New Apple TV - installation and setup

As you're probably aware from my terribly geeky unboxing video, I've got my hands on one of the new 2nd-generation Apple TVs this week. I thought I'd go through what I've learnt from setting it up and using it, in case this can be of benefit to anyone else.

Firstly, hooking up the cables is incredibly easy: 1 power cable, 1 HDMI, 1 ethernet. You don't even have to use ethernet because the Apple TV has built-in wifi, but seeing as my router is six inches from the Apple TV and the wifi at LowFidelity Towers is a bit flaky (blame the Victorian architecture) I thought I'd settle for trusty CAT-5.

Once I'd plugged everything in, I immediately got a picture on my telly from the Apple TV, so no problems there. However, I couldn't find my iTunes library under the "Computers" menu. When I went to it, the Apple TV told me I'd need to enter my Apple ID username and password so that it could use the Home Sharing feature of iTunes. I dutifully entered those details, and... nothing. It told me that I'd need to activate Home Sharing on my Mac too. I was fairly certain it already was on, so I went and checked. Sure enough, yes, it was already enabled. So what gives?

I decided that the age-old IT remedy of "turn it off and on again" might help, so I went to iTunes "Advanced" menu and turned off Home Sharing. Then I reactivated it, re-entering my password. Hey presto, there's my iTunes library showing up on the Apple TV now. Don't know why this step was necessary, but it worked.

Next thing was to play back some media. I'm routing the HDMI through my Sony STR-DA2400ES home cinema receiver, so the theory went that this should carry both video and 5.1 audio signals. Music worked just fine and dandy, the sound coming through in stereo just as I'd expected. I then played one of my Handbraked m4v files. Picture was lovely, and the sound was coming through - but only in Pro-Logic, not Dolby Digital 5.1.

I went into the Apple TV's "Settings" menu, then into "Audio & Video" and found the option for "Dolby Digital Out". There are three settings: Off, On and Auto. I opted for "On" and tried the movie again, and this time got beautiful 5.1 straight away.

Next step was to get the Apple Remote app working on my iPod Touch. The app was already installed, so I then went into the "Settings" menu again, then "General", "Remotes" and finally to "Remote App" where it tells you to turn on Home Sharing in the app itself. Sure enough, on the Touch it was now asking for my Home Sharing username and password again. I typed them in, and immediately I had access to an "Apple TV" library from the main screen.

Finally, I wanted to set up my Logitech Harmony 555 universal remote to work with the Apple TV, rather than use the bundled Apple remote from the box. I went into the Logitech software on my Mac, and added a new device. I opted for "Media PC", then "Apple" as the manufacturer and typed the name in as (rather obviously) "Apple TV". I didn't get a lot of feedback as to whether this was correct or not from the software itself so I had no clue if it would work, or if the device even existed in Logitech's archives. I decided to take a chance that it was okay, and set up a new activity as "Watch Apple TV", which turned the TV on, the AV receiver on and set it to the correct input and then turned the Apple TV on. I updated the remote (still no clue whether this was right or not at this point) and once it had done its thing, I pointed it at the system and hit the button. Sure enough, everything worked seamlessly. Everything on, on the right inputs and all the buttons on the Harmony working correctly. Not only that, but because the Harmony has buttons for previous and next chapter as well as fast-forward and rewind, I could also skip chapters in my movie files - something that I couldn't work out how to do with the Apple Remote.

All in all, absolutely superb so far. I'm very impressed!

New Apple TV unboxing

Well, it has arrived - and I thought I'd have a go at doing a brief unboxing video for you. So here it is in all its glory...



I'll post a proper update once the AppleTV is actually up and running, but for now that's your lot!

On iPods and AppleTV - a response to Apple's media event

Having decided to wait until the cold light of day before posting a response to Apple's 1st September media event - in order to minimise the effect of the Steve Jobs' Reality Distortion Field - I find myself marginally impressed with the offering that was placed before us yesterday. I often find myself feeling a bit "meh" about Apple keynotes, as they never seem to deliver what they promised. However, I think they've done a pretty good job with their lineup this time.

