At Home with Tech

How do you create this imaginative screen saver for your TV? You just hand over your pictures and let your Apple TV do the rest…

Star Wars…
The new Apple TV…
And my favorite TV screensaver.

These three forces recently collided to create something of a tech crisis in my life.

Before taking my wife to see Episode 7, I wanted to offer her a little refresher on Luke, Han, Leia, Darth and the old gang. So I went looking for my copy of Episode 4, but I realized I’d never purchased a digital version of any of the Star Wars’ flicks.
(I know… A huge gap!)

I did locate a forgotten VHS copy, but trying to watch that would require its own MacGyver project getting the old tape to play on my HDTV. I wondered why I still had the archaic tape lying around to begin with. Perhaps this version represented the original cut where ‘Greedo didn’t shoot first.’

Anyway… I threw it back in a drawer for another time.
(Decade?)

Another Problem with the Hyperdrive Engine
So I summoned iTunes on my iMac and figured a swift HD download of “Star Wars: A New Hope” would quickly fill the gap.
(I know that purists would insist on purchasing the Blu-ray version… But I just didn’t have enough time to buy a physical copy.)

Click.

Then, I synced the 1977 classic to my old Apple TV and waited (not so patiently) for the Force to appear.

Nothing happened.
I repeated the sequence.
…Nope.
(And that’s when I began having a really bad feeling…)

So I did a little online research and was painfully reminded that my first generation Apple TV can’t play full HD 1080p videos.

Only the inferior 720p flavor.

And today, all of Apple’s HD movies in iTunes are 1080p.

D’oh!
(Clearly I hadn’t bought a movie for my old Apple TV in a while…)

Always in Motion is the Future
Yes, I failed to mention earlier that I’m still trying to keep alive the original Apple TV. Part of my rationale for trying to forestall its obsolescence was due to its clever screensaver mode that can download and then rotate hundreds of your photos into a dynamic scrolling collage.

Forget all of the movies, TV shows and home videos that Apple TV was built to handle.
With my first generation Apple TV, I could generate my own personalized living photo collage onto my HDTV that showed up via Apple TV’s screensaver.

I was concerned when later version Apple TVs came out without an internal hard drive that they wouldn’t be able to perform the same trick…

Hello Generation Four
Sure, the fourth generation Apple TV has so much more capability…

• Siri functionality
• Streaming service apps
• Game apps
• HBO and Showtime without a cable or satellite subscription
• A newly designed remote

But I was laser focused on that screensaver capability. Could the new Apple TV do it?!
(And I’m not talking about the new cinematic screensaver, which displays nifty aerial videos of different cities.)

But without a way to play 1080p videos on my Apple TV, it was clear it was finally time for me to take a leap of faith and go for the upgrade…

Discover This
Of course I missed the holiday shopping discounts that were originally offered by some retailers on Apple’s new streaming device. But I had a little trick up my sleeve… I was able to generate my own personal discount…

I simply dipped into some cash back dollars I earned by using my Discover Card.

And then I stretched them a little further by redeeming them for Staples’ gift cards.
Staples will give you a $25 gift card for only twenty bucks!

A few of these go a long way to dropping the $199 price of the 64GB Apple TV.

Hello, staples.com…

CLICK!

Memory Management
So yes, I’ve just become the proud owner of a new Apple TV. I went with the beefier model as opposed to the 32GB version, which was only $50 less.
(I usually supersize it if the upgrade cost is reasonable.)

And yes… The Apple TV 4 has a hard drive.
(Flash memory, as in the past two models)

But the increased storage capacity is there to handle the apps and content you’ll be using in the moment. Not necessarily to download and store for keeps. So the Apple TV essentially decides what content to keep locally. Humans not required.

But the big change from my old Apple TV is you don’t sync content from your computer… You sync it from the cloud via your iTunes and iCloud accounts.

Drum Roll, Please
And is my favorite screensaver still there…?

YES!

The only difference is you’ve got to transfer your photos up to your iCloud account and Photo Streams for your Apple TV to access them.
(As opposed to syncing the photos directly from your computer)

Phew…

Doubling Down on Star Wars
For a time, I’ve again brought tech balance back to the Lester household.

• My wife got a crash course on the ways of the Force via Episode 4.
• And then we both enjoyed Star Wars…The Next Generation.
  (Though I must admit I walked out with a little knot in my stomach… similar to how I felt at the end of “The Empire Strikes Back.” That’s not so terrible as Episode 5 is widely considered the best of the series. But I didn’t fully appreciate that reality until three years later. I imagine I’ll feel better again when Episode 8 comes out in 2017.)
• Moving forward, with our new Apple TV, we’ll watch all six legacy films.
  (Yes, I couldn’t resist the discounted price on buying the complete bundle.)

Jedi Training
I’m sure some of you are scoffing at my questionable decision to bring Episodes 1-3 into our home media library. Who could possibly want to watch them?

Well, my five-year-old son will one day have to decide for himself.
(He’s still a little young to watch the movies, but I’m thinking of introducing him one day soon to “The Clone Wars” cartoon series as a primer.)

Every Jedi in training has to choose his or her own path. If we’ve learned anything from Star Wars over the past decades, we must accept that difficult truth.

May the Force be with you, my son.