forgive the shorthand, this is a complex topic. the "flag" i referred to is for AACS protected content. Apple as you know uses its different FairPlay DRM system for iTunes, which is always in effect. but you are right, the ultimate result is the same, a blank screen. do you also get the blank screen if you use the ATV's component cable connections instead of its HDMI output?
I am outputting from my MacBook Pro and I don't have an TV. I may get an TV soon. My guess is, no. But by now I've installed the HDCP drivers for my monitor (Viewsonic VX2433w), so I can't test analog results with my MacBook Pro even if I had a MDP to VGA adapter (I'm using MDP to DVI).
almost no hope for this, darn. the upcoming Tablet unveiling event theme is reportedly "mobility," and ATV does not fit that at all.
but i bet there will be a big Fall event themed on the "home" somehow which will feature a revitalized AppleTV.
that would give Apple a good 1-2-3 punch for 2010 (with iPhone 4.0 in between).
Apple could wait until the March event when they update the iPhone OS SDK for v4.0 and give us demo, which may work if the AppleTV gets an SDK, too. Or they could introduce the SDK and preview iPhone this month. We're only going by Apple's relatively short history but things are bound to change as needed.
Note that the "focusing on mobility" doesn't exclude stationary devices from being updated. I've also heard that Apple can't introduce two major product categories the same day but note tr original iPhone was demoed right after the AppleTV.
What I meant by digital transition was all broadcasts are in fact now digital, meaning networks can be monitored for bandwidth usage just as the internet is. It's all packets now. What I've been saying on here and other places for a while is that they should move off of a content per subscriber model, and perhaps pay for throughput per "channel." Net neutrality, by my definition. Packets are packets whether they carry TV broadcasts or internet data. Or internet TV broadcasts
Let's say a local node of Fox uses 1TB an hour. Cablevision pays Fox for the TB of content, and charges it's customers accordingly for profit. Right now, the model doesn't work that way. By using polls and such, content providers say "oh we have x amount of viewers and you need to pay us y amount for the content then." Cablevision has to charge us to make up for that. The problem now is, advertisers are not paying what they used to, but the networks want more money. Cablevision says they aren't worth it, and are trying to limit price hikes, because they are already gouging us for television subscriptions.
I would assume now that all the information coming into my house is packets, there is in fact a way to know exactly what I'm watching and for how long. By measuring exactly what people use, there is no guesswork, and rates could be established based on true usage information.
For cable TV, the signal is is modulated, broadcasted, demodulated at the home and then it becomes a transport stream (digital, packets). There is no way to tell of the customer actually "used" the broadcast.
Unlike the internet which contains the "TCP" part of TCP/IP which the ISP can determine how much bandwidth is actually being used. So there isn't a way to determine how much the customer is watching without additional software to communicate that information back to the broadcaster.
Sending 3D graphics to an HDTV over WiFi or BT? Not gonna happen. Your beat bet is hope for an AppleTV with Safari where you use your iPhone wirelessly to ONLY send text and accelorometer data like a Wii control with a virtual keyboard.
you don't send "3D graphics" to a TV (with an AppleTV in between to upscale and tweak it as needed). just need to output a video signal in a codec the TV can display. as i mentioned, the iPhone can already output such a video stream for display on a TV connected by cables (either component or composite).
this iPhone output is 480p. but the iPhone does not display the video image at the same time it is being output to the TV, the iPhone screen goes black. so that would need to be changed in order to mirror apps. the iPhone's "g" wifi has plenty bandwidth to transmit 480p video to an ATV.
however, apps are written for the iPhone's 480x320 display. (when you play a 640x480 SD video on an iPhone, it actually downscales it to that lower resolution.) so they would need to be upscaled by either the iPhone or the ATV, probably the latter.
480p is DVD/Wii quality - certainly good enough for iPhone games on an HDTV and ok for web browsing.
there are other more complicated ways to achieve the same visible results. whichever approach Apple might use to link your iPhone to your HDTV via AppleTV, it would be a hot new thing.
you don't send "3D graphics" to a TV (with an AppleTV in between to upscale and tweak it as needed). just need to output a video signal in a codec the TV can display. as i mentioned, the iPhone can already output such a video stream for display on a TV connected by cables (either component or composite).
this iPhone output is 480p. but the iPhone does not display the video image at the same time it is being output to the TV, the iPhone screen goes black. so that would need to be changed in order to mirror apps. the iPhone's "g" wifi has plenty bandwidth to transmit 480p video to an ATV.
however, apps are written for the iPhone's 480x320 display. (when you play a 640x480 SD video on an iPhone, it actually downscales it to that lower resolution.) so they would need to be upscaled by either the iPhone or the ATV, probably the latter.
