Apple releases Apple TV 3.0 software with redesigned interface

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  • Reply 101 of 150
    john.bjohn.b Posts: 2,742member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by anantksundaram View Post


    I am asking as 'cheap guy': who does 1080p broadcasts?



    Direct TV does. That doesn't mean they can't compress the hell out of it, though, like broadcast stations and cable providers do with 1080i and 720p.
  • Reply 102 of 150
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by spliff monkey View Post


    I don't remember if V1 ATV software could do slideshows but V2 could; V3 certainly can.



    V2 can't do slideshows - not the way iPhoto does them (with preset music and transitions). ATV will slideshow an album, but it will pick random music (which frequently is inappropriate for the album I might add!) and use whatever transition you've set in the global preferences.



    Quote:

    Agreed; we gave up cable all together, but no I don't watch sports or propaganda, Uh I mean NEWS. I prefer to read my news; I don't need all of the extra commentary from so called "reporters". Walter Cronkite they are not any longer.



    Hehehe - completely agree. I do watch local news sometimes just to get the daily updates, but I can't stand the fact that most of the "journalists" are nothing more than a pretty (aka fake-looking) talking head with no personality.



    Quote:

    It seems expensive at first glance but if you do the math you'd be surprised how much one can rent/ buy for an equivalent cable bill and you can save all of that nasty encoding time from DVD, TIVO etc. adding art and information.



    Yep - I actually come to terms with that a lot when I purchase a show or pre-order a season pass. Gee, $40 sounds like a lot! Then I remember how much money Comcast isn't getting from me and it makes that "Add to Cart" button a lot easier to press.



    Quote:

    TV shows showing up the day after it airs is fast enough for me, but I guess TV is really important to some. Personally I'd rather see more movies to rent/ buy sooner.



    I'm rarely able to watch a show the night it airs anyway, so I don't care that it's not available until the next day.



    Quote:

    720 vs. 1080? I can't believe some are so hung up on it. 720p at 5MB/s looks fine. Hell most of what I buy from Itunes is still SD. (Thank god Apple now offers 16*9 and no more 320 that was a real drag) Is it really that important to see ever hair on the face of your favorite star in everything you watch? Most of the time you'll only watch it once.



    I agree. My first season pass was Grey's Anatomy in HD. It was nice, but I realised pretty quickly that it was unneccessary, took up more space on my media server, and took much longer to download. This year I bought the SD pass and really don't miss it. Frankly the difference isn't that great. Not for a standard drama. I can tell the difference, but it's not important enough for the average show. Now for Battlestar Galactica, I definitely had the HD versions
  • Reply 103 of 150
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by John.B View Post


    720p meets the HD standard, as does 1080i. 1080p wasn't in the original standard but was added later.



    True, but wouldn't 1080i actually look worse than 720p? Since it's interlaced, the actual amount of data being transmitted is really only 540 lines of resolution per frame...



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by JeffDM View Post


    Can't you run AppleTV from a PC too? The PC version of iTunes should be able to connect up with it the same way.



    Yep, but I wonder how many PC users are interested in a set top box from Apple...



    Quote:

    Convenience, I get, but cost savings? Are you comparing buying vs. buying or comparing renting vs. buying? Also, the cost of Blu-Ray players is down to about AppleTV prices now.



    Again it's not cost savings compared to BD, as I think it's arguable that BD prices are comparable to HD purchases from the iTMS. My cost savings is comparing $100/month to Comcast vs purchasing the TV shows I watch from Apple.



    Quote:

    Why isn't it set as default?



    Good question - perhaps to ensure that it is always in sync with its master? I don't believe "wake-on lan" is supported via wifi...



    I'd guess it doesn't really draw that much power when it's idle, although it does output as much heat as a small space heater
  • Reply 104 of 150
    Count me in as a satisfied customer. I have been waiting for the Internet Radio and love it. Love the new interface. The Remote update to the iPhone/iPod Touch absolutely rocks with search with keyboard.



    Most excellent job Apple!
  • Reply 105 of 150
    pt123pt123 Posts: 696member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by spliff monkey View Post


    ATV V2 would play music until you make another selection as well.

    Enjoy the show and get past the marketing pitch. Studios and device manufacturers are only trying to soak us for another round of movie purchases. As a matter of fact it's called "multiple bites at the Apple". and it's a rather offensive phrase if you ask me because it implies that consumers are all "too stupid" to realize that they've bought the same thing 6 different ways. Stop feeding the system.



