I'm no audiophile, so I am perfectly happy with my iPod(s) and how they sound. I use mine primarily in my car for audio, with a direct connection to my Alpine/Bose stereo system. I often watch video when I am flying and it's great to have more variety of content than the airlines provide. Having been a photographer and graphic artist, I am a little more picky how things look visually.

I prefer dynamic full range sound when watching TV and it's something I have had with my AV/TV setup for many years. Years ago when TV's didn't come with inputs and outputs for sound, I used a VCR as a Tuner and "Stereo" interface, taking the audio out from the RCA connections on the VCR and into the AUX input of the audio system I had at the time. This was long before surround sound or Home Theatre sound systems.

Along comes HDTV and Home Theatre and I hold out buying a new TV for some time, waiting for the price of the sets to drop. About a year and a half ago, I bought a Toshiba 720p CRT type HDTV set and it has seven different inputs and outputs including Component and HDMI (required for the new AppleTV to work), variable and fixed audio out. I bought a JVC/HD camera a couple of months after that. I have two separate amplification systems connected to both my Mac and my video system, providing an "erzatz" sort of surround sound with Bose and Lansing speakers.

My friend Allan Tepper from Tépcom suggested that I get this cable set and use the second video output from my G5 (ADC), as an NTSC/HD monitor for when editing in Final Cut Pro. It required a $35 adapter (ADC to DVI) avilable from OWC and a $19.95 DVI to HDMI eight foot cable for the interconnect. After fiddling with the resolution, Allan told me to set the TV display to 1280x720 which made it start working (as an extended desktop). It works beautifully with Final Cut Pro, and also with iPhoto and iMovie, although with Final Cut Pro, it expands the image to fill the display with the full output from the monitor.

Xtrememac.com provides these cables and this neat HDMI switcher which has the same footprint as a Mini or AppleTV. Belkin makes the ADC>DVI adapter, originally for the first G4 machines that had VGA and ADC - to allow >DVI monitors to work. (note: my TV/Monitor only has one HDMI input and I have multilpe devices)

The TOSHIBA 26H84A (CRT Tube flat panel monitor/TV) has a terrific 16:9 picture and displays clips, effects and transitions on an "average" type of monitor/TV like that might be viewed by end users. I had been excited to get a hold of one of the new AppleTVs, and I ordered one the day they were announced. When I realized they were not going to ship for months, I cancelled the order. I went to take a look at the Apple store on Lincoln Road, yesterday. It was cool, but frankly I didn't think the video quality was very great viewed on a Sony LCD - lots of pixelization. Many of the earlier Plasma and LCD flat panels suffer from a similar malady even with standard definition (SD).

High Definition video sources and Mac output look great, on my system but similarly, regular Standard Definition (SD) TV doesn't hold up as well either. The current crop of LCD and Plasma models use something called "up-sampling" or "up-scaling" to smooth out SD broadcast or source towards the HD look. 

How the heck is Apple planning to deliver HD Video or Movies through iTunes? I have downloaded several TV season series (Monk, Battlestar Gallactica and South Park) and captured a number of my own DVDs to play on my iPOD. I love it, but each hour TV show takes almost as long to download, even with 3mps cable modem service. It's one of those start when you go to sleep downloading processes and maybe it's finished in the morning! It really makes carrying entertainment on a flight easy. However, compared to the amount of data on a DVD (4 to 9GB), I couldn't imagine that video quality would be all that great, blown up on a regular TV, so I never tried before now.

With the Mac set to mirror displays, I can select "view Full Screen" in iTunes, while playing a video or use it like an extended desktop. Then stretch the window manually to fill the screen however I want it to view on the "TV MONITOR", while continuing to work on my normal Cinema Display. I have read specs on the Apple TV that said even thought the output requires either a component or HDMI connection for video, that it was only capable of displaying the lesser 720p HD standard output 480i.

