New Apple TV runs same custom A4 processor as iPhone 4, iPad - Page 3

1080i is an interlaced picture. Bad picture, simply made larger.

720 is a progressive picture. Even when viewed on a 1080p set, it will be superior to an interlaced picture.

My 720p downloads have been pretty good. Some are better than others, just as has been true for tape, DVD, and BR. Same thing for cable. Some are very good, and some are not.

See, your post is an indication of why the industry itself is torn over this issue.

That's why it includes wired ethernet and 5GHz 802.11N.

Most streaming content isn't available in 1080p. The only service I know of is YouTube, and that's only on a vast minority of videos. Personally I believe you only need 1080p if you have a TV over 50 inches or are using your TV as your computer monitor. Your eyes can't tell the difference at 40 inches or less. Broadcast shows are never in 1080p, and I would guess that even streaming and satellite TV that claim to be 1080p are just unconverted.

Plus, even though some streaming services may be 1080p, they are still heavily compressed. I'd take a 720p stream with less compression over a 1080p stream with more compression.

People are just going to buy this thing for Netflix and YouTube instead of the Roku box. I find my PS3 much better as an entertainment system. Hard Drive, 1080p, Blu-ray, full flash enabled web browser, and high def gaming (which it's not even used for! But I can do it!). I just wish it had the iTunes selection for rentals, but Redbox and Netflix are cheaper anyway.

Where are the Apps? If this thing runs the A4 and an iOS version, why can't there be an App store? I realize that there is no touch interface, but Flickr, YouTube, and Netflix aren't cutting it compared to what was speculated, and compared to the kind of applications you can use on things like Blu-ray players, Samsung TVs, etc. (Or my PS3)



Here's what I want though...how about a box like this running a 1Ghz ARM...with Linux installed! Where's my GeekTV!? Anyway, that's another subject.

There is a possibility we might get apps later. After all, we didn't get them for the phone until a year later. Possibly they have to work out the issues of the multitouch requirements of iOS apps. How would you use them with this right now? Hopefully, they're working on some way for the iOS devices to control them. That could take a while to get right. We all know that Apple won't add a feature until they think they got it right.

Yes, but of course I save them at the same pixel profile as the source, which often exceeds 640 x 480. I never have any trouble playing back any size .mp4 file on my Mac Mini using the video-out to the VGA-in of my 46-inch 1080p Samsung HDTV (the result is always excellent), but apparently this new Apple TV unit won't be able to handle, say, a 720 x 420 .mp4 file at all, if this AppleInsider report is to be believed. So my question is whether this is correct, and the new unit therefore marks a major step backwards in legacy compatibility vis-Ã*-vis just feeding direct from one's Mac.

Thanks again for any help you can provide.

The tech specs say 640 x 480 mpeg 4, so that's the max it will support, unless it will allow 720 x 480 in, but pass it out as 640 x 480. I'd wait a week or two and see what happens on the tech sites. But we really need to see when it finally comes out and people start playing with it.

In most cases, the different between 720P and 1080P are unnoticeable. Unless you have a 46 inch + TV monitor. ( Although the trend is that most are buying bigger TV sets anyway.... so 720P isn't very forward looking )

But the problem with Apple TV and 1080P is streaming. You cant not stream a 1080P through Internet. You can barely do that in Korea or Japan, Hong Kong or Singapore where there are 1 Gbps Internet FTTH. And that is only a small portion of the total net population. So i dont expect US and Europe can do it.

But i am surprised and angry why Apple still hasn't decide to use Mepg 4 High Profile and instead sticking to Main Profile 3.1. I would much rather they support High Profile then 1080P. The difference is quality is substantial.

Think it will depend on the bit rate. I use the H.264 encoder on handbrake with the ATV presets but if you have a choice the H.264 should be hardware accelerated in the new ATV since it's using the A4 so I would pick that since it is a better overall codec

This new Apple TV is all about apps. Runs iOS, built on A4. How hard for them to make an SDK to build aps for this where ipod/iphone/ipad is controller. Games seen on screen on apple tv but controlled by iPhone.

Legally?

And legality aside, "your own file server" immediately throws this as an extreme edge case.

Your not in the target market for the Apple TV. Nothing to see here, move along.

