Our shared iTunes Library is 5.35 TeraByte and resides on a 28 TeraByte RAID -- with various parts backed up elsewhere.
I would like to see the new AppleTV with a reasonable-sized SSD for active storage and cross-loading. Then have an automatic percolate-up, trickle down interface with the Cloud -- where the files would be archived and distributed across many servers, for reliable access.
That way, the stuff we are currently using is on the AppleTV SSD and everything else can be quickly streamed/cached from the Cloud.
This could use iCloud for the server, but does not need to.
I think this is one of the major reasons that Apple acquired FoundationDB. FDB can run on any 'Nix servers and is designed to be distributed.
So, our personal, encrypted files could be spread across tens or hundreds of servers from Amazon, Apple, Google, IBM, etc. -- or any combination.
Apple could offer a local, Mac version to provide the same capability to manage a local copy of the files -- it's just another distribution point.
So files are distributed like with torrents? Interesting idea. Would that lead to improved overall availability and download speeds?
I wasn't clear! The files are replicated across multiple physical (or logical) servers and changes to any data is synched to all others. So, I meant distributed referring to location of the data rather than a means of transferring the data.
It does mean that †he data is more available, because if one location (cluster) is unavailable FDB can select another based on workload (performance). As to download speeds, FDB data is encoded similar to a torrent
-- probably just as efficiently. You can easily segment a large file into smaller files as with torrents. I hadn't thought about it, but an FDB app could easily gather and assemble these segments from different locations.
I like the idea you describe if a local/remote seamless mix. Maybe even one that automatically "learns", just like a cache on a CPU or SDD.
But I'm sure we're already reaching too high with our expectations here. One can dream, though. And I'm still carefully optimistic that his time will be again a "yes. Yes! YES!"-moment coming up on the 9th
Maybe not. FoundationDB is lean and mean. There was a blog (taken down) that showed how FDB scaled to 14.4 million writes per second. The AppleTV need not do the heavy lifting -- A Mac with more RAM, Storage and CPU cores could do the uploading/downloading and assembly -- then cross-load the files to the AppleTV.
Here's a short video that demos FDB on servers similar to a Mac Mini:
Wrong. I complained about the speaker quality in the newer iMacs with the 5mm audio-funnel chin that were created after Jobs died. But who cares about facts.
I was thinking more about the "upcoming Apple product" hint John C.Dvorak got from his friend who works at Apple and his wife told him that the product would be "hilarious"... What if the Apple TV was rethought under the influence of Apple's new health push? Perhaps the TV pauses programming and makes the viewer(s) exercise or move if they sit for too long watching their shows? If it has Primesense motion capability it could watch you for the duration of the exercise period and attempt to dissuade you from continuing to sit on your butt watching for extended periods. This would be a "good idea" but certainly something Dvorak would attack with relish.
Can't argue with that. I'm yet to see or hear a tv that comes close to my Pioneer Kuro. THAT'S the market I want to see Apple enter if they make a tv. Pioneer are sadly missed, but Apple has the "cool" to do it even better.
Just about to purchase my third Kuro soon. It's going into storage as a spare
Our shared iTunes Library is 5.35 TeraByte and resides on a 28 TeraByte RAID -- with various parts backed up elsewhere.
I would like to see the new AppleTV with a reasonable-sized SSD for active storage and cross-loading. Then have an automatic percolate-up, trickle down interface with the Cloud -- where the files would be archived and distributed across many servers, for reliable access.
That way, the stuff we are currently using is on the AppleTV SSD and everything else can be quickly streamed/cached from the Cloud.
This could use iCloud for the server, but does not need to.
I think this is one of the major reasons that Apple acquired FoundationDB. FDB can run on any 'Nix servers and is designed to be distributed.
So, our personal, encrypted files could be spread across tens or hundreds of servers from Amazon, Apple, Google, IBM, etc. -- or any combination.
Apple could offer a local, Mac version to provide the same capability to manage a local copy of the files -- it's just another distribution point.
That RAID must've cost a pretty penny. Don't those go for $15,000-$20,000?
The controller will have no batteries and can be recharged from the same usb port that recharges your new apple wireless keyboard and trackpad.There will be a power indicator on the back, same as the keyboard and trackpad.
"Blowing away" existing SmarTV GUIs is about as difficult as obeying the law of gravity. Most not only look like they were designed by me hanical engineers - they were undergrad engineering students at that.
We've had 2 of the breed, so far, and all that's been useful was programming the Amazon Prime button into my Harmony remote.
