It's a nice concept, though missing a few features. As a few others may have alluded to here, what would make this product really interesting would be access to your home TV/PVR and Mac anywhere in the world rather like Slingbox.
Give it the added features of Slingbox with Apple design, ease of use and software.
I've been waiting for an Airport Video device. But I will wait and see before I buy it. If it had a NTSC or S-Video output that I could modulate, I would be much happier.
After reading this thread my 2 cents are;
-I have no desire for a PVR. There is just nothing on TV worth recording or alternating my schedule for.
-SpamSandwitch is right. For now a DVD is a better movie delivery device.
-I've been wanting an easy method to get photos and home movies onto the TV. Currently I've been using AirTunes to play my music throughout the house but I would like to add video to the audio. iTV looks like it can do this.
It's a nice concept, though missing a few features. As a few others may have alluded to here, what would make this product really interesting would be access to your home TV/PVR and Mac anywhere in the world rather like Slingbox.
Give it the added features of Slingbox with Apple design, ease of use and software.
Does anybody know if Jobs said the beginning of 2007 or Quarter 1 of 2007. Because fiscally, Q1 2007 is the 2006 holiday shopping season.
He said both, but the first time he said the first quarter of the year 2007. I'm hoping for the later date so Apple can reflect on this product, and make some much needed additional changes.
Hi O4BlackWRX (nice car, BTW ) That is a solution looking for a problem. As I said, this is the thinking of an engineer, not the consumer. As the consumer I want the quickest easiest answer. The "quickest, easiest" in this case is to burn a disk, or take a movie on DVD.
My understanding is that iTV only receives and translates the stream for presentation on a TV, does it store it on a hard drive or buffer it into memory on the iTV?...maybe. But I didn't get the impression it could be used apart from a computer. I don't want to haul around a computer just to watch a movie on a TV. Doesn't make any sense.
I like it, and I imagine that presenting it at this point serves a few purposes.. Not only to show people that the iTunes Store content will be useable in a more dynamic way, and inspire people to buy when they may not have before.... but, also because at this point, that's a basic model of the concept that still looks pretty good. So, when all the competitors either develope thiers, or push the ones the have, Apple will cut the legs out from under them with their release.
Having said that, I hope the final product is closer to a combination of what we saw, and Airport Express. An "Entertainment Center" Airport (Please don't forget the PSX, & X/SlingBox users).
it was close to what i wanted but yeah, for me its literally missing 2 features:
1) i wanted it to be a replacement for the airtunes, which i have and love. it needed to be smaller, less obtrusive, like the airtunes unit. the great thing about airtunes is you can literally dangle it anywhere, the iTV would have to occupy a spot on my component rack with all my other components. not the end of the world, but not so ideal.
also in being an airtunes replacement, it needed to be a full featured wireless hub for the home network. this should be a high end replacement for airtunes, not something in addition to.
2) to be really killer and get people's attention, it needs to function both ways. not only can you send video from your mac to your tv, but also record tv shows back to your mac. that would be a tivo killer, and it would allow apple to dominate that market and rewrite the rules. it would do all this wirelessly, which would really be amazing.
if it did everything i listed above, apple would definitely charge more, but thats fine by me (say $499 to make it a compact full-on airtunes express replacement, with tv recording functionality).
as it stands, i'm still gonna get one. i have no interest in the media center way of thinking, including ideas of using a mac mini in this regard. its not about the money, its about convenience. i simply want to be able to wirelessly send video from one device to any other device, and that day is coming (and by wireless video, i mean any kind of visualization, whether it be a movie, your desktop, applications, etc). i dont want some of my media on a media center and some of it on my computer, i want it centralized in one place (the computer) and control this media from the computer to the tv via a remote. in this way, i think, apple is the only one getting it right and understands where this technology ought to go.
i think there's something else to this people are gonna be able to do that we havent seen yet and i havent seen anyone talk about yet, and thats a feature present in the 10.5 version of ichatAV. one of the lesser discussed features in the new ichat is the ability to send your desktop in a video stream to another user. in other words, the person on the other end of that ichat sees everything you see on your computer. pretty good for debugging problems long distance among other things.
