Apple seeks user feedback on Apple TV - Page 5

I am glad they are doing the survey. I wish I could have gotten in on it.

I have 2 ATV's that I stream to from my iMac. I have had them for about a year. I have come very close to replacing both of them recently.

Things I am very happy with:

Music - the ATV plays music very well. I like being able to use my tvs as external speakers for my IMac for whole house sound.

Podcasts - are great. They are easily searchable and have provided me hours of entertainment.

Pictures - are Ok I don't use it much since it is hard to move through the pictures with ease.

Things I am not very happy with:

The Gui - I never plan on buying or renting a movie/tv show from ITunes store, but there is no way for me to simplify the GUI so it is my shared - Music - Movies - TV Shows.

Movie Format - I am insanely tired of converting all of my content to .mp4 .m4v. If I have to sit through another 6 hour Handbrake session I am going to lose it. Please just let me play my old .avi's .mkv's ISO's TS folders. (my old school xbox with XBMC never had a problem with most of that.)

Other things I would like.

1. Ability to skin/theme to my liking. ( I can't do it (easily) on my Leopard iMac so I think this might be a long shot.)
2. It would be nice to view the Movies in Cover Flow or DVD wall format.
3. I hope that some day they make 3 party apps a la iPhon?Touch. ( I would pay for the ability to watch Netflix - Hulu - Firefox - etc.)
4. It would be nice to be able to stream from a NAS instead of leaving my Mac on 24/7 365.
5. Bigger HD's (Wouldn't need this if I can stream from NAS.

Just my .02.

If it is just a hobby for Apple I am sure one of the other companies would appreciate my business. Maybe a decent Boxee branded STB is close.

Thanks,. Unfortunately, you weren't here earlier in the thread to give me a heads up about him.\ Actually, I did win with him, but it certainly was a waste of my time..

Anyway, he is now on my ignore list.. That was the first and last debate I'll ever have with him.

I'd been eying the AppleTV, but it just didn't seem to have the right cost/capabilities/benefit package. So, I am a non-owner.

What I don't care about
- Purchasing TV shows; some critical shows are not available on iTunes (F1/SCCA racing)
- Renting Movies; I prefer Blu-Ray, and if I need convenience, I'm already paying for Netflix.
- Music; I have a 300CD changer and a SACD/DVD-A player already
- Small size; while nifty, all my other components are large.

What I want
- Show my own photos and home video
- 1080p video capable; ready for future download media or HD camcorder
- better format support
- Netflix streaming
- Gaming

Last Friday, I took the plunge and purchased an XBox 360. A major impetus is that I am on an extended business trip, and have been fairly bored in my hotel room in the evenings. \ So for the time being it is a toy connected to the crappy hotel TV, and I'm enjoying "Price of Persia".

I had to leave my MacBook at home with my wife, and the hotel network is way to slow to handle streaming, so I haven't been able to properly try out the network features yet - just a few overnight downloads. Obviously it is designed to work with Windows, but there is a program, Connect360, for the Mac that enables photo, video, and music streaming from iTunes and other files (non-DRM). On paper, it's what I want. Also, it should be able to use my NAS drive for media storage without the computer, not too sure.

The other thing is that pretty much the only reason I have for a PC at home is for the occasional game. It seems every time I boot my PC, I need to spend half an hour updating/maintaining it, so I play that much less. Also, it's getting marginal/inadequate for newer games, and I don't want to spend money on it. The XBox will provide a means to rid my house of PCs. When/if Apple comes has a decent Mac Mini/Snow Leopard, I'll say "buh bye." Err, thanks Microsoft!?!

BTW, If I didn't already have a Blu-Ray player, I might have looked harder at a PS3.

LOL, yes make them less expensive

They're about as cheap as they're gonna get for now. Apple pretty much breaks even on every AppleTV sold.

I agree.

I say $250- $300 is a fair price.

I would like to see a reasonable priced base model with options to upgrade like Blue Ray or larger Hard drive. Or a everyday model and a hd model etc...

I would like to see Apple to do a media server/NAS. (sorta like Time Capsule) So I don't have to leave my Mac on 24/7.

The thing is that your persistent whining gets tiring after a while, and in that respect, solipsism is correct. It's pretty predictable, any story that covers AppleTV results in you making a dozen posts complaining about it. It's certainly a good way to squander respect.

