Stream all your favorite music videos with Vevo on Apple TV
Remember the days when MTV was about music videos, instead of television series? Those were good days, long gone, but Vevo has been trying to fill the gap. With the company’s latest app release, you can begin turning your Apple TV into your one-stop shop for music videos.
Plenty of music videos to choose from
Vevo is very much like a modern-day interpretation of what MTV used to be, serving you more than 150,000 music video streams on demand. Unfortunately, navigating those videos can be cumbersome unless you’re into the Top 40; so far, the app doesn’t have any way to navigate specific genres of music.
Shine a Spotlight on the artists you love
At the heart of Vevo for Apple TV is the Spotlight, an automatically-created video playlist based on your own favorite artists. You can pick your favorite musicians through the Apple TV app or on your iPhone, and then Vevo pulls in that information to provide you with a playlist based on your musical interests. It’s like Pandora, but for music videos.
Easy navigation and great video quality
The videos Vevo for Apple TV stream at up to 1080p resolution, with 128 kbps/44.1 kHz AAC audio. That’s great quality, and the music videos look and sound amazing on my big-screen television. Navigating your video playlist is very easy, as the app makes great use of the capabilities of the Siri Remote. You just place your thumb on the touchpad, and a navigation overlay shows up to let you favorite an artist, replay the video, or see your playlist.
Synchronize it with the iPhone app
If finding artists to love is too cumbersome for you using the Apple TV’s built-in virtual keyboard, there’s some hope. Vevo for Apple TV synchronizes with the iPhone app, so you can pick and choose your favorite artists on your handset and have them automatically show up on your set-top box.
A terrific start
Mark Hall, Vevo’s vice president of product management, told Macworld that what we see now on the Apple TV is just the beginning. He said, “We’re starting with Spotlight, that’s our first effort, and there’s going to be a lot more to come in terms of making Vevo as a whole way more tailored to your personal tastes and interests.” I agree that Vevo for Apple TV is off to a great start, and I look forward to seeing what’s still to come for the app.
Getting your own MTV channel
To get started with Vevo and relive the glory days of MTV, just go to the tvOS App Store and search for Vevo. It’s a free download, and a feature-rich one at that.