think about the technology that goes into doing something like this however. for apple to achieve this, they're somehow rasterizing, compressing and sending your OSX experience in a pretty tight bandwith stream. i think the iTV and 10.5 will allow them to do something similar with your whole desktop. basically, you'll be able to send your desktop to your tv and maybe even control it from there. i dont think this usage will surface immediately, but over 2007 as people begin to realize the power of such technologies and its uses. this starts to make sense as HDTV gains 1080p resolution, essentially these tv sets are just big computer monitors.
He said both, but the first time he said the first quarter of the year 2007. I'm hoping for the later date so Apple can reflect on this product, and make some much needed additional changes.
Yes. I am in no hurry for the iTV. I do appreciate its signifficance in the market tho.
Seems like everyone's in a rush to cut up it's use as a PVR or video DVD replacement. I see it as a way to pull (rather than push) your existing desktop organized media to another place in your house with ease. In other words, taking AirTunes to the next level. Set the "movies" aside for a moment, you can now access any of your music or photos in any room with a TV. That in it's own right blows away the competition for devices that read network media such as Roku's Media bridge. I have no doubt it'll be a typical Apple seamless solution with few issues. Realistically, for the price - it's competitive, it'll be simple and it's "cool". Being "cool" these days sells units and Apple does "cool" very well, unlike most. People seem to be looking for the "ULTIMATE SOLUTION" and at this point in the media game, high resolution specifically, we're not there yet. I can appreciate your desire for a DVD/BLU player with built-in file management and link with desktops - but that is a lot more complex then the average user wants to pay for and will know how to use. The fact most all users can download iTunes on their Mac or PC and organize their files at their desktop purchase content and then seemlessly connect to a video device in their house to access it without complex networking and configuration is a huge leap in the right direction. If you think you can do better then let's see it, in the mean time - Good job Apple.
Yes, re: high definition. Look at Apple's foray into iMovieHD and FinalCutProHD , especially iMovieHD as soon as the Sony HDV cameras were out. Also, with H.264 Apple took a leading role in releasing 720p and 1080p beautiful high definition movie trailers.
You can bet your bottom ass... er I mean bottom dollar, that 720p and 1080p in terms of iTV R&D pipeline is right up there. Not now. Not without HDDVD and BluRay still in the wilderness.
It would be nice to have the Apple PVR that can record HD off the existing broadcasts that are HD, but this does not feed into the Apple strategy well.
We have to remember Apple does not play the "me too" game even if niches exist. It will release products however that feed along it's lateral strategy, that is, it will branch out from the iPod base -- towards Macs/switching in one direction, and consumer electronics in one direction. It took a few years since the iPod for Apple to add something like the iTV. So it's wide lateral strategy is there, it's a matter of how the Apple tree is going to branch out (heh, mild pun intended).
Seems like everyone's in a rush to cut up it's use as a PVR or video DVD replacement. I see it as a way to pull (rather than push) your existing desktop organized media to another place in your house with ease. In other words, taking AirTunes to the next level. Set the "movies" aside for a moment, you can now access any of your music or photos in any room with a TV. That in it's own right blows away the competition for devices that read network media such as Roku's Media bridge. I have no doubt it'll be a typical Apple seamless solution with few issues. Realistically, for the price - it's competitive, it'll be simple and it's "cool".
Gotta go with you on this one. If I'm going to go for the ultimate in anything, I build it modually, amp by amp, speaker by speaker, screen by screen. Specialty audio people make better pieces than Apple ever will because that's not what Apple does. But if I can get my content to those seperate pieces wirelessly, keeping all the content in one central location (my computer), going from room to room, customizing each room... that's what I don't have and won't have until Apple does it.
Seems to me the main area iTV still has room to succeed is video on demand since the main competitors in that space are the cable companies and their offerings are very limited, overpriced and out too late to compete with DVD.
