WGS has looked at a number of digital media receivers, but we’ve yet to review Apple’s so called “hobby”, the Apple TV. Steve Jobs has gone on the record to state that the Apple TV is not yet part of the company’s core (no pun intended) business but it’s a product that they continue to tinker with from time to time, most recently with the release of a 3.0 software update for the product.

Perhaps more interestingly, a thriving community of developers has hacked the Apple TV and continue to add improvements and new features to the product. Today’s review will look at the vanilla offering from Apple and over the next few weeks, we’ll look at some of those community enhancements to see if Apple TV really is a viable digital media receiver for your home, or just a half-baked Californian hobby.

What is Apple TV?

Apple TV is a networked media player, which can playback music, video and photos from its internal 160GB hard drive, a PC with iTunes as well as stream online content on demand. If I was from Apple, I’d say:

Apple TV gives you access to an easy-to-navigate world of entertainment. Rent HD movies. Buy HD movies and get iTunes Extras. Buy HD TV shows. Listen to your iTunes music and Internet radio. Even show off your photos. Connect one HDMI cable and, just like that, your TV becomes more than just a TV.

Unlike every other digital media receiver you’ll try, Apple TV is of course hard wired into the Apply eco-system, so it’s tethered to iTunes. Now, I’ve got to tell you, I hate iTunes with a vengeance – I’m forced to use it to get content on to my iPhone and I find it slow, bloated, unwieldy and a pain to use.

What the Apple TV doesn’t do (inexplicably) is serve media from attached network storage devices – it’ll only connect to a PC with iTunes. Which sucks. That said, I’m prepared to give it a go with Apple TV to see what content is available for downloading and streaming, because Apple say:

HD movies. HD TV shows. HD podcasts. HD YouTube videos. With Apple TV, they’re all available on demand. You get instant access to newly released Hollywood hits and popular classic and library titles, including a large selection of on-demand HD movies. And now you can also purchase and watch your favourite TV shows in brilliant HD one day after they air. Or enjoy thousands of free HD podcasts or YouTube videos from around the world.

So, unlike most other digital media receivers around, we may find some decent, high quality video we actually give a stuff about watching. Of course, Apple also promise to show all of your photos on TV, and provide access to your whole music collection through the TV – that is, as long as it’s in the iTunes library.

With Apple TV, iTunes syncs wirelessly to your TV, so your entire music collection can now be played on the best speakers in your house. Use the Genius feature to create new playlists or Genius Mixes, or check out thousands of Internet radio stations that play every genre imaginable. You can also browse and buy music videos on the iTunes Store. And sync songs and videos purchased on Apple TV to your computer and iPod or iPhone.

Your photos deserve a bigger stage. Apple TV puts them on your widescreen TV, where everybody can see them in stunning HD. Select My Photos to browse photos from your Mac or PC. If you use iPhoto, you can find photos organized by Events or Faces. You can also access your Flickr photos or MobileMe Gallery. And you no longer have to huddle around a computer screen to see YouTube videos and podcasts, even in HD — Apple TV plays them big and bold on your TV’s spectacular screen.

Before we even get into the pack, let’s firstly take a step back and review the pricing. Check back at the top of the page and you’ll see a UK price of £219 and a US price of $229. That equates to a £70 premium for the privilege of buying in the UK. Not a great start, guys. Devices like the Popcorn Hour C-200 at $299 offer a wider range of features and formats, but without the internal 160Gb storage so the US pricing is reasonable. For the UK, there are definitely better value options out there.

What’s in the Box?

Ah, the famous Apple box opening experience – actually, the Apple TV isn’t too dramatically packaged, with a simple sleeve revealing a black box which opens up to present the Apple TV device itself and a small remote control.

Annoyingly, for such a premium priced package, Apple have decided to exclude any AV cables and look all you want, but you won’t find an Ethernet cable either. So when they say “Connect one HDMI cable and, just like that, your TV becomes more than just a TV”, what they mean is “Buy a HDMI cable ‘cos we’re to cheap to throw one in”. That’s an unacceptably poor customer experience, Apple. Fortunately, WGS has a few HDMIs and Ethernet cables stashed away, so no need for us to traipse all the way back to the Apple Store to buy high margin cables, unlike thousands of other customers, I’m sure!

First Looks

White polycarbonate? Check. Brushed aluminium? Check. Small white LED to denote power? Check. Okay, you know the score – the Apple TV looks great. Give them their dues, Apple are untouched when it comes to industrial design aesthetics and the Apple TV is small enough to tuck away in your TV cabinet but cute enough to leave out on show.

You’ll be hard pressed to find any buttons and controls on the hardware itself, but flip the Apple TV around and you’ll find a host of AV connectors at the rear, including HDMI, Component Video, Analogue and Optical Digital Audio ports. A power connector, USB 2.0 port and Ethernet (10/100, not Gigabit) socket completes the line up. If you don’t have your lounge wired for data, then the Apple TV comes with an 802.11n wireless connection built in. Allegedly good enough for video (as long as you have an 802.11n router) but I’d always play it safe and go for a powerline data connection.