480p is DVD/Wii quality - certainly good enough for iPhone games on an HDTV and ok for web browsing.
there are other more complicated ways to achieve the same visible results. whichever approach Apple might use to link your iPhone to your HDTV via AppleTV, it would be a hot new thing.
I don’t even know where to begin with your post and I doubt you’d understand anything I wrote so I concede that your idea is super brilliant and makes absolute perfect sense.
I don’t even know where to begin with your post and I doubt you’d understand anything I wrote so I concede that your idea is super brilliant and makes absolute perfect sense.
If NAS fails for any reason and it is not available then iLife applications start crashing even though you try hard to repoint to new source for same files (Why do i need this if I intend to create new project? Any sensible logic behind this design?)
I happen to run NAS with Airport Extreme. It is fast, but Apple iLife working wit this... Well i will spare tale of Apple bugs and design issues. If you wan to try what happens fdor your self then put your media files on NAS create few projects between iP{hoto, iMovie and iDVD from iLife '09 and also import yoir music and create few playlists in iTunes. Then disconnect NAS as if it failed permamently (which is simply a way of life). then create another NAS or add USB drive with all backup media and see recovery issues with iTunes/iLife for yourself.
Whant to recover hundreds of playlists that now are on different (backup) drive? Good luck and have a nice sleepless nights in manual fixing of thousands media "relinks".
BTW iLife in current form is effectively POS loaded with piles of features, but missing reliablity an having bugs that damage your artwork frequently in random fashion.
I am moving to Boinx FotoMagico and yes I prefer paying $300 for more relaible and really supported slideshow software with reliable HD export features to spare hours of workarounds on slideshow that used to take me 3) minutes in older iLife versions thna falll for fooolish statemet "Oh Mac comes with iLife that will allow you to have fun". It ain't fun anymore. It is as technical to workaround as working on PC with its funky ways that no user really need or should understand.
Appple is getting worse as far as software. I guess the team of original developers has changed and the current one needs to learn much about term "rliability".
Similarily some other products like Apple TV and Airport Extreme although the last one is much improved and very good.
I don?t even know where to begin with your post and I doubt you?d understand anything I wrote so I concede that your idea is super brilliant and makes absolute perfect sense.
Game-console sales are driven by content, especially exclusive content. Nintendo has Wii Fit, Wii Sports and Mario. These are big name franchises and are only available on a Nintendo system. Casual games are simply not system sellers. If you have a AppleTV you might then buy casual games for it, but very few new customers will buy a AppleTV for casual gaming.
In addition, unless Apple sells a lot more AppleTVs (or at least get the public excited about it), developers won't bother with the platform and will focus their resources elsewhere.
Wii Sports and Wii Fit can easily be replicated and aren't real franchises. These are exactly the kind of games you can expect on AppleTV in addition to iPhone game ports. Mario is a franchise that leads to a lot of Nintendo sales and would be harder to replicate.
There are a lot of games on the iPhone that would work on an updated aTV. Even the older iPhone 3G could do SDTV...just at lower frame rates than you want. Heck, a game like Civ Colonization would be easy.
"In the end, the entire development effort took about three hours."
With a 1Ghz hummingbird ARM and a PowerVR SGX and it can handle 480p games with decent framerates for any of the Wii Sports and Wii Fit style games. Not to mention any of the existing iPhone games that could be ported relatively easily.
if AppleTV allowed you to mirror your iPhone/touch games simultaneously on your big screen HDTV, that would be terrific fun. that would mean there are already tens of millions of game controllers in consumer homes today. that would mean there are already tens of thousands of games available - many being "exclusive content". that would mean kids and adults already have favorites and know how to play them. Then all they would need to bridge the connection wirelessly is a $229 AppleTV - which btw also does some other things too.
iPhone games keep becoming more varied and sophisticated. multiplayer games are now being developed too. yes, they are very different than traditional game counsel or PSP/DSI games - but that is actually a very compelling reason to buy them - something new and different! and the games prices are so much lower than Sony/Nintendo charge, it would undercut their market savagely.
