This is true, but I think people mentioned the XBox so much it was being forgotten that most of us are using Macs and the XBox isn't an option.
Huh? Why all these comments about incompatibility between Macs and Xbox Media Center? I use XBMC on the first gen Xbox and it streams all my movies/music/photos from my iMac, regardless of whether my iMac is booted into OSX or into Windows XP. After installing XBMC, it took literally 10 minutes to configure XBMC to find all my shared data - you just use the Xbox controller to tell the media center to find any shared folders, give them a name (e.g. My Movies etc) and you're away.
All this for way less money than the iTV, and you can play AVI/DivX files, which the iTV probably won't.
This is true, but I think people mentioned the XBox so much it was being forgotten that most of us are using Macs and the XBox isn't an option.
Even in the PC world I wonder how many people are actually actively using Media Center, own an XBox, and actually use the XBox as a media extender. I bet the number is pretty small.
A lot of MPC's have been sold. But that's mostly because they have been installed by default on many home systems at the factory. But the USE of them as such is considered to be very small, on the order of a few percent. Those who combo that with the XBox are an even smaller minority.
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Yes when we were all discussing iTunes movie resolution. There was a lot of argument from those with HDTV's that they deplored SD resolution. I said HD broadcast is better but you are still watching highly compressed video. Ultimately what broadcast HD gives you is the ability to have larger television screens.
You really haven't seen HD until you've watched it uncompressed from the source. A lot of the luster is gone by the time its broadcast or on DVD.
I have an Hp 65" 1080p DLP with 1080p inputs, which was very rare when I bought mine a bit over a year ago.
While 1080p looks great, you do have to be pretty close to notice. The links to the charts say it all. People mostly fool themselves into thinking they are seeing hi def from 12 feet away with most all screens.
I get the daily news off the Internet, the "news" on TV these days consists mostly of product-placement advertisement and tabloid human interest stories. Brittany and Anna Nichole have little bearing to me in the realm I call "reality".
I receive ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, WB, and PBS for free Over-The-Air (in high definition). Broadcast TV has plenty of sitcoms, dramas, sports, and reality TV garbage... we watch maybe an hour or two (tops) each night. That leaves plenty of time for cooking dinner, chores, working out, reading...
Not sure whether I should be insulted or flattered by that remark.
Frankly there isn't enough good original programming on cable to warrant a subscription.
Once upon a time I had the DirecTV platinum package (free job perk) and I was able to watch every channel known to man. After I grew accustomed to it, I was mostly watching the broadcast networks just like everybody else does, premium movie channels, and not much else. Marathons of 'Law and Order' reruns just don't appeal to me. YMMV.
You aren't average, which should please you.
But you don't make up much of a customer base since you are so far off from average. Therefore, your demographic will be ignored when companies think about how they are going to do this.
It's like the way they rate programs. If they are popular with the 18 to 48 year old male, then they are doing just fine. Well, I am a 57 year old male with more money to spend than most 18 to 48 years olds. But, my needs aren't as important to the Tv programmers, because they believe that most 57 year olds don't spend as much on what they want to advertise.
Huh? Why all these comments about incompatibility between Macs and Xbox Media Center? I use XBMC on the first gen Xbox and it streams all my movies/music/photos from my iMac, regardless of whether my iMac is booted into OSX or into Windows XP. After installing XBMC, it took literally 10 minutes to configure XBMC to find all my shared data - you just use the Xbox controller to tell the media center to find any shared folders, give them a name (e.g. My Movies etc) and you're away.
All this for way less money than the iTV, and you can play AVI/DivX files, which the iTV probably won't.
Huh? Why all these comments about incompatibility between Macs and Xbox Media Center? I use XBMC on the first gen Xbox and it streams all my movies/music/photos from my iMac, regardless of whether my iMac is booted into OSX or into Windows XP. After installing XBMC, it took literally 10 minutes to configure XBMC to find all my shared data - you just use the Xbox controller to tell the media center to find any shared folders, give them a name (e.g. My Movies etc) and you're away.
All this for way less money than the iTV, and you can play AVI/DivX files, which the iTV probably won't.
There's actually two separate products being talked about here:
1) XBMC. That's what you're using-- sounds pretty interesting, actually. That's an open source product/hack running on top of the original xBox... I'm assuming it plays all the different video/audio formats except the ones that are DRM'ed. I don't know to much about that...
2) xBox 360 + Windows Media Center. This is the offical, Microsoft supported method for streaming your media from your PC to xBox 360 console-- which supports Windows DRM but not Fairplay. This requires a newer Windows PC and an xBox 360...
