First year Apple TV sales fall below expectations

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  • Reply 201 of 222
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by aegisdesign View Post


    Quite a few times. That's where I prefer to watch them. I don't want my lounge looking like a hi-fi shop / multimedia geek wet dream.



    It doesn't have to be big or expensive. It sounds like you've got some mental image of something that doesn't necessarily reflect reality. You don't need floor standing tower speakers or a lot of gear to get decent sound quality, that's just for more extreme tastes. I spent about $1000 USD for my surround system and it's pretty unobtrusive, the speakers are bookshelf. My projector's more expensive, but when it's off, it's quite unobtrusive as well, some people don't even notice it and think that I don't have a TV.



    Quote:

    Maybe I've got to buy some super expensive DVD player or something but I just find most DVD players less watchable than old SVHS-PAL. Digital noise really annoys me.



    Sometimes it's an adjustment thing, like the TV is off a bit, or the TV's sharpness is too high - that adds ringing.



    Quote:

    Exactly. That's why current TV setups are shit or way more expensive than I'm happy to pay for, only to have it superceded in a few years with something that is more tolerable for the limited time I'm prepared to surrender to TV. We're getting there with 1080p sets and BluRay/HDDVD but it's still too rich for me and nobody seems to do 1080p sets smaller than a small van yet. Instead you seem to have to have some blinged up mega-set that takes up a wall of your house. I'm just not into that kind of ridiculous status symbol.



    Technology almost always moves on. There's almost always going to be something nicer next year.



    1080p TVs are available as small as 24".
  • Reply 202 of 222
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by aegisdesign View Post


    Because they're ridiculously expensive pieces of kit for limited quality. May as well make the old one last instead of jumping on the crappy digital kit for sale currently.







    I was all against buying a DVD player. It was bought for me. I just find them unbearable to watch. Maybe I've got to buy some super expensive DVD player or something but I just find most DVD players less watchable than old SVHS-PAL. Digital noise really annoys me. I rarely watch movies at home because of that. If I watch anything it's usually the news and the occasional BBC2 comedy once they've moved it from BBC3 which is digital only and I hate the low bandwidth digital services we have here not that I can get them here at home anyway yet - 2011 IIRC unless I stick a satellite dish on the house.







    Quite a few times. That's where I prefer to watch them. I don't want my lounge looking like a hi-fi shop / multimedia geek wet dream. I worked out it was cheaper, and much more fun, to go out to the pictures every so often instead of spending thousands on a TV setup I'd hate the look of and hate the low res content on.



    It's like not owning a car either. I worked out it was cheaper to hire one when I needed it or use public transport, bikes and taxis.







    Exactly. That's why current TV setups are shit or way more expensive than I'm happy to pay for, only to have it superceded in a few years with something that is more tolerable for the limited time I'm prepared to surrender to TV. We're getting there with 1080p sets and BluRay/HDDVD but it's still too rich for me and nobody seems to do 1080p sets smaller than a small van yet. Instead you seem to have to have some blinged up mega-set that takes up a wall of your house. I'm just not into that kind of ridiculous status symbol.



    I don't watch prices over there, but prices have really dropped here, and are still dropping. What size would you consider to be appropriate for HD viewing, and from how far away? I have the numbers that are required to know this, but most people aren't aware of them.



    For HD, large sets are required.
  • Reply 203 of 222
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by JeffDM View Post


    Quote:
    Originally Posted by aegisdesign View Post


    Quite a few times. That's where I prefer to watch them. I don't want my lounge looking like a hi-fi shop / multimedia geek wet dream.



    It doesn't have to be. It sounds like you've got some mental image of something that doesn't necessarily reflect reality. You don't need floor standing speakers or a lot of gear to get decent sound quality.



    I know. That's why I've kept the Rotel Amp I like and my trusty Celestion DL4s, though I did have a hankering for some Acoustic Energy speakers a while back I trialled along with a Rega Planar amp. That was nice.



    But I still don't see the point in lots of shitty little speakers dotted about the room like everybody I know that has these multimedia megaplexes in their lounge. They all sound like crap to me. And their DVDs blown up on 52" screens look like muddy crap too.



