It never fails. No matter how simple a device appears to be
I will inevitably encounter a problem. Such was my experience with Apple TV
this weekend.
I didn't really need Apple TV. I bought it because I thought
it would be a fun gift for the house this Christmas. Buying a gift for the
whole family to share is a tradition I inherited from my father when he sometimes would buy a gift
that everyone could enjoy, at least theoretically. After one too many
movie nights sidetracked by a malfunctioning FIOS box, I figured for a hundred bucks Apple TV
would give us more options.
So I plunked down the hundred bucks at the Apple store in The
Mall for Apple TV.
“Do you need an HDMI cable?” the store associate inquired.
“No thanks, I already have that.” I was thinking that I
already two HDMI cables. When I originally hooked up my HDTV, I discovered the
HDMI cable I bought was too short so I went back out and bought a longer one. I
decided to keep the shorter one, just in case.
I should have recognized that question as a technological red flag. I didn't and consequently I began to see why I might need yet another
HDMI cable.
I was an early adapter with my HDTV. Six years ago, when we
moved into our new home, I bought the biggest LCD TV available at the time. It
was a 40 inch Sony Bravia and it cost me four grand. This was back before the
great recession hit and many thought spending four grand on a TV was a perfectly
sensible thing to do.
Today of course you can buy a bigger and better TV for about
a quarter of that. Sigh.
Anyway, as I went to hook up my hockey puck sized Apple TV box to my TV I realized that it only had one HDMI port and that was being used
by the FIOS box.
The solution of course was to add another piece of hardware to mix.
A trip to the Best Buy store in Columbia
resulted in the purchase of a Rocketfish 4-port HDMI Selector, and another
HDMI cable, adding another hundred bucks to the cost of my hundred dollar Apple TV. The worst part, it includes yet another remote!
It never fails.
