Everyone’s heard of the iPod. This small, sleek device help revolutionize the way music people listen to music. Apple wasn’t the first company to produce a small mp3 playing device, but they’re ability to market it was superb. In addition, Apple is great at designing electronics that look beautiful and are easy to use. Yet very few people have heard of the Apple TV.
The Apple TV came out in March of 2007. It only supports enhanced-definition or high-definition televisions, plugging in with either HDMI or component video (as opposed to RCA, or the red/white/yellow wires most people are used to). The Apple TV will function with a standard TV if it has component input, but the picture may be distorted. Audio can be transferred using the usual RCA audio connectors or optical.
Next you connect your computer to the device using either Ethernet or wifi. This is how you transfer videos to the device. It also has a USB port for diagnostic purposes. It comes with an Apple Remote to use with the device. The Apple TV has a forty gigabyte hard drive and syncs like an iPod. Each Apple TV can be paired with a computer’s iTunes library. Syncing copies your videos from your computer onto the Apple TV. The Apple TV can then be removed from the network and used independently from iTunes, just like an iPod. Videos can also be streamed straight to the Apple TV. Up to five computers can stream videos to a single Apple TV. This means that you don’t have to sync or move files on to the Apple TV. The Apple TV can load the files over the network straight from a computer and play them on your television.
The Apple TV supports a variety of formats. Videos can be encoded either in H.264 or MPEG-4. It supports AAC, mp3, Apple Lossless, AIFF, and WAV audio formats. It also supports JPEG, BMP, GIF, TIFF, and PNG formats for images. In addition, Apple QuickTime, Apple’s video playing software for computers, has an export function to re-encode videos that weren’t originally compatible with the Apple TV for use with the device.
Just like with the iPod, Apple wasn’t the first to have this idea. In fact, it has been around for years. In my apartment we simply have a computer plugged directly into our TV at all times, and other computers are plugged into the TV once in a while too. However, hopefully Apple will bring this into the mainstream just like the iPod brought mp3 playing devices into the mainstream. Microsoft’s attempts at media center PCs was, in my opinion, not very successful. We’ll see if Apple does better with the Apple TV!
Monthly Archives: April 2007
Garlic Chicken
Garlic Chicken
By Peter Anargirou
Everyone should know how to create at least one delicious dinner, but in all honesty, many of us don’t. Luckily, you’re about to learn how to create a delicious roasted chicken with garlic sauce dinner. It looks great, tastes wonderful, and best of all, it’s easy.
Ingredients:
- 3 or 4 whole chicken legs
- 3 bulbs of garlic
Diamond & Pearl
If anyone has Diamond or Pearl, e-mail me so we can trade friend codes. Any email @ this domain name comes through.
Catching Up
Funny how I only do these little summary posts now.
Quarter went okay. I got an A, B+, and B-. I’m feeling really burned out though. The second half of last quarter didn’t feel too great, and this one’s not feeling all that great either. I just wish there was some sort of break from it besides these little one week pieces of crap. My classes do seem interesting this quarter though.
A few weeks ago gem and I went to a science fiction convention in LA. I’m not sure if I ever mentioned it. I met Ray Park, who played Darth Maul among other cool characters, along with Daniel Logan, who played young Boba Fett. I took my photo with them and purchased an autographed picture of Park. Earlier that same day, gem and I found two all white bunnies on campus. There are a lot of bunnies around, but I’ve never seen white ones on campus. One had black spots, and one was completely white. gem and I were both able to pet one of them too! It was pretty awesome in all actuality. I should post pictures somewhere. Actually, look on Facebook in the next couple of days.
For my birthday, I went to TGIF with gem, Antonio, and Allison at midnight of my birthday so I could order drinks. Later that day, at a normal dinner time, I went out for a more secluded dinner. Then on Friday I went out with 12 guests to BJ’s. It was fun 🙂 Those pictures are up courtesy of Ratana. I haven’t posted my own yet. I guess I’m lazy. Plus, none of the photo hosts really please me. DeviantArt is for art… Facebook’s alright I guess… MySpace doesn’t really support large amounts of photos… flickr I just don’t get (I’d prefer albums, etc.). I guess Facebook’ll do.
Break was a welcome, er, break, from school. I hung out with Edward and my brother a bit, and then William came over. He stayed most of the week. I guess he hates Long Beach, which is understandable, lol. We watched TMNT, lots of Scrubs, beat Alien Hominid, and beat Metal Slug 6. I also beat episode 4 of Doom (the original) over break as well as Shadow of the Colossus. Shadow of the Colossus is an amazing game that I won’t really bother going into depth about here, but trust me, it’s amazing. I’m playing through a second time now, and I ordered Ico off of eBay earlier this week. William sold me his N64 too. Yay.
Disneyland. Went there too. It’s so much fun. I picked up an annual pass too, although I guess I don’t have that many people to go with anymore. Still, fun!
Also over break, William, my gf, and I built my LEGO Ultimate Collector’s Edition Imperial Star Destroyer. It’s truly awesome. Truly indeed. Takes up half of my dining room table now.
I ordered four tshirts off of Threadless today. They’re so awesome. One has 99 red balloons on it. How great is that? Reminds me of Alex =D
Next weekend I’m going on vacation to Vegas for three days. I’m looking forward to that.
I guess that’s a quick (maybe not so quick) summary of life.