    I also don't want a big stack of set-top boxes either. A Mac Mini sized box would be fine. Nothing more other than an amp and speakers please.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by JeffDM View Post


    Technology almost always moves on. There's almost always going to be something nicer next year.



    Exactly. The problem I have is I don't think this year's technology is up to snuff yet though, not appreciably enough better than tech from the 90s and way too expensive. Next year might be different and I'll buy in then.



    The funny thing was I was at my sisters a year or so back and she'd bought some massive huge Samsung TV. She's got SKY Digital through which she gets BBC and all the other terrestrial analogue stations. Me being a Digital/Sat TV luddite, I of course changed channels with the TV remote, switching it to BBC1 analogue, instead of the SKY remote. My sis came in the room and looked at the TV and exclaimed SKY was looking really good today as sometimes they don't get good reception.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by JeffDM View Post


    1080p TVs are available as small as 24".



    I've not come across one yet. Smallest seems to be 32" but I can't say I've really looked as there's not really any content to display on them without splashing out on an overpriced Bluray/HDDVD player and overpriced content which may be superceded by online services anyway by the time I get around to it. I was hoping Apple would do that perhaps. The smaller screens work better for me though. It's like YouTube - the videos look ok small but look like crap blown up full screen.



    And after all that, I'd rather be out on the hills than watching TV.
  • Reply 204 of 222
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by melgross View Post


    I don't watch prices over there, but prices have really dropped here, and are still dropping. What size would you consider to be appropriate for HD viewing, and from how far away? I have the numbers that are required to know this, but most people aren't aware of them.



    For HD, large sets are required.



    They're dropping a lot here too although mostly the 720p sets that everyone was suckered into two years ago, again with no HD content except some football matches. I don't do football.



    The furthest I can possibly get away from the TV is about 4m but that's kind of irrelevant if I don't want a large TV taking up a wall.
  • Reply 205 of 222
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by aegisdesign View Post


    They're dropping a lot here too although mostly the 720p sets that everyone was suckered into two years ago, again with no HD content except some football matches. I don't do football.



    The furthest I can possibly get away from the TV is about 4m but that's kind of irrelevant if I don't want a large TV taking up a wall.



    That's too bad about the lack of content. we have a lot of it here. One of the few areas in which we seem to be a ahead of you guys.



    But, yeah, it does take a big monitor for HD.



    If you really wanted to sit 4 m from the monitor, and you wanted 1080p, you would need a screen with a diagonal of about 310cm to see the full resolution.
  • Reply 206 of 222
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by melgross View Post


    That's too bad about the lack of content. we have a lot of it here. One of the few areas in which we seem to be a ahead of you guys.



    There's quite a bit if you subscribe to Sky Satellite now and I'd guess some of the cable companies are doing it too. From what I've watched though at other people's houses it's horribly compressed though. I'm not that keen at sticking a dish on the side of a two hundred year old house though, or paying Murdoch a penny and we've no cable TV in my town - it's semi-rural.



    We've 'Freeview' terrestrial digital TV through a normal aerial in most of the UK - though not here till 2011. Also horribly compressed and not HD AFAIK.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by melgross View Post


    But, yeah, it does take a big monitor for HD.



    If you really wanted to sit 4 m from the monitor, and you wanted 1080p, you would need a screen with a diagonal of about 310cm to see the full resolution.



    3.1M!!! Blimey!
  • Reply 207 of 222
    ps. view out my window. Why would I be watching TV?



  • Reply 208 of 222
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by aegisdesign View Post


    ps. view out my window. Why would I be watching TV?







    Well, that gets pretty boring after a while, doesn't it? Do you stare at it for a half hour or an hour at a time? If you do, you need some help, don't you think?
  • Reply 209 of 222
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Nicnac View Post


    1: The AppleTV is not ahead of it's time. It's lack of features put the CONCEPT ahead of the specs it actually provides (as in, it would have been a killer product if...)



    And if those features that make it a killer were added, they'd boost the price as well. If it's possible to make a killer product at a price people are willing to pay TODAY, where is that box? And why isn't it selling well?



