Aren't there Blu-ray rips of Casino Royale all over the torrent sites? I don't need them streamed or instantly available just delivered to my AppleTV with a little blue dot is fine by me.
McD
But I am not after a once off option but an option that is a choice for all my media like Handbreak... or at least most of my media collection anyways
Quote:
Originally Posted by McDave
The media market is in uncharted waters and the fog banks are rolling in. Apple need to soften up until they have a handle on the video market & the providers need to grow up and realise that 'good' content is highly subjective and if it ain't on the new 'TV' - it ain't on. If they don't get their act together they'll blow it.
McD
I agree. If they don't soften up then we are going to see the wonderful rise of Apple start to slide.
Said NBC vice president of communications, Cory Shields, "It is clear that Apple?s retail pricing strategy for its iTunes service is designed to drive sales of Apple devices at the expense of those who create the content that make these devices worth buying."
I don't know if I agree with NBC. Remember, NBC has an affiliation with Microsoft and Microsoft is trying to get content away from Apple over to the Zune. So far, everyone has tried and failed to take down the iPod as the media player of choice and Apple's product line is more mature and is selling quite well.
Apple is just trying to get affordable content and as much as possible on it's iTunes platform. Apple doesn't really make much money from iTunes sales. Yes, they are trying to sell iPods, but I'll bet that NBC will sell less content and try to rely on selling advertising which just pollutes our brains and media players.
I personally don't really watch much, if anything on NBC these days as the content isn't what it once was.
Where are the classic sitcoms like Seinfeld? The TV shows these days aren't really worth watching more than once, if at all.
"The programs, including “Heroes” and “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno,” will be offered for a week immediately after their initial broadcasts. Commercials will be embedded in the programs and viewers will not be able to skip through them."
For our own money we'll be forced to watch commercials? I see class action lawsuit here...
"NBC announced today that they will be launching a new service called "NBC Direct" which will allow users to download and view NBC's popular primetime shows to their desktops for free and watch them for up to one week after broadcast.
The first version of this software will launch in October for Windows PCs only, but "future versions" are said to add Mac compatibility.
At launch the shows will include "Heroes," "The Office," "Life," "Bionic Woman," "30 Rock," "Friday Night Lights," "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" and "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno."
I'll take free with some ads anyday. I do this with ABC's streaming of Lost the day after it's televised. I think it's a move in the right direction.
"The programs, including “Heroes” and “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno,” will be offered for a week immediately after their initial broadcasts. Commercials will be embedded in the programs and viewers will not be able to skip through them."
For our own money we'll be forced to watch commercials? I see class action lawsuit here...
I can understand why NBC is trying to do this. I bet all the other networks are trying to get rid of the middle man.
"The more you tighten your grip, NBC, the more revenue will slip through your fingers."
20Mbps? That's interesting. Who is your FiOS carrier? 20Mbps isn't an option for me. Where I live (near Washington DC), Verizon's FiOS offerings are 5M, 15M and 30M (for $40, $50 and $180/mo, respectively.)
Next month, when I have time to be home and supervise the installation, I plan on buying the 15M plan. I'm really looking forward to a 10x speedup over my DSL line for the same price.
Verizon in FL.
If you went to Verizon's national speed test site here you see the options ...
BTW it seems Macs and PCs need a patch to TCP/IP to deal with these mega speeds and even with it (I used Apple's TCP/IP patch from their web site) I cannot get close to the 20 Mb/s I pay for although it did increase my download speed from 3 Mb/s to about 12 Mb/s. Anyone shed light on this? I am using ethernet directly for some Macs and the 802.11n wi-fi from Apple for MacBook so it is not my network slowing this down.
UPDATE I take that back! It was Safari beta 3 causing the problem. Use Firefox for the above mentioned test site ... I do get 20 Mb/s ....
I don't know if I agree with NBC. Remember, NBC has an affiliation with Microsoft and Microsoft is trying to get content away from Apple over to the Zune. So far, everyone has tried and failed to take down the iPod as the media player of choice and Apple's product line is more mature and is selling quite well.
Apple is just trying to get affordable content and as much as possible on it's iTunes platform. Apple doesn't really make much money from iTunes sales. Yes, they are trying to sell iPods, but I'll bet that NBC will sell less content and try to rely on selling advertising which just pollutes our brains and media players.
I personally don't really watch much, if anything on NBC these days as the content isn't what it once was.
Where are the classic sitcoms like Seinfeld? The TV shows these days aren't really worth watching more than once, if at all.
The problem is that NBC is selling content and Apple is trying to tell NBC what their content is worth.