    The great thing about Blu-ray is that you don't have to get soaked for another round of movie purchases. The movies you already own still plays in the Blu-ray player. You just have more options. You can buy new movies in HD, you can buy the DVD in SD, you can get used ones in from half.ebay.com or the discount bin at Best Buy. Great to have different options.
  • Reply 106 of 150
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by RichL View Post


    Nice to see "My ......" at the top of the menus now.



    Whomever at Apple decided to put "My ___ " to the top of the list and add a search for those files is pure genius. Why hadn't anybody heard of or requested that before? Apple keeps pushing the envelope!
  • Reply 107 of 150
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by JeffDM View Post




    Why isn't it set as default?



    yeah tell me about it.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by djames42 View Post


    True, but wouldn't 1080i actually look worse than 720p?



    V2 can't do slideshows - not the way iPhoto does them (with preset music and transitions). ATV will slideshow an album, but it will pick random music (which frequently is inappropriate for the album I might add!) and use whatever transition you've set in the global preferences.




    These guys are talking about 1080P BD. 1080I would really be a disappointment. I hate interlaced video. and you're right it takes up way too much HD space and takes way too long to download.



    Regarding slideshows... I need to look into it. I got my father-in-laws ATV to display his slide shows with music etc. You have to build them in iphoto and then synch them though. I don't normally build them myself but he has this thing with all of his vacation photos. Ugh.. If I have to listen to Pavarotti again while watching vacation photos from Italy I think I'll stab my ears.



    Update: did dome looking around. Forgot that you have to synch the slideshows and the music. It won't stream from a server. Further it seems that there may be some cross "mojination" with iphoto and ATV updates. Hmmmm?
  • Reply 108 of 150
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleZilla View Post


    1024 is HD. I'll be the first one in line when Apple releases a true HD model.



    1024 is not HD. 720p, 1080i, and 1080p are defined as HD.
  • Reply 109 of 150
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by pt123 View Post


    The great thing about Blu-ray is that you don't have to get soaked for another round of movie purchases. The movies you already own still plays in the Blu-ray player. You just have more options. You can buy new movies in HD, you can buy the DVD in SD, you can get used ones in from half.ebay.com or the discount bin at Best Buy. Great to have different options.



    fair enough. There are lots of options. Too bad for me all of my media is on a server now. I prefer having 4 TB's of shows in one easy to access location at this point. No looking back. Bye Bye optical media.
  • Reply 110 of 150
    john.bjohn.b Posts: 2,742member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by djames42 View Post


    True, but wouldn't 1080i actually look worse than 720p? Since it's interlaced, the actual amount of data being transmitted is really only 540 lines of resolution per frame...



    Yeah, sorta, but not really. It's not nearly as important on flatpanel LCD monitors as it used to be on tube monitors or TV screens.



    Like I said earlier, the level of compression is the overriding factor for quality. Just like you can over-compress a JPEG image or an MP3 audio file, you can also over-compress video.



    And it's not just Apple that does that, either. My local OTA network TV affiliates all do this to offer a second SD channel for news or weather on the 6.3 or 7.2 channels. And my cable provider does this on ALL channels to save bandwidth for their crappy inDemand feature movies (which are also over-compressed -- to the point of pixelation).



    So don't pay too much attention to the 720p/1080i/1080p designations since they don't mean what you might expect.
  • Reply 111 of 150
    Well for people who modify their AppleTV to do more. Like SSH for access, Perian for divx, etc.



    The old patchstick still works, ssh works as advertised, codecs install normally. ATV files and such will need a minor update as the ATVfiles causes the finder to not come up...



    Woo. Thanks for not entirely breaking stuff Apple
  • Reply 112 of 150
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by telusman View Post


    The old patchstick still works, ssh works as advertised, codecs install normally. ATV files and such will need a minor update as the ATVfiles causes the finder to not come up...



    Good to know - however, for those of us who are too lazy to do it ourselves, we've been warned by the ATVFlash folk that their tool does not yet work with 3.0. So I'm waiting... As usual...
  • Reply 113 of 150
    docno42docno42 Posts: 3,755member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hlfnlsn View Post


    So, you don't have any cable tv at all? I can see all the savings there if you decide not to get cable tv period, but I guess you never watch the news, live sporting events, awards shows or any random television.



    There's this fantastic technology called wireless: http://www.antennaweb.org



    I'm seriously considering dumping my cable - the annual costs are outrageous!
  • Reply 114 of 150
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by djames42 View Post


    True, but wouldn't 1080i actually look worse than 720p? Since it's interlaced, the actual amount of data being transmitted is really only 540 lines of resolution per frame...