Quote:
Originally Posted by solipsism
I'd like to see 3rd-party apps for the AppleTV but I think one of two things need to happen first.
1) They need to get a large enough user base in plae so developers will come.
2) They'll need to alter te iPhone SDK in some very amazing ways in order to simulate every touch screen action with a remote if you expect every game to simple work great on the AppleTV. Frankly, I don't see it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by solipsism
Sending 3D graphics to an HDTV over WiFi or BT? Not gonna happen. Your beat bet is hope for an AppleTV with Safari where you use your iPhone wirelessly to ONLY send text and accelorometer data like a Wii control with a virtual keyboard.
Quote:
Originally Posted by solipsism
I don’t even know where to begin with your post and I doubt you’d understand anything I wrote so I concede that your idea is super brilliant and makes absolute perfect sense.
No, the aTV plays the iPhone game natively since it runs the same CPU (ARM Cortex A8) and GPU (Power VR) and uses BT to connect to the iPhone or iPod Touch for controls.
As the link above shows, the enabling of the iPhone to TV for games is already in the Apple SDK.
Porting existing iPhone games to a ARM based aTV would be fairly easy. You'd need some new UI code and reuse the multi-player SDK support to connect to the aTV. A little more than the 3 hour Moto-Chaser proof of concept but not months and months.
I'll be pretty disappointed if Apple doesn't do this. The hardware and ecosystem are ready for it and it would really give their living room footprint a big boost. And that "full screen" rumor for apps is a hopeful indicator...and not just for the tablet.
No, the aTV plays the iPhone game natively since it runs the same CPU (ARM Cortex A8) and GPU (Power VR) and uses BT to connect to the iPhone or iPod Touch for controls.
As the link above shows, the enabling of the iPhone to TV for games is already in the Apple SDK.
Porting existing iPhone games to a ARM based aTV would be fairly easy. You'd need some new UI code and reuse the multi-player SDK support to connect to the aTV. A little more than the 3 hour Moto-Chaser proof of concept but not months and months.
I'll be pretty disappointed if Apple doesn't do this. The hardware and ecosystem are ready for it and it would really give their living room footprint a big boost. And that "full screen" rumor for apps is a hopeful indicator...and not just for the tablet.
Any iPhone game that has on-screen controls means that the iPhone needs to have the exact display as the TV. Besides this now requiring some super-syncing between the two via Bluetooth you still have the user looking at the phone for the controls, not the TV.
The only that will work is with games ONLY using the accelerometer and that seems a bit defeatist. I think we?ll see an AppleTV OS SDK before we see some complete porting with display mirroring that makes no sense in any way shape or form.
Any iPhone game that has on-screen controls means that the iPhone needs to have the exact display as the TV. Besides this now requiring some super-syncing between the two via Bluetooth you still have the user looking at the phone for the controls, not the TV.
The only that will work is with games ONLY using the accelerometer and that seems a bit defeatist. I think we?ll see an AppleTV OS SDK before we see some complete porting with display mirroring that makes no sense in any way shape or form.
"Using the iPhone as a controller opens up any number of new possibilities. When you use a wiimote as a controller, you can imagine it is a fishing reel or a katana but there's nothing visual on the controller itself that really tells you what it's being used as. With the iPhone, its visual screen offers a way to expand game play into your hands. "Imagine using the iPhone with Gears of War," Morrison said. "You could show your weapon inventory directly on the touch screen. For now it's just a matter of waiting for the technology to catch up. There's lots of potential for future development." He felt that the iPhone's accelerometer could at least equal the Play Station 3's six axis input if pushed to its limit."
From that ars article. Given it's from an iphone game dev I think it shows there are valid possibilities.
"Using the iPhone as a controller opens up any number of new possibilities. When you use a wiimote as a controller, you can imagine it is a fishing reel or a katana but there's nothing visual on the controller itself that really tells you what it's being used as. With the iPhone, its visual screen offers a way to expand game play into your hands. "Imagine using the iPhone with Gears of War," Morrison said. "You could show your weapon inventory directly on the touch screen. For now it's just a matter of waiting for the technology to catch up. There's lots of potential for future development." He felt that the iPhone's accelerometer could at least equal the Play Station 3's six axis input if pushed to its limit."
From that ars article. Given it's from an iphone game dev I think it shows there are valid possibilities.
The lack of tactile buttons requires larger buttons on the iphone interface. You might also see physical dpad extensions for the iphone.
It's not as hard as you think.