Nvidia's first Ion product will arrive in or around June priced at $299:

http://www.tgdaily.com/html_tmp/cont...41424-139.html

They wouldn't name the vendor making it and we know Apple have been working with them. WWDC is in June so it's quite possible Apple will develop ATV as a small Nvidia Ion box.

Nvidia mentions Call of Duty 4:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/io_1229608554532.html

but I'd doubt it will be great quality. Nonetheless, the possibility for gaming is there and it should be a fraction of the size the current ATV is.

Interesting looking at products Apple have tried in the past and not succeeded and looking at the ideas now that could succeed but are still actually very close to the originals. The iphone is a good successor to the Newton IMO. The ATV could resurrect the Pippin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAYvjJLQlxQ

A new market space that personal computer companies have not really tapped yet
It repackages very powerful technology, Macintosh operating system... into an appliance that's easy to use and has an obvious usage model for the consumer.

The idea behind the Pippin though was it used actual Mac hardware. This meant that games could be developed for both Macs and the Pippin alike. Developers decided to support neither of course. Microsoft have succeeded here by managing to get simultaneous Windows/XBox releases. Interesting how Marathon was on Pippin and the Mac and failed and its successor Halo is probably the biggest XBox franchise.

I think the controller looked quite cool:

http://web.mac.com/sebangulo/Pippin/Welcome.html

Using ARM, it's not going to be very powerful at all nor compatible with Mac games but like the iphone, maybe it will open the doors to a world of casual and mostly crap games that at least gets developers remotely interested in considering developing good titles for the Mac and it adds to the value of the ATV.

If they manage to do full internet like the Wii (and Pippin) using a special remote, it could turn into a much more useful device.

Heh. TomsHardware did some benchmarkings with Ion. COD 4 plays like with 640x480 on Medium settings, not that bad, but that press release is stretching things... A little.

That said, 9400 on a Core 2 Duo, You can Play COD 4 1280x1024 resonable Medium quality like on the latest MacBooks.

Have 2 pieces of it at home. It is excellent. Use it to watch news (i.e. NBC nightly news) I missed, TV shows (i.e. Lost) at my time and not at the time of the TV network. Now started to use HD versions of the show ... it takes a moment to download, but the result is fantastic. Playing Youtube videos on the plasma is more of an adventure, but can be great once you find the right video. Love the simple remote instead of a keyboard & mouse. Can operate the remote without a table/desk.

Need more REAL 5.1 movies/shows. The current 5.1 creation is pretty poor and a few exceptions confirm the rule. It is not Apples fault, but it is the lack of creativity (or funds) on the side of the production houses.

Hope Apple TV will stay and become even better.

How much do you spend in an average month on the pay per download ATV vs your TV? Is the nightly news free?

I hope he has Boxee installed and is watching those via Hulu. Boxee is great, but video acceleration needs work. Hopefully, the next AppleTV will use Nvidia's Ion and the Boxee will be able to access the GPU with more ease, making even 720p Flash content stutter free on the device.

Hulu is a good resource, but a lot of broadcast news shows are available as video podcasts too. NBC Nightly News was specifically mentioned, so I'll link to it as an example.

NBC Nightly News video

Right now, I don't spend any money on current TV, the watching the ads on Hulu are about the most that I pay. There is some disposable media that I wouldn't mind paying maybe $0.30 a show to buy ad free, that's more than the value of ad time per episode per person on TV, and I don't think Hulu is ge tting a nickel an episode per person in ad revenue.

With so many more people potentially watching shows on Hulu and the cost being lower and many of the middlemen out of the loop, I wonder if the revenue is actually pretty good for NBC.

I watch most of my TV Shows on Hulu since I'm almost never around to watch a show when it aires. The few shows that aren't on Hulu I get from torrents. I wouldn't mind the commercials but they are always removed. $1.99 for a 22 or 42 minute show that I'll watch once is just too much.

I do wish Apple and their content providers would allow for inexpensive TV Shows that expire and can be ported to their handhelded, like the iTS movie rentals. For example, I'd pay $0.50 a TV Show with commercial support that can be syncing to my iPhone over torrenting an AVI and then converting it to MP4.

For a moment there I thought itunes was suddenly going to be more worthwhile until I checked out some of the video podcasts. I've now watched all the Dilbert cartoons, checked and deleted 8 other podcast channels and now I'm out of content within 2 hours.

A lot of the podcasts are clips from full shows. I don't suppose this is a bad thing but Youtube is better for this sort of thing. the news one is probably one of the better shows.


