Apple TV: Broadcast Television nowhere near dead
I had some time to kill at a mall Thursday while my appointment was running a few minutes behind.
Naturally I wandered over to the Apple store so that I could play around with computers that don't suck. Excited to finally play around with the Apple TV, I gave it a whirl for about five minutes. While the interface was predictably flawless, I was left thoroughly unimpressed overall.
First, the picture quality sucks. I tried watching South Park, Heroes, and Pirates of the Caribbean. In all cases, the picture quality was really pixelated, jumpy, and the colors weren't very good. It was a step above YouTube video quality. Nowhere near broadcast. It makes sense that it's going to be really compressed to make downloads make any sense, but I walked away with the feeling that things you download from the iTunes store should either be watched on your computer monitor (provided that you don't have anything bigger than a 15" screen) or an iPod. It just doesn't translate well to a TV screen.
Secondly, the sound didn't seem to necessarily sync up with the picture. It was off by just a hair, but what an annoying hair. If the picture quality is going to be an issue, than the sound at least better sync up with the bad picture.
Finally, the selection of video is still somewhat limited in that you can only get stuff available on the iTunes store. While they've made great progress in this area, there is a wealth of great movies and shows that just aren't available yet.
While I think the concept of the Apple TV is great, it would appear that we're still a few years away from the technology that allows it to work well. Don't waste your money. If you do, it's thankfully pretty cheap.
Naturally I wandered over to the Apple store so that I could play around with computers that don't suck. Excited to finally play around with the Apple TV, I gave it a whirl for about five minutes. While the interface was predictably flawless, I was left thoroughly unimpressed overall.
First, the picture quality sucks. I tried watching South Park, Heroes, and Pirates of the Caribbean. In all cases, the picture quality was really pixelated, jumpy, and the colors weren't very good. It was a step above YouTube video quality. Nowhere near broadcast. It makes sense that it's going to be really compressed to make downloads make any sense, but I walked away with the feeling that things you download from the iTunes store should either be watched on your computer monitor (provided that you don't have anything bigger than a 15" screen) or an iPod. It just doesn't translate well to a TV screen.
Secondly, the sound didn't seem to necessarily sync up with the picture. It was off by just a hair, but what an annoying hair. If the picture quality is going to be an issue, than the sound at least better sync up with the bad picture.
Finally, the selection of video is still somewhat limited in that you can only get stuff available on the iTunes store. While they've made great progress in this area, there is a wealth of great movies and shows that just aren't available yet.
While I think the concept of the Apple TV is great, it would appear that we're still a few years away from the technology that allows it to work well. Don't waste your money. If you do, it's thankfully pretty cheap.
posted by Xenti at 10:19 AM
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