Everthing you want to know about Apple TV

Its not the solution to everything that you want to do with your iPod but nevertheles, Apple TV is a perfect bridge to the iTunes library and the television set. An iPod for the TV, Apple’s wireless streamer builds the perfect bridge between iTunes library and telly. Apple TV is said to be just a streaming box with many limitations. But it’s also much more than that. It was expected to bring the simplicity and elegance of the iPod to our tellies, but what makes it a 'must-have' for every geek. Wireless kits are generally tricky to set up, but not so with Apple TV. You need to buy your own HDMI cable, but from there on, it’s plug-and-play all the way, with a slick video and intuitive interface getting you wirelessly connected within seconds. What’s more, there’s no power brick and no fan noise. But there are limitations to the kind of content it can actually play. Despite having an HDMI output, the box can only play standard-def video or 720p hi-def footage. And more worryingly, Apple TV can only cope with MP4 and H.264 file formats, so a huge amount of video content is not compatible. Still, QuickTime Pro will convert many unprotected video formats. It may have its video limitations, but Apple TV is more than just a simple streaming device: it’s an iPod for your TV. Just tell iTunes on your Mac or PC what you want to copy to the 40GB hard drive, and it’ll start synching from iTunes and iPhoto, or Photoshop Album on a PC. This means you don’t have to have your PC switched on to use Apple TV. If that is not enough, a bit of ‘creativity’ will bring even more functionality. Replacing the 2.5in hard-drive with a 120GB job morphs it into a media juggernaut. Installing Apache turns it into an open-source web server. And opening Apple TV to install the Quicktime plug-in Perian will let you play all those naughty DivX files. Of course, such nefarious activities aren’t everyone’s bag, so Apple TV has some nice future-proofing options for more official updates. There’s support for the latest 802.11n flavour of Wi-Fi, and also a mysterious USB port, which has no official use but could in future be used for connecting a Freeview tuner.