Apple TV: Unboxing

Ok, ok ... so I promised unboxing photos, and I didn't deliver. I'm very sorry for upsetting the internet (aka. Phil). So, here we are:

Click here for all the photos...

How beautiful is that? I've not really had much time to play with it (more on the reasons in my next post), but what I have seen has impressed me. There's been a lot of talk since the Apple TV started shipping of it's lack of features, but its clear to me (if Apple follow their usual model) that this is only the beginning. The Apple TV is basically a small Apple computer running a streamlined version of OSX. A simple software update can easily add new functionality ... and I hope it does.

Out of the box, it does exactly what it said it would do. You can connect to as many iTunes libraries over the network as you'd like, and stream the content directly to your TV. Alternatively you can select one of those libraries, and set it up as a 'sync to' library. Once setup the Apple TV appears in the iTunes device list as if it were an iPod, and you manage it in much the same way. Cool! The benefit being that you can access whatever content you copy across to it without the need for your PC or Mac to be on.

Music play back is just as good as Frontrow, if not better. It's very slick, and quick to access anything. The way in which podcasts are presented is slightly different, and makes it easy to navigate through any subscriptions.

For movies, I can't really comment. I have some H.264 movie trailers that I downloaded a while ago from the Quicktime Trailers website. They're all 720p HD, and they playback quite happily over my 802.11G WiFi network. The quality is pretty impressive, and in fact it's the first decent HD content I've seen on my TV. I mention that to point out I have nothing to compare it to :o)

It's a shame that it doesn't (yet?) support the playback of MPEG-2 content. I was rather hoping to create an archive of films on my server so that I could recall them on demand, but maybe that feature will have to wait. I've been reading that several people have already hacked the Apple TV to playback XVid/DivX material. Hopefully MPEG-2 playback is not to far away. (Not that there's anything wrong with H.264 ... but transcoding all my MPEG-2 content would be a real pain, and loose some of the quality!)

Hmm ... what else? It's very pretty - did I mention that?

All in all, I have to say that for £199 it's a bargain. Not just for me, but NMeM would benefit from a modded version of this beast for HD video playback. The next cheapest alternative is about £300, so it's worth playing with. Just think ... all gallery-based AV playback at NMeM could be soon powered by Apple TVs ... that's would have to get Apple's attention, surely?!

Apple TV

According to the TNT website, my Apple TV has made it all the way from Hong Kong. As I write it's 'out for delivery' somewhere in Bradford.

Finally ... a reason to go to work :o)

Unpacking photos soon!

UPDATE: Crikey ... I've had no time to play with the thing tonight. We've been too busy viewing a new apartment we're thinking of moving into. It's all very exciting, but the Apple TV got left behind. Maybe tomorrow night. Apologies for my lack of committment! Aparently moving house takes priority over new gadget unboxing photos. Damn the female race!

:o)

Podcasting Apples

Well that was fun...

I've just returned from a meeting at Apple's Europe HQ in London about podcasting. Admittedly, it was a Apple-biased view towards the technology behind podcasting, and they made the sweeping claim that 'podcasting' was a merging of the two words 'iPod' and 'Broadcasting'. Hmm ... they say it like they own it!

The day long event took us through the many new an innovative ways podcasts are being used in education, the museum sector and plebs like you and I. It was interesting to see so many universities there, with worried looking IT staff who have obviously been tasked with 'catching up with the bigger uni's' before the start of September term.

What was encouraging is the reinforcement of how simple a podcast is - from a technical point of view. It's just an audio, video or other media file ... and a little bit of XML. OK, so I knew that before I went all the way to London (don't tell my boss!), but I had one of those lightbulb moments sat there in the conference room. A year or two ago I pretty much decided that NMeM wasn't going to be streaming any big videos from their website, as the money involved (i.e. renting space on an streaming media server) usually worked against the constraints of the project (i.e. a project with no money!). So, I resigned myself to thinking of lower-bandwidth ways of delivering content. Audio seemed the most sensible, since we could host the files on our own web server. This worked fine, but as podcasting became more and more popular, it seemed to make sense to wrap these audio files with the necessary podcast XML. That way people could subscribe, blah blah blah ... you get the picture.

My 'lightbulb' moment is that I've been looking at audio-only solutions for too many months now. Whilst I've had my head down the world has moved on, and video podcasting is becoming increasingly popular. So - why not go back to hosting full-length videos? With podcasting there's no media streaming to worry about. OK, yeah - so there's a hit on bandwidth if you have a particularly large file that proves to be very popular, but not to the point of crippling our server.