I don't believe for a second NBC wanted to charge $4.99 per episode for their content. I believe Apple was trying to strong-arm NBC to adjust their prices so that Apple's service would be more attractive to consumers (i.e., cost) and therefore sell more iPod products.
Apple, iTunes, and iPods are in need of serious competition. I think studios like NBC (and Universal) no longer trust the model proposed by Apple and what to shop around their content (especially since the studios don't receive a dime off of the iPod product revnues).
The problem is that NBC is selling content and Apple is trying to tell NBC what their content is worth.
I don't believe for a second NBC wanted to charge $4.99 per episode for their content. I believe Apple was trying to strong-arm NBC to adjust their prices so that Apple's service would be more attractive to consumers (i.e., cost) and therefore sell more iPod products.
Apple, iTunes, and iPods are in need of serious competition. I think studios like NBC (and Universal) no longer trust the model proposed by Apple and what to shop around their content (especially since the studios don't receive a dime off of the iPod product revnues).
Dave
I agree with your assertion that NBC is jockying for position and was not seriously looking at increasing their price enough to push it up to $4.99 after Apple's mark-up. I do think that they were trying to push prices up, but it is probably due to their percieved value of HD content vs. the current resolution. There are probably other factors as well.
NBC is testing the waters and trying to find a way to make money on downloaded content that they are loosing in lost ad revenue due to lower viewer numbers (due to internet downloads, timeshifting with DVR's and other ways people watch the shows that are not counted in the numbers that the industries calculate their total viewer counts for a show and use to set and justify the price of advertiesing which is used to finance the shows as well as bring in profits to the company.
As for the industry not trusting Apple, I think that this is a given. They do not like the power that Apple has over the music industry and want to find ways to limit it in video. The problem is that they will not be able to do this unless they agree to sell their content through other sources for less than Apple, who has set the market price. Even with that Apple's price is not much better or worse than what you can get if you buy a season of TV shows on DVD through a retail source like Amazon or WallMart and comes with fewer bells and wistles. It also costs less to produce and distribute (at least for NBC) than a DVD does. The only advantage that iTMS has is that you can get the show during the current season instead of waiting untill after it is over for the DVD's to hit store shelves.
Wasn't there talk about NBC wanting to bundle shows together? Kind of like getting three for the price of two? The problem with this is that if you are not interested in two of the shows but can only get the show you want via the bundle, it is a price increase.
My issue with the NBC business model is the one week viewing window. I can go weeks without watching TV. This model will not allow me to catch up on missed episodes. And for the new continuing story shows this is a failed model. Take a few weeks of vacation and you lose the story line. Why bother watching? At least with iTunes I can go back and buy the missed episodes. -- I hear that this is what happened with "Lost" and "Heros". initially low watched shows that picked up viewers as the buzz grew. I wonder if the buzz would had occurred if the new viewers had no way to go back and catch up with the story.
BTW it seems Macs and PCs need a patch to TCP/IP to deal with these mega speeds and even with it (I used Apple's TCP/IP patch from their web site) I cannot get close to the 20 Mb/s I pay for although it did increase my download speed from 3 Mb/s to about 12 Mb/s. Anyone shed light on this? I am using ethernet directly for some Macs and the 802.11n wi-fi from Apple for MacBook so it is not my network slowing this down.
Something's fishy here. When I move content over my LAN (100M switched Ethernet), I easily get speeds above 20Mbps. But I usually use file sharing to move content over my LAN.
It's likely, however, that the internet services you access can't keep up. Even if they have an OC-12 (622Mbps) circuit (which nobody ever uses, because it's insanely expensive), that won't leave you anything close to 20Mbps if 100 people are downloading content at the same time. There's also the matter of CPU load and disk speed on the remote servers.
And, as you discovered, your own CPU load, browser choice, and hard drive speed also have an impact.
Wasn't there talk about NBC wanting to bundle shows together? Kind of like getting three for the price of two? The problem with this is that if you are not interested in two of the shows but can only get the show you want via the bundle, it is a price increase.
The whole thing is probably double-speak on both sides, so we can't be sure. The bundles that showed up on Unbox supposedly were multiple episodes of the same show, such as 3 episodes for $4.99 (rather than $5.97), as well as discounts for the rest of the season so you aren't paying twice for the episodes you already have to get the whole season.
I have to agree only 50%. In the brave new world of TV devices like iPods, AppleTVs etc. will have an increasing part to play and NBC don't seem to be getting this. Because their view is content-centric, they really think all they have to do is put another website on the service and that's it. This isn't so as most of the TV websites' downloads are free catch-ups not purchases and who really wants to watch TV on their computer anyway?