Most of the responses in this thread are about the second, Microsoft-only solution.
But you don't make up much of a customer base since you are so far off from average. Therefore, your demographic will be ignored when companies think about how they are going to do this.
It's like the way they rate programs. If they are popular with the 18 to 48 year old male, then they are doing just fine. Well, I am a 57 year old male with more money to spend than most 18 to 48 years olds. But, my needs aren't as important to the Tv programmers, because they believe that most 57 year olds don't spend as much on what they want to advertise.
The absolute need of the advertising model to reign supreme in the face of subscription VOD and IPTV is IMHO questionable. If Apple is able to offer good shows at a competitive price why couldn't they become the online version of HBO? Want a movie? Buy it. Want a show? Buy it. Want to browse? Buy an episode for $2, watch the trailers, whatever. Why surf when you get just drill down and get the exact programming you want right now? Why Tivo when they're trying to stuff ads in anyhow? Plus you have to wait 15 minutes before you start watching to be able the FF through commercials.
VOD that works would kill this business model but I've been less than impressed with VOD from Comcast nor does it have all the breadth of programming on it as you might see on iTunes.
Dude, A LOT of people watch DivX. We're talking in the realms of hundreds of thousands, going into millions. It is the MP3 of video. It's obvious why Microsoft and Apple aren't supporting it on their devices, but I don't understand why. Every DVD player these days plays it. And I would buy an AppleTV alone if it did, and for that reason I'm happy to burn DivX to a re-writeable CD/DVD and play it on my HDTV.
The problem with this box isn't that it COULD be useful, it is that there is not the cohesion that there was with CDs, .mp3, iTunes, and the iPod.
If I could rip my DVDs and have them "on demand" queued up on my desktop/laptop pc or in an external drive on my Airport basestation, plus augmentation of the impulse buy from the iTunes store, this could be useful. Unfortunately, right now we can do everything except for one important aspect of the chain. It's the ripping of the DVDs onto a digital medium that is easily stored and accessed! If it was not for the DMCA preventing ANY sort of ripping including into another format I would LOVE to get an AppleTV ASAP. Unfortunately, the product is missing a key feature that made the iPod so popular, the ability to use your old format on the device in a convenient way!
In the future, when there is a universal high-def video format that is available to store the digital media in I can imagine this kind of product doing very well. This is not the case today, people have physical media and some digital downloads. If you can not put both of these formats in an accessible device it is going to be hard to justify buying either this device or a large number of digital downloads just for putting your digital media on the TV.
At least that's what I think.
You can do this, it's just not quite legal which has nothing to do with Apple. There is also the new software from Flip4Mac Drive-in which looks to be a legal way to do this, however at least in it's beta form there is no way to look through your catalog in front row. It might be possible that if Apple has a plug-in archetecture, automator, widgets, and or Apple Script support that a method could be developed to look through a catalog and mount the chosen DVD, if Apple TV can gain access to a mounted DVD for viewing. There is also nothing keeping Apple from adding a feature like this in the future even if it is not supported in the first generation.
they saw the competition for the Apple TV as the DVD and not the DVR. It is a little hard for them to compete today with a $299 device against DVD players that sell for $49 or less so I assume that he was talking about the newer HD DVD and Blue Ray devices. Based on that and the specs for Apple TV I would guess that 720p content is coming very soon
I hope you're right.
Based on Steve Jobs saying that it does 720p, and that home photos are already in high definition and look great, and NOT saying anything about high def tv or movies.... I'm worried the AppleTV isn't up to it.
I take it, however, that the graphics card has been looked at and found capable by people!
I'm amazed that some people can actually say that they only watch two or three series a year. It's actually unbelievable.
So, you watch no news, no specials. Don't get the itch to see whats on that's different. Never check out other channels. That amazing. Such restraint!
Totally nailed it on the head
I think the people that watch only a few shows per year, say BSG, 24, and Happy Days, would save money. Though I would be very curious to see what an average day in the life of someone like this is? Seems quite odd.
I'm not on the TV 24 hours a day, and don't even consider myself to be an "avid" watcher or couch potato. But I definitely watch more than a few shows (grab them on Tivo of course, watch whenever -- even download them onto my Mac to watch from Tivo). And as you mentioned, without the option of being able to go through a few channels at will, wtf would I watch? How would I even know if I wanted to watch a new show without paying for it on iTunes (the 30 sec trailer or whatever it is isn't useful at all).