I agree that using the accelerometer isn?t difficult and have stated as such. The original poster stated that the iPhone display and graphics would MIRROR what is on the TV and all being pushed wirelessly. That simply won?t happen.
I can see some large buttons on the iPhone display which would make it fairly easy to use without looking, but that still requires a rewrite to have the game now play on the HDTVin landscape, have the iPhone work as a remote and the app now be just some big buttons. I can?t see Apple doing that.
I can see them making an SDK for the next AppleTV. I can see them offer wireless controllers for the device or making an iPhone app that is just a standard wireless control that AppleTV developers can tape into with an API.
That concept looks like a device is nothing like what was previously discussed. That is a hardware add-on with hardware buttons that don?t require constant visual contact to use. That is a completely different usage model.
As i wrote earlier, the HDCP "flag" that would limit output options for protected content has never actually be activated. (the industry is worried about a consumer backlash against BluRay before it can replace DVD's as the consumer standard). so yes, right now you can output protected content via DVI to a display in some cases. but if that flag is ever triggered for a specific piece of content, then you will not be able to do that.
ICT is part of AACS, not HDCP
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alfiejr
the fully-protected Sony PS3 for example will not allow you now to somehow convert its HDMI output to a display via DVI. has to be an HDMI display, which means the display is fully HDCP compliant and won't let you somehow hijack its image.
Which model of the PS3 is the fully-protected one you talk about?
in that case the HDCP is contained within the running Windows OS, not OS X. the only hardware aspect of HDCP is the HDMI output - which Macs don't have. yes, AppleTV is HDCP compliant, including the HDMI output. it is running a version of Tiger, OS X 10.4, which clearly has been modified accordingly.
There is HDCP support on OSX, Apple exposed it when they wrongfully blocked content to the VGA port on those machines rather than downsizing it.
I agree that using the accelerometer isn?t difficult and have stated as such. The original poster stated that the iPhone display and graphics would MIRROR what is on the TV and all being pushed wirelessly. That simply won?t happen.
Meh...you can given the low resolution. Frame rates would be low and it would be something of a bandwidth hog depending on how it's done. But I agree, no one would bother doing it that way. Especially given that an ARM based aTV could run the apps natively.
Connecting the iPhone to the aTV is no different than what iFun did for their games.
I can see some large buttons on the iPhone display which would make it fairly easy to use without looking, but that still requires a rewrite to have the game now play on the HDTVin landscape, have the iPhone work as a remote and the app now be just some big buttons. I can?t see Apple doing that.
Not that much rework.
Quote:
I can see them making an SDK for the next AppleTV. I can see them offer wireless controllers for the device or making an iPhone app that is just a standard wireless control that AppleTV developers can tape into with an API.
As you say, Apple does that with the remote already and it doesn't require that the iphone show the same image as is on the screen. For many games this would work fine. You could also use the iPhone as simply a touch and gesture pad for cursor position and commands.
That's a lot better user interaction than on the Wii. You don't need to look at the iPhone any more than you normally look at your trackpad.
Quote:
That concept looks like a device is nothing like what was previously discussed. That is a hardware add-on with hardware buttons that don?t require constant visual contact to use. That is a completely different usage model.
But one already expected for the iPhone family at some point for a better gaming experience. If and when that happens that would also translate into making the iPhone and Touch a better controller.
In the US and many other countries it is illegal to make, sell or distribute any software/hardware that will let you circumvent copy protection systems such as the copy protection on DVD movies. In the US this is part of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
RealNetworks is challenging this in the courts so it might change in future; however for now, Apple is by federal law not allowed to add the ability to import a DVD to either iTunes or the AppleTV.
That is circumvented if they get an agreement with the movie studios. Not to say they haven't tried, but with its current functionality, aTV isn't an easy sell.
There is HDCP support on OSX, Apple exposed it when they wrongfully blocked content to the VGA port on those machines rather than downsizing it.
yes, i was disappointed to just learn that the new Mini Display Port enforces HDCP. but just with the Apple FairPlay DRM on HD movies, not AACS DRM'd media.
Comments
I hope we see some news in January concerning an Apple TV upgrade.
almost no hope for this, darn. the upcoming Tablet unveiling event theme is reportedly "mobility," and ATV does not fit that at all.
but i bet there will be a big Fall event themed on the "home" somehow which will feature a revitalized AppleTV.
that would give Apple a good 1-2-3 punch for 2010 (with iPhone 4.0 in between).
forgive the shorthand, this is a complex topic. the "flag" i referred to is for AACS protected content. Apple as you know uses its different FairPlay DRM system for iTunes, which is always in effect. but you are right, the ultimate result is the same, a blank screen. do you also get the blank screen if you use the ATV's component cable connections instead of its HDMI output?
