We’re taking a look at the recently launched new generation of the AppleTV. With the recent release of Netflix in Canada we decided to look at some of the hardware available to stream Netflix to your television. Let’s take a closer look at the AppleTV device.
The AppleTV has never been a huge success for Apple, Steve Jobs considered it a “hobbiest device”, but they did update the device from the previous version. Some of those updates are good and some are bad considering on how you plan on using the device.
We ordered our device in mid September and it arrived mid October since it was shipping directly from their factories in China. Depending on where you are in Canada you might be better served by ordering this device directly from www.apple.ca as stock in retail stores isn’t great at this time, most stores we checked with did not have them in stock, including the Apple Store.
The first thing that struck us about the device is its size, this device is tiny, easily fitting in the palm of your hand. This makes it easy to tuck into your entertainment centre, in our case it easily fit on top of our 32″ HDTV’s base stand, being black it is almost invisible apart from one LED light when it is powered on.
You’ll need HDMI for this device as this is the only output option for video, there are no component outputs available nor is there a dongle available. Also of note is that the device does not include a HDMI cable, so you will need one. We recommend you order HDMI cables online rather than purchasing from retail stores, www.monoprice.com has HDMI cables for as little as $3 and they work just fine. Don’t get burned at a retail store paying $20+ for cables.
Inside the AppleTV packaging you’ll find the device itself, a sleek aluminum cast remote, a power cable, documentation and the prerequisite Apple stickers that Apple ships with all their products. The AppleTV device and remote are wrapped in plastic protection which peels off easily.
The rear of the device features plugs for power, HDMI, mini-USB (for servicing only), optical out for those wishing to hook it up to a audio receiver rather than using HDMI audio and an ethernet port. The device does support wifi however so using ethernet is optional.
Hooking up the device is straight forward, in most cases you will simply hook up the HDMI cable to the device and into your television or audio receiver and plug in the power cable. Once powered up you’ll run through the on-screen setup process, of course unless you have hooked up the ethernet port you’ll need your wifi networks information to proceed. You will also need your iTunes account information, or if you don’t have an iTunes account you will be able to set this up directly on the device.
Now, with the AppleTV hooked up and configured, you will be presented with the main menu, which for Canada consists of Movies, Internet, Computers and Settings. In the US an additional menu option is available for TV Shows however this is not available in Canada since our domestic broadcasters have the streaming and on-demand rights tied up, so unless Apple makes a deal with CTVgm and Canwest to provide this on the AppleTV this option may never be available to Canadians.
The Movies tab is where you’ll find the iTunes movies available for rental. Of note is the AppleTV has no hard drive, therefore ordering movies from iTunes is a rental only option if you rent directly from the AppleTV device itself. You can still purchase movies and TV shows on your computer using iTunes and thanks to Home Sharing you can then share those items to the AppleTV device for viewing on your HDTV. Rental fees start at $3.99 for SD movies, HD movies start at $4.99, most new releases however are $4.99 SD and $5.99 HD. iTunes does have some deals though and there is usually a selection of back catalog movies available for rent starting at $0.99 for SD, add another $1 for the HD stream.
And now a word about the rental and purchase options, the lack of TV show rentals is a bit disappointing, of course you could still purchase episodes via iTunes but we feel this is a bit pricey for most shows. Same with purchasing movies, the price asked for movie purchases by the digital download services is often close to or the same as purchasing the BluRay or DVD of the same content. We wonder if this is a deliberate move by the studios, after all digital delivery is a cheaper medium for them to use but they are not passing any savings along to consumers. Right now though, it makes little sense to pay as much and sometimes more for entire seasons of a TV series via digital delivery when you cannot easily back it up and are restricted on the devices you can view the content on. We’ll stick to purchasing DVD/BluRay sets for shows we want to collect.
