Apple TV - Not Just for the Home

At my company one of the most important meetings we have is our weekly development sprint review and planning session.  For those of you unfamiliar with the Agile development methodology this is where the development team showcases what they've been working on during the past week, and it's also where we plan and prioritize the upcoming week's set of stories, or to-do list.  Anyway, one of the biggest challenges we've faced is that the meetings tend to run long, and one of the main contributors to this is the fact that during the meeting anywhere from 4-8 people are projecting their laptops onto our conference room TV in order to display something to the entire audience.  With one fairly short VGA cable to share amongst all of us, we not only had to play musical chairs within the conference room anytime someone new had something to present, but whoever was presenting also needed to make sure their display settings were correct and that they were projecting the right desktop window onto the TV.  All told I would estimate that we wasted 15 minutes per meeting doing all this logistical juggling, and when you multiply that by about a dozen participants that's a total of 3 hours of lost productivity for the team.

Luckily we recently moved into a new office space, and in this space we had the luxury of setting up our new conference room from scratch.  We decided from the get go that we were going to purchase one of those conference tables where all the wiring is accessible from the center of the table, so we didn't have to hassle with wires strewn all over the table and tripping on them as we walk in and out of the conference room.  But at the last minute I decided we could go even one better...enter Apple TV.

As most people know, Apple TV is a cool little device that allows you to stream video (and/or audio) to your TV.  The video streams could be from iTunes purchases, YouTube, Netflix, and a host of other available content sources.  However, there is also a very cool and somewhat under promoted feature in Apple TV called Airplay.  What Airplay allows you to do is a couple of things.  First off, you can use Airplay Streaming to wirelessly stream multimedia content from your iPhone, iPad or iTunes-enabled computer directly to your TV via Apple TV.  When you're in the media player you will automatically see a new control pop-up on the screen, and when pressed it enables you to select which available Apple TV device to stream through.  It works wonderfully, and you can stream movies and TV shows in all of its high-def and multi-channel audio glory.  But in addition to this the Apple TV also supports a feature known as Airplay Mirroring.  What Airplay Mirroring allows you to do is to stream any content to your TV via a supported device.  Right now the only supported devices are the iPhone 4S and the iPad 2 (or later).  However, Apple is about a month away from releasing Mountain Lion, the next version of Mac OS X, and that version will support Airplay Mirroring as well.  Given the fact that most everyone in our company is on a Mac, once Mountain Lion is out we'd all be able to stream anything from our laptops onto the big screen.

But there's no reason to even wait for Mountain Lion, because there are already 3rd-party solutions to enable Airplay Mirroring from Mac OS and even Windows clients today.  We're currently using one called Airparrot, and at $6 per license (when purchased in blocks of 5) it's really a no-brainer.  It allows you to either mirror or extend your desktop to the TV, lets you enable/disable audio streaming on-the-fly, and even provides an option for only displaying a selected application vs. your entire desktop.

All of our employees are now using Airplay to wirelessly stream their laptop screens during group meetings, and I have to say the productivity gains are immediately evident and the three Apple TV's we purchased have paid for themselves multiple times already.

In case you're wondering what our setup looks like here's a picture of the wall in our main conference room with dual 52" monitors.  My iPad is being streamed on the left screen; my Macbook Pro on the right.

Here's a pic of one of the Apple TV's, which we conveniently hide behind the TV screen:

And of course, since the Apple TV is still a consumer device there's always a little time for fun as well:

Netflix Player by Roku: The Future of Video Subscription Services

I've been a devout Netflix subscriber since 1999.  One thing I've always been impressed by is their commitment towards making improvements and also their thoughfulness about their future direction.  To that end, I've been following the growth and development of their "watch instantly" feature.  When it first came out it wasn't terribly interesting since the amount of available content was pretty minimal.  However, that has changed in recent months, and with the recent deal they struck with Starz the amount of available content is now very respectable.  The other recent development is their embedding of the "watch instantly" function in selected hardware.  The feature is now available on the XBox360, on Blu-Ray players made by LG and Samsung, and also on a standalone unit made by Roku.  For those of you unfamliar with Roku, they've been in the streaming audio business for some time now, and I happen to own a couple of their Soundbridge units.  So for them to manufacture a Netflix video streaming unit seemed like a natural fit.  And best of all, if you are a current Netflix subscriber you can watch any available content at no additional cost whatsoever outside of springing over $99 for the Roku box.

I just picked up the Roku Netflix Player last week, and boy have I already become addicted to it.  The setup is incredibly simple...Just power it on, connect your A/V cables (I used HDMI), connect to your wired or wireless network, register the device on the Netflix website, and you're done.  Took me literally 5 minutes to set the whole thing up...piece of cake for anyone.

When you go to the "home" screen you are presented with your "watch instantly" queue, and just like everything else with the player it is brain dead simple to navigate through the queue and select what you want to play.  Once you make your selection, it does take a few seconds for the player to start downloading/buffering the content before playing it on your screen, and the player also determines the "quality" level of the stream depending on how fast your internet connection happens to be at the time.  If you are like me and always demand the highest quality, then there is a back door way of forcing the unit to stream at a set quality level - you can find out how by visiting the Roku Netflix Player link on Wigix.  Sadly there is no way for you to search for new titles to add to your queue from the player itself; you must go back to the website to do this.  However, you can remove an item from your queue as well as rate it from the player.

Probably the main drawback to the player is its lack of a hard disk, so the player is only able to buffer a small amount of the video if your internet connection takes a hit.  I suspect that the reason for a lack of a hard disk is mainly due to the paranoia that the Hollywood studios have about content piracy.  However, in the 10 or so hours I've used the player so far I've only experienced one instance where playback stopped, and even then it only lasted a few seconds.  

I was also pleasantly surprised by the quality of the video stream produced...I think it was pretty comparable to a standard DVD player.  And the player is also capable of streaming HD content, and Roku has stated that HD content will be available by the end of this year...this is great news!  Unfortunately, though, both the current content as well as the HD content will not support any multi-channel audio formats.  Again, this appears not to be a limitation of the device but by the studios' refusal to release those formats with their content.

How does the Roku compare with other video streaming products?  Well, I'm not really an expert here, but there are two others that I had considerecd.  The first was Apple TV, which appears to be getting better and better with each release.  And the unit does come with a built-in hard drive and so it shouldn't be as prone to any hiccups due to connectivity issues.  However, with the Apple TV you need to purchase any of the content you want to watch.  Vudu is another competitor, and their big advantage is that they have quite a bit of HD content available.  However, similar to the Apple product you must purchase or rent all content, and I don't think Vudu is getting many subscribers and so I have a feeling they may end up going out of business.

Overall I'm as please as can be with the Roku, and I really think this is the future of where video subscription is headed.  And I'm sure Netflix would love nothing better than to not have to physically ship all those DVD titles to their subscribers, which is why they are pushing really hard on "watch instantly" and working with various hardware providers to support it.

UPDATE: Roku launched support for HD content during the holidays.  The amount of HD content is pretty minimal right now (mostly TV shows) but will grow rapidly over time.  Netflix is in the process of re-encoding all their Watch Instantly video streams, and as part of this effort you'll see more HD content availability.