Seems to me the main area iTV still has room to succeed is video on demand since the main competitors in that space are the cable companies and their offerings are very limited, overpriced and out too late to compete with DVD.
iTunes Store should then be well ahead of video-on-demand as they promise same day downloads available when the DVD comes out.
Particularly with the "Pre-Order" cheaper price -- it could be a SteamPowered (http://www.steampowered.com/v/index.php) kind of thing, where prior to the DVD/iTunes Store release date, chunks of it are downloaded progressively. On DVD release date, bingo bango you don't even have to walk to the DVD store, it's right there ready to go, unlocked and ready to watch.
Cable video-on-demand will not look that attractive anymore. iTunes Store *has* to get other studios on board though to have a strong offering against DVD purchases and rentals.
The video store isn't going anywhere. The iTS will not even be a hiccup in current rental system. Studios make so much bank on the billions of movies that are purchased by video stores every week it's not even funny. iTS is just anther way for them to make more money, its not going to be a direct competitor. Movies don't share the stagnant sales figures that music did when the iTMS launched, and downloading movies isn't anywhere near as popular as downloading an MP3 was. It's not even a drop in the bucket. Me even trying to compare the two is silly.
But I do think VOD is still going to look attractive, and probably be the most popular option in the future. But will it out do the local rental store... who knows?
If you look at iTV as part of today's menagerie of TV hardware, cable, PVRs and so on - it looks under-featured. It's a PVR that does not R.
But I reckon this little box is intended to be the mother of all disruptive technologies - and the inability to record broadcast TV is a key weapon. There is a war coming, and the battleground is the TV set.
At one side is the 50 year old broadcasting/advertising model that has linked TV productions to advertisers so completely that when people talk about TV they simply forget about the link. It is assumed.
On the other side is a new idea - the notion of selling programming directly to viewers. Creating a market for TV content that looks more like iTMS than NBC. Forget movies. iTV is here to upset the applecart of the TV industry, just like downloads did to the music business.
This new model removes the middle men; the networks and the advertisers. Instead television content would be available in a media store, hosted online, and delivered by the internet. Viewers buy what they want. And try before they buy.
It would stimulate the creation of a different type of TV content, and possibly steer television away from mass-audience, low-brow junk towards much more precisely targetted programming.
To the consumer, it's a better model. It gives more choice and wastes less of your time and money on stuff you don't want. Imagine a PVR with everything available.
To the networks and advertisers, this would be a seisemic event, it could radically change the ways that TV is funded, made and distributed. Networks who don't get it could be gone by the end of the decade.
If the iTV is what I think it is, it could dwarf the success of iPod. The last thing Apple wants is it to become is part of the old-world model.
Seems to me the main area iTV still has room to succeed is video on demand since the main competitors in that space are the cable companies and their offerings are very limited, overpriced and out too late to compete with DVD.
To be truly competitive with VOD they will have to offer some form of HD...at least for the HD users.
Otherwise the pricing isn't bad in comparison and cable has a bandwidth issue until DOCSIS 3 given the number of channels they want to push.
Here's an interesting tidbit: Verizon developed its own iptv package BUT had been working with Microsoft. Given that the RBOCs don't have any research arms anymore they tend to buy rather than build so a partnership with apple isn't entirely impossible although it clashes with the iTunes model. TiVO is a likely better candidate but frontrow and Apple cache is not a bad offering if they can do either iTunes purchased movies, iptv VOD rental and normal cable offerings. You'd want to stick PVR capability onto the mini somewhere though if you're going to dump the motorolla gear.
If you look at iTV as part of today's menagerie of TV hardware, cable, PVRs and so on - it looks under-featured. It's a PVR that does not R.
But I reckon this little box is intended to be the mother of all disruptive technologies - and the inability to record broadcast TV is a key weapon. There is a war coming, and the battleground is the TV set.
At one side is the 50 year old broadcasting/advertising model that has linked TV productions to advertisers so completely that when people talk about TV they simply forget about the link. It is assumed.
