I'm really enjoying the new interface on my AppleTV. I rented a movie last night to see how fast it downloaded and it was quick. I got to 2% downloaded in about a minute and a popup appeared saying that it was able to begin playback. This was an SD movie not HD, I'll test HD soon enough.

Aside from buying HD content on your AppleTV with AC3/Dolby Digital soundtracks, how else can you get great 5.1 audio on to your AppleTV?

Well there are two ways already. VisualHub has been updated to 1.31 which is able to include AC3 5.1 audio into the AppleTV files that it creates. I would assume this is mainly used for people who are downloading illegal MKV's off the internet and converting them for viewing on their AppleTV.

If you have a DVD collection that you've been waiting to convert for your AppleTV, and preserve the 5.1 audio, HandBrake now has some beta releases that can do just that!
WARNING: This is a beta build from the HandBrake SVN, and should be used for testing only - not production use.

Select your ISO or DVD source, then on the "Audio & SubTitles" tab, select Codecs: AVC/H.264 Video / AC3 Audio.

By the way, I highly recommend that you use Constant Quality with a setting of 66 instead of specifying a bitrate and either single or double pass settings.

NOTE: you will need to change the extension to M4V in order to play the files (or just save them to M4V in Handbrake instead of the MP4 default.)

You can download the beta build of HandBrake here.

MetaX seems to be tagging these files just fine, the cover art and other text info shows up for me great!

Red [HD DVD] has seemingly taken it in the shorts recently with Warner Bros. going exclusively with Bluray. But might they both take it in the shorts by Take 2 (AppleTV Take 2) or other video on demand services?

I recently upgraded my entire AV system and a part of that upgrade was the cheapest HiDef DVD player I could find - a Toshiba HD-A2 HD DVD player. Admittedly I was pulling for the HD DVD format but it looks like a long shot now for it to become the dominate format over Sony's Bluray.

My consolation in buying the HD DVD is that it was very inexpensive at $140, came with 5 DVD's, and NetFlix has a really decent selection of HD DVD's that I've been watching. After I've watched all the HD DVD's from Netflix that interest me, what is my next choice? I ask this with the assumption that Bluray will be the dominant HiDef DVD format out there.

Well, actually, I don't plan on picking up a Bluray player in the near or medium future. Now that Apple has upgraded the AppleTV software to the 'Take 2' complete with HD movie rentals - I'm quite likely to hang up my long standing NetFlix subscription and simply rent HD movies from Apple directly to my AppleTV. Yes, a Bluray disc would have higher quality than an AppleTV HD movie rental due to the enormous capacity and high bitrates used. However, I have a feeling that the HD movies will look very good via the AppleTV. I've transcoded some HD rips that were on the Usenet, purely in the name of research. The resulting AppleTV compliant HD files are around 2.5 - 4GB in size and look awesome. I'm assuming that the AppleTV HD movie rentals will be encoded in similar or better quality, especially since they aren't going through multiple encoding steps (HiDef DVD -> MKV -> AppleTV MP4).

5.1 Dolby Digital audio will be offered on the HD movies, this is fantastic. As of now we're all waiting to see exactly how this is being accomplished since the MP4 format does not accommodate AC3 sound. It would be great if they are taking a 6 channel AAC audio stream and transcoding it to AC3, this would save a tremendous amount of disc space since AC3 is so very inefficient with regards to size.

The new menus for the AppleTV rental screens are simply gorgeous, well done, I can't wait to check it out very soon and rent an HD movie to scope out the quality.

Wow, two referrals to Engadget in a row... Unusual.

Ross Rubin writes a very good column on Engadget, Switched On. He recently wrote an interesting article talking about Flash and how and why Apple may deploy (and not deploy) it. I've no idea if he's close to the target on this one, but it certainly made sense to me.

Snippet:

One could argue that, particularly with Apple's newcomer status to the world of the carrier-dependent, it wants to err on the side of safety in the case of the iPhone, but Apple TV doesn't have a similar defense. Because Apple TV and iTunes lack Flash, YouTube is transcoding its entire video library to H.264, Apple's preferred codec for QuickTime. A lack of support for Flash weakens Apple's argument that the iPhone does not provide, as its ads claim, "a watered-down version of the Internet."

Full article here.

IPTV is Television delivered over the Internet. There was some speculation today that the Apple + AT&T partnership may extend past the iPhone and could lead to getting IPTV for the AppleTV some time next year.

MacSeven doesn't run with all the Apple rumors, I prefer to work with what we have today and what we know for sure. But this story really piqued my curiosity. The thought of an AppleTV [fully supporting 1080P or 1080i and 5.1 audio] running CenterStage as the main interface, and having full Television & DVR through IPTV really, really interests me. Lets hope this, or something equally as fascinating plays out.

At the risk of sounding like a complete CenterStage fanboy, I want to point you to the new Demo PDF booklet that they have put together.

Stylish! Beautiful! I'm getting really anxious to see CenterStage hit 1.0 because I love the look and feel of what this team is doing.