I am outputting from my MacBook Pro and I don't have an TV. I may get an TV soon. My guess is, no. But by now I've installed the HDCP drivers for my monitor (Viewsonic VX2433w), so I can't test analog results with my MacBook Pro even if I had a MDP to VGA adapter (I'm using MDP to DVI).
almost no hope for this, darn. the upcoming Tablet unveiling event theme is reportedly "mobility," and ATV does not fit that at all.
but i bet there will be a big Fall event themed on the "home" somehow which will feature a revitalized AppleTV.
that would give Apple a good 1-2-3 punch for 2010 (with iPhone 4.0 in between).
Apple could wait until the March event when they update the iPhone OS SDK for v4.0 and give us demo, which may work if the AppleTV gets an SDK, too. Or they could introduce the SDK and preview iPhone this month. We're only going by Apple's relatively short history but things are bound to change as needed.
Note that the "focusing on mobility" doesn't exclude stationary devices from being updated. I've also heard that Apple can't introduce two major product categories the same day but note tr original iPhone was demoed right after the AppleTV.
What I meant by digital transition was all broadcasts are in fact now digital, meaning networks can be monitored for bandwidth usage just as the internet is. It's all packets now. What I've been saying on here and other places for a while is that they should move off of a content per subscriber model, and perhaps pay for throughput per "channel." Net neutrality, by my definition. Packets are packets whether they carry TV broadcasts or internet data. Or internet TV broadcasts
Let's say a local node of Fox uses 1TB an hour. Cablevision pays Fox for the TB of content, and charges it's customers accordingly for profit. Right now, the model doesn't work that way. By using polls and such, content providers say "oh we have x amount of viewers and you need to pay us y amount for the content then." Cablevision has to charge us to make up for that. The problem now is, advertisers are not paying what they used to, but the networks want more money. Cablevision says they aren't worth it, and are trying to limit price hikes, because they are already gouging us for television subscriptions.
I would assume now that all the information coming into my house is packets, there is in fact a way to know exactly what I'm watching and for how long. By measuring exactly what people use, there is no guesswork, and rates could be established based on true usage information.
For cable TV, the signal is is modulated, broadcasted, demodulated at the home and then it becomes a transport stream (digital, packets). There is no way to tell of the customer actually "used" the broadcast.
Unlike the internet which contains the "TCP" part of TCP/IP which the ISP can determine how much bandwidth is actually being used. So there isn't a way to determine how much the customer is watching without additional software to communicate that information back to the broadcaster.
Sending 3D graphics to an HDTV over WiFi or BT? Not gonna happen. Your beat bet is hope for an AppleTV with Safari where you use your iPhone wirelessly to ONLY send text and accelorometer data like a Wii control with a virtual keyboard.
you don't send "3D graphics" to a TV (with an AppleTV in between to upscale and tweak it as needed). just need to output a video signal in a codec the TV can display. as i mentioned, the iPhone can already output such a video stream for display on a TV connected by cables (either component or composite).
here's the cable: http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB128LL/B
this iPhone output is 480p. but the iPhone does not display the video image at the same time it is being output to the TV, the iPhone screen goes black. so that would need to be changed in order to mirror apps. the iPhone's "g" wifi has plenty bandwidth to transmit 480p video to an ATV.
however, apps are written for the iPhone's 480x320 display. (when you play a 640x480 SD video on an iPhone, it actually downscales it to that lower resolution.) so they would need to be upscaled by either the iPhone or the ATV, probably the latter.
480p is DVD/Wii quality - certainly good enough for iPhone games on an HDTV and ok for web browsing.
there are other more complicated ways to achieve the same visible results. whichever approach Apple might use to link your iPhone to your HDTV via AppleTV, it would be a hot new thing.
you don't send "3D graphics" to a TV (with an AppleTV in between to upscale and tweak it as needed). just need to output a video signal in a codec the TV can display. as i mentioned, the iPhone can already output such a video stream for display on a TV connected by cables (either component or composite).
here's the cable: http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB128LL/B
this iPhone output is 480p. but the iPhone does not display the video image at the same time it is being output to the TV, the iPhone screen goes black. so that would need to be changed in order to mirror apps. the iPhone's "g" wifi has plenty bandwidth to transmit 480p video to an ATV.
however, apps are written for the iPhone's 480x320 display. (when you play a 640x480 SD video on an iPhone, it actually downscales it to that lower resolution.) so they would need to be upscaled by either the iPhone or the ATV, probably the latter.