We’d recommend that before you rent or purchase back catalog content that you check to see if the same movie might actually be available on Netflix streaming, doing a quick check of the Playstation Network Video Store on the PS3, for example, we discovered movies available for rent at $5.99 (HD version) were actually movies readily available via Netflix. The same goes for purchasing, in fact checking out Walmart’s bargain movie bins you’ll often find the same movies on DVD that are selling on the digital download services for double the cost you can get the physical media for at Walmart and other stores.
Another issue with these internet VOD services is they aren’t priced much below VOD prices from a cable company, and it is the consumer who is bearing the cost of delivery via their broadband connection. With some ISPs having low bandwidth caps online VOD services might be out of the question until the broadband ISPs provide a high enough bandwidth cap. Hopefully as this method of entertainment delivery becomes more common place ISPs will adjust packages to better support this.
Carrying on with our review, under the Internet tab a selection of online streaming content is available. At the top you’ll find Netflix which we’ll delve into a bit more below. The Internet menu has the options for Podcasts, YouTube, MobileMe, Flickr and Radio. There is a lot of content available that you won’t find on your cable dial and a lot of material that will complement the shows you do watch on TV. One area we really liked was under Podcasts, there you will find an enormous selection of online video and audio material ranging from amateur to professionally produced material that rivals content airing on broadcast stations. If you were a fan of the old TechTV network you’ll be pleased to know that many of the shows and personalities from that network have migrated to producing their own versions of those shows online, and many of those shows are HD capable as well. And we’re not talking 10 minute snippets either, they’re producing 30 and 60 minute shows, some are weekly but there are also daily shows. You’ll also find news Podcasts from CBC providing the days top headlines, Global also produces a daily news Podcast however we were unable to get it to work when we tried to access it. The Podcast feature is certainly a hidden gem in the AppleTV and most users should be able to find content in there to entertain and inform.
The YouTube streaming worked flawlessly for us, it includes the option to enter your YouTube login information so anything you’ve subscribed to will be available for you on the AppleTV for viewing on your HDTV. YouTube is a great area to find lots of content, everything from amateur broadcasters producing daily content to almost any music video you can think of are now available via YouTube.
If you have an Apple MobileMe and/or Flickr account you’ll be able to view photographs saved on those services. The Radio feature lets you stream thousands of online radio stations, this is a great addition since there are a lot of very good streams available.
The Netflix option was one of our main reasons for purchasing the AppleTV and we’re pleased to report that it functions nearly flawlessly out of the box. Setting it up was as easy as entering your Netflix login information, from there we were presented with an interface that looks entirely native to the AppleTV device. We were able to access our recently viewed material and continue watching where we’d left off on other devices. Picture quality wise it was as good as what we’d seen when viewing Netflix on the PS3. Indeed the quality can be as good or better than what we’re used to on cable. One issue we did encounter was genre browsing, while we were able to browse almost all genres there seems to be an issue with browsing the Children & Family genre, it just doesn’t seem to load. However searching will find the material you seek, hopefully Netflix or Apple release a fix for this problem in the near future.
Under the Computer option you’ll be able to set up “Home Sharing”, this allows iTunes to share content from computers on the network. You can share your music, video and photographs using this feature. We also tested a purchased download from iTunes and that also streamed. We’re not sure if a rental from iTunes on a computer will stream to AppleTV though.
At $119 the AppleTV is certainly priced right that it can be an impulse buy for many consumers. Depending on your expectations it may or may not be the right device for you. We can certainly recommend it for those looking to stream Netflix or online media from YouTube or Podcasts. It is a inexpensive solution to adding Netflix streaming to your library or for adding it to secondary TVs in the household.
The Good:
- Small device with low power requirements (6watts!)
- Easy hookup with HDMI
- 720p HD Video
- Optical output for digital audio
- Easy access to impulse rentals from iTunes
- Seamless streaming of Netflix, YouTube and Podcasts
- Ability to share your existing iTunes library
The Bad
- No TV shows rental option for Canada
- Unable to view downloaded videos without first converting them to AppleTV format
- Some bugs in the Netflix menus