    Honestly, I don't think the technology is cheap enough to create a box that has a balance of features and cost that would appeal to more than a small part of the marketplace. Until that's possible, all the companies working on this kind of box are just treading water.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Nicnac View Post


    With these 3 points in mind, why should ANYONE want to consider any current Apple product as an HTPC contender?



    If apple doesn't have a contender, then who is putting out the product that IS a contender? And how well is it selling?



    I still maintain that the technology is too expensive for anyone to put out a product that has all the features people are asking for AND meet a price the mainstream is willing to pay (and make a profit on it).
  • Reply 210 of 222
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by aegisdesign View Post


    Because they're ridiculously expensive pieces of kit for limited quality. May as well make the old one last instead of jumping on the crappy digital kit for sale currently.



    What planet are you living on? You can get a TV for about a couple hundred bucks...you consider that "ridiculously expensive"? Where do you come up with "thousands"? The TV can be had for about a hundred, DVD players are as cheap as $25 or so, and you can get surround sound for a couple hundred bucks. I will admit that with the whole digital switchover, it's harder to find good budget TV's, but it's not like there haven't been a couple decades of opportunity for that. Nor do they have to be big, you can hide all the gear pretty easily if that's what you want.



    As expensive as movie tickets are, unless you go very rarely (and how is it that movies watched at home rot your brain, but in the theatre they don't?) it doesn't take long for it to end up being cheaper to watch them at home.



    And dare I say it...but these days I think it's pretty easy to find TV content that is better than most of the crap in movie theatres.
  • Reply 211 of 222
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by minderbinder View Post


    To be honest, when I go into a store and see HDDVD or bluray movies playing on an HDTV, I can't believe how bad they look either.



    The Blu-Ray display at my local Sam's Club is pretty poorly set up.
  • Reply 212 of 222
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by melgross View Post


    Well, that gets pretty boring after a while, doesn't it?



    Nope. So many ways to view it and as it's Britain, if you don't like it, wait 30 minutes and it'll change.
  • Reply 213 of 222
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by JeffDM View Post


    The Blu-Ray display at my local Sam's Club is pretty poorly set up.



    That wouldn't surprise me. But either everywhere I've seen these it's been set up poorly, or the format just doesn't look that great.
  • Reply 214 of 222
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by aegisdesign View Post


    Nope. So many ways to view it and as it's Britain, if you don't like it, wait 30 minutes and it'll change.



    Let me know when something starts growing, other than some scrub.



    By the way, what are those wavy horizontal lines covering much of the middle of the photo? You may have to move in to see it.
  • Reply 215 of 222
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by minderbinder View Post


    What planet are you living on? You can get a TV for about a couple hundred bucks...you consider that "ridiculously expensive"? Where do you come up with "thousands"? The TV can be had for about a hundred, DVD players are as cheap as $25 or so, and you can get surround sound for a couple hundred bucks. I will admit that with the whole digital switchover, it's harder to find good budget TV's, but it's not like there haven't been a couple decades of opportunity for that. Nor do they have to be big, you can hide all the gear pretty easily if that's what you want.



    I'd love to have a 1080p TV for a "couple hundred bucks". Where do I get one? Preferably not to big though.



    Just picking an online store randomly, the cheapest they do is £615 and the cheapest Blueray/HDDVD players are at least £180. Then add a surround amp and speakers. Well over £1000 I'd imagine if you want something ok.



    DVD player - got one - it was £17. They're as cheap as £8 here now inc VAT. Even the best DVD players are total shit IMHO. Not the player's fault, it's the format, the encoding. That's why I didn't want one.



    I can see that a decent 1080p and Blueray/HDDVD set is a significant step up from my old PAL 4:3 TV and SVHS PAL deck but IMHO the widescreen PAL and 720p sets around aren't a big enough step up and neither was DVD to justify it, and as I said I don't like the DVD aesthetic.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by minderbinder View Post


    As expensive as movie tickets are, unless you go very rarely (and how is it that movies watched at home rot your brain, but in the theatre they don't?) it doesn't take long for it to end up being cheaper to watch them at home.