On the other side is a new idea - the notion of selling programming directly to viewers. Creating a market for TV content that looks more like iTMS than NBC. Forget movies. iTV is here to upset the applecart of the TV industry, just like downloads did to the music business.
This new model removes the middle men; the networks and the advertisers. Instead television content would be available in a media store, hosted online, and delivered by the internet. Viewers buy what they want. And try before they buy.
It would stimulate the creation of a different type of TV content, and possibly steer television away from mass-audience, low-brow junk towards much more precisely targetted programming.
To the consumer, it's a better model. It gives more choice and wastes less of your time and money on stuff you don't want. Imagine a PVR with everything available.
To the networks and advertisers, this would be a seisemic event, it could radically change the ways that TV is funded, made and distributed. Networks who don't get it could be gone by the end of the decade.
If the iTV is what I think it is, it could dwarf the success of iPod. The last thing Apple wants is it to become is part of the old-world model.
The main point is that Video did not kill the Radio Star - it made Video Stars. Internet did not kill the Video Star. It made Internet Stars. DVD did not kill the Movie Star. It re-discovered DVD-Movie-Stars. Mobile downloads did not kill the Internet Star. It made Mobile Ringtone Stars. So now we have Radio, Video, Internet, TV, DVD, Mobile and Movie Stars.
What we see will be iTunes Store offerings adding more to the mix. Sure, it will erode some old models of delivering and consuming media content, but it's more of a shuffle (iPod shuffle pun unintended ) with things becoming more of a mixed bag.
More options and innovation to the consumer, with equivalent wide array of hardware choices. Apple isn't going to kill TV or cable, but it will be a compelling offering for some, and continue to grow in popularity. Remember that TV and cable are not stagnant. Radio and TV media companies have adopted a ton of new media strategy to stay in the mix. CDs aren't dead, just a bunch of CD sales are now iTunes Store sales. Music companies, still alive and kicking.
Yes, also what you are talking about is moving from low-brow "broad-casting" to targeted "narrow-casting". Yet, for the next 5 years at least we WILL have both, given the digital divide still exists in USA and around the world. FOX News won't go away just yet, while digital downloads of Daily Show with John Stewart will grow from narrowcast to broader-cast.
If one thinks carefully about media in the past five years and media in the five years to come, we would consider that not much is really being killed, just more options and a wider media-delivery mix. Actually the thing that would be killed are more hardware things like the Walkman, VCR, Dial-up Modem (Though around the world there's still tons of dial-up happening) and so on.
If you look at iTV as part of today's menagerie of TV hardware, cable, PVRs and so on - it looks under-featured. It's a PVR that does not R.
But I reckon this little box is intended to be the mother of all disruptive technologies - and the inability to record broadcast TV is a key weapon. There is a war coming, and the battleground is the TV set.
At one side is the 50 year old broadcasting/advertising model that has linked TV productions to advertisers so completely that when people talk about TV they simply forget about the link. It is assumed.
On the other side is a new idea - the notion of selling programming directly to viewers. Creating a market for TV content that looks more like iTMS than NBC. Forget movies. iTV is here to upset the applecart of the TV industry, just like downloads did to the music business.
This new model removes the middle men; the networks and the advertisers. Instead television content would be available in a media store, hosted online, and delivered by the internet. Viewers buy what they want. And try before they buy.
It would stimulate the creation of a different type of TV content, and possibly steer television away from mass-audience, low-brow junk towards much more precisely targetted programming.
To the consumer, it's a better model. It gives more choice and wastes less of your time and money on stuff you don't want. Imagine a PVR with everything available.
To the networks and advertisers, this would be a seisemic event, it could radically change the ways that TV is funded, made and distributed. Networks who don't get it could be gone by the end of the decade.
If the iTV is what I think it is, it could dwarf the success of iPod. The last thing Apple wants is it to become is part of the old-world model.
C.
iTV cannot compete with free programming. Broadcast TV still has that locked up, and for the online world, there's always Google video, Yahoo! Video, YouTube, Democracy , and a myriad of other sources.
