The movie download business sounds fishy to me. The more I think about it, the less I like it.
The problems are all things people have said on this thread: download times, quality, price, features. Add to that the possible end of net-neutrality (in which high-bandwidth-using entities will be charged extortion...i mean, a premium if they want anyone to be able to actually get their content...), and movie downloads becomes a really dicey proposition. Apple is not a company that would want to start something like that, and then pull out because the interested parties were too greedy; it sees little enough from those $0.99 songs as it is.
The real gold mine I think is in a film/video version of iTunes that rips content from the new BDs (and HD-DVDs). While this is not legal for DVDs, it is perfectly legal for the new generation of hi-def disks, thanks to MMC.
This is where Apple should contentrate. Just as it did with iTunes (iTMS only came online after iTunes was around for a while). Video storing and cataloging should be removed from iTunes, and a new app needs to join the iLife family: This app should be able to rip legal copies of these HD movies at whatever rez users want (presets=1080HD, 720HD, DVD, TV, iPod/PSP; and an advanced tab that lets the user customize all the various resolution, bitrate, keyframe, etc. settings). They should be able to rip or omit whatever audio tracks they want. The app should also have the ability to organize a video by a wide variety of tags: type, genre, sub-genre, directors, actors, producers, etc. It should obviously support home movies as well as content from DVRs. And it should support video playlists as well as allow you to burn "mix disks" via iDVD ("iBurner" ...pun intended...or whatever its name is going to be changed to after HD burners come online).
If Apple intros this app along with its media center (featuring a roomy 750GB drive or two ) and a video iPod (with a roomy 80GB drive), and maybe a steroid injected Airport Express with mini-DVI video output, this would actually be an event worth inviting the press to.
So whadaya think?
That App sounds 'Delicious' but it would need a biiiig drive for the full HD movies. Can't help but think the real iPod video is gonna be Standard Def, could be the start of good things. TV shows are the killer service for the new iTMMS.
There are a few other services that need to be in place first that are out of Apple's control (i.e. local broadband) but even here in back-water NZ the main provider are talking about 24Mbps ADSL to what passes for urban areas (more than 100 sheep) within a year. We'll see.
Let's all be clear: DVD ripping is illegal. It's not an issue of Apple writing an app that can do it legally. The change to copyright law must change at the industry level or the law must be challenged in court.
iTunes can legally rip CDs not because Apple negotiated with the RIAA to do so. It was already legal. DVD ripping is already illegal. Big difference.
Let's all be clear: DVD ripping is illegal. It's not an issue of Apple writing an app that can do it legally. The change to copyright law must change at the industry level or the law must be challenged in court.
iTunes can legally rip CDs not because Apple negotiated with the RIAA to do so. It was already legal. DVD ripping is already illegal. Big difference.
You're (kind of) right. It's not illegal to rip DVDs per se; it's just illegal to circumvent the CSS copy protection scheme. It would be just as illegal to rip an audio CD with a copy-protection scheme. And I think Apple would be foolish to write a program that could circumvent CSS. (However, importing unencrypted .ts files is something different.) But the new gen of HD disks have the MMC system(s) in place for this to work so that individuals can rip legal (DRMed) copies of movies they own.
Right now, it seems that no one has any idea what to do with this capability. Apple could score another major win by creating a system that takes advanatge of this: set the standard. (Who knows, we could even see movies with a "Works with iLife" blurb/logo on them! )
That App sounds 'Delicious' but it would need a biiiig drive for the full HD movies. Can't help but think the real iPod video is gonna be Standard Def, could be the start of good things. TV shows are the killer service for the new iTMMS.
McD
1TB 3.5" drives are on the horizon, I'd say we'll have them in stores by fall, Q1 of '07 at latest, thanks to perpendicular recording. It should be possible for HDD companies to get these drives to hold 1.5TB or even 2TB (the lab-tested maximum was 2.2TB I believe last year, but data retention was unreliable...which kind of defeats the purpose of a hard disk). A 1TB drive will hold at least 20 HD movies at full quality (and probably more); if you rip them at DVD res, you have space for about 500-1000 movies, or 5,000 TV shows (drool). I don't know anybody who has that many DVDs at home. (I consider my collection to be huge, and I have almost 200 movies/TV seasons; give me another 2 years and I might get to 500.)
