Last week Apple started shipping Apple TV (hereafter referred to as “ATV”). ATV is a 7” by 7” by 1” tall aluminum box, with no buttons. No, not even an ON/OFF switch. The back of the ATV sports a gigabit Ethernet port, HDMI (to connect a high-definition TV) port, component video jacks, analog (red and white) audio jacks, and a digital/optical audio port. There’s also a USB port, whose purpose is somewhat of a mystery – all Apple is saying right now is it is used for “maintenance”. ATV comes with a power cord and Apple remote control. Inside is a 40GB hard drive.

The purpose of ATV is to connect iTunes on your Mac or PC to your “modern” TV. When I say “modern”, I mean any fairly new TV that accepts component video input. Older TVs with red, white, and yellow RCA jacks, S-video, or coaxial cable inputs need not apply.

Basically, ATV delivers any content you can access through iTunes on your computer to your TV - movies, TV shows, podcasts, and audiobooks. It can also deliver photos from iPhoto on a Mac, or Photoshop Elements or Photoshop Album on a PC. Once set up, you can view and listen to all this content from the TV using just the Apple remote (and the remote from your TV to control the volume).
So how does your computer connect to ATV? Either via an Ethernet cable or wirelessly. ATV has a built-in 802.11 antenna, and can communicate using older b or g standards, or the new, faster 802.11n standard.

To further describe ATV, I’ll talk you through setting it up. It’s amazingly simple. Here’s my gear. I have a new Apple Airport Extreme 802.11n Base Station hooked up to my iMac. I have a seven-year-old standard-definition 4:3 (almost square) Sony TV that accepts component video. I unpacked the ATV, set it on top of my DVD player next to my TV, and attached it to the TV using component video cables ($10) and one of the dozen sets of audio cables I have in a drawer downstairs.

I plugged in the ATV, turned on the TV, and selected the correct video input. On-screen directions led me through connecting to my wireless network and selecting the correct settings for my TV to present the best picture. I then went to my iMac, opened iTunes, and the ATV showed up there immediately, similar to how an iPod shows up when connected to the computer.

From there, still in iTunes, I selected the movies, TV shows, podcasts, audiobooks, and photos that I wished to sync (copy over) to the ATV’s 40GB hard drive. Like with the iPod, iTunes lets you automatically sync new content with the ATV, to the limits of its storage capacity. Copying over all the content, especially if you’re using a slower wireless connection, can take some time.

Don’t want to wait for everything to sync? ATV can sync with only one “host” computer, but it can accept streaming content from up to five other computers on the network. I opened iTunes on my PowerBook, went back to the living room, and was able to connect to my movie library there and watch a movie immediately with no stopping or stuttering, even using the PowerBook’s slower 802.11g connection. I also checked out current movie trailers that stream from Apple’s web site after only a few seconds buffering. Sweet.

Soon, my content was synced and I was ready to settle in on the couch. How was the picture quality? How did I get my DVD movies onto my ATV? The answers to these and many other questions next time.