How awesome is Steph? Not only is she dealing with holding onto two babies inside of her, she marched out and got me an Apple TV for my birthday! Best gift ever! I have been harping for who knows how long about my music and media collection being largely on the computer and how I’d like to be able to access those things throughout the house.
Yes, you can physically bring the IPod downstairs and hook it up to the stereo, blah blah blah, but the Apple TV is SO much easier to accomplish this and the options are aplenty. Simply put, Apple TV allows me to wirelessly access, via my television, ALL of the media content on my computer – video, music, photos, etc. Since it’s a 1080p connection on the TV, the photos look fantastic and the video, while not HD (yet) is of good quality. All of that with the easy-as-pie IPod-like interface, right on my television (see picture, click on it for a larger photo).
The thing is also tiny. It weighs about 2 pounds and sits quietly in my entertainment center. If there’s one thing I don’t need, it’s another large component to stick in there. Even better, I already “taught” my remote control how to control Apple TV, so I still can use one remote for everything in my bulging home entertainment center. Huzzah.
But I’m not thinking about this strictly for access to my 7000+ song library previously trapped on my computer. I probably would have been thinking that last year. But with kiddos coming, I went out and got a new HD video camera, the Sony HD1-SR1 (no tape, records straight to a hard disk in the camera!). I’ll have to watch my videos in standard definition through Apple TV until they equip it with capability to show true HD, but until then I can hook the camera up directly to the television and watch HD home videos. Rock on. When Apple TV does add HD capability, though, watch out! I’ll be able to access all my HD home videos right off the Apple interface on my TV. Genius.