480p is DVD/Wii quality - certainly good enough for iPhone games on an HDTV and ok for web browsing.
there are other more complicated ways to achieve the same visible results. whichever approach Apple might use to link your iPhone to your HDTV via AppleTV, it would be a hot new thing.
I don’t even know where to begin with your post and I doubt you’d understand anything I wrote so I concede that your idea is super brilliant and makes absolute perfect sense.
I don’t even know where to begin with your post and I doubt you’d understand anything I wrote so I concede that your idea is super brilliant and makes absolute perfect sense.
HAHAHAHHA
Super Awesome.
It had to be done
I happen to run NAS with Airport Extreme. It is fast, but Apple iLife working wit this... Well i will spare tale of Apple bugs and design issues. If you wan to try what happens fdor your self then put your media files on NAS create few projects between iP{hoto, iMovie and iDVD from iLife '09 and also import yoir music and create few playlists in iTunes. Then disconnect NAS as if it failed permamently (which is simply a way of life). then create another NAS or add USB drive with all backup media and see recovery issues with iTunes/iLife for yourself.
Whant to recover hundreds of playlists that now are on different (backup) drive? Good luck and have a nice sleepless nights in manual fixing of thousands media "relinks".
BTW iLife in current form is effectively POS loaded with piles of features, but missing reliablity an having bugs that damage your artwork frequently in random fashion.
I am moving to Boinx FotoMagico and yes I prefer paying $300 for more relaible and really supported slideshow software with reliable HD export features to spare hours of workarounds on slideshow that used to take me 3) minutes in older iLife versions thna falll for fooolish statemet "Oh Mac comes with iLife that will allow you to have fun". It ain't fun anymore. It is as technical to workaround as working on PC with its funky ways that no user really need or should understand.
Appple is getting worse as far as software. I guess the team of original developers has changed and the current one needs to learn much about term "rliability".
Similarily some other products like Apple TV and Airport Extreme although the last one is much improved and very good.
I don?t even know where to begin with your post and I doubt you?d understand anything I wrote so I concede that your idea is super brilliant and makes absolute perfect sense.
Thanks!
Game-console sales are driven by content, especially exclusive content. Nintendo has Wii Fit, Wii Sports and Mario. These are big name franchises and are only available on a Nintendo system. Casual games are simply not system sellers. If you have a AppleTV you might then buy casual games for it, but very few new customers will buy a AppleTV for casual gaming.
In addition, unless Apple sells a lot more AppleTVs (or at least get the public excited about it), developers won't bother with the platform and will focus their resources elsewhere.
Wii Sports and Wii Fit can easily be replicated and aren't real franchises. These are exactly the kind of games you can expect on AppleTV in addition to iPhone game ports. Mario is a franchise that leads to a lot of Nintendo sales and would be harder to replicate.
There are a lot of games on the iPhone that would work on an updated aTV. Even the older iPhone 3G could do SDTV...just at lower frame rates than you want. Heck, a game like Civ Colonization would be easy.
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/20...ing-device.ars
Money quote:
"In the end, the entire development effort took about three hours."
With a 1Ghz hummingbird ARM and a PowerVR SGX and it can handle 480p games with decent framerates for any of the Wii Sports and Wii Fit style games. Not to mention any of the existing iPhone games that could be ported relatively easily.
if AppleTV allowed you to mirror your iPhone/touch games simultaneously on your big screen HDTV, that would be terrific fun. that would mean there are already tens of millions of game controllers in consumer homes today. that would mean there are already tens of thousands of games available - many being "exclusive content". that would mean kids and adults already have favorites and know how to play them. Then all they would need to bridge the connection wirelessly is a $229 AppleTV - which btw also does some other things too.
iPhone games keep becoming more varied and sophisticated. multiplayer games are now being developed too. yes, they are very different than traditional game counsel or PSP/DSI games - but that is actually a very compelling reason to buy them - something new and different! and the games prices are so much lower than Sony/Nintendo charge, it would undercut their market savagely.