    Never said anything of the sort but my point was I like watching movies as they're supposed to be seen and not on a small screen at home. Conversely, I don't like big screens in my lounge, especially when I don't watch them so much.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by minderbinder View Post


    And dare I say it...but these days I think it's pretty easy to find TV content that is better than most of the crap in movie theatres.



    Can I suggest going out instead of your quest for decent TV content?



    Submit to the idea that there's no such thing as decent TV content and you get a lot more done.
  • Reply 216 of 222
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by melgross View Post


    Let me know when something starts growing, other than some scrub.



    By the way, what are those wavy horizontal lines covering much of the middle of the photo? You may have to move in to see it.



    That'd be the soil gradually slipping down the hill and snow in the troughs. It's mostly peat and gritstone that hill. It rains a lot so the water gradually causes erosion causing the surface to roll down the hill like wrinkles on a Sharpei puppy dog or skin on custard.
  • Reply 217 of 222
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by aegisdesign View Post


    That'd be the soil gradually slipping down the hill and snow in the troughs. It's mostly peat and gritstone that hill. It rains a lot so the water gradually causes erosion causing the surface to roll down the hill like wrinkles on a Sharpei puppy dog or skin on custard.



    That's too bad. no wonder anything large hasn't taken root. I'd try planting sone hardy ground cover so the root structure would hold it together.



    Oh well, this isn't a gardening site (though I do a lot of it).
  • Reply 218 of 222
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by filburt View Post


    1080i, which represents the majority of HD programming (in the US, ABC, ESPN, and Fox seem to be the major holdouts), can scale very well to 1080p. On the other hand, (down)scaling to 720p would result in loss of resolution. Granted, most 1080i programmings are in fact 1440x1080 (rather than full 1920x1080), but upconverted 1080p still offers far greater detail than Pioneer PDP-5080's 1365x768 can resolve.



    Maybe the reason why those 3 picked 720p is because of the content they show: fast moving action (mostly sports). A 1080i signal, even though it has the slightly sharper appearance, has more trouble with that type of movement.



    I agree pixel-by-pixel, a 1080p set would scale 1080i way better. But with my naked eye, looking at a 1080i source going into a 1080p plasma and the 720p Pioneer, I saw no difference. In fact the Pioneer had a better picture.



    Quote:

    That said, most folks in the US are not capable of downloading HD contents in few hours. An average pseudo-480p stereo 2-hour movies on iTunes Store is 1.5 GB. At roughly 3 times the resolution, 720p with 5.1-channel audio will balloon to 5 GB. And 1080p will be nearly 15 GB in size.



    For this reason, I think Apple TV needs to integrate with HD DVD or Blu-Ray drive (either standard or as add-on) and/or offer DVR capability.



    Count the rest of the world too...not too many people around here have 10GigE links to PAIX or SIX...



    The refresh of AppleTV should also get a beefed-up CPU or something to offload the video decode on hardware if it does get a HD media player...and you get your 1080p capability.
  • Reply 219 of 222
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by filburt View Post


    That said, most folks in the US are not capable of downloading HD contents in few hours. An average pseudo-480p stereo 2-hour movies on iTunes Store is 1.5 GB. At roughly 3 times the resolution, 720p with 5.1-channel audio will balloon to 5 GB. And 1080p will be nearly 15 GB in size.



    While 1080p is overly data intensive for most US broadband, it shouldn't require 3 times the data as 720p. Assuming 1.5GB for iTune's current format, 1080p would be about 10GB. That's assuming the same amount of encoded bits per pixel, but I think that overestimates the file size necessary.
  • Reply 220 of 222
    gordygordy Posts: 1,004member
    I think that iTMS integration would be the killer app for AppleTV. Problem is, all those contracts with those big studios are for computers and portable devices...not set-top boxes. I think that's why we haven't seen the next logical step taken yet.



    Hopefully, that little oversight will be fixed soon, and we can buy and watch iTMS content from our living rooms...if it hasn't lost it's momentum in Cupertino. Video rentals [with higher than DVD resolution] would also be great.



    As far as it current feature set...the photo function needa a total rewrite. Everything else works great.
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