Everyday Computing Advanced Computing The Internet At Home Health, Mind & Body Making & Managing Money Sports & Leisure Travel Beyond The Classroom
Handheld Computing
Hardware
Money Management Software
Multimedia
Office Productivity Software
Operating Systems
Win a Trip to New York City to see Monty Python's SPAMALOT!
Apple TV For Dummies

Customizing the Apple TV Screen Saver


Adapted From: Apple TV For Dummies

The default settings on your Apple TV screen saver offer up some pretty cool 3-D images, but you can easily customize the screen saver with album-cover art or your own digital photos. You can then fire up your Apple TV to provide background music for mealtimes or a party and have something visually interesting going on at the same time. Think of it as art in motion.

Follow these steps to customize the Apple TV screen saver:

1. From the top-level Apple TV menu, move the highlight cursor to the Settings item and press Play/Pause.

The top-level Apple TV menu has the cool Apple TV logo.

2. Move the highlight cursor to the Screen Saver item and press Play/Pause.

The Screen Saver screen appears.

3. Select the Timeout item and press Play/Pause and change the inactivity delay.

Your Apple TV can wait for 2, 5, 10, 15, or 30 minutes of inactivity (meaning no input from the Apple Remote) before the screen saver starts. If you want to disable the screen saver entirely, choose Never.

Disabling a screen saver on today's expensive LCD and plasma TVs is the very definition of A Bad Thing, because you'll be inviting burn-in from a stationary image. (Remember the harsh lesson taught by the screen at your local automatic teller machine location.)

4. Select the Use for Music item and press Play/Pause to toggle the feature on or off.

By default, your Apple TV displays the screen saver while playing music — however, if you'd rather keep the album art, title info, and progress bar visible at all times, toggle this setting to off.

5. Select the visual for your screen saver:

Logo: Displays a moving Apple logo

Albums: Displays random images from the album artwork stored in your iTunes Music library

Photos: Displays random images from your iPhoto library if you've stored your treasured digital photographs on your Apple TV. (Photos are always the right choice at family gatherings!)

Your visuals choice is identified by a check mark next to it in the menu.

6. Select Preview to check out the result.

C'mon, you know you want to see what the screen saver looks like.

7. When all is set just so, press Menu to back up to the previous menu.

Related Articles
Getting the Scoop on the Media Center Edition PC
Connecting Camcorder to Computer with FireWire
Preparing for Digital Video Capture
Basic Tech Requirements for Setting Up Apple TV
Accessing the Apple TV Settings Menu
Related Titles
iMac For Dummies, 5th Edition
Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004 PC For Dummies
Roxio Easy Media Creator For Dummies
iLife '04 All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies
Digital Photos, Movies, & Music Gigabook For Dummies