I have to admit though, I'm not sure I'd fancy watching a 90 minute interview or documentary on that tiny iPod screen. But still ... I have seen the light.

It was also interesting to note that pretty much any file can be embedded into a 'podcast'. In theory you can deliver PDF or even word documents to your subscribers. Not much use for what I had in mind, but a great idea for delivering educational packages.

And then ... Apple talked about Podcast Producer.

Podcast Producer - although it wasn't made terribly clear at their presentation - is a service that will ship with OSX Leopard Server, and it looks set to make podcast production (on a mass scale) much easier. You simply create templates (using XML) for each type of podcast (audio, video or otherwise), and once you're setup you can integrate the service into your 'production pipeline' (I put that phrase in quote marks, as it makes me cringe whenever I use it!). Then, in theory, you can simply post a finished file to the server, and it will not only set about encoding the various versions you want, but it'll also make use of Qmaster or XGrid to speed up the process. Cool!

So that got me thinking ... to the point of asking the technical representative from Apple,

"There seems to have been a lot of hard work and development poured into
creating a solid, scalable encoding solution ... for making tiny MP3 files. Is this
likely to be a technology that we'll see Final Cut Studio v6 making use of?".

He admitted that he had no idea what was going to be included in the next FCP release, but he did point out that Podcast Producer is extremely flexible, and is designed to fit into existing production workflows. That would explain the support for both QMaster and XGrid. But still, this new technology looks far to good to leave out of the Final Cut suite. We shall have to wait until NAB to find out if my guess is correct!

Anyway, regardless of NAB and Podcast Producer, NMeM looks set to take podcasting it's events a little more seriously if I have my way. Watch this space! ;o)

Seussical (the Musical)

Ah, the end is in sight.

Today will be a long day ... with a afternoon and evening performance of "Seussical", and then about 3 hours of work to get all our sound equipment out ...

... but then it will be over. It feels like we've done six solid weeks of theatre shows, which in a way we have. It will be nice to get up tomorrow morning, and to not have to think about radiomics, mixdowns or batteries for once!

See y'all soon.

BBC: "Petrol firms say fuel not faulty"

This is an odd story ...

I can't quite work out whether there is genuinely something wrong with the fuel from these petrol stations, or whether it's the result of the BBC saying "Hey, there's something wrong with fuel across the country ... anyone having trouble with their cars lately?" ... and of course receiving thousands of emails saying "Yes."

The thing is, if they'd asked the same question two months ago, they'd have probably got the same number of results. There's a nice map here of where those emails are coming from:



Complete with the the following statement:

"... the map shows clearly that motorists are reporting that petrol stations all
over the country have been hit"

Erm ... no. The map clearly shows that motorists all over the country are whining about problems with their cars ... as they do every day of the week. I wish they wouldn't jump to conclusions so quickly.

Then again ... Miss. T's car has been having the symptoms described by many for the last two weeks. Loss of power, cut-outs and sluggish performance. Maybe there is something wrong with our fuel.

Hmm. Thank goodness I have a diesel ;o)

BBC: "Net firms tackle Vista headache"

Don't you just love the BBC's technology reporting? I frequently ridicule it here ;o)

This article appeared today, and it got me thinking. The article appears biased towards the ISP's complaint that Microsoft Windows Vista has 'broken' their software...

I'm sorry, but Windows Vista is a significant update to the Windows series, and it's changed many of the ways it handles system-level stuff ... such as networking. In fact, networking was one of the major focuses of the update!

This is an operating system that has been in beta for over a year now, and developers have had ample time to update their software. You'd have thought that these multi-million pound broadband companies such as Virgin, would have realised that some of their customers would be using Windows Vista as of February, and would have checked that their install CDs worked? Clearly not :o)

It almost sounds like I'm sympathising with Microsoft, which is rare. I'm not really ... it just frustrates me when global press organisations report on technology issues such as these, and point the finger of blame at the wrong person. Bah!

(I'm going to make a very good Grumpy Old Man, aren't I? :o)

February - Done.

Hello again.

Sorry, February has been a very busy month for me with three musical's to engineer the sound for, (A pantomime, West Side Story, and Seussical). I'm about half-way through the last one and my life should return to normality on Sunday (YAY!).

See you all soon...