I'd like to see 3rd-party apps for the AppleTV but I think one of two things need to happen first.
1) They need to get a large enough user base in plae so developers will come.
2) They'll need to alter te iPhone SDK in some very amazing ways in order to simulate every touch screen action with a remote if you expect every game to simple work great on the AppleTV. Frankly, I don't see it.
Sending 3D graphics to an HDTV over WiFi or BT? Not gonna happen. Your beat bet is hope for an AppleTV with Safari where you use your iPhone wirelessly to ONLY send text and accelorometer data like a Wii control with a virtual keyboard.
I don’t even know where to begin with your post and I doubt you’d understand anything I wrote so I concede that your idea is super brilliant and makes absolute perfect sense.
No, the aTV plays the iPhone game natively since it runs the same CPU (ARM Cortex A8) and GPU (Power VR) and uses BT to connect to the iPhone or iPod Touch for controls.
As the link above shows, the enabling of the iPhone to TV for games is already in the Apple SDK.
Porting existing iPhone games to a ARM based aTV would be fairly easy. You'd need some new UI code and reuse the multi-player SDK support to connect to the aTV. A little more than the 3 hour Moto-Chaser proof of concept but not months and months.
I'll be pretty disappointed if Apple doesn't do this. The hardware and ecosystem are ready for it and it would really give their living room footprint a big boost. And that "full screen" rumor for apps is a hopeful indicator...and not just for the tablet.
No, the aTV plays the iPhone game natively since it runs the same CPU (ARM Cortex A8) and GPU (Power VR) and uses BT to connect to the iPhone or iPod Touch for controls.
As the link above shows, the enabling of the iPhone to TV for games is already in the Apple SDK.
Porting existing iPhone games to a ARM based aTV would be fairly easy. You'd need some new UI code and reuse the multi-player SDK support to connect to the aTV. A little more than the 3 hour Moto-Chaser proof of concept but not months and months.
I'll be pretty disappointed if Apple doesn't do this. The hardware and ecosystem are ready for it and it would really give their living room footprint a big boost. And that "full screen" rumor for apps is a hopeful indicator...and not just for the tablet.
Any iPhone game that has on-screen controls means that the iPhone needs to have the exact display as the TV. Besides this now requiring some super-syncing between the two via Bluetooth you still have the user looking at the phone for the controls, not the TV.
The only that will work is with games ONLY using the accelerometer and that seems a bit defeatist. I think we?ll see an AppleTV OS SDK before we see some complete porting with display mirroring that makes no sense in any way shape or form.
Any iPhone game that has on-screen controls means that the iPhone needs to have the exact display as the TV. Besides this now requiring some super-syncing between the two via Bluetooth you still have the user looking at the phone for the controls, not the TV.
The only that will work is with games ONLY using the accelerometer and that seems a bit defeatist. I think we?ll see an AppleTV OS SDK before we see some complete porting with display mirroring that makes no sense in any way shape or form.
"Using the iPhone as a controller opens up any number of new possibilities. When you use a wiimote as a controller, you can imagine it is a fishing reel or a katana but there's nothing visual on the controller itself that really tells you what it's being used as. With the iPhone, its visual screen offers a way to expand game play into your hands. "Imagine using the iPhone with Gears of War," Morrison said. "You could show your weapon inventory directly on the touch screen. For now it's just a matter of waiting for the technology to catch up. There's lots of potential for future development." He felt that the iPhone's accelerometer could at least equal the Play Station 3's six axis input if pushed to its limit."
From that ars article. Given it's from an iphone game dev I think it shows there are valid possibilities.
Current real world example:
http://mashable.com/2008/11/17/ifun/
The lack of tactile buttons requires larger buttons on the iphone interface. You might also see physical dpad extensions for the iphone.
It's not as hard as you think.
"Using the iPhone as a controller opens up any number of new possibilities. When you use a wiimote as a controller, you can imagine it is a fishing reel or a katana but there's nothing visual on the controller itself that really tells you what it's being used as. With the iPhone, its visual screen offers a way to expand game play into your hands. "Imagine using the iPhone with Gears of War," Morrison said. "You could show your weapon inventory directly on the touch screen. For now it's just a matter of waiting for the technology to catch up. There's lots of potential for future development." He felt that the iPhone's accelerometer could at least equal the Play Station 3's six axis input if pushed to its limit."
From that ars article. Given it's from an iphone game dev I think it shows there are valid possibilities.
