Apple TV 2nd Generation

So today my Apple TV (2nd Generation) turned up, and I have to say I’m pretty impressed.

Anybody who knows me or has been reading these my post, will know that over the last couple of years, I’ve become an Apple fan boy I’ve gradually replaced my MP3 player, my phone, my PCs and even my entire network with Apple products, and as time has gone by, I’ve organised my entire music collection to be “iTunes friendly”.

I’ve been toying with the idea of an Apple TV for a while now, and very nearly bought one of the 1 generation ones about 2 months ago.

I’ve been using a piece of software on my MacMini called MediaLink, to stream my iTunes content to my PS3, which to be honest has been working pretty well, apart from the fact that it won’t play DRM media.

So the announcement was made early in September that a new Apple TV would be out shortly, so me being me ordered one.

So what’s it like ?

Now this is the first time I’ve used an Apple TV, so some of the features I’m raving about, might have been in the first generation.

First of all, it’s size, this thing is tiny, it literally fits in the palm of my hand.

The device has a very small white light on the front, the flashes with the remote press. The rear has a USB port, a HDMI port, power port and an optical output.

Setup, as with any Apple product was painless, plugged it in, selected my language, added my apple ID and that was it, good to go.

So what is an Apple TV ?

Basically, it’s a device which allows you to stream content from the web, and a PC or Mac which is running iTunes home sharing (please note, you have to have iTunes 10 installed for it to be picked up)

The main menu gives you a few options.

Movies, and then the sub menu of Top Movies, Genres, Search and in Theaters.

The movie collection is huge, and everything I searched for came back with a result (kinda like the movie selection in iTunes)

The “in Theaters” option was essentially what you get on Apples trailer site, all the trailers for whats in the cinema right now.

The next tab is Internet, with the option of YouTube, Podcasts, MobileMe, Flickr and Radio.

The Youtube option will allow you to sign in and see your subscriptions.

The podcast option does what it says on the tin, it opens up the content as found in the iTunes store and splits them into Audio, Video or all. You can then “add to favourites”, which will let you know how many unwatched episodes you have, it also remembers your position which I thought was a good feature.

I don’t have a MobileMe account, but assume if I had, I would be able to stream from this.

The Flickr allows you to subscribe to public users and view their content. I can’t see a way of signing in, as this would be perfect as I’m a Flickr pro subscriber and have my entire photo collection hidden online, it would be nice to be able to access these.

Finally there’s the radio, which is the same content as the Radio tab in iTunes.

The next tab is Computers. Basically any machine that you have iTunes on (version 10 or above) with Home Sharing enabled, you can stream all you content from them.

Finally you have the settings tab, which you can…..well change the settings

2 interesting features in the settings are the AirPlay, and Remotes.

The Airplay allows you to use the Apple TV as an Airport Express, and the Remote option allows you to use you iPhone as a remote control. As your probably aware, the iPhone remote app has recently been upgraded to support the Apple TV. The app works with gesture controls, swipe left and right for fast forward and backward, tap to pause and play, and the godsend was being able to type in when searching. There is also flick up to get to chapter, and 2 finger left swipe to roll back 10 seconds, you can even move the onscreen content using this !

The AirPlay is pretty cool too, now granted, to play media from my Mac by selecting Computers > Mac Mini > Music > Album > Play or I also have the option to connect to my MacMini via the Apple Remote app, select the Album > Play > select the Apple TV as the speakers. This will not only output the audio to the Apple TV, but it will also display the album art and ID tag of the track being played.

Now I subscribe to a lot of podcasts, and it’s nice to see that if I’m looking at my Computers library, I then watch or listen to a podcast, this syncs back to the library. There was nothing more annoying than watching something using MediaLink, then having to Screenshare onto my MacMini to mark them as watched. This seems to be the same for Movies and TV too.

So far I’ve very happy with this device, and I guess I’ll be spending the next couple of months converting all my DVD’s to mp4 format and adding these to my iTunes library.

For anyone who uses iTunes for their media content, and if you have a spare £99, I suggest getting one of these.

As always, unboxing photos are below.

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Gear4 AirZone FM ‘Follow Me’

As I mentioned in my previous post (Vectra SRI CDTi), I was bugged that it didn’t have an MP3 player. Well I thought, maybe I can change the head unit, or pull this one out, and see if it had any auxiliary sockets at the back, then I thought….Ooooo, why don’t I just get one of the FM transmitter thingys.

