luminary blur

I listened to Episode 5 of Don Reisinger’s great The Digital Home podcast on the way home from work today. I enjoyed everything that Andy Ihnatko had to say (as I almost always do) and most of what James McQuivey of Forrester Research had to say. That is until he got to talking about the Apple TV.

I’m so sick of hearing about how the Apple TV is a mere extension of the iTunes Store. They say it’s essentially a rental box. A rental box! As if the only reason one would purchase an Apple TV is to rent and/or buy stuff for it. I’m not denying that the device is woefully limited in the formats it supports, mainly H.264 for video and MP3 or AAC for audio (heck, it won’t even play the Audible audiobooks that every other Apple device can play). But it does do more than play media bought from iTunes. In fact, I didn’t purchase my Apple TV to play purchased content at all.

Some of the reasons I bought an Apple TV:

• My entire music collection—purchased from iTunes (and Amazon MP3 store), ripped from CD, etc.—is in the iTunes jukebox. Thus, it is on my Apple TV.
• I rip every DVD I come across using Handbrake. It has a great preset called Apple TV which creates beautiful H.264 video files. If I want it to be portable, Handbrake also lets me rip DVDs at a lower bitrate suitable for the iPhone. Once the DVD is ripped, it goes in to my iTunes library. See previous bullet.
• Podcasts. Audio, video, it doesn’t matter. Podcasts are great on Apple TV, especially the HD ones. Diggnation in HD is awesome!
• AirTunes. With the Apple TV 2.0 firmware, I can now stream my library to the Apple TV without touching the Apple TV. Ok, I have to make sure my A/V system is set to the right input, but beyond that everything can be done from my iMac. Very cool.

There you go. Four great reasons to use an Apple TV that don’t necessary involve viewing only rented/purchased content. Take that, James McQuivey.

written by Ben \\ tags: Apple, Apple TV, Handbrake, Tech