Current real world example:
http://mashable.com/2008/11/17/ifun/
The lack of tactile buttons requires larger buttons on the iphone interface. You might also see physical dpad extensions for the iphone.
It's not as hard as you think.
I agree that using the accelerometer isn?t difficult and have stated as such. The original poster stated that the iPhone display and graphics would MIRROR what is on the TV and all being pushed wirelessly. That simply won?t happen.
I can see some large buttons on the iPhone display which would make it fairly easy to use without looking, but that still requires a rewrite to have the game now play on the HDTVin landscape, have the iPhone work as a remote and the app now be just some big buttons. I can?t see Apple doing that.
I can see them making an SDK for the next AppleTV. I can see them offer wireless controllers for the device or making an iPhone app that is just a standard wireless control that AppleTV developers can tape into with an API.
That concept looks like a device is nothing like what was previously discussed. That is a hardware add-on with hardware buttons that don?t require constant visual contact to use. That is a completely different usage model.
As i wrote earlier, the HDCP "flag" that would limit output options for protected content has never actually be activated. (the industry is worried about a consumer backlash against BluRay before it can replace DVD's as the consumer standard). so yes, right now you can output protected content via DVI to a display in some cases. but if that flag is ever triggered for a specific piece of content, then you will not be able to do that.
ICT is part of AACS, not HDCP
the fully-protected Sony PS3 for example will not allow you now to somehow convert its HDMI output to a display via DVI. has to be an HDMI display, which means the display is fully HDCP compliant and won't let you somehow hijack its image.
Which model of the PS3 is the fully-protected one you talk about?
in that case the HDCP is contained within the running Windows OS, not OS X. the only hardware aspect of HDCP is the HDMI output - which Macs don't have. yes, AppleTV is HDCP compliant, including the HDMI output. it is running a version of Tiger, OS X 10.4, which clearly has been modified accordingly.
There is HDCP support on OSX, Apple exposed it when they wrongfully blocked content to the VGA port on those machines rather than downsizing it.
I agree that using the accelerometer isn?t difficult and have stated as such. The original poster stated that the iPhone display and graphics would MIRROR what is on the TV and all being pushed wirelessly. That simply won?t happen.
Meh...you can given the low resolution. Frame rates would be low and it would be something of a bandwidth hog depending on how it's done. But I agree, no one would bother doing it that way. Especially given that an ARM based aTV could run the apps natively.
Connecting the iPhone to the aTV is no different than what iFun did for their games.
This one has a working movie.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/11/17...me-controller/
I can see some large buttons on the iPhone display which would make it fairly easy to use without looking, but that still requires a rewrite to have the game now play on the HDTVin landscape, have the iPhone work as a remote and the app now be just some big buttons. I can?t see Apple doing that.
Not that much rework.
I can see them making an SDK for the next AppleTV. I can see them offer wireless controllers for the device or making an iPhone app that is just a standard wireless control that AppleTV developers can tape into with an API.
As you say, Apple does that with the remote already and it doesn't require that the iphone show the same image as is on the screen. For many games this would work fine. You could also use the iPhone as simply a touch and gesture pad for cursor position and commands.
That's a lot better user interaction than on the Wii. You don't need to look at the iPhone any more than you normally look at your trackpad.
That concept looks like a device is nothing like what was previously discussed. That is a hardware add-on with hardware buttons that don?t require constant visual contact to use. That is a completely different usage model.
But one already expected for the iPhone family at some point for a better gaming experience. If and when that happens that would also translate into making the iPhone and Touch a better controller.
"AppleTV should let me import my DVDs"
In the US and many other countries it is illegal to make, sell or distribute any software/hardware that will let you circumvent copy protection systems such as the copy protection on DVD movies. In the US this is part of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
RealNetworks is challenging this in the courts so it might change in future; however for now, Apple is by federal law not allowed to add the ability to import a DVD to either iTunes or the AppleTV.
That is circumvented if they get an agreement with the movie studios. Not to say they haven't tried, but with its current functionality, aTV isn't an easy sell.
There is HDCP support on OSX, Apple exposed it when they wrongfully blocked content to the VGA port on those machines rather than downsizing it.
yes, i was disappointed to just learn that the new Mini Display Port enforces HDCP. but just with the Apple FairPlay DRM on HD movies, not AACS DRM'd media.
Which model of the PS3 is the fully-protected one you talk about?
the one i own from 2008 ...