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Thursday 4 February 2010

Apple tv-ps3-xbox

Which is the one for you?

The Apple TV is beautiful. It's a small square box, a little over an inch thick. It has a few sockets for connecting to a TV, and can deliver pictures in high definition.

It's very minimalist – too minimalist, some would say, the accusation being that the Apple TV is an expensive (+£200), under-featured way to put whatever you have in iPhoto or iTunes on your TV, especially when there are more powerful alternatives out there.

Looked at it objectively, the Apple TV has a few issues that have most people scratching their heads. For starters, you'll need a TV that has an HDMI, DVI or component video input. For content, it syncs with a Mac or PC and can stream it with up to five others. If the content is in iTunes, iPhoto or a Windows equivalent, you can play it on your TV. Usually.



Unfortunately, that's a big 'usually', since the Apple TV needs your media to be in very specific formats and very specific resolutions. Try syncing an AVI movie or an OGG audio file to an Apple TV and you'll get the digital equivalent of a blank look from it.

But it has to be said, the Apple TV is a great way to take advantage of your large, high-def, widescreen TV. The old Front Row-style interface has been phased out in favour of a far more appealing look in the free version 3.0, which is available through a software update from the Apple TV menu.

Now all the menu options are more intuitive and run across the screen rather than downwards. TV shows, movies and photos look great in high def, and your TV or connected audio system make better audio players than your Mac – you can also show iTunes LP content on the Apple TV, something your stereo would be pushed to do.

The Apple TV's internet connection means it can also access Flickr, MobileMe galleries, YouTube and, with version 3.0, internet radio stations for additional content. Indeed, with the Apple TV able to purchase content from the iTunes Store directly, not only can you bypass your computer to get content, you don't have to go out to the local rental store any more.

If you have a reasonable broadband connection, in just a few minutes, you can sit back and watch anything from a huge range of Blu-ray quality movies to popular TV shows, usually including whatever's on Sky Box Office at the moment – but without the need for a Sky+ HD box or subscription.

Unlike Sky Box Office, version 3.0 of the Apple TV software offers playback of movies with iTunes Extras, giving you a DVD-style menu full of additional content, such as deleted scenes. But is that really enough?

There's no way to record content directly to it and it's not expandable with plug-ins for additional content sources or video formats – not even Flash – so the likes of the iPlayer, 4oD, Sky Player and ITV Player are strictly off limits.

The 160GB hard drive is still a little pokey for the average film buff and there's no DVD or Blu-ray drive. There's no web browser to speak of either. In short, it's limited.

The Mac mini alternative

So why not just get a Mac mini, pimp that up and use Front Row as the front end? The mini lacks none of these limitations.



You can add as many Elgato and Miglia video devices to it as you have USB ports. iPlayer et al work fine with a Mac mini and it has a DVD drive that can play as well as record. It also has a much bigger hard drive that you can expand with an external disk. Not to mention, its display output is genuine 1080p. Surely that's perfect?

Well, it is – almost. If you're renting or buying content on the Apple TV, it can start playing the file when only a few per cent of it has been downloaded; with iTunes, you have to wait. This makes the Apple TV far more useful for someone who really wants to watch a movie once they've clicked the Buy button.

The mini is also much more expensive (£499) and designed to be a computer. While you can use a remote control with it, when you want to change passwords, update software, and so on, realistically you're going to have to use a keyboard and mouse. The Apple TV needs only a simple remote control that can click and select.

Of course, you can probably deal with the hassles involved with that. The question is: can everyone else who uses your media centre? What happens if there's a problem? Can they work through all the menus to set up a TV recording? The Mac mini might be more powerful, but will it disempower fellow TV watchers?

Media streaming with the Wii

There are other alternatives, too. It's possible you already have a set-top box that can double as a media player: a games console. The Wii just got its own iPlayer channel, and there have been efforts to get the Wii to play media streamed from Macs, such as the open-source Wii Media Center X and the superior Wii Transfer (£12).

However, since videos have to be in FLV format and music in MP3 format (Wii Transfer will do the conversions for you, but Wii Media Center X won't), this is quite limited. The Wii's maximum output resolution is 480p, too, so this is more of a nice-to-have device rather than a real threat to the Apple TV.

Blu-ray movies

The Playstation 3 has a built in Blu-ray player and web browser with Flash 9, so it can play some streamed web video, including the iPlayer but not 4oD.



It also supports the Universal Plug and Play AV standard (UPnP AV). This enables media streaming from any UPnP AV server on your network, provided it's in a format that the PlayStation can understand. The Mac doesn't support UPnP AV, but with the addition of either MediaLink (£12) or EyeConnect (£30), you'll be able to sync or stream content to the PS3.

MediaLink is better for the PS3 specifically and it offers iLife integration: photos in your iPhoto Library show up in the PS3's photo menu, and iTunes music appears in the PS3's music menu. For videos, you can designate any Mac folders as being accessible on the PS3.

The PlayStation is an appealing media centre, but it's expensive and isn't as fully featured as the Apple TV or even a Mac mini. Although it finally has a very good video store, which includes 2,000 movies to rent or buy, there are no TV shows and you can't play anything you've bought from the Apple Store on it.

If you have a PlayStation already, of course, then the addition of MediaLink is a whole lot cheaper than buying an Apple TV and is probably 'good enough'. But unless you're into games and want to get a Blu-ray player as well, the PS3 isn't worth buying specifically as a media centre.

Surprisingly, the Xbox 360 is the poorest of the consoles as a media centre. It has an online store (http:// social.zune.net/movies) that streams 1080p movies, but there's not much in it.



Out of the box, it doesn't work with a Mac, but with Connect360 (£12), you can stream and sync the majority of your media. However, unlike the Wii and the PS3, there's no web browser.

Best of the rest

The Apple TV has set-top box competitors, of course. However, they almost always have a fatal flaw.

Netgear's Digital Entertainer Elite (£242) is probably the pick of the bunch. It works with Macs, has USB ports for connecting sources of media, has all the TV outputs you could want, and works with more video and audio formats. It can even access online stores, and can upscale to 1080p. It boasts a 500GB drive that you can upgrade, too.

On paper, it's almost perfect, but some of the features advertised, such as playback of protected iTunes files, require a PC. It's also got a horrible, unintuitive interface and is far from easy to configure.

The Apple TV, like the Mac, is designed for everyone to be able to use, easily, and works equally well with Windows and Macs. The new Apple TV 3.0 software is far easier to use, and integrates content from linked computers far more simply. The ability to rent and buy from the iTunes Store directly from the Apple TV is the main draw, as is its ability to play content already on your Mac.

If a powerful media centre is what you want, the Apple TV isn't it. But if you want a very good media centre that everyone can use and which matches the Apple aesthetic, the Apple TV is the one for you.


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