To NBC Apple's view will always be device-centric so their statement makes sense. The big question is how much of our decision to buy shows will be based on how that show is being delivered? You could have a great new TV series but if it's only available on Betamax will it sell?
Poorly implemented technology has the ability to greatly reduce viewing pleasure which will cause consumers to walk away or not bother after a while. The case in point is the TV website. With old TV to change channel you push one button or push another to go to a simple EPG and select what you want. With the website, changing channel means going to a whole new design of EPG, navigating it differently, selecting, waiting....it'll never work!
The networks need to acknowledge TV is changing and they don't know what will work so rather than throw their toys out of the pram they should acknowledge impending marginalisation, be covering all bases and letting the public vote with our wallets
The problem is that NBC is selling content and Apple is trying to tell NBC what their content is worth.
Of course, Apple are the retailer. They should have control over the price they sell things in their shop for. Especially as they've publicly admitted trying to push the prices down
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave K.
I don't believe for a second NBC wanted to charge $4.99 per episode for their content. I believe Apple was trying to strong-arm NBC to adjust their prices so that Apple's service would be more attractive to consumers (i.e., cost) and therefore sell more iPod products.
I'm not privy to the details of the negotiation but given everyone else has rolled their agreements over so I think it's NBC who tried to effect a change. This was always going to be a game of who needs whom the most - NBC tried it on & lost. Network content will come & go just as it does with any other TV service
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave K.
Apple, iTunes, and iPods are in need of serious competition.
And they already have it. The technology underpinning all new web TV efforts is Microsoft - another closed system with inferior products.
QUOTE=Dave K.;1145528]I think studios like NBC (and Universal) no longer trust the model proposed by Apple and what to shop around their content (especially since the studios don't receive a dime off of the iPod product revnues).[/QUOTE]
Of course, they've had it their way for too long & we've had to sit in front of a box at a specified time to watch ads interspersed with TV shows because of it - time to change. How much revenue do networks see from any TV, DVD player or PVR manufacturer right now? Do Tivo pay all the networks a royalty just incase it's used with their content? I don't think so.
Comments
Aren't there Blu-ray rips of Casino Royale all over the torrent sites? I don't need them streamed or instantly available just delivered to my AppleTV with a little blue dot is fine by me.
McD
But I am not after a once off option but an option that is a choice for all my media like Handbreak... or at least most of my media collection anyways
The media market is in uncharted waters and the fog banks are rolling in. Apple need to soften up until they have a handle on the video market & the providers need to grow up and realise that 'good' content is highly subjective and if it ain't on the new 'TV' - it ain't on. If they don't get their act together they'll blow it.
McD
I agree. If they don't soften up then we are going to see the wonderful rise of Apple start to slide.
Said NBC vice president of communications, Cory Shields, "It is clear that Apple?s retail pricing strategy for its iTunes service is designed to drive sales of Apple devices at the expense of those who create the content that make these devices worth buying."
I have to agree statement with this 100%.
I have to agree statement with this 100%.
I don't know if I agree with NBC. Remember, NBC has an affiliation with Microsoft and Microsoft is trying to get content away from Apple over to the Zune. So far, everyone has tried and failed to take down the iPod as the media player of choice and Apple's product line is more mature and is selling quite well.
Apple is just trying to get affordable content and as much as possible on it's iTunes platform. Apple doesn't really make much money from iTunes sales. Yes, they are trying to sell iPods, but I'll bet that NBC will sell less content and try to rely on selling advertising which just pollutes our brains and media players.
I personally don't really watch much, if anything on NBC these days as the content isn't what it once was.
Where are the classic sitcoms like Seinfeld? The TV shows these days aren't really worth watching more than once, if at all.
http://tinyurl.com/2aes44
"The programs, including “Heroes” and “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno,” will be offered for a week immediately after their initial broadcasts. Commercials will be embedded in the programs and viewers will not be able to skip through them."
For our own money we'll be forced to watch commercials? I see class action lawsuit here...
"NBC announced today that they will be launching a new service called "NBC Direct" which will allow users to download and view NBC's popular primetime shows to their desktops for free and watch them for up to one week after broadcast.
The first version of this software will launch in October for Windows PCs only, but "future versions" are said to add Mac compatibility.
At launch the shows will include "Heroes," "The Office," "Life," "Bionic Woman," "30 Rock," "Friday Night Lights," "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" and "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno."
I'll take free with some ads anyday. I do this with ABC's streaming of Lost the day after it's televised. I think it's a move in the right direction.
