The second major product announcement for Apple at MacWorld was of course the iTV erum.. Apple TV product. As we knew from September ’06′s announcement, Apple TV was all about streaming content from your iTunes library to your television set. Today, we get WAY more details on the whole product.
So what exactly is Apple TV? It’s a wireless device designed to bridge your computer to your television set. With Apple TV in place, you’ll be able to view your music, photos, movies, and videos all on your television set with the help of iTunes and a little bit of networking.
Let’s say you want to watch movies – simply download the movies from iTunes, Sync them to the Apple TV device, and watch them directly on your display – that’s it!
Let’s look into the technical specs of Apple TV before we go further into the capabilities that Apple is bringing to the table.
- Intel processor inside
- 40GB Hard Drive
- Supports 802.11b/g/n
- Supports video formats: H.264 and protected H.264 (from iTunes Store): 640 by 480, 30 fps, LC version of Baseline Profile; 320 by 240, 30 fps, Baseline profile up to Level 1.3; 1280 by 720, 24 fps, Progressive Main Profile. MPEG-4: 640 by 480, 30 fps, Simple Profile
- Supports audio formats: AAC (16 to 320 Kbps); protected AAC (from iTunes Store); MP3 (16 to 320 Kbps); MP3 VBR; Apple Lossless; AIFF; WAV
- Supports photo formats: PEG, BMP, GIF, TIFF, PNG
- Ports include: HDMI, Component video, Optical audio, Analog RCA stereo audio, 10/100 Ethernet, USB 2.0, Integrated IR receiver for Apple remote
- Measures 7.7 x 7.7 x 1.1 inches and weighs 2.4 lbs
Since Apple TV comes with a 40 GB hard drive built right in, you can store up to 50 hours of movies or videos, 9000 songs, or nup to 25,000 pictures right on the device.
Apple TV supports 802.11n which is important if you plan on streaming or syncing video content from your PCs to the device. On the TV connector end, Aple TV supports 480p, 576p, 720p, or 1080i.
Finally – how does this all really work? You simply open up iTunes and the connected Apple TV device will show up on the devices list. You then tell iTunes what content you’d like to sync to the device – whether it’s new unwatched content or new purchases or something manual you’d like to set up yourself. You can also have Apple TV stream content from your PC to the device in case you don’t want to use the sync capabilities. Finally, Apple TV can stream content from up to 5 other PCs/Macs.
The new Apple TV will be available starting in February and will sell for $299 (which will get you the device, a 40GB hard drive inside, and a remote control).
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