ThisIsLeon.co.uk

(with a little help from my iPhone)

So I finally gave in and brought an Apple TV last month and managed to get a little discount thanks to the Thanksgiving Sale. It was a long and arduous decision; I read many blogs and really did my research as i’d heard mixed reviews about the device. I must admit that the ability to install Boxee onto it did swing my decision slightly. 

The ATV out of the box is a bit pants (a bit like the iPhone) but with a few simple hacks the thing can be really good – again like the iPhone. For this reason I decided to apply the aTV hack. I even forked up the 30 quid for it. The process was simple and easy and I now have a device that will play almost any media file. I can also use my favourite FTP client Transmit to get files onto the hard drive. This is great as I don’t have to rely on iTunes to get video’s and movies onto it.

The best bit is that I have hooked it up so that I don’t even need my TV on to enjoy music. To do this I ditched the HDMI option and went for component leads. As I don’t have any HD video content  the difference isn’t noticeable, plus I still get 1080i resolution over component.

The advantage of using component is that I have the video going to my TV, but the audio is sent to a set of old PC speakers. This means that I use the Remote App on my iPhone to control the ATV when the TV is turned off. Apart from being a brilliant gadget I can control the music from anywhere, and save power (and the TV screen) by not having the TV on just to get the music to come through the TV speakers.

For me this is great as I can even play on the Wii and have music all at the same time.

The next step is to get a full 5.1 surround sound system and use the digital connection for the sound output, but for now a cheap pair of 2.1 PC speakers is more than good enough.