This is basically the same trade-off with ripping music: we could use Apple lossless. And some people do choose to use 350 MB of storage space for an album. Most however will settle for lesser quality and space savings (~60-80 MB per album). (Probably more will choose the higher res for videos/movies since our eyes are more sensitive than our ears...and we'll have spent so much on those nice big HD screens . )
Let's all be clear: DVD ripping is illegal. It's not an issue of Apple writing an app that can do it legally. The change to copyright law must change at the industry level or the law must be challenged in court.
iTunes can legally rip CDs not because Apple negotiated with the RIAA to do so. It was already legal. DVD ripping is already illegal. Big difference.
dammit. i hate ridiculous laws like that. they're just wrong like stabbing a baby.
Not sure that Apple are convinced about streaming. The internet has the fundamental inability to get info from a to b on time which is why they are so keen on the local playback option (though I understand there have even been problems playing back HD-DVDs on PCs at the moment). In the absence of genuine realtime systems, download is still the way to go.
McD
Download huge files is as problematic as Streaming in my opinion.. just buffer a bit or 2?
The movie download business sounds fishy to me. The more I think about it, the less I like it.
The problems are all things people have said on this thread: download times, quality, price, features. Add to that the possible end of net-neutrality (in which high-bandwidth-using entities will be charged extortion...i mean, a premium if they want anyone to be able to actually get their content...), and movie downloads becomes a really dicey proposition. Apple is not a company that would want to start something like that, and then pull out because the interested parties were too greedy; it sees little enough from those $0.99 songs as it is.
The real gold mine I think is in a film/video version of iTunes that rips content from the new BDs (and HD-DVDs). While this is not legal for DVDs, it is perfectly legal for the new generation of hi-def disks, thanks to MMC.
This is where Apple should contentrate. Just as it did with iTunes (iTMS only came online after iTunes was around for a while). Video storing and cataloging should be removed from iTunes, and a new app needs to join the iLife family: This app should be able to rip legal copies of these HD movies at whatever rez users want (presets=1080HD, 720HD, DVD, TV, iPod/PSP; and an advanced tab that lets the user customize all the various resolution, bitrate, keyframe, etc. settings). They should be able to rip or omit whatever audio tracks they want. The app should also have the ability to organize a video by a wide variety of tags: type, genre, sub-genre, directors, actors, producers, etc. It should obviously support home movies as well as content from DVRs. And it should support video playlists as well as allow you to burn "mix disks" via iDVD ("iBurner" ...pun intended...or whatever its name is going to be changed to after HD burners come online).
If Apple intros this app along with its media center (featuring a roomy 750GB drive or two ) and a video iPod (with a roomy 80GB drive), and maybe a steroid injected Airport Express with mini-DVI video output, this would actually be an event worth inviting the press to.
But they'll probably already be there, since all this is likely to come at MWSF.
Then let the studios stew in their own juices for a while. They can hardly grumble, since Apple will be encouraging users to buy new HD movies. But Apple will also be putting the media&analyst-driven movie download speculation off until the actual fundamentals are in place (namely broadband speed and saturation).
Hell, maybe a movie DL business will never happen. Apple can still have its media center and video iPod and a content source without all the variables and value-subtraction (more expensive for lower quality and fewer features) of a movie download system with all its interested parties, any one of which could throw a wrench in the system and leave Apple with egg on its face. If Apple decides to go through with it, it will have more leverage, given that any system would have to give value greater than or equal to what users could do on their own.
So whadaya think?
Mate, I think that idea rocks. The iTunes video component is a pain, as others have noted. The whole iLife Media Centre thing is just waiting for a player like Apple to make it happen. I see the Vidpod (or whatever it will be called) as just an extension of that living room experience.
Something great has to happen to those movie execs for them to wake up and smell the future coming...
I know this is getting off topic, but I was thinking about my earlier post.
