I was one of the early adopters of the Apple TV. It wasn't bad, but as little more than a liaison between my Mac and my widescreen TV, it didn't seem to justify its existence. But that's changed. And how.

With the "Take Two" software (which, thank you, Apple provided free to those of us who forked out for the original hardware) movie fans like myself can now rent movies on the iTunes Store directly from our widescreen TV. It's an effortless process. You just use your Apple TV remote to rent movies from a catalog films (which is supposed to top 1,000 titles by the end of the month). The titles include over 100 titles in high definition video with 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound.

iTunes Movie Rentals are US$2.99 for library titles and $3.99 for new releases, and high definition versions are just one dollar more with library titles at $3.99 and new releases at $4.99.

After upgrading the software on my Apple TV (a fast, seamless experience) I recently rented two films, Live Free or Die Hard and Waitress, both in high def versions. I was very impressed with the quality. I don't have a Blu-ray player with which to compare the quality, but the films looked crisp and sharp on my family's widescreen. The rental service also provides lots of info on a film and the talent behind it.

I was also impressed with the speed of the movie rental service. Once a movie is rented, it starts downloading from the iTunes Store directly to Apple TV, and users with a fast Internet connection can start viewing the movie in seconds. I have a cable connection. Once I rented the movies, it was less than a minute before they started playing. And there were no artifacts or "hesitations" during playback. Very impressive.

Customers have up to 30 days to start watching it, and once a movie has been started customers have 24 hours to finish it. Or you can watch it multiple times over 24 hours (though there are few films I'd like to see more than once in a day).

The "Take Two" interface sports a two-level menu. Movies, TV shows, podcasts, photos, YouTube videos and the device's settings are on the left. The right column changes depending on what's selected in the left column.

With Apple TV, you can also view photos from your computers, Flickr and .Mac Web Galleries on a widescreen TV as slideshows or screen saver. Anytime photos are updated on Flickr or .Mac, they're automatically updated on Apple TV. Apple TV users can take advantage of the iTunes Store podcast directory of over 125,000 video and audio podcasts, view over 50 million originally created videos from YouTube or choose from a selection of six million songs, over 600 TV shows and 10,000 music videos to purchase directly from their Apple TV. Another nifty touch: purchases downloaded to the Apple TV are automatically synced back to iTunes on the your computer for enjoyment on the computer, all current generation iPods or the iPhone.

The Apple TV comes standard with HDMI, component video, analog and optical audio ports. Using high-speed AirPort 802.11 wireless networking, it automatically plays your iTunes content without setup or management.

Upping the ante, Apple has also cut the pricing on the Apple TV. It now has a suggested retail price of $229 for the 40GB model and $329 for the 160GB model

Alas, iPod games won't play on the Apple TV. And, for now, iTunes Movie Rentals are available in the US only.

Also, there is a disadvantage in using an Apple TV to rent a standard-definition movie: you can’t transfer an Apple TV-rented movie to your iPod, iPhone, or iTunes library, even though the same movie rented through iTunes can be transferred to any of the other devices. On the other hand, you can only rent the high def movies on your Apple TV, not on, for example, your Mac.

Also, I thought I'd share a request from Macsimum News reader Tom Edmonson on the Apple TV, "Take Two," which fits in perfectly with this review.

He writes: "I'm writing in hopes you can help all of us Apple TV owners encourage Steve Jobs and Company to release a fix for the Apple TV that will allow continuous looping of Music Video playlists. (You are currently limited to viewing one video at a time and are thrown back to the main menu to select another video.)

"If you go to the Apple Support forums on Apple TV you'll find literally hundreds if not more of postings about this subject. I love the new upgrade and am wowed how Apple incorporated Airtunes into the product! Bravo! But this continuous playback of music videos feature has been lacking since the initial 1.0 version and lots of people were expecting the upgrade to fix this. Myself and countless others have purchased many music videos in hopes we could make a playlist for parties and let itunes continuously play them ... similar to audio only music."

Sounds like a great idea -- and a relatively minor "fix."

Despite some areas for improvements (and the fact that Netflix has an estimated 6,000 movies for rental), with Take Two of the Apple TV, the device finally has a real goal and purpose. And it can take its place with pride among the Apple line-up of products.

Macsimum rating: 8 out of 10.