I must admit that when Apple first announced that YouTube support was coming to Apple TV, I yawned. Don’t get me wrong. I absolutely love YouTube and I think it’s revolutionized the way we think about content on the web. However, I just couldn’t imagine the concept of watching YouTube videos from the comfort of my own living room. I honestly never had the desire to do so before so why would I want to now? YouTube, for me, was relegated to the computer screen – not my HDTV display. Thus when Apple announced the Apple TV update was finally available on Wednesday.. I yawned yet again. I thought to myself “That’s nice. I finally get some YouTube videos. Big Whoop.”

Well folks – after updating Apple TV tonight and playing with some of the YouTube functionality and of course watching some YouTube videos, I am here to say that I was wrong with my early judgments and I am now a believer of the concept. OMG.. did a PC fan boy just say that? Yup.. he did. So let’s go over the latest Apple update to Apple TV and in particular, let’s look at what YouTube and Apple TV has to offer.

Update Process

Let’s get the version details out of the way first. This update brings the software version running on Apple TV to version 1.1.  I’ll quickly go over the Apple Update procedure.

To update the Apple TV, go to the top level menu and select “Settings”:

Once you’re in “Settings’, scroll down until you see “Update Software”.

Select “Update Software” and you’ll see the following screen.

You can decide not to “Update Now” but we didn’t. Once you select “Download Now”, you’ll be sent back to the “Settings” menu where you’ll notice the previously selected menu item has turned from “Update Software” to “Downloading Update…” Be warned folks – the download will take several minutes to finish.

Once the download is finished, you’ll see the following screen:

You can “Update Now” or “Update Later”. You might as well update now. Once I selected that option, I saw a single lone silver Apple.

In fact the silver Apple stayed on the display for quite some time.. then everything went black.

After a moment, the silver Apple came back..

Only to go away again..and then back. Later a larger silver Apple came up on the display (though I suspect the video resolution was changed temporarily).

After some time, the silver Apple finally was accompanied by an installation progress bar beneath it.

After a few minutes of updating, the opening Apple TV splash came up and everything was up and running again.

Here’s a picture of the top level menu. Notice the new addition?

Here’s the menu before the update. As you can see, YouTube is now a menu item right along with Movies, Music, Podcasts, and Photos.

YouTube Integration

Click into the YouTube menu and you’ll see the following menu structure.

The list consists of:

• Featured – Featured video clips from YouTube’s library
• Most Viewed – The most viewed video clips sorted by time
• Most Recent – The latest video clips added to YouTube
• Top Rated – The highest rated YouTube video clips sorted by time
• History – Look at the past video clips you viewed on YouTube
• Search – Search for specific video clips based using keywords
• Log In – Log into your YouTube account

If you log into your YouTube account, the menu structure will change slightly. An extra menu item is added to the list (”Favorites”).

Logging in requires you to use an on screen keyboard that looks as follows.

You’ll be asked for your YouTube account name and your password.

“Featured” Videos

Featured videos are selected video clips from YouTube’s vast array of user uploaded content. These aren’t necessarily the highest viewed or highest rated clips so bear that in mind. Here’s the snapshot of the feature.

This user interface is common throughout the YouTube related menus. Individual videos are along the right hand side complete with their title, submitter, length of time, number of views, and current rating. The left hand pane shows a snapshot of the video clip along with a description of the video provided by the submitter. You’ll also find information about when the video was uploaded, what category it’s uploaded to, and what keywords the submitter associated the video with.

To play back a YouTube video, you simply highlight the video you want to view on the right hand side and press play on the remote. The video begins to stream to your device and playback begins within a matter of seconds. I’ll get into playback quality shortly.

If you press the menu button during playback you’ll see a menu list as follows:

You can resume the video playback, go back to the YouTube menu, or perform additional options. The additional options are interesting because it’s here where you can rate the video, save it to favorites or flag the video as inappropriate. In order for you to rate the video clip or save it to favorites, you need to be logged into YouTube from Apple TV so make sure you have a YouTube account.

“Most Viewed” Videos

Most viewed provides you a list of the most viewed videos sorted by time (”Today”, “This Week”, and “All Time”). This gives you a quick glimpse into what is popular right now (or in the past) on YouTube and it’s arguably my favorite feature of Apple TV. Don’t get me wrong – the “Features” section is nice but what I really want to know is what everyone else is interested in right now. This menu really gives you that sort of instant gratification.

Here I selected the top video on the list which was the entitled “BGT FINAL”. Here’s the opening shots of the video playback:

Note – pressing the menu button here will give you the same options as before – “Resume”, “Return to YouTube Menu”, and “Options”. Now if the video clips’ submitter had other videos, you’d see his list of related videos here as well.

The right hand list shows 20 videos at a time. When you get to the bottom of the list, you can ask Apple TV to load the information for the next 20 videos.

“Most Recent” Videos

Videos are constantly being added to YouTube all around the clock and this where you’ll find them on Apple TV.. well sort of. Keep in mind that YouTube is still converting their entire video collection to H.264 right now. This will undoubtedly take some time given how many millions of videos they must have. YouTube will eventually catch up and offer all of the videos in H.264.

“Top Rated” Videos

This section gives you the top rated videos on YouTube sorted by “Today”, “This Week”, and “All Time”. The current top rated video today is the “Microsoft Surface Parody” (which I saw and I must say is pretty funny).