Source Article:
Hands On: Apple TV

There are several situations in which you may find yourself needing to do a simple conversion of the audio contained inside an MKV file only to find out it’s not so simple after all. Despite the fact that the MKV format is a simple container for holding a video and audio files (as well as subtitles, chapters and other media) there aren’t too many options for working with the pieces contained within them. Demuxing (extracting) the parts contained in the MKV file and then working with them individually can be a somewhat daunting process for beginners and requires multiple pieces of software. Lucky, if you’re only in need of a simple program for working with the audio tracks contained inside Popcorn Audio Converter may have the solution you’re looking for.

To get started you’ll need to download the latest version of the Popcorn Audio Converter from the forums at Network Media Tank. Once installed launch the program and you will be prompted to allow for downloading a set of conversion utilities to assist in the conversion of the audio formats compatible with MKV. This simple method for obtaining the proper conversion tools is a handy addition to the program ensuring you’ve got all the proper software to accomplish the conversion without having to hunt down and download the packages manually.

Once the download has been completed you’ll notice that the once red boxes for inputting the locations of the tools, in the upper left hand corner of the program, have been filled in and are now white. If you should download a later version of any of the utilities used by Popcorn Audio Convertor you will need to use these input boxes to point the program to your preferred program location.

This should take care of the initial setup process of the program and you should now be all set to start your conversion. To begin, select the original MKV file you’d like to operate on in the Source File input box, which will be red until a file has been selected. Next determine the target file, this is the where you assign the name of the final converted file.

When you selected your input file you may have noticed that the text area below the file input area filled up with details on the original file. Use these details as a reference as to what is currently contained inside the MKV file. Next select the audio type from the tabbed options in the upper right hand area of the program that you’d like to convert. Choose the format of the original audio type currently contained in the file.

Under the tab for each audio format you’ll find numerous options for the conversion of that audio type. For example, under DTS you’ll be able to convert all the DTS tracks in this MKV file to AC3 Dolby Digital format. You can also adjust the bitrate or remove the DTS tracks from the MKV entirely. The other format options contain similar conversion possibilities though each original media type will have different format options available for the conversion.

Once the options have been set, simply press the Run button under the file input area to begin the process. A new dialog area will appear showing the conversion process as the file is demuxed, converted and finally re-muxed into a new file. The process is relatively quick, taking only a few minutes to convert a single audio track from a full length movie.

That’s all there is to it! A simple program that does it’s task very well and quite efficiently. The options may be somewhat limited but for the specific purpose of converting formats that are incompatible with your software or hardware the program performs very well. A perfect example of a program designed for a single specific purpose without the frills making it simple to use for beginners and advanced users alike.

Source Article:
Audio Conversion using Popcorn Audio Converter

Previously, getting MKV to work properly inside Windows 7 Media Center has required quite a bit of effort on the part of the end user. It was necessary to install a number of third party codecs, make modifications to the registry and tweak codec settings to get everything to play nicely. By default Windows 7 Media Center uses a new method for playing back audio video content known as Windows Media Foundation which replaces the older method known as DirectShow. Unfortunately, every codec package available to this point is programmed for DirectShow and doesn’t take advantage of the new WMP format meaning playing non-supported formats was a substantial hassle.

Luckily for us there is a small light at the end of the tunnel in the form of Divx Lab’s MKV project. The Divx Lab’s project aims to utilize the Windows Media Foundation to enable playback of the popular MKV format on both the main Media Center machine as well as extenders. Not only does this mean support for extenders but it could also very well mean the end to playing with various codec package settings to tweak the audio/video settings to match the output of the default Media Center playback.

Beyond enabling playback through your Windows Media Center Extenders, the picture quality of the Windows Media Foundation solution is incredible and contains complete DVXA hardware acceleration support. So not only is the quality fantastic but hardware acceleration will keep frame rates right where they should be without the drops that can sometimes occur with CPU intensive codecs such as FFDShow.

Using Divx Lab’s MKV preview video quality is amazing in full 1080p without so much as a hint of latency in the playback. There are still a few downsides to using the preview though. For instance, you’ll still be required to install a third party codec for audio playback depending on the audio encoding used for your movies. The newest version of AC3Filter is all you’ll need though and provides ACM wrapper allowing the playback to be passed through Windows Media Foundation as well.

To give this great new product a try just head on over to the Divx Labs MKV Tech Preview page and create an account. Then hit up the Project Rémoulade Apps group page for a list of downloads and grab the latest version of the tech preview. To get your MKV files to show up in the native movie library you’ll still need to install the registry fix for either x86 systems or x64 systems depending on the OS being used. Don’t forget to grab the latest version of AC3Filter Full as well if you need extra support for AC3 audio and install that as well.

That’s all you need to give this tech preview from Dixv Labs a try and get MKV videos playing through the new Windows Media Foundation system.