11 Comments

Are you ready for Apple TV?

January 26, 2007 by in Apple,AV,Tech with 11 Comments

With Apple TV scheduled to ship at the end of the month, it’s time to make sure that your existing media will support the upcoming device. Taking inspiration from Dan who enlightened me of the fact that the Apple TV prefers filetypes of the MP4 variation, I took the time to convert my current video library.

Although many would simply load and export files using Quicktime Pro, I opted for something a little more robust – VisualHub. The $24 shareware utility can handle any filetype you throw at it and spit it out in the format of your choosing – iPod, PSP, DV, DVD, Tivo, AVI, MP4, WMV, MPEG and Flash. The most useful feature is the batch processing functionality. Using VisualHub, I was able to drag an entire folder of video files (of various formats) into VisualHub for conversion to save in a new directory.

Available as a Universal Binary, the utility also serves as a DVD burning application allowing users to save up to 18 hours of video on to a single DVD. Also check out the free iSquint for iPod video conversions if converting for PSP, DV, DVD, Tivo, AVI, MP4, WMV, MPEG, and Flash is overkill.

What are you using for video file conversions – Windows or OS X? Windows users, chime in with your recommended applications. I took a peek at some of the current options – too many to choose from.


  • Olivier

    Derek,
    Altough I appreciate your article for the help it gives us for our video conversions, I have to disagree with the overall purpose of this article: adapting ourselves and our media to Apple’s TV.
    There are de-facto standards out there such as Mpeg1 and 2, DV, Divx, WMV and others. MP4 just happens to be one of them.
    I find Apple’s attitude very presumptuous to say: you adapt yourselves to us.
    The iPod clearly had a mix of both on the Audio side as it accepted Mp3s AND the recently introduced AAC. I use AAC now.
    For video, Apple obliged us to use Mp4 or H264. Fine, that was a side function on the iPod.
    Now on this full video device we still need to use what Apple dictates?
    There are much better systems out there that will side with us the consumers and offer all the features from Apple (bar their DRM videos).
    TViX has numerous offerings with DVI/HDMI outputs, HD playback, large HD enclosures etc..
    The reality is that I already have my media in video’s equivalent Mp3 format (that is DIvx) and I want manufacturers to embrace my needs, not the other way around.

    As far as I am concerned, Apple can keep their Apple TV and I won’t buy it no matter how low the price or how succesfull it is.

    And I think many people will agree with me.

  • Olivier

    Forgot to give this obvious rhetoric to your title: “Is Apple ready for me?”.
    Clearly not.

  • Kevin

    I just bought visualhub last night, Use it for all my divx/dvd conversions overnight with burn to disc feature. Its nice software and well worth the $24

    I cant even remember what i used to use on the pc for conversions.

  • Kevin

    Im not digging the whole Uk pays more than US for stuff by at least another 15%. Videos, iPod games, Software, Hardware. I try to avoid buying the stuff from the UK store for that reason. I wont be buying an Apple TV well at least not for a while.

    No widescreen and its features really dont impress me that much, i can just burn to dvd overnight with visualhub and watch it the next day AND have a hard copy for those head scratching “wheres my stuff gone” moments

  • Logich

    I bought VIsualHub a few weeks ago, after using iSquint since the first beta. I hope that the author will add an AppleTV setting with the 1280 by 720, 24 fps, Progressive Main Profile. MPEG-4 setting.

    Now I understand that some people, like oliver, take issue with transcoding their movies from the other “standard” formats. The answer for this is for you to vote with your $local_currency and not buy the AppleTV. The free market is great and there are plenty of other solutions.

  • http://is.derekpunsalan.com Derek

    Olivier, any recommendations for hardware? I’m always open to choices.

  • http://fernyb.net FernyB

    will this Apple TV be able to stream any kind of video that Quicktime / iTunes can play??? is so this is freaking awesome.

  • elchubi

    TVersity + Xbox 360 works pretty well for me.
    I can watch any video format I have legally “purchased” from any *cough* bitorrent *cough* site

  • http://www.donawilson.com/ Don Wilson

    I’ll have to remember to download this when I get on my mini tonight.

  • Olivier

    Hi Derek,
    Happy to see you’re keeping an eye open to alternatives.

    I would say the best thing to replace Apple’s TV is the readily available TViX M-5000U or A or the M-4000
    Both of these can come with or without a hard-drive. Smallest drive is 250GB if I remember correctly. You don’t need a HD, it can work as a SMB or NFS streaming device.
    It has Ethernet, Remote, LCD display on the unit, user replaceable HD, HDMI/DVI, Component, S-Video, RCA, SPDIF.
    Pretty much anything you need.
    They also have built-in FTP Server so you can drop things from any machine without proprietary software. Although they do have a TViX software for those who want zero conf.
    These Things playback faultlessly anything you will through at them, including WMV I believe.
    You can stream or Rip DVD Iso or TS Folders.
    It plays wonderfully HD Divx videos as well
    More info here http://www.tvix.co.kr
    They sell everywhere in Europe and the US. All that for the same price as the soon to be Apple TV.
    For those in Europe it is a no-brainer since Apple TV’s only advabtage on this (DRM playback) is a no starter since Apple doesn’t sell TV shows or Movies over here.

  • elchubi

    If you have an intel mini you should have no problem. TVersity is windows only, I’m running it from my macbook using parallels

Privacy Policy | About Us | Contact Us | Write for us