AppleTV here

Wednesday, April 11, 2007 by Dave Winer.

My AppleTV arrived. I'll try to install it later today, and of course will report on the experience here. 

Engadget reports that AppleTV hardware is capable of doing HD, but inexplicably, the software isn't provided to do it.  

3PM: I have AppleTV hooked up to my kitchen TV set using the HDMI cable. Everything worked the first time. Connected it to the LAN through a wifi router in the den. Connecting my laptop to the unit was like connecting a Bluetooth device -- you enter a password that's displayed on the screen of the TV. It's now synching all the content in my iTunes library, even though I didn't ask it to, and when I stop it, it starts again on its own. I've decided to let it have its way. I want to link it to a folder of photos on my laptop's hard disk, but the command it says I should use isn't present in my copy of iTunes. I tried copying an AVI file I ripped from a DVD, but it was rejected. So after setup it's confusing, and not working the way I expect it to. More later.  

I found the tabs, I was looking in the wrong place. It's synching pictures now.

I happened to have a copy of a video Meet the Press podcast, and it got synched to the AppleTV in the initial setup. And when I browse through the menus, which are patterened after the iPod menus, there was a section for podcasts, I chose this podcast, and there was the first "aha" moment -- I was watching an episode of Meet the Press, albeit an old one, and it looks pretty much like it looks when I watch it on NBC throug my cable box -- far from HD quality, but still a pretty good demo of what it can do.  

They have a full selection of trailers, already downloaded. That's cool! I'm watching a preview of Grindhouse.