What if the much-rumored Apple media center is simply a glorified Airport Express with a mini-DVI as well as audio output serving Front Row 2.0 to your screen? Stream anything from any Mac in the home. Add a remote that can actually do some things, and I think we've got a winner. Simple. Elegant. Low-cost.
I know this is getting off topic, but I was thinking about my earlier post.
What if the much-rumored Apple media center is simply a glorified Airport Express with a mini-DVI as well as audio output serving Front Row 2.0 to your screen? Stream anything from any Mac in the home. Add a remote that can actually do some things, and I think we've got a winner. Simple. Elegant. Low-cost.
Eh?
That would be nice. The remote is a little too simple...
That would be nice. The remote is a little too simple...
Nice idea! I'd be a fan of a 'multi-headed' Mac with OSX serving up compressed video & audio to smart 'heads' around the home, controlled by iPod-esque remotes. The specs seem to add up for streaming over WiFi except for when my girlfriend's hairdryer & next-door's power drill are in use.
Download huge files is as problematic as Streaming in my opinion.. just buffer a bit or 2?
Er, no it isn't.
Maintaining a TV quality video stream from anywhere except your local broadband provider is a near impossibility especially for a couple of hours to watch the movie or if the broadcast is popular. Buffering is just a way of admitting the internet isn't real-time and will always fall over when it tries to be. Downloading is simple; I click the subscribe button on iTMS, when I want to watch the show - there it is!
If you're downloading from an illegitimate P2P network, where the sources come & go off-line, then it can be a problem - naughty you. The biggest timewaster on P2P is that you don't really know what you're downloading unless you hand hold it by previewing - kind of defeats the object.
I think this is why Apple have ignored DVR & Streaming - they like to be associated with useable & solid solutions. Though I'm sure they'll release something shortly to make me eat my words.
Comments
Originally posted by DCQ
The movie download business sounds fishy to me. The more I think about it, the less I like it.
The problems are all things people have said on this thread: download times, quality, price, features. Add to that the possible end of net-neutrality (in which high-bandwidth-using entities will be charged extortion...i mean, a premium if they want anyone to be able to actually get their content...), and movie downloads becomes a really dicey proposition. Apple is not a company that would want to start something like that, and then pull out because the interested parties were too greedy; it sees little enough from those $0.99 songs as it is.
The real gold mine I think is in a film/video version of iTunes that rips content from the new BDs (and HD-DVDs). While this is not legal for DVDs, it is perfectly legal for the new generation of hi-def disks, thanks to MMC.
This is where Apple should contentrate. Just as it did with iTunes (iTMS only came online after iTunes was around for a while). Video storing and cataloging should be removed from iTunes, and a new app needs to join the iLife family: This app should be able to rip legal copies of these HD movies at whatever rez users want (presets=1080HD, 720HD, DVD, TV, iPod/PSP; and an advanced tab that lets the user customize all the various resolution, bitrate, keyframe, etc. settings). They should be able to rip or omit whatever audio tracks they want. The app should also have the ability to organize a video by a wide variety of tags: type, genre, sub-genre, directors, actors, producers, etc. It should obviously support home movies as well as content from DVRs. And it should support video playlists as well as allow you to burn "mix disks" via iDVD ("iBurner" ...pun intended...or whatever its name is going to be changed to after HD burners come online).
If Apple intros this app along with its media center (featuring a roomy 750GB drive or two
So whadaya think?
That App sounds 'Delicious' but it would need a biiiig drive for the full HD movies. Can't help but think the real iPod video is gonna be Standard Def, could be the start of good things. TV shows are the killer service for the new iTMMS.
There are a few other services that need to be in place first that are out of Apple's control (i.e. local broadband) but even here in back-water NZ the main provider are talking about 24Mbps ADSL to what passes for urban areas (more than 100 sheep) within a year. We'll see.
McD
iTunes can legally rip CDs not because Apple negotiated with the RIAA to do so. It was already legal. DVD ripping is already illegal. Big difference.
