Steve Jobs gave tantalizing glimpses of some Apple related things, and remained tight-lipped about others, in this interview with Walt Mossberg at the Wall Street Journal's D Conference (via Podcasting News).
The stuff about Apple TV is what interests me. To date I've remained unconvinced that Apple TV would be useful to me (see my previous rant here). But now that Apple TV is offering YouTube browsing, I hope that this signals further developments that might make it more useful to me. Apple have announced a fatter version of Apple TV with a 160 GB hard disk, so this does seem likely.
But what I need to know, before even considering buying one of these, either fat or thin, is this: will the Apple TV work with a monitor rather than a widescreen TV? I can't justify the purchase of a widescreen TV, but I do have a 19" widescreen computer monitor with a DVI input. This works with my Panasonic DVR using an adapter cable (HDMI to DVI) and it works with my MacBook using the same cable plus Apple's adapter. It seems reasonable to suppose that this set-up would work with Apple TV, but I don't know.
Anyone?
Showing posts with label Apple TV. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Apple TV. Show all posts
Saturday, 2 June 2007
Saturday, 3 March 2007
Tech, TV, Apple, DivX (repost from other blog)
I was fascinated when Steve Jobs announced the Apple TV. I like the idea of watching on TV media that has so far been confined to my computer.
There appear, however, to be a number of snags.
Last week I bought from a local Argos Extra store, for £29.99, a Bush DVD2054DIVX DVD-player. So far it's played every .avi file I've tried in it, and I also found on the web a remote-hack to convert it to multi-region. It not only plays all my region 1 and region 2 DVDs, and my .avi files (whether on CD-R or DVD-R), but also mp3s and jpegs.
The 2054 is not listed in the current Argos catalogue or on the website. I went to the store to buy the 2051, which has an entirely different, compact form-factor. The 2054, however, is the conventional width, and fits better with other equipment. They told me when I paid that it might have 'some cosmetic differences.'
"Fine," I said, "as long as it does DivX."
There appear, however, to be a number of snags.
- First, my TV is an old Toshiba 4:3 CRT with SCART and phono sockets. No way would the Apple TV interface to it without an expensive conversion box of some kind. But what about a widescreen LCD computer monitor? -- these can be quite cheap, even with a DVI input, and Apple are already selling reasonably priced HDMI-to-DVI cables. That might work. Maybe.
- Second, some of the media I'd like to watch on my TV is intended for Windows Media Player, and I've installed various codecs into QuickTime so that I can watch this stuff on my MacBook. Couldn't I install these codecs on the Apple TV's internal hard disk? Highly unlikely. (I could transcode the files so that they play in standard QuickTime, but the idea is to make them easier to watch, not more difficult.)
Last week I bought from a local Argos Extra store, for £29.99, a Bush DVD2054DIVX DVD-player. So far it's played every .avi file I've tried in it, and I also found on the web a remote-hack to convert it to multi-region. It not only plays all my region 1 and region 2 DVDs, and my .avi files (whether on CD-R or DVD-R), but also mp3s and jpegs.
The 2054 is not listed in the current Argos catalogue or on the website. I went to the store to buy the 2051, which has an entirely different, compact form-factor. The 2054, however, is the conventional width, and fits better with other equipment. They told me when I paid that it might have 'some cosmetic differences.'
"Fine," I said, "as long as it does DivX."
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