I was thinking more about the "upcoming Apple product" hint John C.Dvorak got from his friend who works at Apple and his wife told him that the product would be "hilarious"... What if the Apple TV was rethought under the influence of Apple's new health push? Perhaps the TV pauses programming and makes the viewer(s) exercise or move if they sit for too long watching their shows? If it has Primesense motion capability it could watch you for the duration of the exercise period and attempt to dissuade you from continuing to sit on your butt watching for extended periods. This would be a "good idea" but certainly something Dvorak would attack with relish.
I don't know what that means, "pushes." If you get gaming by default, is that pushing? I seriously doubt Apple is going to market this device as a replacement for gaming consoles, that would be incredibly stupid (in my opinion) and would misunderstand and misrepresent the device. Gaming is but *one* of the types of apps the device (via the rumoured App Store) will support. Different price points, different market segments, different functionality vs. gaming consoles, not an either/or situation.
English is not my main language, so maybe I use the wrong term. I was talking about making the ATV a device focused on gaming.
Quote:
This gets at "casual gamers aren't *real* gamers" silliness I was talking about. iOS doesn't require controllers (though as I said I think some games are improved by them), online play or multiplayer options, and yet it's one of the most popular platforms for games out there.
IMO "casual gamers" are real gamers, but in a different way. I think Nintendo make the Wii the device for casual gamers to play in the living room, with a large TV and a controller. And it was a hit, but then the interest went down. And now look where the Wii U stands now, even though it has a great library of games. From what I have seen, making casual gamers play in front of a large TV is hard. IMO, that's the reason iOS / Android is popular for casual gaming. Play games with the device they have in their hands, quick and simple. Now change them to play the same game in front of a large TV and with a controller and that's not necessarily a good thing, specially when the game was designed to be played in an iPhone or iPad.
Quote:
It seems the concerns about this device offering gaming are more about protecting what is perhaps considered sacrosanct ("gaming via consoles") as if this device somehow challenges that world by threatening to redefine the entire concept of gaming. It's like there is territory to defend, and that is something I simply don't understand. The two worlds can coexist, gaming consoles aren't going away (not yet anyway).
I don't consider playing consoles to be "sacrosnact", although may be some people do. I was just pointing out that casual gamers are very different from console gamers, and have a different POV of gaming, even though both are gamers.
Our shared iTunes Library is 5.35 TeraByte and resides on a 28 TeraByte RAID -- with various parts backed up elsewhere.
I would like to see the new AppleTV with a reasonable-sized SSD for active storage and cross-loading. Then have an automatic percolate-up, trickle down interface with the Cloud -- where the files would be archived and distributed across many servers, for reliable access.
That way, the stuff we are currently using is on the AppleTV SSD and everything else can be quickly streamed/cached from the Cloud.
This could use iCloud for the server, but does not need to.
I think this is one of the major reasons that Apple acquired FoundationDB. FDB can run on any 'Nix servers and is designed to be distributed.
So, our personal, encrypted files could be spread across tens or hundreds of servers from Amazon, Apple, Google, IBM, etc. -- or any combination.
Apple could offer a local, Mac version to provide the same capability to manage a local copy of the files -- it's just another distribution point.
That RAID must've cost a pretty penny. Don't those go for $15,000-$20,000?
With 3 active grandkids with cameras, iPhones, iPads we generate a lot of videos and pictures. A soccer game alone is 90 minutes of video ~= 8 GB of older AVCHD and even more on a better camera.
Could someone knowledgeable 'splain to me the advantages of console gaming vs iPad gaming in some sort of reasonable priority??
I just don't understand!
My grandson has a PS4 and it seems nothing special to me!
A8 gaming is limited by the graphics processing power of the PowerVR Series 6XT GX6650 GPU, which while very impressive, is still a battery powered device that can't match current generation mains powered desktop/laptop GPUs. My MBPR has an Nvida GT 650M which is a 45W device more or less comparable to what's in an Xbox One. The PS4 GPU is more powerful still, and probably has on the order of 24 times the graphics processing power of a GX6650 GPU.
The other big difference is console gaming is controlled via hand-held controllers which yield a far more versatile and involving experience vs touching a screen.
In this video, you can see the progression in graphics and CPU processing power from the PS1 through the PS2 and PS3 to the current generation PS4. Keep in mind that GX6650 based gaming would probably be somewhere between the PS2 and PS3, but would require a controller to have anything like the game play feel, involvement, control precision, responsiveness and feedback. You need to select the full HD 1080P option and view fullscreen.