Interesting take,but I would wait until they release an SDK before assuming that Apple is moving that direction. The use of the A4 means you can run IOS on the new ATV but then the cocoa touch layer of the UI needs to be rethought and architected for the TV. I agree that Apple will get there and chances of backward compatibility are good but I wouldn't be buying this just yet as a gaming machine. Depending how they implemented the Airplay, developers may be able to use it to mirror a game from the iPad/Iphone, but we will need to wait for the 4.2 beta.

I already brought that up. Do you think they can do this all at once? Assuming that they want to, it will take time. Look how much longer it's taking to get 4.x to our iPads! I would think that 4.1 and 4.2 are higher priorities right now.

A $7000 pj may have been $70,000 about five years ago. Replacement lamps, about $2000.

I understand that's still pricey for most people. We all have our comfort zones. I was happy to have taken as long as I did... after all how many projects get cheaper as time goes on?


Yes. Clearly you understand how everything's interrelated. This home theater was one of my most vexing projects... and I'm an engineer.

My next one will be even better.

I honestly don't think it would take much. The HW is the same, the OS is the same the screen resolution is different but iOS has resolution independence and would be trivial to write apps that are native for the screen. They have the distribution app store already. I really don't think it would take Apple much to create an app store for apple TV.

There's so much cool stuff they could do with an iPhone controlling apple tv apps that are on your big screen. And rumour is the device has bluetooth and so that would make the control function even better than Wifi (PS3 uses bluetooth for its controller)

1080? come on people! Not all of us have the "big fat pipes" yall may have. I am still on 1.5MB! 1080 would take forever to download and plus most say that unless the TV is over 50", it's not that much different.

Only on a device with a low persistence display, like a phosphor based CRT.

i or p makes no difference to an LCD. The state of the pixel doesn't change until the next frame with an LCD. As others pointed out, I often prefer 720p as 720p usually has a higher effective bandwith.

Not sure about plasmas, but I think they are like CRTs - p is better than i for the most part.

I still prefer my three CRT rear projection TV. Sure I have to calibrate and clean it every once in a while, but the picture it produces beats the pants off of any LCD - watching movies on it is a joy (no grey goo!). I was very disappointed when Canon abandoned SED A sad day indeed.

With nothing promising on the horizon, guess I need to pick up a plasma before they disappear I just can't stand LCDs for TV - even the newer ones with the higher processing - I can see clipping and the "LCD motion blur" - response times are better, but it's still distracting to me. Something still is crystal clear, then with some movement it's motion blur city.

Define normal? Any guide from a home cinema pro will give you a screen size to viewing distance ratio that makes 1080p noticeable.


Reference or anecdotal?

All in all I'm pretty unimpressed by the entire presentation. I like a lot of what they showed, and I don't particularly dislike anything, but it's all just plain boring. Chris Martin was far and away the best part of the show!

The Apple TV is obviously still a hobby. AirPlay might be good for an iWank when guests come over, but otherwise it's not really useful. I like the price tag, but I'm really left searching for something to be excited about... and then Steve tries to say one of the main requests for Apple TV was that is was to be smaller. Really Steve? Really? Seems like a pretty big coincidence to me .

720p only, streaming rentals only, no games\\apps. Overall impression... snore.

New iPod touch? Every announcement could be responded to with "well duh". Same goes with iPad, although I will like the ability to print wireless (but seriously, can anyone get excited about the ability to print? I didn't think so.)

New Nano and Shuffle... well they at least look nice. Very Apple. To be fair there isn't much room to move in the Nano\\Shuffle market. Price\\battery life is more important than features and if they made they any smaller they would just be a pair of headphones!

Game Center sounds promising, but I wish they would have announced they were buying OpenFeint and Plus+ and rolling all OpenFeint and Plus+ games into Game Center. As it stands the gaming functionality will be very fragmented which defeats the entire purpose of a social gaming platform.

Ping == boring. Some kind of iTunes to Facebook integration would have at least been a little more exciting. It's basically impossible to completely live within the Apple eco-system to make the most out of their products as it stands... now all of your friends have to as well? I don't think so Steve. A Pandora-like Genius playlist generator would have been better.

The entire presentation just felt like foundation building for the "real" announcements that will come next year.

Yes, I was a partner in a professional audio product manufacturing company years ago. This isn't a simple thing to get right. But there are a few things to do that will get people on the right path, but only if they are willing to listen. Many aren't.