For people with kids, how about the hours of random Disney channel and Cartoon Network shows? That'd be a ridiculous amount of money per-episode. For a normal person with an average or even below average TV watching schedule, the iTV makes no monetary sense. The numbers just don't add up, it would be lunacy to buy them like that.
Another thing I hate about it is that it's so tied to a Mac. Obviously for sharing photos or something like that you'd need your Mac on. But when I'm in the other room watching TV (with no channels available since I don't have cable with iTV), and have to go boot up my Mac Pro (with 150 watts of wasted electricity) just to stream a TV show off of it that's wasting space on my computer......um why? If it had a DVR feature too, I'd get my shows, have cable (and no it wouldn't hurt Apple's iTunes TV plan because I wouldn't be buying them anyways except they may make a random sale here or there on impulse - which is a bonus on top of their initial hardware sale). Then they would get me hooked on the iTV idea and maybe in a few years when they have some type of realistic TV service/fees, they'd convert me full time. But in the meantime, they'll be loosing out on 98% of the TV watching population.
I think they're thinking WAY too ahead on this one. But they need an interim product to hook people now, and when it's truly ready for a home theater device, then they'd get us all. Otherwise it's just another dumb box taking up space with a really stupid remote with only a couple buttons (another remote to add to the pile!).
I'm amazed that some people can actually say that they only watch two or three series a year. It's actually unbelievable.
I watch even less. Colbert Report (and the Daily Show if I get my daughter to bed early enough), Battlestar Galactica (although I'm finding the show less compelling right now), and Robot Chicken (when I both remember and can stay up that late).
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Originally Posted by melgross
So, you watch no news, no specials. Don't get the itch to see whats on that's different. Never check out other channels. That amazing. Such restraint!
Not restraint. Just a busy life. And the realization that, after watching TV for years and years, nothing is in fact on.
For news, I do something crazy and read feeds from AP, Reuters, NYT, the BBC, and the Guardian (UK). Plus I read alternative/independent sites like Counterpunch and listen to Democracy Now podcasts during my commute home. It's faster. I find what I want right away. I don't have to endure endless local "news breaks" covering the latest murder/car chase/apartment fire, commercials, or mind-numbing "entertainment news" or "human interest" garbage. I can also freely ignore the latest wobbles in the stock market that are treated as if they were signs from the gods. If anything interesting does manage to make it onto TV, a station's website will often post the video (not to mention the YouTube feeds). And no commercials (did I mention that?)!
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Originally Posted by melgross
What a limited field of interest!.
Huh? Because he sits in front of the TV less than a typical American? Maybe he paints. Or gardens. Or exercises. Or knits. Or plays with his son. Or has sex with his lover. Or reads. Is the extent of our interests now measured soley by the type and variety of TV we watch? Does being well-rounded now mean that we watch both SciFi and ESPN? (Well, people like that are often well-rounded...at least physically.)
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Originally Posted by melgross
As I said, it's unbelievable.
"There are more things in heaven and earth Horatio than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
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Originally Posted by melgross
The average American watches 4 and one half hours of Tv a night. That's from a recent NYTimes article.
The average American is also uninformed and overweight. Coincidence?
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Originally Posted by melgross
While you may be a Tv hermit, few others are. Watching Tv the way you would want to, would cost far more than cable would ever charge.
But he just explained that it would cost him less.
Now, it would actually cost me a bit more, but that's only because I get basic cable for "free" (with my cable modem subscription). We actually cancelled our TV subscription last year when we realized how little TV we actually watch. But when Ido watch TV, I have to endure commercials (how much is my time worth?), plus conform to the network's schedules, missing episodes, staying up late, etc. And the quality is often low (not digital).
Mel, I usually like what you have to say, but this just struck me as wildly off-base.
I think the people that watch only a few shows per year, say BSG, 24, and Happy Days, would save money. Though I would be very curious to see what an average day in the life of someone like this is? Seems quite odd.
I get up at 5am and exercise. Get ready for work and help get my daughter up and ready for daycare. I get to work (high school) at 8am and teach until 4:00. Then I coach soccer until 6pm, getting home by 6:30. Cook and eat dinner. Talk with wife and child about our days, and play with daughter until 7:30-8pm. Bathe and put daughter to bed (30-60+ minutes). Talk, etc with wife or watch Colbert Report. More talking, playing games, etc (~1 hour). Wife goes to bed by 10-10:30pm. Check email/websites, and pay bills (30 minutes). Grade quizzes, tests, papers, etc. (1-2 hours if I'm lucky) and plan next day's lesson (15-30 minutes if I'm lucky). In bed by 12-1am (if I'm lucky).