    No, it's 540 lines per field -- big difference. In any case, if you start with a progressive source then there is actually little difference between 1080p and 1080i playback. Regardless, however, 1080i has 1080 lines of resolution per frame and both 1080p and 1080i can have 24 or 30 frames per second.
  • Reply 115 of 150
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Robin Huber View Post


    I have bought in every product category Apple has ever made except the boom box and AppleTV. While waiting for Apple to do the right thing and make a DVR I kept adding to and upgrading my TiVo collection. I am so far up TiVo's butt that anything else is redundant. To date, Apple isn't offering anything more or better than I already have and use. I can look at my iPhoto albums and listen to iTunes though our wireless network with TiVo. I can stream movies through our existing Netflix account on TiVo. I keep waiting for Apple to consolidate all those functions and a DVR with a killer UI that tops what I have. As soon as that happens and one of my Tivos die, I'll replace it with Apple.



    Being a TiVo addict myself, I had this same opinion of ATV (that is, why bother) until I bought one and started using it. (I may even have an old post or two on this site bashing the ATV.) However I'm not buying stuff from the iTunes store, but rather using it to play TV shows downloaded from the net and ripped DVDs.



    ATV keeps track of what you've watched and what you haven't, which TiVo does not do. So if I have, hypothetically speaking, 400+ old Dark Shadows episodes loaded on the ATV, I don't have to keep track of where I left off if I stop watching for a month; ATV can list only the unwatched episodes. Same with movies; I can keep all the movies I've ripped on the Mac and sync only unwatched movies to the ATV. That way I can skim through just the new stuff in one menu, but when friends come over we can pick from the entire library in another menu one click away. With TiVo, movies and TV shows all appear in the same menu, watched or unwatched. TiVo Desktop doesn't support any folder or genre organization of your videos, and TiVo doesn't let you hide stuff you've already seen, because it assumes that after you've watched something you'll delete it.



    The ATV still seems pricey at $229, especially for a measly 160GB. I hung an external 1TB drive off the Mac ($88 at Best Buy*) and keep my iTunes folder there, and just leave the Mac on with iTunes running when I want to access something that's not synced to the ATV.



    So in short I use the ATV as a complement to my rack of other AV equipment, TiVo included.



    *$88 for a terabyte?! Crap, I paid $700 for my very first hard drive in 1987: 20 MEGAbytes.
  • Reply 116 of 150
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by spliff monkey View Post


    Enjoy the show and get past the marketing pitch. Studios and device manufacturers are only trying to soak us for another round of movie purchases. As a matter of fact it's called "multiple bites at the Apple". and it's a rather offensive phrase if you ask me because it implies that consumers are all "too stupid" to realize that they've bought the same thing 6 different ways. Stop feeding the system.



    Too late, I've already bought a half-dozen blu-rays on impulse. Some of which may sit in the shrink wrap for years, collecting dust on the shelf above all the unwatched DVDs I've bought over the last decade. When the shelf fills up I'll have to move some to the other shelf above all the unwatched shrink-wrapped LaserDiscs -- which, I noticed from a couple price tags, were more expensive in 1993 than Blu-rays are now.
  • Reply 117 of 150
    Echoing the majority here, this update is a 2.5 release at best, hardly deserving of a 3.0 moniker. The new main menu with coverflow looks better, maybe, I guess, but I preferred the old system font rather than Helvetica.



    I like that the "My Movies", "My TV Shows" etc. now appear at the top of each menu instead of the bottom.



    I don't care to see iTunes Store stuff advertised at the top of the Movies/TV Shows/Music pages.



    I now have to go into iTunes and select only certain photo albums to sync instead of the entire library -- when scrolling past the Photos option in the main menu, without even selecting it, I see a coverflow view of a few photos from my library which my in-laws do NOT need to see. LOL



    The iTunes LP/extra content stuff doesn't interest me. Since Apple jacked the song prices to $1.29 for anything that is new, or was ever even remotely popular, I've been buying MP3s from Amazon instead. I don't think I've ever bought a movie from iTunes either; all my video is ripped from DVDs or downloaded.



    The 2.x ATV already did net radio, in a roundabout way, but without iTunes' station directory: by dragging a net radio link into a playlist in iTunes, the ATV will play it. TiVo works the same way if you have TiVo Desktop installed.



    For others who keep harping on DVR or Netflix or Hulu or whatever streaming video thingie the Apple TV doesn't have, knock it off already! Apple is selling the box to make money on purchases from the iTunes Store and it will never allow access to services that would compete with itself.