Originally posted by CosmoNut
Let's all be clear: DVD ripping is illegal. It's not an issue of Apple writing an app that can do it legally. The change to copyright law must change at the industry level or the law must be challenged in court.
iTunes can legally rip CDs not because Apple negotiated with the RIAA to do so. It was already legal. DVD ripping is already illegal. Big difference.
You're (kind of) right. It's not illegal to rip DVDs per se; it's just illegal to circumvent the CSS copy protection scheme. It would be just as illegal to rip an audio CD with a copy-protection scheme. And I think Apple would be foolish to write a program that could circumvent CSS. (However, importing unencrypted .ts files is something different.) But the new gen of HD disks have the MMC system(s) in place for this to work so that individuals can rip legal (DRMed) copies of movies they own.
Right now, it seems that no one has any idea what to do with this capability. Apple could score another major win by creating a system that takes advanatge of this: set the standard. (Who knows, we could even see movies with a "Works with iLife" blurb/logo on them!
Originally posted by McDave
That App sounds 'Delicious' but it would need a biiiig drive for the full HD movies. Can't help but think the real iPod video is gonna be Standard Def, could be the start of good things. TV shows are the killer service for the new iTMMS.
McD
1TB 3.5" drives are on the horizon, I'd say we'll have them in stores by fall, Q1 of '07 at latest, thanks to perpendicular recording. It should be possible for HDD companies to get these drives to hold 1.5TB or even 2TB (the lab-tested maximum was 2.2TB I believe last year, but data retention was unreliable...which kind of defeats the purpose of a hard disk). A 1TB drive will hold at least 20 HD movies at full quality (and probably more); if you rip them at DVD res, you have space for about 500-1000 movies, or 5,000 TV shows (drool). I don't know anybody who has that many DVDs at home. (I consider my collection to be huge, and I have almost 200 movies/TV seasons; give me another 2 years and I might get to 500.)
This is basically the same trade-off with ripping music: we could use Apple lossless. And some people do choose to use 350 MB of storage space for an album. Most however will settle for lesser quality and space savings (~60-80 MB per album). (Probably more will choose the higher res for videos/movies since our eyes are more sensitive than our ears...and we'll have spent so much on those nice big HD screens
Originally posted by CosmoNut
Let's all be clear: DVD ripping is illegal. It's not an issue of Apple writing an app that can do it legally. The change to copyright law must change at the industry level or the law must be challenged in court.
iTunes can legally rip CDs not because Apple negotiated with the RIAA to do so. It was already legal. DVD ripping is already illegal. Big difference.
dammit. i hate ridiculous laws like that.
Originally posted by McDave
Not sure that Apple are convinced about streaming. The internet has the fundamental inability to get info from a to b on time which is why they are so keen on the local playback option (though I understand there have even been problems playing back HD-DVDs on PCs at the moment). In the absence of genuine realtime systems, download is still the way to go.
McD
Download huge files is as problematic as Streaming in my opinion.. just buffer a bit or 2?
That model actually makes more sense to me.
Originally posted by DCQ
The movie download business sounds fishy to me. The more I think about it, the less I like it.
The problems are all things people have said on this thread: download times, quality, price, features. Add to that the possible end of net-neutrality (in which high-bandwidth-using entities will be charged extortion...i mean, a premium if they want anyone to be able to actually get their content...), and movie downloads becomes a really dicey proposition. Apple is not a company that would want to start something like that, and then pull out because the interested parties were too greedy; it sees little enough from those $0.99 songs as it is.
The real gold mine I think is in a film/video version of iTunes that rips content from the new BDs (and HD-DVDs). While this is not legal for DVDs, it is perfectly legal for the new generation of hi-def disks, thanks to MMC.
This is where Apple should contentrate. Just as it did with iTunes (iTMS only came online after iTunes was around for a while). Video storing and cataloging should be removed from iTunes, and a new app needs to join the iLife family: This app should be able to rip legal copies of these HD movies at whatever rez users want (presets=1080HD, 720HD, DVD, TV, iPod/PSP; and an advanced tab that lets the user customize all the various resolution, bitrate, keyframe, etc. settings). They should be able to rip or omit whatever audio tracks they want. The app should also have the ability to organize a video by a wide variety of tags: type, genre, sub-genre, directors, actors, producers, etc. It should obviously support home movies as well as content from DVRs. And it should support video playlists as well as allow you to burn "mix disks" via iDVD ("iBurner" ...pun intended...or whatever its name is going to be changed to after HD burners come online).