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Originally Posted by tribulation
How would I even know if I wanted to watch a new show without paying for it on iTunes (the 30 sec trailer or whatever it is isn't useful at all).
Word of mouth. I heard some good things about BSG, and decided to put the DVDs on my Netflix list. Watched the miniseries and season 1 in about a week. Downloaded the first few eps of season 2 (not on DVD or iTunes yet, so I BitTorrented them), and began watching the next week. We're losing interest in the show now. But have heard good things about Heroes. So that's now on our list.
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Originally Posted by tribulation
For people with kids, how about the hours of random Disney channel and Cartoon Network shows? That'd be a ridiculous amount of money per-episode.
Simple solution. Our daughter doesn't watch TV. She draws and paints. Plays with toys. Plays with us. We're not luddites by any means. (She loves watching DVDs (generally Pixar & Disney movies, but they're really the only game in town). And when time is short we do have Season 1 of the Muppet Show.) But we actually have fun playing and like spending time together. Call us crazy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tribulation
For a normal person with an average or even below average TV watching schedule, the iTV makes no monetary sense. The numbers just don't add up, it would be lunacy to buy them like that.
Possibly. But then why do people buy DVDs of TV shows? (And most people do this in addition to paying for cable.) Are these people all lunatics?
I think the people that watch only a few shows per year, say BSG, 24, and Happy Days, would save money. Though I would be very curious to see what an average day in the life of someone like this is?
Word of mouth. I heard some good things about BSG, and decided to put the DVDs on my Netflix list. Watched the miniseries and season 1 in about a week. Downloaded the first few eps of season 2 (not on DVD or iTunes yet, so I BitTorrented them), and began watching the next week. We're losing interest in the show now. But have heard good things about Heroes. So that's now on our list.
Apple has also offered preview or postview's of BattleStar Galactica, and the occasional "Free" content which could be expanded to get people started on a new series if Apple and the network want to and write off the expense on their taxes.
In response to the other post and the shows you watch. Here's how it would roughly add up if you got it from the iTMS:
Colbert Report [I don't watch it and don't know how many new episodes there are per month]. But it's on 4 days a week, so:
4 episodes week * 4 weeks = 16 episodes per month
$1.99 per episode = $31.84 per month
...for 1/2 hour show. Apple seems to offer a "Multi Pass" for this, but again, every time I want to watch TV, I don't want to be thinking about how much each episode costs or figuring out a package to buy it.
Battlestar Galactica
One season costs $34.99 (current price for iTMS season pass to the show, my estimation is about 20 shows total at the end of season)
Robot Chicken (only 1/2 hour per episode)
One season costs $19.99 (19 episodes total)
Grand Total for just 3 shows = $86.82
How many total hours of TV did you just buy?
Colbert = 8 hours per month (16 1/2 hour episodes)
Battlestar = 20 hours per...6 months or so since there will probably be reruns
Robot Chicken = 10 hours per 6 months or so, even rounded up [whatever their season lasts]
Total number of TV show hours you have to watch = 38 hours
And remember, these shows aren't running continuously, if you're up to date with the season, your iTV will be empty most of the time anyways since you watched the show.
So for say 6 months worth of time (which is about what a normal season lasts), you've paid $86.82. Not much money I guess, but with 4,032 hours in a 6-month period, even if you watched only 1/2 hour of TV a day - you'd be out of content within 19 days (and who wants to watch just 1/2 of a Battlestar Galactica episode at a time without even finishing up the episode?)
This is the part I don't know. What then? What do you do with your TV? Since you don't have cable, you have nothing to watch, nothing. If you add even 1 more season pass of another show, that's going to be around another $34.99 (again, just for a single season). Maybe you have like millions of iPhotos to stream that will tie up that time, I have no clue. I sure don't.
...Apple is really going to make money from you then
"Simple solution. Our daughter doesn't watch TV. She draws and paints."
My children do lots of art also, but Saturday morning cartoons are their favorite. With iTV that's out of the question.
"Possibly. But then why do people buy DVDs of TV shows? (And most people do this in addition to paying for cable.) Are these people all lunatics?"
I personally don't, but for the people that do, at least they're getting a hard copy. Most people that buy them I assume just do it more for collecting (but I have no idea).
As for missing shows, staying up late, etc etc......
That's what a DVR is for. It records them for you, whenever they're on. Keeps them on its hard drive, and lets you play them back whenever you want. With Tivo you can burn them to DVD if you choose, transfer to any other Tivo in the house, or your computer.
