Apple TV, the new tablet-looking device with the iPod-like remote is designed to transfer video content from its iTunes Store and other venues to the household television set, based on the notion that most people prefer watching TV content on television, not on computer monitors.
So far, so good, but at least one media critic says there is at least one big problem with Apple TV, which only works with digital sets: The computer-downloaded or streamed SD video that is fed to the TV screen doesn't look very good on the HD set. This has also been a common complaint among HD set owners who are not always happy with the SD content either.
The Apple unit, which comes with a 40 GB hard drive, is "commendably clear and easy to use...[so] it's surprising, then, that videos from Apple's online iTunes store look horrible on an HDTV set. The movies and TV shows have the same nominal resolution as DVDs," according to critic Peter Svensson of the Associated Press.
Apart from SD, the Apple TV unit is supposed to be capable of playing HD video, said Svensson," but it doesn't actually seem well suited to it. And since Apple's standard-definition video looks so bad, I'm not confident the HD video will look good, either."