First off I bought myself a ITrip, which even though it stated on the box that it was compatible with the Ipod touch, this apparently didn’t mean the 2G. I bought it, plugged it into my ipod, sat in the car, turned on the stereo, pressed play….and nothing, no LCD display, nothing. So lucky for me, I hadn’t even left Curry’s carpark, so took it back for a refund Pretty glad I did, as it was almost double the price that is was online at other leading retailers.

That night I came home and did a little research, and found that Gear4 also did one, however this used the RDS technology to a, display the ID tags as the radio station, and b, send a signal to the headunit, if it moved stations.

This turned up on Thursday at work, ripped it out of the box, plugged it in…..nothing……

Luckily, my office seems to have been taken over by Apple in the last couple of months, it went from nothing apple to, 4 Iphone 3G’s, and 4 Ipod Touch 2G’s.

I kindly as a few people to try it in their, and it worked….DOH !

Got home that night pretty gutted, as my Ipod seemed to have a fault with it, so C decided she ought to by an Ipod Touch as it had been tested and working with several in the office.

Long story short, C bought an Ipod Touch from the shiny Mecca that is the Apple store (there are no Ipod touches anywhere…..believe me, we tried, but that’s another story), and we got to try it out.

It works, and works well.

The button on the left scans the radio waves where you are and finds the clearest frequencies, once found it sets itself to this (eg 99.9 FM seems good near me). Hit play and your away, it scrolls the ID tag along it’s own screen in a very cool blue LED font, as well as displays the frequency it’s using. Program your radio to pick this up, and all is cool.

The quality is good, I wouldn’t say is it CD quality, but around the same as a well tuned in radio station (I know, I know, obviously, however just thought I’d point that out if anybody though it was going to be as good as the MP3 dock you get is some cars, personally I don’t think it is).

We did get a little interference, however this was fixed by moving the Ipod from underneath the head unit, to a SunGlasses holder above the centre console, we realised we were actually getting interference from the windscreen wipers.

While driving from home to Leicester, it did adjust it’s frequency from 99.9 to 99.7 and with it being RDS, the Head Unit re-tuned itself (very cleaver I thought).

Conclusion, for £30, it beats buying and fitting a new head unit, the quality isn’t perfect, but very good.

Spec Below.

Tags: 2g, 4, AirZone, Apple, apple store, Box, carpark, cdti, Clearsearch, curry, Display, dock, FM, fm transmitter, Follow, frequency, G. I, Gear, Head, home, interference, iphone, ipod, ipod touch, itrip, lcd display, led font, Me, mecca, mp3 player, night, nothing, office, quality, radio, radio station, radio waves, RDS, rds technology, signal, sockets, SRI CDTi, station, story, technology, touch, unit

Vauxhall Vectra SRI CDTI (150)

Due to C taking a new job, we were forced to buy a new car. Lucky for us, in the current climate, we were able to pick up a decent car for a fraction of the price.

As you can probably tell by the title, we picked up an 08 plate Black Vauxhall Vectra SRI CDTI (150). Granted it’s a diesel, but it’s quick. The 150 stands for 150bhp, and it even pulls in 6th. On my final trek back from the garage, I had to do a junction on the M6, and I got to put my foot down a little, the pull I got from the car, but a big smile on my face. I know the car is only 150bhp, but when you’ve been used to driving a 1.4 Clio, this is a massive improvement.

The car has electric everything, really nice to drive. Couple of downsides though, in an 08 car, I expected as a minimum that the car would have an MP3 player, or at least a 3.5mm jack to connect an mp3 player.

Another weird downside of the stereo is….it doesn’t turn off when you kill the ignition ? I got out of the car last night, locked it up, and the continued to play, thinking this was some kind of delay thing, I left it for a minute or 2, and still it played. I can see the battery going flat me thinks.

edit: Fixed the stereo, it was a setting.

Tags: 5mm, bhp, Black, car, cdti, cdti 150, climate, decent car, diesel, downside, foot, foot down, fraction, garage, Granted, job, junction, Lucky, m6, massive improvement, mp3 player, new car, new job, plate, player, price, smile on my face, sri, SRI CDTi, stereo, title, trek, vauxhall, vauxhall vectra sri, vectra