Obviously none of us have a clue what Apple has planned or what the original vision for the thing was. We'll all be seeing how it goes. I feel strongly that after the initial hype is over [the first round of early adopters, and probably not even all that many for this device due to its limited functionality], that it won't sell very well at all unless some major changes are done to the iTMS prices and offerings. On the other hand, I'd be more than happy to subscribe to an Apple Cable service for even $50/month if it was an all access pass. That would <almost> equal cable; but even then, not entirely. Since you would miss out on all live events, local news [which is important, not sure how you dismiss that], etc.
The appletv is just like the xbox360, because if you have windows media center or new vista you have access to all your computer's movies, pictures, etc. just like apple tv, the only difference the xbox harddrive is for the games, and the internals of the x360 are a lot more advanced and worth the price.
You really don't know what you're talking about do you?!
Why would anyone want Vista, or a MS Media Centre PC? This is an Apple forum for people who know the difference between a games console and a wireless media storage device. I would even be happy to argue your comment regarding the Xbox "internals" being more advanced than those in the Apple TV.
...Apple is really going to make money from you then
"Simple solution. Our daughter doesn't watch TV. She draws and paints."
My children do lots of art also, but Saturday morning cartoons are their favorite. With iTV that's out of the question.
"Possibly. But then why do people buy DVDs of TV shows? (And most people do this in addition to paying for cable.) Are these people all lunatics?"
I personally don't, but for the people that do, at least they're getting a hard copy. Most people that buy them I assume just do it more for collecting (but I have no idea).
As for missing shows, staying up late, etc etc......
That's what a DVR is for. It records them for you, whenever they're on. Keeps them on its hard drive, and lets you play them back whenever you want. With Tivo you can burn them to DVD if you choose, transfer to any other Tivo in the house, or your computer.
Obviously none of us have a clue what Apple has planned or what the original vision for the thing was. We'll all be seeing how it goes. I feel strongly that after the initial hype is over [the first round of early adopters, and probably not even all that many for this device due to its limited functionality], that it won't sell very well at all unless some major changes are done to the iTMS prices and offerings. On the other hand, I'd be more than happy to subscribe to an Apple Cable service for even $50/month if it was an all access pass. That would <almost> equal cable; but even then, not entirely. Since you would miss out on all live events, local news [which is important, not sure how you dismiss that], etc.
These arguments over the logic behind the ATV are absolutely ridiculous. If you are in need of 4 hours of DVR programming on your TiVo to make you happy and fulfill your entertainment requirements for the day, then the Apple TV may not be for you.
I only care to watch Heroes and Lost, and the Apple TV will deliver them to me commercial free, and without a cable subscription/tivo subscription, etc. You are also forgetting that the Apple TV is more than just a portal to recorded television. It also plays my music library, which happens to be well organized through iTunes. It plays back the thousands of pictures I have stored on my hard drive, and I can watch video podcasts as well.
As far as Saturday morning cartoons, they come free of charge over broadcast TV.
The absolute need of the advertising model to reign supreme in the face of subscription VOD and IPTV is IMHO questionable. If Apple is able to offer good shows at a competitive price why couldn't they become the online version of HBO? Want a movie? Buy it. Want a show? Buy it. Want to browse? Buy an episode for $2, watch the trailers, whatever. Why surf when you get just drill down and get the exact programming you want right now? Why Tivo when they're trying to stuff ads in anyhow? Plus you have to wait 15 minutes before you start watching to be able the FF through commercials.
VOD that works would kill this business model but I've been less than impressed with VOD from Comcast nor does it have all the breadth of programming on it as you might see on iTunes.
Vinea
Because there are hundreds of shows being broadcast at the same time, plus specials, sports, etc.
Apple would have to carry most of them for that to work. They would have to have free samples of each show, possibly two episodes, so that people could check them out without paying. When I was in advertising, we knew that people don't like to pay for something they aren't sure about.
That's a lot of content. What Apple has now barely scratches the surface.
Comments
This is true, but I think people mentioned the XBox so much it was being forgotten that most of us are using Macs and the XBox isn't an option.
Huh? Why all these comments about incompatibility between Macs and Xbox Media Center? I use XBMC on the first gen Xbox and it streams all my movies/music/photos from my iMac, regardless of whether my iMac is booted into OSX or into Windows XP. After installing XBMC, it took literally 10 minutes to configure XBMC to find all my shared data - you just use the Xbox controller to tell the media center to find any shared folders, give them a name (e.g. My Movies etc) and you're away.