As suggested before, iTV can be an aggregator of Net video product, compete in the on-demand space, but I view it as an gigantic mistake to not have PVR functionality, and one can hope there will be additional iPod video products (there are so many theories what shape this product could take, it's not even funny anymore) to extend the reach of iPod/iTV into more casual use. If iTV stays locked to the computer, has no PVR, and has limited choices of entertainment... we all know what happens. Newton part deux.
To be truly competitive with VOD they will have to offer some form of HD...at least for the HD users.
Otherwise the pricing isn't bad in comparison and cable has a bandwidth issue until DOCSIS 3 given the number of channels they want to push.
Here's an interesting tidbit: Verizon developed its own iptv package BUT had been working with Microsoft. Given that the RBOCs don't have any research arms anymore they tend to buy rather than build so a partnership with apple isn't entirely impossible although it clashes with the iTunes model. TiVO is a likely better candidate but frontrow and Apple cache is not a bad offering if they can do either iTunes purchased movies, iptv VOD rental and normal cable offerings. You'd want to stick PVR capability onto the mini somewhere though if you're going to dump the motorolla gear.
Comments
Give it the added features of Slingbox with Apple design, ease of use and software.
Now that would make this device a killer.
Slingbox
After reading this thread my 2 cents are;
-I have no desire for a PVR. There is just nothing on TV worth recording or alternating my schedule for.
-SpamSandwitch is right. For now a DVD is a better movie delivery device.
-I've been wanting an easy method to get photos and home movies onto the TV. Currently I've been using AirTunes to play my music throughout the house but I would like to add video to the audio. iTV looks like it can do this.
It's a nice concept, though missing a few features. As a few others may have alluded to here, what would make this product really interesting would be access to your home TV/PVR and Mac anywhere in the world rather like Slingbox.
Give it the added features of Slingbox with Apple design, ease of use and software.
Now that would make this device a killer.
Slingbox
And you'll remember Sony's 'Location Free', which seems to reside in it's own little bubble of existance, with virtually no notice...
http://products.sel.sony.com/locationfreetv/flash.html
Does anybody know if Jobs said the beginning of 2007 or Quarter 1 of 2007. Because fiscally, Q1 2007 is the 2006 holiday shopping season.
He said both, but the first time he said the first quarter of the year 2007. I'm hoping for the later date so Apple can reflect on this product, and make some much needed additional changes.
Hi O4BlackWRX (nice car, BTW
My understanding is that iTV only receives and translates the stream for presentation on a TV, does it store it on a hard drive or buffer it into memory on the iTV?...maybe. But I didn't get the impression it could be used apart from a computer. I don't want to haul around a computer just to watch a movie on a TV. Doesn't make any sense.
iPod Video dock into iTV
Having said that, I hope the final product is closer to a combination of what we saw, and Airport Express. An "Entertainment Center" Airport (Please don't forget the PSX, & X/SlingBox users).
1) i wanted it to be a replacement for the airtunes, which i have and love. it needed to be smaller, less obtrusive, like the airtunes unit. the great thing about airtunes is you can literally dangle it anywhere, the iTV would have to occupy a spot on my component rack with all my other components. not the end of the world, but not so ideal.
also in being an airtunes replacement, it needed to be a full featured wireless hub for the home network. this should be a high end replacement for airtunes, not something in addition to.
2) to be really killer and get people's attention, it needs to function both ways. not only can you send video from your mac to your tv, but also record tv shows back to your mac. that would be a tivo killer, and it would allow apple to dominate that market and rewrite the rules. it would do all this wirelessly, which would really be amazing.
if it did everything i listed above, apple would definitely charge more, but thats fine by me (say $499 to make it a compact full-on airtunes express replacement, with tv recording functionality).
as it stands, i'm still gonna get one. i have no interest in the media center way of thinking, including ideas of using a mac mini in this regard. its not about the money, its about convenience. i simply want to be able to wirelessly send video from one device to any other device, and that day is coming (and by wireless video, i mean any kind of visualization, whether it be a movie, your desktop, applications, etc). i dont want some of my media on a media center and some of it on my computer, i want it centralized in one place (the computer) and control this media from the computer to the tv via a remote. in this way, i think, apple is the only one getting it right and understands where this technology ought to go.
