Is that a Coaster with an Apple Logo? (Apple TV Review)

The family was at the mall over the weekend and decided to buy an Apple TV so that we'd be one step closer to having a complete set of internet TV devices.

The current Apple TV device is a small black box about the size of a stack of a few fancy drink coasters. You know the kind with cork on the bottom. It comes with an aluminum Apple remote and a power cord. The packaging is amazingly spare and elegant.

You need to supply the HDMI cable. Apple conveniently sells a matching black HDMI cable in the store. I was disappointed that the cable wasn't included in the box because you'll absolutely need one to connect to your TV. You might say cable length matters but honestly the Apple TV is so small that you won't have any trouble placing it near your TV or even velcro'd to the back.

Getting the device out of the box and physically connected to the TV took no more than five minutes. I powered the Apple TV on using the remote. There is no physical power button. Then I went through a short setup wizard which connected to WiFi and collected my iTunes account information. The software setup process took less than five minutes. That was about one hour shorter than the Google TV setup!

I watched a few YouTube videos.

Then I went on to trying content on my home network. This was a bit more work. I had to startup iTunes on my desktop machine and turn on home sharing. Once enabled Apple TV could browse and play content in my desktop iTunes. As far as I can tell, Apple TV doesn't support DLNA. This leaves out a lot of content on my home network because I don't put everything into iTunes -- also frankly, I don't like the video playing experience in iTunes so I don't have a lot of incentive to add video there beyond what I want to sync with devices. I'll wait and see if Apple TV makes moving content to iTunes worthwhile. For someone with a completely Apple home network this won't be an issue because they'll most likely have all their content in iTunes already.

The Netflix interface was up next. I had to enter my Netflix username and password. Sometime while I was doing that I realized that I didn't even need to look at the Apple remote to know how to use it. It was also clear to me that Apple TV was easy. I hadn't opened the manual once. I actually hadn't even pulled the manual out of the bottom of the small Apple TV package. Netflix was up and running with a nice snappy interface.

Apple TV Manual Still in Box

Finally, I loaded the Apple Remote application on my iPhone. After installing the application it controlled the Apple TV with no additional setup. The interface that allows you to browse and play your iTunes libraries is pretty amazing. You get album artwork, playlists, etc. all on your phone. It also worked nicely for Netflix while essentially emulating the aluminum remote with a pop-up keyword available when needed. However, even with all that goodness I can't see myself using it because the aluminum remote is good enough.

At this point, I can already give the Apple TV a big thumbs up for easy setup and doing the core things (Netflix, home network, YouTube) well.

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Google TV Review Update

Google TV got an update. The most important thing for me was the improved Netflix interface. It's now essentially the same as Netflix on Wii, Xbox, and PS3. I haven't noticed any other GTV changes that are significant to me. That said, the new Netflix interface is a great improvement.

Sony Google TV Remote. It's got a wooz button!

For the last few weeks I've been watching more Google TV. Since we're a Tivo/Comcast household we have all our broadcast shows stored on the Tivo. I tried to play some HD video pulled from my Tivo. I downloaded the video using a web browser, ran tivodecode, and copied it to a server. The video plays with VLC and Windows Media Player. It did not play on Google TV's media player. In fact, sadly, playing the Tivo video actually locked up the Google TV so that it wouldn't respond to the remote control or power button on the TV itself. Wow. Eventually the Google TV asked if I wanted to force quit the media player.

This got me thinking about three things. First, that seamless Tivo integration with Google TV would be great. I'd love to be able to stream Tivo videos on Google TV. If GTV could do that it would be worth the money. Next, what codecs does the Google TV support? Finally, I'm no longer surprised by flaky GTV behavior.

I found the codec answer on the Google TV forums. I didn't see an official list from Google. Anyway, as someone on the thread suggests the lack of MPEG2 support (needed for my Tivo test) is a big miss.

I should add that it's not impossible to get your non-protected Tivo video playing on Google TV. You can use a program such as Handbrake to convert the Tivo shows to an H.264 format that Google TV can play.