Apple has today begun shipping Apple TV, a gadget that allows iTunes content to be played on your TV.
Apple TV, which includes the Apple remote, will be available beginning this week from www.apple.com and Apple-authorized resellers with a recommended retail price of €299.
The small, silver device is about 8 inches square and one inch tall. The 40GB hard drive claims to store up to 50 hours of video, 9,000 songs or 25,000 photos.
In order to use Apple TV a widescreen television is required, along with a Mac or PC computer, a wireless of Ethernet network and a broadband connection.
To connect to your television you need a HDMI to HDMI cable, HDMI to DVI cable and analog stereo or optical digital audio or similar compatible cable. This is not included in the Apple TV package.
Apple TV wirelessly plays all iTunes content from a PC or Mac on a widescreen TV, including movies, TV shows, music, photos and podcasts. Content is accessed and displayed via the Front Row interface, using the Apple remote.
Using one base computer as the ‘partner’, all content is physically transferred to the hard drive and each time new content is added or changed it gets synchronized via Wi-Fi on the Apple TV.
Although content is physically stored on the Apple TV from one computer, streaming content can be added from up to five additional computers.
The device is compatible with machines that run Windows or OS X but only plays iTunes content so in order to view movies they must be downloaded from the iTunes store or converted into the correct format.
By Marie Boran
