically it is 5.1 channel audio.

I sincerely doubt that readers here who have any experience with even upscaling DVD players on HDTV's would consider the video quality "great"...c'mon Gizmodo...that's just BS

JimByte - very true, but for their target market it won't matter - crushed blacks, blown highlights, jagged lines, macroblocking...No problem! Especailly paired with CD quality 160kbps AAC audio extrapolated into "5.1" channels! I spent a fair amount of time with the AppleTV at MacWorld in Januray and that's exactly what the video looks like. Funny how our corp. attorney would be all over my ass if I called ProLogic II 5.1 audio. Whatevs...

Jim: not BS at all. If you hook Apple TV up to a mid-size 480p LCD screen it looks surprisingly good. I suppose "great" is a matter of opinion -- but I think I made it quite clear in my earlier review that videophiles will find the quality lacking.

PL2 isn't dolby digital though, is it?

About hokking it up: not that easy.
Got an airport extreme, and unless I put the ATV right next to it, it wont connect.

PL2 - definitely not Dolby Digital.

Gianca - that's strange, and not the norm based on the reviews I've read.

Comparing Pro Logic II to discrete 5.1 is like comparing seeing something using 3D glasses to seeing something in front of you. Pro Logic takes a stereo source and fakes it to 5.1.

In case anybody is confused about PLII: using Apple's logic I could say that my Walkman from the early 90's, with nothing more than a headphone jack for an audio output, supports 5.1 surround sound.

It's an extremely misleading statement to say that it supports 5.1 sound if it does not output 5.1 discrete channels (i.e., Dolby Digital, DTS, et. al.). It's especially misleading since the box itself only outputs stereo sound - just because you can take a third party device an extrapolate 5.1 surround from that stereo source does not mean that the stereo source supports 5.1.

If you used that logic you might as well say that the apple TV also supports 1080p - it just takes an external video scaler to upgrade the 720p/1080i native signal to 1080p.

"We haven't tried this yet, but chances are the video playback will work just fine. But the interface will be in widescreen mode, making it a bit difficult to navigate."

Yes, it is supported and looks fine.

http://www.rogueamoeba.com/utm/posts/Article/appleTV-2007-...

I don't understand why it would affect navigation. There are settings for 480i. This is the horizontal measurement. So the UI scales to the screen. What would change about navigation?

Do you need a wifi hub or can appleTV connect wirelessly directly with an iMac?

Lest you confuse me with an Apple hater, I love their products for what they are. Truth be told though, I admire the company's ability to be truly market driven in making their lawyers find the legal grounds to defend the company from any lawsuits resulting from misleading, and sometimes absolutely untrue, marketing claims. In this respect they have the "do whatever it takes to follow our vision" attitude of a pre-IPO startup and thus are worthy of admiration.

There's a wonderful FREE utility called iSquint that will pretty much convert ANY video format so you can view it on iPod or Apple TV.

iSquint is a Mac uitility. No doubt something similar exists for the PC.

ROFL: "Niggling" I'm not even going to go there

Noah, how many people who have HDTV's are limited to mid-size 480p models in their living rooms? For pete's sake, nearly everyone's HDTV's are 'videophile' grade.
In any case, just about everyone has upscaling DVD players, so they will see for themselves how bad the Apple TV looks in comparision. There could be a big backlash over this product.

can you use apple tv to connect directly to an imac that has built-in wireless? without using an airport basestation or other wireless hub in-between?

@JimByte

Where are you getting your 'stats' from? aTV is upscaling all the video going through it, so how is an upscaling DVD player going to look so much better than the aTV?

On another note, why do so many people feel it necessary to comment on how much they hate the aTV? I've always thought of it as a waste of time to get online, go into forums, and tell people how much I hate something.

BTW the aTV seems like something I would be very much interested it. Can't wait to see it in person.

I totally see your general point Jim. But there are a lot of dorm rooms, bedrooms, kids' rooms out there with smaller LCD TVs. And Apple TV could be a pretty good choice for a lot of those instances.

As far as which video files are playable... I was able to get a Quicktime .mov file exported from iMovie to play on it (my home movies) using the H.264 video codec. I used that option so I could de-interlace. They wouldn't sync/stream-play until I switched the audio format (simple L/R stereo) to AAC though.