i think there's something else to this people are gonna be able to do that we havent seen yet and i havent seen anyone talk about yet, and thats a feature present in the 10.5 version of ichatAV. one of the lesser discussed features in the new ichat is the ability to send your desktop in a video stream to another user. in other words, the person on the other end of that ichat sees everything you see on your computer. pretty good for debugging problems long distance among other things.
think about the technology that goes into doing something like this however. for apple to achieve this, they're somehow rasterizing, compressing and sending your OSX experience in a pretty tight bandwith stream. i think the iTV and 10.5 will allow them to do something similar with your whole desktop. basically, you'll be able to send your desktop to your tv and maybe even control it from there. i dont think this usage will surface immediately, but over 2007 as people begin to realize the power of such technologies and its uses. this starts to make sense as HDTV gains 1080p resolution, essentially these tv sets are just big computer monitors.
He said both, but the first time he said the first quarter of the year 2007. I'm hoping for the later date so Apple can reflect on this product, and make some much needed additional changes.
Yes. I am in no hurry for the iTV. I do appreciate its signifficance in the market tho.
You can bet your bottom ass... er I mean bottom dollar, that 720p and 1080p in terms of iTV R&D pipeline is right up there. Not now. Not without HDDVD and BluRay still in the wilderness.
It would be nice to have the Apple PVR that can record HD off the existing broadcasts that are HD, but this does not feed into the Apple strategy well.
We have to remember Apple does not play the "me too" game even if niches exist. It will release products however that feed along it's lateral strategy, that is, it will branch out from the iPod base -- towards Macs/switching in one direction, and consumer electronics in one direction. It took a few years since the iPod for Apple to add something like the iTV. So it's wide lateral strategy is there, it's a matter of how the Apple tree is going to branch out (heh, mild pun intended).
Seems like everyone's in a rush to cut up it's use as a PVR or video DVD replacement. I see it as a way to pull (rather than push) your existing desktop organized media to another place in your house with ease. In other words, taking AirTunes to the next level. Set the "movies" aside for a moment, you can now access any of your music or photos in any room with a TV. That in it's own right blows away the competition for devices that read network media such as Roku's Media bridge. I have no doubt it'll be a typical Apple seamless solution with few issues. Realistically, for the price - it's competitive, it'll be simple and it's "cool".
Gotta go with you on this one. If I'm going to go for the ultimate in anything, I build it modually, amp by amp, speaker by speaker, screen by screen. Specialty audio people make better pieces than Apple ever will because that's not what Apple does. But if I can get my content to those seperate pieces wirelessly, keeping all the content in one central location (my computer), going from room to room, customizing each room... that's what I don't have and won't have until Apple does it.
Seems to me the main area iTV still has room to succeed is video on demand since the main competitors in that space are the cable companies and their offerings are very limited, overpriced and out too late to compete with DVD.
iTunes Store should then be well ahead of video-on-demand as they promise same day downloads available when the DVD comes out.
Particularly with the "Pre-Order" cheaper price -- it could be a SteamPowered (http://www.steampowered.com/v/index.php) kind of thing, where prior to the DVD/iTunes Store release date, chunks of it are downloaded progressively. On DVD release date, bingo bango you don't even have to walk to the DVD store, it's right there ready to go, unlocked and ready to watch.
Cable video-on-demand will not look that attractive anymore. iTunes Store *has* to get other studios on board though to have a strong offering against DVD purchases and rentals.
But I do think VOD is still going to look attractive, and probably be the most popular option in the future. But will it out do the local rental store... who knows?
But I reckon this little box is intended to be the mother of all disruptive technologies - and the inability to record broadcast TV is a key weapon. There is a war coming, and the battleground is the TV set.