If Apple has over 50,000,000 active AppleTV units their negotiating power will increase 10 fold.
They would have the largest subscriber base in the US. Bigger than TimeWarner, Comcast, and DTV combined.
There are well over 100 million cable-TV subscribers in the U.S. While Apple has been proven to completely disrupt industries, it's going to be quite difficult to break the relationship between the traditional cable networks and the MSOs, they are simply too co-dependent upon each other.
For Apple to be successful, they might have to do what Netflix is doing and start creating original programming that becomes "must see". Because there's nothing else they can offer that will be exclusive to them and they're never going to be able to become the equivalent of a full-fledged MSO.
There's plenty of hype about cord-cutting, but the reality is that everyone still needs their ISP, and most of the MSOs will substantially increase the price of the web service if you drop your cable TV subscription, so it's usually not worth dropping. And for people who don't want to search for programs and prefer to watch linear services and for those who watch live sports, cable is still probably going to be the best way to go.
But it will be interesting to see if Apple really does redefine the UI and completely changes the game.
Why? If it has a ATSC/QAM tuner one can watch OTA transmissions over the cable coax. That eliminates the need for another box plus an antenna.
My Sony TV has an ATSC/QAM tuner, but I can't watch OTA transmissions over the cable coax. My building has an antenna that plugs into the set and I can watch those transmissions, but I have to switch inputs via the remote control. I don't get what OTA transmissions have to do with the cable coax.
Why? If it has a ATSC/QAM tuner one can watch OTA transmissions over the cable coax. That eliminates the need for another box plus an antenna.
So you're argument is we should add everything that could help eliminate an additional box no matter how infrequently something might be used? Do you know what percentage of people who are buying 70"+ 4K UHD TVs are using their coax for anything, not just OTA. If you have a modern set you're most likely to be used a cable box, sat box, and/or media extender appliance connected via HDMI. If, you are one of those rare people that want to grab OTA for a 70"+ 4K UHD set then why not allow them to do so with a cheap coax to HDMI converter so that all TV going forward can be a little ess expensive, less complex, and be a little smaller as a result of requiring this archaic and seldom used port interface?
Comments
I wasn't clear! The files are replicated across multiple physical (or logical) servers and changes to any data is synched to all others. So, I meant distributed referring to location of the data rather than a means of transferring the data.
It does mean that †he data is more available, because if one location (cluster) is unavailable FDB can select another based on workload (performance). As to download speeds, FDB data is encoded similar to a torrent
-- probably just as efficiently. You can easily segment a large file into smaller files as with torrents. I hadn't thought about it, but an FDB app could easily gather and assemble these segments from different locations.
Maybe not. FoundationDB is lean and mean. There was a blog (taken down) that showed how FDB scaled to 14.4 million writes per second. The AppleTV need not do the heavy lifting -- A Mac with more RAM, Storage and CPU cores could do the uploading/downloading and assembly -- then cross-load the files to the AppleTV.
Here's a short video that demos FDB on servers similar to a Mac Mini:
[VIDEO]
Then please accept my apologies.
That is a poor argument.
That would make it a monitor, and not a TV. The distinction is the built in tuner.
Can't argue with that. I'm yet to see or hear a tv that comes close to my Pioneer Kuro. THAT'S the market I want to see Apple enter if they make a tv. Pioneer are sadly missed, but Apple has the "cool" to do it even better.
Just about to purchase my third Kuro soon. It's going into storage as a spare
That RAID must've cost a pretty penny. Don't those go for $15,000-$20,000?
We've had 2 of the breed, so far, and all that's been useful was programming the Amazon Prime button into my Harmony remote.
Then please accept my apologies.
I graciously do.
I was thinking more about the "upcoming Apple product" hint John C.Dvorak got from his friend who works at Apple and his wife told him that the product would be "hilarious"... What if the Apple TV was rethought under the influence of Apple's new health push? Perhaps the TV pauses programming and makes the viewer(s) exercise or move if they sit for too long watching their shows? If it has Primesense motion capability it could watch you for the duration of the exercise period and attempt to dissuade you from continuing to sit on your butt watching for extended periods. This would be a "good idea" but certainly something Dvorak would attack with relish.
Dvorak, you visionary
There are other distinctions, but, yes, I'd like to see the pointless tuner requirement removed and regulated to an external device.
I just don't understand!
My grandson has a PS4 and it seems nothing special to me!