Jim videophile grade TVs alot of people may have, but the flip side of that coin is how many of those people with HDTVs use them and appreciate them like videophiles do. For example, my parents have a very nice 52in HDTV, course there isn't a single HD source connected to it.

OK, OK, saeler and Noah...I see your points and they are well taken...
:)

Hey Noah, I know it's strange I struggled to get it connect it to my wireless network.
This was the one thing I least expected on the ATV, a major letdown...
I could make my gf's crappy dell laptop to connect anywhere in the house, but the ATV just refused to budge, even after setting manually all the network settings... Not a fun thing to do on a Thursday night...
The only way I could fix this if to put the ATV right next to the extreme base station.
I checked apple forum and lot's people have similar issues.

I have to say that while H.264 does look better on ATV than on my MBP (probably due to hardware decoding) it does blows compared to the quality of my Denon 3910 and of course HDTV.
I'm considering returning it, I got time until April 10 to do so.

Look on the number of ATV's you will find on eBay next month to see if this thing really can catch on.

Wonder if the optical out can theoertically pass through DD/DTS streams... if they were pre-encoded on the movie you were watching. That would be a neat thing... (not available now, but if the hardware supports it...).

@Noah Great info! Thanks! This article seems to actually provide good answers to valid questions which has been rare in the sea of ATV posts the past couple days.

I do agree with everyone else about the PLII not being 5.1 though. It still seems to me that the digital audio output options should support 5.1 though, and that it should just be a matter of the content providing it. the digital connection shouldn't care what you send over it.

I have a Mac Mini as my media server with a 400 GB external drive. I am wondering how it will handle sync'ing with it. I have a few season passes, so that might confuse it further. The questions are all moot, as my iTV arrived today and I just have to go home and test it out.

Apple TV disappoints
First, Apple TV delivers very poor video quality using compressed mpeg4 files that is not even up to VHS standards. Huge step backward from HiDef TV. Tack on expensive and tedious downloads, and the fact that it's more expensive than better quality alternatives. Only a fool would buy Apple TV online without comparing it in the store next to the signal coming back from a (cheaper, faster, better) hi-def video recorder like Tivo.

The fact that they blatantly buy time to be featured as "news" on CNN, MSNBC, Good Morning America, etc. (that's called "payola") goes on to prove that this greedy DRM corporate monster is no longer the warm fuzzy Mac company we grew up with.

Worf and Calebc - I think you're right that the 5.1 limitation is related to the encoding of the audio/video and not a limitation of the box itself. I'm still waiting to hear back from Apple on a couple of questions and will see what I can find out about this.

Took the plunge Sunday and brought home a unit, after waffling a bit over the NetGear alternative.

Overall quite pleased, though the folks at the Apple store were mostly still in the dark on a lot of the features. I have a fairly large network at home with one iMAC and 5-6 XP machines all on a wired network and also wireless g available for the occasional laptop session.

Couple of comments on features that were answered incorrectly (as it turns out) at the Apple store involved access to photos on various machines on the network. Turns out that Apple TV will not stream photos, so you have to select which machine/folder you want to view photos from, and then you have to Synch that machine/folder, which means that all the photos are copied onto the 40 GB ATV drive. The implication at the store was that you could stream photos, but that is not the case. You can synch to one machine and stream from up to 5 other machines, just not photos. So if you have photos scattered out across multiple machines, you have to select which ones you want to see on TV, then synch that box/folder(s).

I will probably consolidate all the photos I have (abt 80GB worth) to one PC and move on from there.

The other quirk I noticed was that synching to a folder of jpg images (even on a MAC) produced blurry images on the AppleTV..

If however, you synch to iPhoto files on the MAC, the very same pictures are displayed at the original quality. Haven't figured this out yet, but would be interested in any comments on this from others. Could find no reference in the manual/on-line about this difference.

Overall, setup was a snap, implementation was very well done and overall first impression is quite positive. Wireless streaming music and videos from various other PCs showed no dropouts or quality issues…

I think the Apple TV can be real useful if you can use it as a conduit for an external wireless monitor. Hook up your Apple TV to your flatscreen at work, bring your Mac into the meeting - and show clients work product without having to connect. I'd sure like to know how to do that?...