At one side is the 50 year old broadcasting/advertising model that has linked TV productions to advertisers so completely that when people talk about TV they simply forget about the link. It is assumed.
On the other side is a new idea - the notion of selling programming directly to viewers. Creating a market for TV content that looks more like iTMS than NBC. Forget movies. iTV is here to upset the applecart of the TV industry, just like downloads did to the music business.
This new model removes the middle men; the networks and the advertisers. Instead television content would be available in a media store, hosted online, and delivered by the internet. Viewers buy what they want. And try before they buy.
It would stimulate the creation of a different type of TV content, and possibly steer television away from mass-audience, low-brow junk towards much more precisely targetted programming.
To the consumer, it's a better model. It gives more choice and wastes less of your time and money on stuff you don't want. Imagine a PVR with everything available.
To the networks and advertisers, this would be a seisemic event, it could radically change the ways that TV is funded, made and distributed. Networks who don't get it could be gone by the end of the decade.
If the iTV is what I think it is, it could dwarf the success of iPod. The last thing Apple wants is it to become is part of the old-world model.
C.
Seems to me the main area iTV still has room to succeed is video on demand since the main competitors in that space are the cable companies and their offerings are very limited, overpriced and out too late to compete with DVD.
To be truly competitive with VOD they will have to offer some form of HD...at least for the HD users.
Otherwise the pricing isn't bad in comparison and cable has a bandwidth issue until DOCSIS 3 given the number of channels they want to push.
Here's an interesting tidbit: Verizon developed its own iptv package BUT had been working with Microsoft. Given that the RBOCs don't have any research arms anymore they tend to buy rather than build so a partnership with apple isn't entirely impossible although it clashes with the iTunes model. TiVO is a likely better candidate but frontrow and Apple cache is not a bad offering if they can do either iTunes purchased movies, iptv VOD rental and normal cable offerings. You'd want to stick PVR capability onto the mini somewhere though if you're going to dump the motorolla gear.
http://weblogs.jupiterresearch.com/a...es/017055.html
Vinea
PS Given your claim that broadband penetration is so low in the US how would you expect iTV to compete in the VOD arena even at 640x480?
If you look at iTV as part of today's menagerie of TV hardware, cable, PVRs and so on - it looks under-featured. It's a PVR that does not R.
But I reckon this little box is intended to be the mother of all disruptive technologies - and the inability to record broadcast TV is a key weapon. There is a war coming, and the battleground is the TV set.
At one side is the 50 year old broadcasting/advertising model that has linked TV productions to advertisers so completely that when people talk about TV they simply forget about the link. It is assumed.
On the other side is a new idea - the notion of selling programming directly to viewers. Creating a market for TV content that looks more like iTMS than NBC. Forget movies. iTV is here to upset the applecart of the TV industry, just like downloads did to the music business.
This new model removes the middle men; the networks and the advertisers. Instead television content would be available in a media store, hosted online, and delivered by the internet. Viewers buy what they want. And try before they buy.
It would stimulate the creation of a different type of TV content, and possibly steer television away from mass-audience, low-brow junk towards much more precisely targetted programming.
To the consumer, it's a better model. It gives more choice and wastes less of your time and money on stuff you don't want. Imagine a PVR with everything available.
To the networks and advertisers, this would be a seisemic event, it could radically change the ways that TV is funded, made and distributed. Networks who don't get it could be gone by the end of the decade.
If the iTV is what I think it is, it could dwarf the success of iPod. The last thing Apple wants is it to become is part of the old-world model.
C.
Very interesting and mostly true. But you may have missed the principal point of "re-media-tion" http://www.amazon.com/Remediation-Un...e=UTF8&s=books
The main point is that Video did not kill the Radio Star - it made Video Stars. Internet did not kill the Video Star. It made Internet Stars. DVD did not kill the Movie Star. It re-discovered DVD-Movie-Stars. Mobile downloads did not kill the Internet Star. It made Mobile Ringtone Stars. So now we have Radio, Video, Internet, TV, DVD, Mobile and Movie Stars.
