Skip to main content

TV AND ME ARE THROUGH, PART III: ENTER THE APPLE TV

Here's my report on my Apple TV after having it for one month. I had some trouble setting it up at first, but now it's working just fine. Although it doesn't fulfill my every desire as an on-demand entertainment device and link from Internet-accessible content to my TV, I'm pretty darn happy with it. And no monthly fees. Oh monthly fees, how I hate you! From hell's heart, I stab thee!

At first, set up was frustrating because it turned out I needed something called a router to share my DSL internet with my computer and Apple TV. The Radio Shack guy knew what I needed, but they apparently sold me one from the back of the closet all covered with dust, because it was old and didn't work. I found a tip online that told me I had to go into the online maintenance and change one setting for reasons unknown, but I couldn't get online to do it. The router company wanted to charge me money to give me customer support because it was out of warranty, so I marched right back to the Shack and demanded a new one. Then it worked after the aforementioned changed setting and downloading the version 2.0 upgrade. I can't blame Apple for the problem, but it would have been nice if the word "router" had been mentioned somewhere in the manual.

I bought an HDTV at the same time, so your mileage may vary if you have an older TV. I connected it with HDMI because CNet said it was the most freakin' awesome way of connecting things to a TV, and awesome it was. I looked at my photos from iPhoto, and I was like, "Oh, my god, I am the best photographer ever in the history of the world!" I like the way the slideshow pans your photos all Ken-Burns-like while music from your collection plays. Sometimes I just watch the screensaver, which is all your photos flipping around in a hypnotic manner. Podcasts are something I haven't looked looked into that much because I don't drive and (good librarian that I am) I never leave the house without reading material. As for video podcasts, I don't like watching anything over two minutes on my computer or iPod. This is an area I see myself going into more on the Apple TV, as I can listen to podcasts while cleaning or cooking and watch video podcasts on my comfy couch. AnimeTV and Erik the Librarian looked great on AppleTV. Flickr and Youtube can also be accessed, which was fun when I had a few people over last weekend. It's much more comfortable than having 5 people huddle around a computer screen. The remote works well, its controls are a lot like an iPod. It is a little harder to scroll through a long list, though. I have over 5,000 songs in my library, I need better search options. When you search for a song to buy, letters come up and you can type something in, but with your library you have scroll. What's up with that?

Renting movies was a new feature that made me sit up and take notice. Now we're getting a bit closer to my dream of being able to call up any entertainment I want on demand. It took me about 5 hours to download a whole movie and 2 hours for a TV show, so it's not instant gratification. You have 30 days to watch a movie, so I recommend doing it the night before. My back went out last week and I couldn't sit at my computer, so it was nice to have the option. Also, I have Netflix, but sometimes I don't get enough movies in time for the weekend, or I suddenly feel in the mood for something else. The selection is not large, so I hope it gets bigger. When I want to see something like the 40 Year Old Virgin, with an enormous hold list at the library and a long wait in Netflix, right away, it will come in handy. I don't have the desire to see enough popular movies to make paying 13$/month for HBO to be worth it, but every now and then my interests and that of the majority of the American people converge.

As some of you may know, Casa Jfro is surrounded by a force field blocking nearly all over-the-air radio and television signals. So what do I do when I want to listen to music I don't own already? Pay monthly fees to a company that will probably become a monopoly soon? I don't think so. So, I listen to internet radio. There are some great stations out there, but then I'm limited to the computer speakers in the bedroom. But, now with AppleTV, I can stream internet radio to the big honkin' speakers in the living room. Hurrah! The only drawback is, you have to have iTunes open and your computer on. It would be nice if internet radio was a option on the AppleTV, though, and you could search for stations and save your favorites. So, all in all, I'm really enjoying AppleTV. The main drawbacks are: not enough movies and shows, no internet radio, and the searching of one's library could be better. However, these can easily be fixed in an update.



----------------
Now playing: Shockwave Sessions Vol 007 - Martin Roth Mix
via FoxyTunes

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

MY BUBBLE

This is real heavy metal, by the way . So, this guy whose name I swear I'd never heard but appeared to have gone to my high school tried to friend me on Facebook. His main interests were the band Stryper and Republicanism, so I didn't add him. I mean, really, Stryper ? I thought teens in the 80s only listened to them because they liked metal and their parents forbade any other band as a direct path to the worship of Satan. When you leave home, you throw away their records and listen to real metal. But then I read this article that said we are all getting trapped in a bubble of like-minded people who parrot our ideas back to us, due to social networks and rss feeds and apps only giving us the people/opinions/stories we want to hear. And I thought--maybe I was wrong. Or maybe I'm OK, because I do have a lot of weird interests that make it pretty hard to find people who are on the same page with everything. I have social network connections with people around roleplaying game

TOP TEN LIPSYNCH FOR YOUR LIFE SONGS FOR A DRAG KING EQUIVALENT OF RUPAUL'S DRAG RACE

 The Advocate has suggested that the greatest (i.e. only good) reality show ever, Rupaul's Drag Race , have a drag king contestant.  That's fine, but it would be much more entertaining to have a whole drag king competition. One of the best parts of Drag Race is seeing all the different types of queens compete: beauty queens, funny queens, conceptual queens, androgynous queens, scary queens, singing and dancing queens.  I want to see punk kings, gangsta rap kings, cock-rocking metal kings, panty-dropping R & B kings, country kings, baggy-pants burlesque comic kings, and of course, Elvis. I picked out some songs that make me think of different aspects of masculinity:  swaggering men, heartbroken men, lustful men, romantic men, philosophical men, and suicidally depressed men (interesting fact: I can think of dozens of songs by men about suicide, but only one female one: "Gloomy Sunday". What's up with that?) "That's Life" - Frank Sinatra

HOME ENTERTAINMENT UPDATE: THE EMBIGGENING

  Chromecast CD storage Antenna Blu-ray player Apple TV Receiver Record player VHS Tape player So, I decided to spend my tax refund on home entertainment this year, as TV keeps getting better, whereas movies... not so much. My computer is old, but it still works, and replacing a computer seems less urgent when you have mobile devices. It feels like a long time ago when RAM and processor power seemed so important in order to use the latest bloated software, but now with so many webapps and sites designed for mobile, as long as your Internet is fast enough, you're OK. Lifehacker says to spend money where you spend most of your time, and I now use my tablet more than my desktop. Also, with all the streams I have access to, there was one chink in my entertainment system -- my TV was not actually big enough to appreciate high definition. Well, it seemed like a good deal in 2007, at $200 more than my new one which is almost twice as big. The main thing stopping me