Have seen the demo, pretty sweet. I actually prefer it by margin to iD demo (Rage engine, was it?)... however, it is just the demo and we don't know how much more processing power would be required to actually put a game there (with physics, scripts, AI...). On some of those scenes one can see that hardware (of 3Gs at least) is really working overtime to keep decent frame rate (and failing to do so). I would expect it runs much better on A4, but again, question is: is there any spare power to be used for other elements of the game, or will actual game(s) have to go for simplified visuals in order to have enough power for other elements?

Nevertheless... if big-budget titles (that, likely, would be made with above mentioned engines) really start coming out in numbers, Apple should think of some sort of holster/frame/... with dedicated hardware controls. Touching analogue sticks on screen without any feedback at all is just not good enough for hardcore gaming.

Much as I am concerned, I don't like idea that I still need computer/media server to run with this little device in order to stream some of my existing media... in which case, I can simply keep my computer/media server connected to the TV instead.

I must admit that I didn't read carefully about all the features. Will it be able to stream from NAS? Can it stream DivX/XviD? Or do I need proper computer to act as a server and transcode DivX into format this little one can understand?

The specs that Apple has in their store for this give everything that it will do as far as codecs are concerned. No, it won't do DivX, etc. I wish that had never been invented. It's inferior, and a pain in the butt. Just another proprietory format we don't need.

Nevertheless, Apple is basically supporting formats that are either open, or have been well accepted. That includes H.264, Mpeg 4, and MJpeg. About 95% of all video is in those codecs, or formats. I don't know if it will be able to stream from a NAS. It would depend on how sophisticated the NAS is. What OS it uses. There are NASs that use Windows Home Server. It might work with those as it works with a Windows machine.

How would you suggest people run media on their computers already? Streaming seems to be a good way to do it. Who would buy this if they didn't already have a computer?

Are you a developer? It always seems to be easy, but it's often not.

If I buy something, I want to own it.
Renting video content sounds so 90s.

Renting model sucks.

That's where 1080p comes in and it should have been possible to view this kind of content in 2010.

This device will always suck until you can pipe in ATSC high definition, DVR your NFL games, youtube the internet for HD video, HDMI-in ports, etc. THE COMPLETE PACKAGE. It's not truly "TV" until they build hardware to cater to this.

And many people are moving away from these heavy, power-consuming Television displays. Projectors are the future of home entertainment. They draw less power, project larger images than LCD displays, and projectors are portable, easier to move.

Apple TV needs to eliminate the need to have 10 devices for the home viewing experience; at present, they're adding another device that is obsolete in less than a year. Get rid of the DVR, the tuner box, the Blue Ray player...build it all into a black box this size with a projector + air play the files from a computer or air play the sound to your speakers in the living room... and then you'll have a gamer changer.

I'm on the fence.

I have Direc TV that has VOD, but only if you plug in an Ethernet cable. That's going to be a pain to run across the house, so I thought maybe another Airport Express would work and I could extend my Time Capsule network and send the Ethernet into my DVR. We already do this with an X-Box in another room.

Now Apple TV comes along, I'm not blown away, but if it can extend the network like the airport express and get Internet over where the DVR and some other wired only devices are, then problem solved, it's the same price, and Apple might get some iTunes rentals out of me since it goes by the TV anyway. I'm not impressed enough to buy it without this functionality, but if it's there then I'll buy one in a heartbeat. Otherwise I'll get another Airport Express. The hardware is there. Not doing both.

Bandwidth is too high. Realistically, you need a 10 Mbs connection to reliably stream 1080p at a decent compression. Remember that a 10 Mbs connection is really a 5 to 7 Mbs connection, and that's only if your line is clean.

The type of display has little to do with it. Whether it's front or rear projection has nothing to do with the power used. To get the same size image, you need the same brightness, which means the same size projector bulb.

My rear projector uses three LEDs for illumination. It uses less power than a rear projection plasma, a front projection, or other forms of rear projection. LCd Tvs with LED backlighting also have lower power use. There are a small handful of front projectors out now that use RGB LEDs like my model, but they cost $10,000 and more. Ready to go for one now?

It really is hilarious to see someone so specularly ill informed.

Microsoft (heard of them?) have been streaming 1080p video to the Xbox 360 for a long, long time now. And it works great. Instant on too.

Is the A4 processor or its PowerVR core just not able to handle 1080p output?

