On Tuesday, Apple released a free update to Apple TV. Much attention has been on the movie rentals, although there are other features worthy of mention.

Movie Rentals

Renting a movie is scarily simple - just browse to a movie in a new cover art interface, and click the “rent” button. I was asked to enter my Apple ID password the first time, and from there, all rentals and purchases are “one click.” The download is monitored by a minimalist percentage indicator, and occurs in the background so you can do other stuff in the meantime. You can start viewing the movie as it’s downloading.

The rental rules are fairly complex, so they’re worth repeating:

• Older movies are $2.99, newer ones $3.99, and newer HD movies $4.99. Some older HD movies are available for $3.99.
• You’re given a month to start watching a movie.
• Once you start watching a movie, the rental expires in 24 hours.
• At expiration the files are automatically deleted from the Apple TV.
• Any movie content downloaded directly to the Apple TV can’t be sent to your computer or iPod.
• If you buy a rental on your computer, you can push it to the Apple TV, but you can only rent / purchase HD content via the Apple TV.

My downsides:

• On our DSL, the download speed was slightly prohibitive. A regular movie took about 45 minutes to download, and an HD movie took more than an hour. I could get to the video store and back in that amount of time.
• The number of movies I watch per week makes the Netflix all-you-can-rent for a monthly fee much more cost effective.
• The video selection is rather “meh.”

The biggest improvement is the downloading of content directly to the Apple TV. The previous method required a computer. Getting video content through Apple TV is now much more satisfying and nearly impulsive. They’ll get a fair number of rental downloads from this ease of use alone - I’ve rented two movies already.

The second welcome improvement is that most of the movies I watch, are via rentals. The few movies I want to own, I’d just buy a DVD. So the video rental idea makes sense to me and Apple will get more of my money this way than through selling movie downloads.

But for iTunes content I really want to have ownership of, namely music and certain television shows, I’ll stick to purchasing through iTunes and manage the files on a computer. And I’m definitely not canceling my Netflix account.

TV shows and music

You can now purchase other iTunes content via the Apple TV, namely TV shows, music, and music videos. TV shows in particular are very welcome.

Video Podcasts

The Apple TV makes video podcast content much more compelling, mostly through usability - it’s easier than iTunes. Plus, I’d rather watch these podcasts on a television than a Video iPod and the majority of the content is free. I’ll watch many more video podcasts as a result.

HD Quality

Apple TV now offers HD content, namely movies, movie trailers, and video podcasts. However, the quality will open up debate among videophiles as to what is “true” HD and what is acceptable on your expensive HD setup.

From what I understand, the Apple TV hardware can only only 720P but it upscales to 1080i. The quality of content varies fairly widely. Some HD trailers are very good, namely The Dark Knight, while Atonement had noticeable mottling and “banding.” The HD flick I rented (Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan) was noticeably better than a DVD but not as crisp and clear as the HD trailers, which is likely due to the age of the film. I’m guessing a lot of the quality variance is a result of the compression or quality of the original footage, and not the output of the Apple TV.

To see some representative images for yourself, check out this extensive article at iLounge that has screen grabs from Blu-Ray, Apple TV, HD cable on demand, and DVD. Blu-Ray is the best, and Apple TV holds up surprisingly well against HD cable.

I’ve also read that unless your TV is larger than 40″ most are hard pressed to see the difference between 720P and 1080i or P. While I prefer HD, my television isn’t large enough where watching DVDs or non-HD content is unacceptable. When I’m watching a flick like Napoleon Dynamite, HD quality or surround sound doesn’t have much impact on whether or not I like the movie itself. So I’m very satisfied with the Apple TV quality.

But if you’re a videophile who watches only next-gen discs, HD cable, and anything below 1080P is blasphemy, then the Apple TV’s quality will likely annoy you. Wait for a hardware upgrade.

Conclusion

Movie rentals have been the focus of Apple TV, and many are evaluating the device based on this one feature. But it has many more abilities, like sending music to your home stereo, podcasts, watching movie trailers, photos, YouTube videos, and sending all the video content on your computer to your TV. And ultimately, it’s been a very fun addition to our household. A few hours were spent looking up old music videos on YouTube one evening, another watching movie trailers, and another looking at old cat photos. While the iPod is the multimedia player while you’re on the go, the Apple TV is the equivalent for the living room.

If you have a lot of audio, video, and photographs on your computer that you want to view on your television, have broadband and a wireless network, and are rich and lazy to where walking to your mailbox to retrieve the Netflix envelope is too much of a hassle, I’d recommend an Apple TV. I’ve been really happy with this purchase, and I only fit the first two criteria.

Disclosure: I own a tiny amount of Apple stock.

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