You gonna love this:
http://tinyurl.com/2aes44
"The programs, including “Heroes” and “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno,” will be offered for a week immediately after their initial broadcasts. Commercials will be embedded in the programs and viewers will not be able to skip through them."
For our own money we'll be forced to watch commercials? I see class action lawsuit here...
I can understand why NBC is trying to do this. I bet all the other networks are trying to get rid of the middle man.
He doesn't have to because he knows you will
spot on lol
A Star Wars paraphrase comes to mind:
"The more you tighten your grip, NBC, the more revenue will slip through your fingers."
20Mbps? That's interesting. Who is your FiOS carrier? 20Mbps isn't an option for me. Where I live (near Washington DC), Verizon's FiOS offerings are 5M, 15M and 30M (for $40, $50 and $180/mo, respectively.)
Next month, when I have time to be home and supervise the installation, I plan on buying the 15M plan. I'm really looking forward to a 10x speedup over my DSL line for the same price.
Verizon in FL.
If you went to Verizon's national speed test site here you see the options ...
http://speedtest.verizon.net/SpeedTe..._speedtest.jsp
BTW it seems Macs and PCs need a patch to TCP/IP to deal with these mega speeds and even with it (I used Apple's TCP/IP patch from their web site) I cannot get close to the 20 Mb/s I pay for although it did increase my download speed from 3 Mb/s to about 12 Mb/s. Anyone shed light on this? I am using ethernet directly for some Macs and the 802.11n wi-fi from Apple for MacBook so it is not my network slowing this down.
UPDATE I take that back! It was Safari beta 3 causing the problem. Use Firefox for the above mentioned test site ... I do get 20 Mb/s ....
I don't know if I agree with NBC. Remember, NBC has an affiliation with Microsoft and Microsoft is trying to get content away from Apple over to the Zune. So far, everyone has tried and failed to take down the iPod as the media player of choice and Apple's product line is more mature and is selling quite well.
Apple is just trying to get affordable content and as much as possible on it's iTunes platform. Apple doesn't really make much money from iTunes sales. Yes, they are trying to sell iPods, but I'll bet that NBC will sell less content and try to rely on selling advertising which just pollutes our brains and media players.
I personally don't really watch much, if anything on NBC these days as the content isn't what it once was.
Where are the classic sitcoms like Seinfeld? The TV shows these days aren't really worth watching more than once, if at all.
The problem is that NBC is selling content and Apple is trying to tell NBC what their content is worth.
I don't believe for a second NBC wanted to charge $4.99 per episode for their content. I believe Apple was trying to strong-arm NBC to adjust their prices so that Apple's service would be more attractive to consumers (i.e., cost) and therefore sell more iPod products.
Apple, iTunes, and iPods are in need of serious competition. I think studios like NBC (and Universal) no longer trust the model proposed by Apple and what to shop around their content (especially since the studios don't receive a dime off of the iPod product revnues).
Dave
The problem is that NBC is selling content and Apple is trying to tell NBC what their content is worth.
I don't believe for a second NBC wanted to charge $4.99 per episode for their content. I believe Apple was trying to strong-arm NBC to adjust their prices so that Apple's service would be more attractive to consumers (i.e., cost) and therefore sell more iPod products.
Apple, iTunes, and iPods are in need of serious competition. I think studios like NBC (and Universal) no longer trust the model proposed by Apple and what to shop around their content (especially since the studios don't receive a dime off of the iPod product revnues).
Dave
I agree with your assertion that NBC is jockying for position and was not seriously looking at increasing their price enough to push it up to $4.99 after Apple's mark-up. I do think that they were trying to push prices up, but it is probably due to their percieved value of HD content vs. the current resolution. There are probably other factors as well.
NBC is testing the waters and trying to find a way to make money on downloaded content that they are loosing in lost ad revenue due to lower viewer numbers (due to internet downloads, timeshifting with DVR's and other ways people watch the shows that are not counted in the numbers that the industries calculate their total viewer counts for a show and use to set and justify the price of advertiesing which is used to finance the shows as well as bring in profits to the company.
As for the industry not trusting Apple, I think that this is a given. They do not like the power that Apple has over the music industry and want to find ways to limit it in video. The problem is that they will not be able to do this unless they agree to sell their content through other sources for less than Apple, who has set the market price. Even with that Apple's price is not much better or worse than what you can get if you buy a season of TV shows on DVD through a retail source like Amazon or WallMart and comes with fewer bells and wistles. It also costs less to produce and distribute (at least for NBC) than a DVD does. The only advantage that iTMS has is that you can get the show during the current season instead of waiting untill after it is over for the DVD's to hit store shelves.