I don't know what that means, "pushes." If you get gaming by default, is that pushing? I seriously doubt Apple is going to market this device as a replacement for gaming consoles, that would be incredibly stupid (in my opinion) and would misunderstand and misrepresent the device. Gaming is but *one* of the types of apps the device (via the rumoured App Store) will support. Different price points, different market segments, different functionality vs. gaming consoles, not an either/or situation.
English is not my main language, so maybe I use the wrong term. I was talking about making the ATV a device focused on gaming.
IMO "casual gamers" are real gamers, but in a different way. I think Nintendo make the Wii the device for casual gamers to play in the living room, with a large TV and a controller. And it was a hit, but then the interest went down. And now look where the Wii U stands now, even though it has a great library of games. From what I have seen, making casual gamers play in front of a large TV is hard. IMO, that's the reason iOS / Android is popular for casual gaming. Play games with the device they have in their hands, quick and simple. Now change them to play the same game in front of a large TV and with a controller and that's not necessarily a good thing, specially when the game was designed to be played in an iPhone or iPad.
I don't consider playing consoles to be "sacrosnact", although may be some people do. I was just pointing out that casual gamers are very different from console gamers, and have a different POV of gaming, even though both are gamers.
Nah! About $4,000.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?N=11077432&InitialSearch=yes&sts=pi
With 3 active grandkids with cameras, iPhones, iPads we generate a lot of videos and pictures. A soccer game alone is 90 minutes of video ~= 8 GB of older AVCHD and even more on a better camera.
Why? If it has a ATSC/QAM tuner one can watch OTA transmissions over the cable coax. That eliminates the need for another box plus an antenna.
Could someone knowledgeable 'splain to me the advantages of console gaming vs iPad gaming in some sort of reasonable priority??
I just don't understand!
My grandson has a PS4 and it seems nothing special to me!
A8 gaming is limited by the graphics processing power of the PowerVR Series 6XT GX6650 GPU, which while very impressive, is still a battery powered device that can't match current generation mains powered desktop/laptop GPUs. My MBPR has an Nvida GT 650M which is a 45W device more or less comparable to what's in an Xbox One. The PS4 GPU is more powerful still, and probably has on the order of 24 times the graphics processing power of a GX6650 GPU.
The other big difference is console gaming is controlled via hand-held controllers which yield a far more versatile and involving experience vs touching a screen.
In this video, you can see the progression in graphics and CPU processing power from the PS1 through the PS2 and PS3 to the current generation PS4. Keep in mind that GX6650 based gaming would probably be somewhere between the PS2 and PS3, but would require a controller to have anything like the game play feel, involvement, control precision, responsiveness and feedback. You need to select the full HD 1080P option and view fullscreen.
If Apple has over 50,000,000 active AppleTV units their negotiating power will increase 10 fold.
They would have the largest subscriber base in the US. Bigger than TimeWarner, Comcast, and DTV combined.
There are well over 100 million cable-TV subscribers in the U.S. While Apple has been proven to completely disrupt industries, it's going to be quite difficult to break the relationship between the traditional cable networks and the MSOs, they are simply too co-dependent upon each other.
For Apple to be successful, they might have to do what Netflix is doing and start creating original programming that becomes "must see". Because there's nothing else they can offer that will be exclusive to them and they're never going to be able to become the equivalent of a full-fledged MSO.
There's plenty of hype about cord-cutting, but the reality is that everyone still needs their ISP, and most of the MSOs will substantially increase the price of the web service if you drop your cable TV subscription, so it's usually not worth dropping. And for people who don't want to search for programs and prefer to watch linear services and for those who watch live sports, cable is still probably going to be the best way to go.
But it will be interesting to see if Apple really does redefine the UI and completely changes the game.
Why? If it has a ATSC/QAM tuner one can watch OTA transmissions over the cable coax. That eliminates the need for another box plus an antenna.
My Sony TV has an ATSC/QAM tuner, but I can't watch OTA transmissions over the cable coax. My building has an antenna that plugs into the set and I can watch those transmissions, but I have to switch inputs via the remote control. I don't get what OTA transmissions have to do with the cable coax.
So you're argument is we should add everything that could help eliminate an additional box no matter how infrequently something might be used? Do you know what percentage of people who are buying 70"+ 4K UHD TVs are using their coax for anything, not just OTA. If you have a modern set you're most likely to be used a cable box, sat box, and/or media extender appliance connected via HDMI. If, you are one of those rare people that want to grab OTA for a 70"+ 4K UHD set then why not allow them to do so with a cheap coax to HDMI converter so that all TV going forward can be a little ess expensive, less complex, and be a little smaller as a result of requiring this archaic and seldom used port interface?