    I don't think ATV even needs any of those streaming services because so many other devices support them now. My own HT setup includes lots of overlapping streaming services:



    ? Panasonic TC-P65V10 plasma -- Amazon VOD, YouTube

    ? TiVo HD -- Amazon VOD, Netflix, Blockbuster VOD, YouTube

    ? LG BD390 Blu-ray -- Netflix, CinemaNow, Vudu, YouTube

    ? Apple TV -- iTunes, YouTube

    ? Denon AVR-3310CI receiver -- internet radio



    I'm surprised the Harmony One remote doesn't play YouTube vids on its tiny LCD. They'd certainly look better there than on the 65" plasma.
  • Reply 118 of 150
    Told ya it was going to happen a few days ago
  • Reply 119 of 150
    richysrichys Posts: 160member
    Well, it sounds to me like these are some worthy updates, that probably sets up the ATV nicely for some new (Internet related) features and hardware next year (in conjunction with the tablet -- which I'm sure will be called the iBook).



    I've had a 160GB ATV since v1.1, and have been very happy with it. That's not to say it's perfect (not by any means), but fits with my needs nicely. While I like the look of the new menu system, here's what I would still like to see (much of which will require new hardware):
    • Better HD support -- 1080p would be nice, but I'd be happy with 720p at frame rates higher than 24fps. 720p60 would be great to match the Lumix GH1 I've ordered. My rather ancient Aquos can only display 720p content, so 1080 would only be for future proofing for me. Also, the 5Mbps data rate is a little low -- to match BD this really needs to be bumped to 15Mbps.

    • TV show rentals -- I too would love to cut back on my satellite TV subscription, but my wife's addiction to any American show set in a hospital (House, Grey's Anatomy, etc.) or the police (CSI everything, Life, etc.) means I have to keep paying Sky. On a side note: why do the people on these shows never smile or banter? Everyone takes their jobs so seriously...! To be fair, my addiction to sport means I'll keep paying somepremium to Sky!

    • Apps -- The App Store is such a success with the iPhone/Touch that it makes sense to offer it for the ATV. I think this will happen with the tablet. Obviously the ATV has no touchscreen or acceleromter, but the ATV can be tied to an iPhone/Touch. This happens already with the Remote app, so I don't see why this can't be extended (e.g. as a controller for ATV games).

    • Extended storage -- I'm not too bothered about plugging USB HDs in the back, but it can't be too difficult for Apple to allow the ATV to pull media of a NAS. If not a generic NAS, then at least Airport attached disks/TM. I have an MBP, and it's not realistic to turn this on every time I want to watch something from the 2TB disc attached to my AEBS that isn't synched to the 160GB ATV!

    • Better content outside the US -- I have a US and UK iTMS account (my US ZIP is the ZIP for the Manhatten Apple Store!), but it's a hassle buying US iTunes vouchers on eBay (especially as the exchange rate sucks now). I know this is the fault of the media companies rather than Apple, but please please can the non-US iTunes stores have better content?

    • Catch-up TV -- I use the BBC iPlayer functionality of Boxee quite a lot. I don't want to catch up with TV shows on my laptop. I don't think it would damage Apple's iTMS revenue too much if they allowed services like iPlayer and Hulu -- in fact, it might even stimulate purchases (I might go back and rent previous series/seasons of a programme I've recently discovered, for example).

    I don't think a web browser will be that useful -- I use my iPod Touch for ad hoc browsing anyway. I don't see Apple ever adding DVD, BD, Netflix, or a DVR. It doesn't fit with their on-demand iTunes model.



    I had thought that going to a 3.0 release would have meant significant 'under the bonnet/hood' changes (moving the OS to SL, for example). However, the fact that the patchstick still works suggests that the OS is still Tiger based. Ho hum. Having said that, maybe Apple have just dropped the new UI (and a few other tweaks) on top of the existing OS as a pre-Christmas stop-gap until new ATV hardware (with an SL/iPhone OS X based OS) comes along in the NY. Just enough to keep the ATV fresh for Christmas. After all, if the new UI is ready, and is sufficiently abstracted from the OS (and other 'plug in' features), then why not release it?



    In summary, I like the look of the new 3.0 software; but I'll hold off updating until Boxee works. And I look forward to whatever (I hope) Apple is bringing us in the new year.
  • Reply 120 of 150
    I updated both iTunes and AppleTv and iTunes Extras doesn't work. Is anyone else having a problem with this?
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