On the iPhone and iPod touch, video output function is also limited to 720p. I always assumed that this was due to limited storage (1080p content takes up a lot of space) and the need to split the A4 resources for other tasks (phone, wi-fi, background multi-tasking, etc.).

But on the Apple TV, aside from the Ethernet and Wi-Fi, what else is the A4 chip doing besides audio/video???

There's no multi-tasking per se, it's not constrained by battery life or storage space, and if the A4 chip does use a Cortex A8, then I believe some iPhone competitors have already demonstrated 1080p output (I think).

So regardless of the practical arguments for 720p being indiscernible from 1080p from a specific viewing distance, my bigger question is why Apple chose NOT to implement it. And the old standby that Apple just wants to leave something for v2.0 doesn't really make sense since Steve has reaffirmed @TV as a hobby; it's just not that important. They don't even break out sales numbers of @TV in their earnings reports. The 1080p format also isn't new; it's been around for a few years now. So if not for some TECHNICAL hurdle that they couldn't overcome, what feasible, alternative explanation is there? And more importantly, is it something that can be activated via a software update since it doesn't seem like 1080p would be physically, hardware-constrained unless the A4 chip is simply not up to snuff.

No,it doesn't "work great".

It does handle it.

Personally, I'm a little disappointed. Only because I was mainly hoping for a software update, maybe bringing a new App Store paradigm to the Apple TV, starting a whole new market in app/game production based on a TV interface.

Hardware-wise, I personally prefer local storage, because I looked upon the Apple TV as a "TV iPod" where I didn't have to have another machine on in the house for playing music and videos through my TV. But now I can see why Apple updated the Mac mini and moved the line slightly to make it worthy as a home media unit. It's just hugely unfortunate that the price is too steep for me, especially if all I'm using it for is playing music and video through the TV/sound system.

But it's worth bearing in mind that it's very likely that the people developing the hardware and the people developing software aren't necessarily "in sync" with each other. I hold out hope that Apple are developing an OS X-based new "UI Kit" for developers to produce apps for the new device. This is where the power will lie.

I watch Apple's "hobby" project with interest, but unfortunately it's not for me yet!

The A4 general processing core does not come even close to render 1080p in real time. That's something that's hard for a 2 GHz Core 2 processor to do.
The A4 processor have special h264 decoding provisions and it's these that render the video. It seems that Apple isn't pushing it here. It _might_ be capable, and several competing chips does support 1080p, but they have probably made a judgement call here to not offer it. I think it's perfectly reasonable as per the 720/1080 discussion in this thread.

Whether or not you can see the difference between 1080 and 720 seems like a red-herring to me. More important is the bit rate of material that will be delivered to this device. That is garaunteed to be the limiting factor for picture quality, not the resolution. If you're part of the minuscule minority tHat plans on streaming bluray rips, a $99 media extender probably might not be the right choice.

What I'm more surprised by is the framerate. Why not stream the native framerate of movies? It actually frees up bandwidth for additional detail at the same resolution. That's on top of getting more convincing motion. Granted, few people have a setup that can truly deliver 24fps, but it is a why not feature that costs nothing and has no downside. And like I said, it still delivers greater detail, even for people with no 24fps support.

Come on whiners, get your priorities right!

SW decoders using the CPU is highly inefficient. If that is was what needed for a Blu-ray video then wed be talking about a $240 CPU, but it can be done with relatively inexpensive chips on slow systems.

Apple uses Imagination for their iDevices GPU and decoders. They have been making efficient chips that can decode high-profile 1080p that is found in Blu-ray discs for awhile now. Considering the AppleTV is not battery operated I would definitely be possible for Apple to have put in a 1080p decoder instead of just 720p.

It's most certainly not zero. One suggested 16 GB but I find that very hard to believe at the 99 dollar pricepoint. 16 GB would be a massive overkill if the only purpose is to cache streamed content.

The rumor was 4 GB iirc, and that seems more reasonable given the price and purpose. That would be enough for apps too. We haven't seen apps yet but that doesn't mean that they won't come in the future. We didn't see any apps for the first iPhone either. They must build an SDK too.. and knowing Apple, an SDK will come _after_ they reveal the product it's for.

So my best guess is 4 GB.
I would also guess that the new AppleTV is quite hackable. It will be interesting to follow that development.