So what have we got? We've got all-new iPods, that's what we've got. A new Shuffle, a new Nano and a new Touch.

I was never taken with the third-gen Shuffle, with its lack of buttons and "voiceover" function. This, to me, screamed just one thing - "you can't use your own headphones any more". Being a bit of an audiophile, I had no intention of using Apple's earbuds, so the Shuffle was off the cards. I had been perusing eBay in the hope of finding a 2nd-gen to overcome this problem, but they're going for silly money (probably because no-one liked the 3rd-gen). Naturally, now Apple have seen the error of their ways and (sensibly) decided to put the buttons back on the Shuffle, I'm very happy. And at £39, I hope one will be coming my way this Christmas.

Onto the Nano then. Or should that be more accurately named the "iPod Shuffle Touch"? Not much bigger than the Shuffle, it now has a 3cmx3cm touch screen - just big enough to display 4 icons at once. I'm not really as convinced by this idea - it just seems too different to the original concept of the Nano. Yes, we still have a decent amount of flash storage, but over time the Nano had become a genuine competitor to the Classic in terms of its capacity and functionality. Hell, it even had a decent camera on it - which now, unfortunately, has disappeared. In an effort to make it smaller, it seems to have lost some of its "essence". And it's a bit pricey too. I'm sure it will sell well, but not to me.

And onto the iPod Touch then. I, personally, think Apple have done a brilliant job with this - although some will disagree. Slimmer casing, Retina display (very nice indeed), A4 chip (bringing performance on a par with iPhone4), front and rear cameras, Facetime, HD video recording, Game Center - the list goes on. So what is there not to like? Well, one of my Mac-loving compatriots has decried the Touch in no uncertain terms for the quality of its rear camera. If you were hoping for the (rather good) 5MP unit from the iPhone4, you'll be very disappointed. The Touch's camera manages all of 0.7MP. That sounds pretty poor (and, to be fair, is), but that does equate to HD-resolution video (960x720). In company with the iOS iMovie app, this will make a lot of YouTubers very happy indeed. And, for my money, the camera is perfectly capable of doing all the fun stuff with apps that I would want - Evernote snaps, barcode reading, Dropbox, Twitpic etc. The front-facing camera/Facetime combination is also a very pleasing offer.

As for the iPod Classic, this is the only iPod that didn't get an update - but then, what is there to update? Massive storage, brilliant UI, plays anything you throw at it, sounds great, lovely screen. End of.

I'm interested to see whether the upcoming iOS 4.1 update makes my current iPod Touch run any better. At the moment, it's a bit laggy. Steve promised that 4.1 will fix "iPhone 3G performance issues" so I hope that goes for iPod Touch too.

So, finally, onto Steve's "One More Thing", or as he quipped last night "One More Hobby" - the AppleTV. I've admired the AppleTV from afar ever since it was released, but I've never quite got round to taking the plunge. The price was a bit steep, and the implementation was always a bit half-assed and I never quite convinced myself that I genuinely needed one. However, now things are different. We now have ourselves a second-generation AppleTV. And the best bit? £99. That's a price point I can like, and cheap enough to make it worth a try. Recently, the movie collection on my Mac has been growing (mainly thanks to the brilliance that is Handbrake) and getting those movies to my televisions has been a bit hit and miss. I bought a WDTV Live recently, and it's very good. It's very similar in functionality to the new AppleTV, insofar as it is able to find media on my Mac and stream it to my bedroom TV over the network. However, there are a few things I don't like about the WDTV - the UI is ugly, its networking is wired only and it has no integration with iTunes, meaning that I just get a massive list of folders and filenames instead of the glossy artwork and metadata that I've painstakingly added.

The lack of purchasing content from the AppleTV isn't an issue for me - I neither purchase nor rent video content from iTunes. I merely want this unit to plug into my TV, display my iTunes library (movies, TV shows and music) on the screen and play it. Hopefully that's exactly what it will deliver. I've got my preorder in, so in four weeks' time I'll be able to tell you whether it does.