“History”

The History section provides a list of the videos that you’ve watched on YouTube via Apple TV. This gives you a quick way to go back to a video you saw some time ago just in case you find it difficult to find that video again. You can also clear the history simply by selecting “Clear History”.

“Search”

Search is exactly that – search for videos by typing out keywords or strings. Hopefully the matching video or videos will come up. The matching videos come up on the right hand side as you type the search terms on the left.

Playback quality

If there was one concern that I had with YouTube on Apple TV, it was going to be the video playback quality. It’s one thing to view YouTube videos within a browser window on your computer desktop. The darn thing is tiny so you’re not going to notice the blocky-ness of the video clip. It’s an entirely different thing when it comes to viewing YouTube videos on a 46 inch LCD HDTV display such as mine.

So how did it fare?

Let’s get right to the point - video playback wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. Now granted, my expectations were next to zero at this point so perhaps anything would have made me happy. However, I was pleasantly surprised with some of the streamed video content coming from YouTube and I believe a lot of this has to do with the H.264 encoding of YouTube content. I would assume that YouTube went back to the original user submitted videos to convert from. If that is the case, then it would explain why some of the video content is better than what is available via the web browser. However, keep in mind that you’ll get a wide range of video qualities depending on the video capture device and the original resolution of the capture. People who capture videos on their mobile phones will certainly get different playback qualities than say someone who used a digital camcorder or an HD camcorder.

Of course when the video playback quality is bad.. it’s bad. However, I did find myself rather forgiving in those instances – simply because I was enjoying the YouTube experience. Don’t get me wrong -  you’re going to get a mixed bag of video content via this service integration.. but you know what? It’s fun!

If you’re using a widescreen display you’ll be happy to hear that widescreen video clips will automatically fill the screen. That’s a nice feature because you really do get a feeling that your entire screen real estate space is being utilized – even if the video playback is crappy at times.

Is it just me or is…

I was curious to see what video quality was going to be like across the board on Apple TV – not just in the YouTube section – so I went ahead and viewed some trailers, TV clips, and even content that I had previously purchased via iTunes.

Now is it me.. or is video playback quality on the device better in this software update? It’s still not on par with high definition quality by any means but the videos seem better somehow. (yes. I know – better is so subjective)

Seriously – to the people that own Apple TVs - look at the online trailers.. or the TV episode clips available through the iTunes lists. The videos just seem a bit more crisp than before and the colors appear to be a bit more accurate (or life like?). It’s almost as if the video decoding was smoothing out the blocky-ness that I had witnessed earlier actually.

I honestly can’t verify this since I don’t have the previous version available to compare against. Everything is relative to what’s stuck in my mind. Was it my imagination? What do you folks think? Did video decoding get improved?

Back to YouTube and Apple TV

Anyhow, let’s get back to YouTube and Apple TV. As I stated in the opening paragraph, I’ve become a believer in the YouTube integration efforts. Originally I thought that I would never be interested in viewing YouTube clips from the living room couch. They’re fun to watch on your PC at work or in your off hours.. but on your TV screen? Hmm no way.

However after twenty minutes of looking through the content, I found myself absolutely absorbed by the videos available to me now.

Consider this. You select a video to watch.. you watch it.. and then when you’re done. What happens next? You’re presented with a whole new list of videos to watch from the same user.. and if not, you can always back out and view content from hundreds of thousands of other YouTube users. Next thing you know, you’ll have watched 30 to 60 minutes of video and you’ll want more. It’s deceptively addicting on the big screen. Yes the video quality could be improved but YouTube on a big screen is something to behold.

Where I see this being incredibly successful is in the party scene – whether it’s at home or in a business. Imagine gathering a bunch of people together to watch some stupid online parody or video clip of lonelygirl15 (or whatever her nick is). Suddenly you’re not alone anymore – you have your friends there with you enjoying the same content that you’re enjoying - sharing the same laughs and smiles as a result (or cries?).

Yes, the online world meets the offline world in the living room! (Hey .. did I just make that up?)

As YouTube catches up with their entire video library, I can totally see the following happening. Say you want to share a video clip with family members across the country. You can already do this by uploading your video to YouTube and having your relatives watch the clip within their browser. However, now folks with Apple TV devices can suddenly access the same video clip right from the comfort of their living room. Suddenly the concept of sharing a video clip online with your mom or brother or sister because even more of a reality. The same could be said of YouTube content on the iPhone.. but I think the real joy is being able to relax on your couch and viewing all this great (and many more not so great) content at home.

Final thoughts on the experience. About the only feature I wish Apple included with the YouTube integration was a “Random” or “Shuffle” menu item. It would be so cool to simply click Random within the “Top Rated” video clips and let Apple TV cycle through various videos to play back. This would be ideal for a social gathering. Also – a “Play All” feature would be welcomed too – although the “Play All” would need to have some limitations of course

Summary

I really had mixed feelings about Apple TV when it first came out. Honestly it felt like a glorified networked iPod that was connected to your television screen. In many ways that hasn’t quite changed yet. However the inclusion of YouTube content makes Apple TV even more compelling simply because so much content is now freely available to you from the Internet. Sure video quality could be better but it’s the addictive nature of watching YouTube that sucks you in. Up until now, I was strictly using Apple TV as a way to play back music from my home theater system (although I also use Windows Media Center for that very same purpose). Now I think I’ll be drawn into the YouTube world a bit more.

I’ll end this by saying that phrase again.

Apple TV + YouTube = Where the Online World meets the Offline World in your Living Room.

yeah.. I like that phrase

What do you folks think?

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