If Apple intros this app along with its media center (featuring a roomy 750GB drive or two
But they'll probably already be there, since all this is likely to come at MWSF.
Then let the studios stew in their own juices for a while. They can hardly grumble, since Apple will be encouraging users to buy new HD movies. But Apple will also be putting the media&analyst-driven movie download speculation off until the actual fundamentals are in place (namely broadband speed and saturation).
Hell, maybe a movie DL business will never happen. Apple can still have its media center and video iPod and a content source without all the variables and value-subtraction (more expensive for lower quality and fewer features) of a movie download system with all its interested parties, any one of which could throw a wrench in the system and leave Apple with egg on its face. If Apple decides to go through with it, it will have more leverage, given that any system would have to give value greater than or equal to what users could do on their own.
So whadaya think?
Mate, I think that idea rocks. The iTunes video component is a pain, as others have noted. The whole iLife Media Centre thing is just waiting for a player like Apple to make it happen. I see the Vidpod (or whatever it will be called) as just an extension of that living room experience.
Something great has to happen to those movie execs for them to wake up and smell the future coming...
What if the much-rumored Apple media center is simply a glorified Airport Express with a mini-DVI as well as audio output serving Front Row 2.0 to your screen? Stream anything from any Mac in the home. Add a remote that can actually do some things, and I think we've got a winner. Simple. Elegant. Low-cost.
Eh?
Originally posted by DCQ
I know this is getting off topic, but I was thinking about my earlier post.
What if the much-rumored Apple media center is simply a glorified Airport Express with a mini-DVI as well as audio output serving Front Row 2.0 to your screen? Stream anything from any Mac in the home. Add a remote that can actually do some things, and I think we've got a winner. Simple. Elegant. Low-cost.
Eh?
That would be nice. The remote is a little too simple...
They must know this and have something planned.
Originally posted by Chris Cuilla
Unless Apple provides a (simple) way to get movies and TV shows to my TV...the market for this will be rather limited.
They must know this and have something planned.
I'd say they do. I hope they do. They better!
Right apple I know your listening, or at least reading. So here's the list: (I'm only saying this once so listen up)
(i) DVD quality or better
(ii)$10 or cheaper
(iii) Ability to burn a DVD copy
(iv) iPod version aswell
Originally posted by Ireland
(i) DVD quality or better
(ii)$10 or cheaper
(iii) Ability to burn a DVD copy
(iv) iPod version aswell
We'll almost certainly see 4 and maybe 2. 1 is a long shot and 3 won't happen.
Originally posted by aplnub
That would be nice. The remote is a little too simple...
Nice idea! I'd be a fan of a 'multi-headed' Mac with OSX serving up compressed video & audio to smart 'heads' around the home, controlled by iPod-esque remotes. The specs seem to add up for streaming over WiFi except for when my girlfriend's hairdryer & next-door's power drill are in use.
McD
Originally posted by S10
Download huge files is as problematic as Streaming in my opinion.. just buffer a bit or 2?
Er, no it isn't.
Maintaining a TV quality video stream from anywhere except your local broadband provider is a near impossibility especially for a couple of hours to watch the movie or if the broadcast is popular. Buffering is just a way of admitting the internet isn't real-time and will always fall over when it tries to be. Downloading is simple; I click the subscribe button on iTMS, when I want to watch the show - there it is!
If you're downloading from an illegitimate P2P network, where the sources come & go off-line, then it can be a problem - naughty you. The biggest timewaster on P2P is that you don't really know what you're downloading unless you hand hold it by previewing - kind of defeats the object.
I think this is why Apple have ignored DVR & Streaming - they like to be associated with useable & solid solutions. Though I'm sure they'll release something shortly to make me eat my words.
McD