What we see will be iTunes Store offerings adding more to the mix. Sure, it will erode some old models of delivering and consuming media content, but it's more of a shuffle (iPod shuffle pun unintended
More options and innovation to the consumer, with equivalent wide array of hardware choices. Apple isn't going to kill TV or cable, but it will be a compelling offering for some, and continue to grow in popularity. Remember that TV and cable are not stagnant. Radio and TV media companies have adopted a ton of new media strategy to stay in the mix. CDs aren't dead, just a bunch of CD sales are now iTunes Store sales. Music companies, still alive and kicking.
Yes, also what you are talking about is moving from low-brow "broad-casting" to targeted "narrow-casting". Yet, for the next 5 years at least we WILL have both, given the digital divide still exists in USA and around the world. FOX News won't go away just yet, while digital downloads of Daily Show with John Stewart will grow from narrowcast to broader-cast.
If one thinks carefully about media in the past five years and media in the five years to come, we would consider that not much is really being killed, just more options and a wider media-delivery mix. Actually the thing that would be killed are more hardware things like the Walkman, VCR, Dial-up Modem (Though around the world there's still tons of dial-up happening) and so on.
If you look at iTV as part of today's menagerie of TV hardware, cable, PVRs and so on - it looks under-featured. It's a PVR that does not R.
But I reckon this little box is intended to be the mother of all disruptive technologies - and the inability to record broadcast TV is a key weapon. There is a war coming, and the battleground is the TV set.
At one side is the 50 year old broadcasting/advertising model that has linked TV productions to advertisers so completely that when people talk about TV they simply forget about the link. It is assumed.
On the other side is a new idea - the notion of selling programming directly to viewers. Creating a market for TV content that looks more like iTMS than NBC. Forget movies. iTV is here to upset the applecart of the TV industry, just like downloads did to the music business.
This new model removes the middle men; the networks and the advertisers. Instead television content would be available in a media store, hosted online, and delivered by the internet. Viewers buy what they want. And try before they buy.
It would stimulate the creation of a different type of TV content, and possibly steer television away from mass-audience, low-brow junk towards much more precisely targetted programming.
To the consumer, it's a better model. It gives more choice and wastes less of your time and money on stuff you don't want. Imagine a PVR with everything available.
To the networks and advertisers, this would be a seisemic event, it could radically change the ways that TV is funded, made and distributed. Networks who don't get it could be gone by the end of the decade.
If the iTV is what I think it is, it could dwarf the success of iPod. The last thing Apple wants is it to become is part of the old-world model.
C.
iTV cannot compete with free programming. Broadcast TV still has that locked up, and for the online world, there's always Google video, Yahoo! Video, YouTube, Democracy , and a myriad of other sources.
As suggested before, iTV can be an aggregator of Net video product, compete in the on-demand space, but I view it as an gigantic mistake to not have PVR functionality, and one can hope there will be additional iPod video products (there are so many theories what shape this product could take, it's not even funny anymore) to extend the reach of iPod/iTV into more casual use. If iTV stays locked to the computer, has no PVR, and has limited choices of entertainment... we all know what happens. Newton part deux.
To be truly competitive with VOD they will have to offer some form of HD...at least for the HD users.
Otherwise the pricing isn't bad in comparison and cable has a bandwidth issue until DOCSIS 3 given the number of channels they want to push.
Here's an interesting tidbit: Verizon developed its own iptv package BUT had been working with Microsoft. Given that the RBOCs don't have any research arms anymore they tend to buy rather than build so a partnership with apple isn't entirely impossible although it clashes with the iTunes model. TiVO is a likely better candidate but frontrow and Apple cache is not a bad offering if they can do either iTunes purchased movies, iptv VOD rental and normal cable offerings. You'd want to stick PVR capability onto the mini somewhere though if you're going to dump the motorolla gear.
http://weblogs.jupiterresearch.com/a...es/017055.html
Vinea
PS Given your claim that broadband penetration is so low in the US how would you expect iTV to compete in the VOD arena even at 640x480?