Apple MA711LL/A TV with 40GB Hard Drive [OLD VERSION]
by Apple Computer
![Apple MA711LL/A TV with 40GB Hard Drive [OLD VERSION]](/images/Apple-MA711LL-A-TV-with-40GB-Hard-Drive-OLD-VERSION-B000MQNMQ6-L.jpg)
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Our Price: $349.99 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $94.95 (click here) Category: CE See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Apple MA711LL/A TV with 40GB Hard Drive [OLD VERSION]
Customer Review: One of my best purchases ever
Summary: 5 Stars
I can honestly say that this is one of the best purchases that I have ever made. I bought the Apple TV primarily to view the photos that I have taken with both a digital SLR and a point and shoot digital camera, as well as listening to music for which I have created playlists in Itunes. In addition, I own a FLIP HD Mino, which I use to create videos of my grandchildren.
I store my photos in iPhoto on my Macbook and crop all of them to 16 x 9, thus creating the dimensions for high definition TV's. I then sync them to my Apple TV and view them with music. I have chosen classical music to view the photos and let the Apple TV choose the particular composition each time I run a slideshow. The quality of the images on my TV is superb. All of them totally fill the TV screen because they have been cropped the 16 x 9 before syncing to the Apple TV.
I shoot my videos with my FLIP video camera, then load them into iMovie on my Macbook. I then transfer them into Itunes, using the "large" setting. I then sync them to the Apple TV. One must see these videos to even believe that they come from a $200 video camera no larger than an Apple remote controller.
My entire music library has been copied to the Apple TV and permits me to play my music on my Bose stereo system. This is because I have connected the video portion of the Apple TV to the component video inputs of my TV and the audio portion directly to my receiver, which allows me to use my Apple TV to play music without even turning on my TV.
Finally, I downloaded the new "Remote" application to my Itouch. Using this device, I can directly control all the music from my Itouch.
In summary, the quality of every aspect of the Apple TV is outstanding.
Do as I did. Read the manuals for the Apple TV online before purchasing the unit. It makes the setup far simpler and user friendly.
One last word. Before considering this purchase, I checked out my local Apple store for a demonstration. Unfortunately, they could not really do justice to the demonstration. This is due to the fact that in order to use all the functions of the Apple TV, they must register their unit. The Apple Store (at least, the one in Danbury, CT) uses unregistered units and therefore cannot demonstrate all its functions.(such as cropping, followed by syncing).
Dan
Danbury CT
Customer Review: Apple TV 2.0, User Experience: 10/10
Summary: 5 Stars
I waited for a year for the 2.0 upgrade. It's just amazing! My overall user experience is 10 of 10. I had a high expectation based on my experience from other Apple products I have used. But it still exceeds my expectation. I'm not going to give a complete overview, which you can find from lots of other places.
Apple TV can take everything from your iTune library to your big screen. Here I would like to focus on one feature outside of iTune: Connection to the Flickr Photo site. I would like to share how Apple TV 2.0 closed the loop of my digital photo solution, a beautiful and convenient way from processing to organization to sharing.
When you switch to digital photograph from film, you will notice that the number of photos you collected increased very fast, especially if photograph happens to be your hobby like me. Over the years I have tried different ways of organizing and sharing those photos with your family and friend in your living room. I am happy to report here that I finally found the solution with the arrival of Apple TV 2.0
Here are the tools and site I use to closed this loop: Picasa from Google to processing the photos, Flickr site to load up photos, Apple TV to connect to the Flickr site and display the photos on TV screen.
The new version of Apple TV added the feature to allow you to connect to Flickr site with one click. You will not only be able to see your own photos on the site, you can also see your friends or other public group's photos on the site. It even automatically plays music from yout itune library while photos are displayed in slide show mode. Another feature I liked is that when you play music from Apple TV, it starts display your multiple photos in a random fashion in size and number on the TV screen.
There are some other tools you might be able to find to do the similar, but again, Apple's solution is just 1 or 2 notches up when comparing to others in terms of functionality and convenience.
There are quite a few other nice features from Apple TV 2.0 like YouTube and direct movie download /streaming.