My issue with the NBC business model is the one week viewing window. I can go weeks without watching TV. This model will not allow me to catch up on missed episodes. And for the new continuing story shows this is a failed model. Take a few weeks of vacation and you lose the story line. Why bother watching? At least with iTunes I can go back and buy the missed episodes. -- I hear that this is what happened with "Lost" and "Heros". initially low watched shows that picked up viewers as the buzz grew. I wonder if the buzz would had occurred if the new viewers had no way to go back and catch up with the story.
BTW it seems Macs and PCs need a patch to TCP/IP to deal with these mega speeds and even with it (I used Apple's TCP/IP patch from their web site) I cannot get close to the 20 Mb/s I pay for although it did increase my download speed from 3 Mb/s to about 12 Mb/s. Anyone shed light on this? I am using ethernet directly for some Macs and the 802.11n wi-fi from Apple for MacBook so it is not my network slowing this down.
Something's fishy here. When I move content over my LAN (100M switched Ethernet), I easily get speeds above 20Mbps. But I usually use file sharing to move content over my LAN.
It's likely, however, that the internet services you access can't keep up. Even if they have an OC-12 (622Mbps) circuit (which nobody ever uses, because it's insanely expensive), that won't leave you anything close to 20Mbps if 100 people are downloading content at the same time. There's also the matter of CPU load and disk speed on the remote servers.
And, as you discovered, your own CPU load, browser choice, and hard drive speed also have an impact.
But I am not after a once off option but an option that is a choice for all my media like Handbreak... or at least most of my media collection anyways
But if it's on the torrent networks it must have been ripped as you're doing with DVDs
Wasn't there talk about NBC wanting to bundle shows together? Kind of like getting three for the price of two? The problem with this is that if you are not interested in two of the shows but can only get the show you want via the bundle, it is a price increase.
The whole thing is probably double-speak on both sides, so we can't be sure. The bundles that showed up on Unbox supposedly were multiple episodes of the same show, such as 3 episodes for $4.99 (rather than $5.97), as well as discounts for the rest of the season so you aren't paying twice for the episodes you already have to get the whole season.
I have to agree statement with this 100%.
I have to agree only 50%. In the brave new world of TV devices like iPods, AppleTVs etc. will have an increasing part to play and NBC don't seem to be getting this. Because their view is content-centric, they really think all they have to do is put another website on the service and that's it. This isn't so as most of the TV websites' downloads are free catch-ups not purchases and who really wants to watch TV on their computer anyway?
To NBC Apple's view will always be device-centric so their statement makes sense. The big question is how much of our decision to buy shows will be based on how that show is being delivered? You could have a great new TV series but if it's only available on Betamax will it sell?
Poorly implemented technology has the ability to greatly reduce viewing pleasure which will cause consumers to walk away or not bother after a while. The case in point is the TV website. With old TV to change channel you push one button or push another to go to a simple EPG and select what you want. With the website, changing channel means going to a whole new design of EPG, navigating it differently, selecting, waiting....it'll never work!
The networks need to acknowledge TV is changing and they don't know what will work so rather than throw their toys out of the pram they should acknowledge impending marginalisation, be covering all bases and letting the public vote with our wallets
McD
The problem is that NBC is selling content and Apple is trying to tell NBC what their content is worth.
Of course, Apple are the retailer. They should have control over the price they sell things in their shop for. Especially as they've publicly admitted trying to push the prices down
I don't believe for a second NBC wanted to charge $4.99 per episode for their content. I believe Apple was trying to strong-arm NBC to adjust their prices so that Apple's service would be more attractive to consumers (i.e., cost) and therefore sell more iPod products.
I'm not privy to the details of the negotiation but given everyone else has rolled their agreements over so I think it's NBC who tried to effect a change. This was always going to be a game of who needs whom the most - NBC tried it on & lost. Network content will come & go just as it does with any other TV service
Apple, iTunes, and iPods are in need of serious competition.
And they already have it. The technology underpinning all new web TV efforts is Microsoft - another closed system with inferior products.
QUOTE=Dave K.;1145528]I think studios like NBC (and Universal) no longer trust the model proposed by Apple and what to shop around their content (especially since the studios don't receive a dime off of the iPod product revnues).[/QUOTE]
Of course, they've had it their way for too long & we've had to sit in front of a box at a specified time to watch ads interspersed with TV shows because of it - time to change. How much revenue do networks see from any TV, DVD player or PVR manufacturer right now? Do Tivo pay all the networks a royalty just incase it's used with their content? I don't think so.
McD