Definitely because the shows are all DRM anyway and when you add up the cost of the series, you generally find that buying the DVD is cheaper. You can even buy the DVD from Amazon who will mail it to you in about 24-48 hours and you get all the extras. Then you can sell the thing again for not that much less than you bought it.

I agree with 50c pricing per TV episode. Unfortunately, it will be the TV networks who decide this and they probably value their ad-supported cable service providers more than Apple.

The TV networks are so dumb they still don't realise how much global demand there is for affordable (like 50c or less), legal, downloadable TV content. Sure, ad-supported cable, broadcast TV and DVDs works for their business models. For now.

I'm in Asia and there is no other way I could have been caught up with the latest 24, Lost, Battlestar and Star Wars - Clone Wars if not for iTunes Store (I had to have a US gift card which is a slightly convoluted process and semi-legal) and let's face it, Teh T0rr3nTs... and YouTube. I would really love to pay for every single episode but considering my salary (I do have an Australian degree from a decent university, just that I am back in Asia now) is the equivalent of US $800 *per month*... I don't mind ad-supported streaming, like Hulu, but Hulu ain't available outside the US unless you use other things like HotspotShield...

My local Satellite TV broadcasts which are actually useful are mainly ESPN Asia, Eurosport and Star Sport (owned by Rupert Murdoch) which operates out of Hong Kong/ Singapore. There's HBO and Cinemax but it's all standard def, 4:3 and with subtitles burned-in on the broadcasts. Oh and censored depending on a country's policy.

Even my mum doesn't watch Bold and Beautiful on Sat. TV anymore. She catches up to the latest episodes on YouTube regularly.

These TV networks need to seriously wake the frak up and get their heads out of their collective US-centric, fiefdom-oriented asses. With the spread and essential need for the English language around the world, English (namely USA) TV and movies are still increasing in popularity.

*Each* Lost Episode this Season 5 on just one particular torrent gets about 100,000 downloads at least within one week of the original earliest broadcast of that episode.

Oh and I had Cartoon Network on Sat. TV but we cancelled it because they never showed all the Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends episodes, I bought the seasons from iTunes, and also Star Wars Clone Wars is still nowhere to be seen yet on our Cartoon Network. I'm not talking about my particular country, I'm talking about Cartoon Network Asia which covers South East Asia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, possibly India too.

Oh, and Gawd forbid I depend on CDs to get the latest Dance music. All I need is the Armin Van Buuren State Of Trance podcast, and guess what, all the full tracks featured in the podcast mix are either available on iTunes, ArmadaMusic, Beatport, or, YouTube! Which, speaking of YouTube, has an amazing and enourmous collection of dance music of all sorts of genres, from House to Pop to Trance, Techno, PsyTrance, DrumNBass, etc.

I don't know why the music labels are so fixated on haggling with iTunes, YouTube is raping them hard.

Blu Ray 1080p is very sharp, and sometimes maybe it has too much obvious, sharp film grain which maybe gives it that 'hyper reality". Aesthetically I'm fine with Blu Ray 1080p, looks fantastic on anything above 40" ... they just need to tone down/ smooth that film grain a bit. Natural film grain and stuff shot on film is still great, just somehow when published in 1080p the flm look doesn't look as "natural"... If that makes sense.

To be honest, what I really think is that the movie studios right now, most of them, don't do a proper downscale from a 2K or 4K film scan, they somehow make the 1080p look "really high res" by really sharpening that film grain.

This of course, is probably an entirely different thread.

(Forgive me just one more serail post) ... Oh, and I'm not part of the Ruling Elite or a local Prince or anything like that, I'm part of that relatively small but rapidly growing "middle class of emerging economies" you've probably heard a lot about, mostly about them buying iPhones and stealing Western jobs.

This boxee thing and the rise of hulu and streaming sites would almost make me buy one, when I eventually have a house and a TV, which will hopefully happen in a year or two. Being able to record TV still seems like it would be a good thing to add, and very easy to implement. I assume it's just the networks being stupid as usual, and that Apple would gladly add recording, but the networks won't allow them to?

Oh well. I'll probably never pay a cable bill, ever. I never used to watch TV until Surf the Channel, hulu, pirate bay, etal. They just make it so easy to watch TV that I'm really getting in to it! Sigh...how will I ever get my act together and pursue a graduate degree, with all this endless TV to watch!

Depends how long these streaming models may last. Something now with Boxee you cant access Hulu or something like that. *SIGH*