Consider how poorly documented most software is, they guys are doing it right. And CenterStage can also be run on an AppleTV, which is exactly how I would run it. On a side note, lets hope that a remote with an alpha/numeric keypad comes out for the AppleTV, entering text is otherwise very cumbersome. From the online Demo, and this Demo PDF I have to say that I am extremely excited to see how CenterStage is developing. I'm just praying for a kickass DVR integration to round out the offering.

I'm a fan of media (music, movies / videos / TV), and interested in better ways to consume my media. Before AppleTV there was very little in terms of a "Mac Media Center", and I argue that without a fully functioning DVR and better codec support that the AppleTV doesn't go very far in satisfying this need.

CenterStage is an aggressive Mac Media Center project that I've briefly mentioned before. The team is coming close to releasing a new alpha so the excitement and tension mounts (I'm teasing.) But honestly, this looks like a really promising interface. There is a new demo of CenterStage released, I'm hosting a copy of it on my site for your viewing pleasure, and to help offload a little traffic from them. Do watch the interface if you are interested in this space at all, CenterStage is quickly become a really impressive interface - I think it far exceeds the AppleTV interface. While the TV function isn't ready for demonstrations, it will have TV functions via the Elgato EyeTV Hybrid device. I'm not sure how it will integrate into CenterStage as far as the GUI and DVR abilities, but it's a start. For me to be seriously interested it's going to have to be a far better DVR than the EyeTV Hybrid can offer.

My fingers crossed, this is shaping up nicely.

You can check out the demo video here.



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I follow the Mac Media Interface apps, CenterStage is one that shows a lot of promise, though it is still early in it's development. But a fresh release is due very soon.

Here's the info:

We are almost there. Almost ready to provide you with the most stable and usable version of CenterStage to date. Almost ready to show you what the future look of this project will be.

The animation above gives a brief glimpse into one of the more exciting things we are preparing to preview and I hope you will be pleasantly surprised soon. All of us on the project are bubbling over with excitement which has spilled over onto the forums on occasion.

For those of you who download and check the Nightly Builds religously you will have seen that CenterStage is taking some giant strides in getting the 'core' features of the application in place. That work is nearly there and we are in the process of finalising, wrapping things up and getting things primed for release. It will be a giant leap beyond our last public release and we can get things in place and plan for the Beta!

Once you have played around with the soon to be released 0.6.2 Alpha (Requested documentation included!), you will also have the opportunity to browse around the site and finally learn the direction this project is going...with plenty of visual material to feast on.

Months of work are coming together, it should be very exciting and we hope you will be as excited as we are...

David McLeod (Mucx)


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Streamer provides the ability to listen to Internet Radio through your AppleTV. It works by acting as a wrapper for MPlayer (the popular Unix media player). Additional functionality has been planned, and will be introduced in new versions.

This is still in beta, but an encouraging new development for the AppleTV nonetheless.

Streamer


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As reported a week ago, the AppleTV was hacked in no time at all. Progress is being made, the guys figuring it all out have figured out the menu structure, they even have added a file browser. The USB port can be enabled for Keyboard and Mouse (no external storage just yet), of course other video types like XviD are playing.

AwkwardTV.org is a great spot to monitor progress on all the work.

The state of the hacks is all pretty heavy developer type stuff in my opinion. But fortunately people are working towards making all these mods something that you'll be able to do without ever even cracking the case open.

Speaking of cracking the case open, Engadget has a great DIY page on how to upgrade the harddrive in the AppleTV.

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The Apple TV is a great add-on device for any computer user who uses iTunes to manage audio and or video content, and they want to bring that content to their home AV system. Lack of support for DivX and XviD is not good, and the frame rates listed in the specs are less than ideal for TV content - but I'll reserve judgement until I see one in operation first hand.

FrontPage on steroids is how the Apple TV interface looks to me. I would like it if Apple updated FrontPage to have the same interface.

I will not be buying an Apple TV though. Why you ask? Simple, I am looking at solutions that replace my home AV system, not for a device which is yet another component to add to my system. Apple TV doesn't even have a DVD player built into it. You may be shocked to hear this as somebody who is a Mac and Apple fan, but my home AV system is powered by Microsoft Media Center 2005, and it's a great setup. Vista MCE a huge step forward making it even better.

As nice as Apple TV looks, it doesn't target the same features and functions as MCE. Our family uses an 'MCE Server' running in the office and we access all the content through an extender. It is our single source for Live TV, Recorded TV (MCE has fantastic DVR functions), photos, music, and more. Single Source, those are key words for me.

I only hope that Apple TV is the first entry into the home entertainment market for Apple and that they decide to take on MCE. Similarly to how Apple only operates music as a pay per song model instead of also offering a subscription service - I see Apple staying the course with their current model in regards to TV and that is to continue offering pay per downloads instead of serving the DVR market. Maybe Apple will see the light, I would certainly be extremely happy with the possibility of running an Apple based MCE'esque system powering my home AV system, as good as MCE is, it still runs on Windows which does cause me some concerns and actual problems from time to time - I have to think an Apple Mac OS X based 'MCE' system would be more stable and secure and hopefully more elegant.

Now take my dream Apple TV DVR unit, and bake it into a 37" or 42" LCD monitor and I'd be in heaven.

-MacSeven


Tell us what YOU think.
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