With HDTV and Blueray coming of age now, the current "high" standard is 1080p requires far more Data storage (30-60GB) than a standard DVD can hold. The Apple TV can connect via ethernet and wirelessly, if you have ever moved files over one gigabyte from one hard drive to another or to another computer via ethernet, you ALREADY KNOW how long it takes. Even across a gigabit (1000mbps) network, it takes a while and is nothing like instantaneous "play".

The Apple TV does not have gigabit ethernet either (and the G5 does). Okay, so AppleTV only has an internal 40gig hard drive in it which syncs or caches output from iTunes, so the file source size is not such an issue. It uses a "laptop" size 2.5 inch hard drive, like Mac Minis. 40gig isn't very big, but then the TOP size of laptop drive is only 200gig.

I have already seen a number of articles by those that have cracked open the AppleTV and replaced the drive with a larger one. Since AppleTV is really a computer, it is running a stripped down version of OSX, a few adventurous types have added Quicktime components so they can play other content not downloaded from iTunes (DviX and Xvid codecs).  I realize Apple has put limited capability into the new little box, in order to make the price point tolerable. But I would bet that other entertainment hardware companies like Sony, Toshiba, Nintendo and MS Xbox are paying attention and planning to add whatever features their set top boxes (or game machines) don't have to stack up against the Apple TV.

XBox already has an HD-DVD player and Sony has a Blu-ray option for their Playstation III. These drives make those systems capable Hi-Def players, more capable than the AppleTV which has no optical disk drive at all. So I assemble a home rolled version of the AppleTV and it cost me less than $80 to add the 12 foot DVI/HDMI cable and ADC to DVI adapter.

My G5 has two video outputs one ADC and one DVI. So I can use my regular monitor anytime, and by just switching the source on my HDTV, I can view ANY CONTENT that I have stored on my MAC (not only from iTunes). The only limitation is that Quicktime and iMovie (for instance), will only play full screen in the main window, so I have to set the display to mirroring. Otherwise I can drag a Quicktime or iMovie window onto the extended TV desktop and it views fine. I can watch a movie on that display, while continuing to work on anything else on my Apple Cinema display. I also already have a fairly fancy JVC-AV switcher for different recording and monitoring purposes.

The cable company provided a PVR built into my cable box which I can take the output from back into my MAC for editing of DVD burning. I really have an extremely expandable, Tivo like AppleTV (like) system. I have 1.25TB internal storage and about the same in external drives for my Mac G5. My system is far more capable than the Apple TV, and if I want to send some video content from my laptop, I can do that too or I have another DVI to HDMI cable I can plug the Laptop in to the TV the same way. My Macbook Pro is a faster Final Cut Pro editing platform than my G5s , so I do use it connected to the TV this way as well.

I think the AppleTV will be a great success for Apple, perhaps not as great as the iPod, but successful none the less. I can foresee several different model type AppleTVs in the not to distant future, and third party software specific to that device. I think that they will soon come out with a model, perhaps more a Mac-Mini or a double-wide AppleTV with full OSX capability and a Blu-Ray drive with true 1080p HD output, wireless mouse and special multi-media keyboard. A double wide case could use standard size hard drives with cheaper, higher capacity storage space.

It should also have an external SATA connection to allow the main unit to connect additional "matching" extended hard drives. (OWC/Newer has a Mini footprint and style 750gig firewire external hard drive). It will also be able to record like a Tivo and be programmable the same way. It should also be able to connect to the iTunes store directly.

So really all AppleTV would have to be is a Mac Mini with additional AV outputs, and the cool simple interface it now uses triggered by a slightly more useful remote or controlled by an iPhone. Professional stereo equipment conforms to the same 19" rack standard size just like computer racks. Even a 3x19" high unit would conform to the size footprint of consumer electronics. AppleTV already looks sort of like a Mini anyway, doesn't it?

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Copyright 2007 Avi Learner © - alearner@mac.com
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