Customer Review: The Cats Meow
Summary: 5 Stars
This thing is fantastic once you get the hang on best ways to integrate it with your home computer and home entertainment center. We have several Macs and an Airport Extreme wireless hub, so integration is as easy as pie. Not sure how easy things are in the Windoze world, cause nothing ever is (thats why I abandoned the Windoze environment and have NEVER looked back!). We have loaded our entire CD library onto the Apple TV, and it is so easy to pick any song, genre, artist, or whatever and play it instantly. Album art is displayed, as well as any chosen slideshow. Speaking of which, we also downloaded our entire digital photo library. Now, when guests arrive, we can immediately show them any photo in our collection, instantly! So ding-danged easy!! But wait, thats not all!! We love the ability to watch current movie previews on this thing. Just select them, and watch on your tv. Apple also just added YouTube access, which is a great plus when there is nothing good on tv. Fun and easy to surf through all those wacky short videos (and you can use parental screening if need be). There is a lot of pressure to add internet radio streaming (available on iTunes now, but as of this writing Aug/'07, it is not supported on the Apple TV .... but it should be a technical no-brainer and just a matter of time (please, Steve??).
So, your entire music library, all your photos, YouTube, movie previews all instantly available on your tv and stereo. All saved on a very small box. And I haven't even started experimenting with the video capabilities on the thing, which is its main claim to fame. Shoot, even if it didn't allow you to buy, download, and store movies, its still worth the money just for the other features. And its sure to get better and better as Apple adds new software updates (which download to the box at the click of a button). I still can't believe how easy and effortlessly Apple products work. This is the way technology is supposed to be....improve your life, not make it more complicated!!!
Customer Review: Great things come in small packages
Summary: 5 Stars
I love my Apple TV. True to Apple, it is very easy to setup and even easier to use. I originally bought it to stream my large collection of music on iTunes to my home entertainment center. It does this beautifully and my girls love playing their own playlist on the surround speakers in the Den and making up dances.
Beyond the music capabilities, I found the photo slide show to be a great feature. I take a lot of pictures and the family loves to check them out on our widescreen TV. The quality of the pictures is great on my 720P Samsung DLP HDTV. However, I would like Apple to improve the nav for the pictures, since you cannot browse sub-folders of pictures. For example, I use a nested approach in filing my photos, with event folders under a year folder and the problem is that the unit will only let you play the top level folder...this means you have to view dozens/hundreds of pictures to get to the few new ones you want to show someone. It would seem to be an easy fix for Apple to offer a software updgrade with deeper naviagation/browsing.
As for video, I've downloaded a few TV shows and movies to iTunes but usually watch them on my iPod. I've tried them on the TV and the quality is OK (like basic cable) but certainly cannot be compared to a DVD or HD broadcast. If they added the capability for HD this would truly be an amazing unit. Except for the fact that it would take way too long to download an HD movie over my current Internet connection but that isn't Apple's fault.
All in all the unit does what I want it to do and only costs $300 which is pretty reasonable given that many of the docking units I looked at are in the $150 to $200 range with very limited functionality. It certainly isn't the killer app that many tech geeks are looking for but it is a good start and for $300 what did you expect? Bottom line is that the unit is worth it for the music and photo slide show capabilities alone.
Customer Review: Great Product. It does what it claims to do
Summary: 5 Stars
First, I need to say I am disappointed with some of the reviews here. There is people posting reviews on Apple TV without even using it, claiming to work on an Apple Store and asking about `credibility' from real users of the product. Use the product, then review it. Don't hate Apple TV just because Apple makes it. My only two Apple products are an iPod video and an Apple TV, and I am extremely happy with my Dell computer, my Windows XP and my PC programs and will think ten times before switching to a Mac. But you have to give credit to those that deserve it
I've using Apple TV for a while and it does what it claims to do and a little more, and then if you have it connected to your audio equipment via de optical sound output, you will enjoy all the music in your iTunes with acceptable quality. Some audiophiles seems to have a problem with not excellent quality, but then again you don't get excellent quality music from your iPod and see where the iPod is.
On the video side, yes, you don't get the best video quality available on the market, you are limited to 1080i resolution and the movies won't look great as they do on a progressive scan DVD an HD DVD or BluRay, but this was expected. This product is targeted to the average consumer, and of course high end users will be disappointed as they will with many other products on the market targeted for the average consumer
It works exactly as I wanted to and works exactly for what I wanted it, so I give it five stars. But I agree, it will depend if you are an early adopter or a follower on technology. If you think about it, there will ALWAYS be a better computer, a better camera, and overall a better piece of technology than the one you are buying, simply because when it goes into the production line it's already obsolete. It can make sense to wait for the next Apple TV, but then you will be negating yourself enjoying it today