All this for way less money than the iTV, and you can play AVI/DivX files, which the iTV probably won't.
This is true, but I think people mentioned the XBox so much it was being forgotten that most of us are using Macs and the XBox isn't an option.
Even in the PC world I wonder how many people are actually actively using Media Center, own an XBox, and actually use the XBox as a media extender. I bet the number is pretty small.
A lot of MPC's have been sold. But that's mostly because they have been installed by default on many home systems at the factory. But the USE of them as such is considered to be very small, on the order of a few percent. Those who combo that with the XBox are an even smaller minority.
Yes when we were all discussing iTunes movie resolution. There was a lot of argument from those with HDTV's that they deplored SD resolution. I said HD broadcast is better but you are still watching highly compressed video. Ultimately what broadcast HD gives you is the ability to have larger television screens.
You really haven't seen HD until you've watched it uncompressed from the source. A lot of the luster is gone by the time its broadcast or on DVD.
I have an Hp 65" 1080p DLP with 1080p inputs, which was very rare when I bought mine a bit over a year ago.
While 1080p looks great, you do have to be pretty close to notice. The links to the charts say it all. People mostly fool themselves into thinking they are seeing hi def from 12 feet away with most all screens.
I get the daily news off the Internet, the "news" on TV these days consists mostly of product-placement advertisement and tabloid human interest stories. Brittany and Anna Nichole have little bearing to me in the realm I call "reality".
I receive ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, WB, and PBS for free Over-The-Air (in high definition). Broadcast TV has plenty of sitcoms, dramas, sports, and reality TV garbage... we watch maybe an hour or two (tops) each night. That leaves plenty of time for cooking dinner, chores, working out, reading...
Not sure whether I should be insulted or flattered by that remark.
Frankly there isn't enough good original programming on cable to warrant a subscription.
Once upon a time I had the DirecTV platinum package (free job perk) and I was able to watch every channel known to man. After I grew accustomed to it, I was mostly watching the broadcast networks just like everybody else does, premium movie channels, and not much else. Marathons of 'Law and Order' reruns just don't appeal to me. YMMV.
You aren't average, which should please you.
But you don't make up much of a customer base since you are so far off from average. Therefore, your demographic will be ignored when companies think about how they are going to do this.
It's like the way they rate programs. If they are popular with the 18 to 48 year old male, then they are doing just fine. Well, I am a 57 year old male with more money to spend than most 18 to 48 years olds. But, my needs aren't as important to the Tv programmers, because they believe that most 57 year olds don't spend as much on what they want to advertise.
Huh? Why all these comments about incompatibility between Macs and Xbox Media Center? I use XBMC on the first gen Xbox and it streams all my movies/music/photos from my iMac, regardless of whether my iMac is booted into OSX or into Windows XP. After installing XBMC, it took literally 10 minutes to configure XBMC to find all my shared data - you just use the Xbox controller to tell the media center to find any shared folders, give them a name (e.g. My Movies etc) and you're away.
All this for way less money than the iTV, and you can play AVI/DivX files, which the iTV probably won't.
even that's too complex for most people.
And few people watch DivX files.
Huh? Why all these comments about incompatibility between Macs and Xbox Media Center? I use XBMC on the first gen Xbox and it streams all my movies/music/photos from my iMac, regardless of whether my iMac is booted into OSX or into Windows XP. After installing XBMC, it took literally 10 minutes to configure XBMC to find all my shared data - you just use the Xbox controller to tell the media center to find any shared folders, give them a name (e.g. My Movies etc) and you're away.
All this for way less money than the iTV, and you can play AVI/DivX files, which the iTV probably won't.
There's actually two separate products being talked about here:
1) XBMC. That's what you're using-- sounds pretty interesting, actually. That's an open source product/hack running on top of the original xBox... I'm assuming it plays all the different video/audio formats except the ones that are DRM'ed. I don't know to much about that...
2) xBox 360 + Windows Media Center. This is the offical, Microsoft supported method for streaming your media from your PC to xBox 360 console-- which supports Windows DRM but not Fairplay. This requires a newer Windows PC and an xBox 360...
Most of the responses in this thread are about the second, Microsoft-only solution.
This is true, but I think people mentioned the XBox so much it was being forgotten that most of us are using Macs and the XBox isn't an option.
http://www.nullriver.com/index/products/connect360
But I agree that 720p will be the selling point for aTV...if Apple fails to up iTunes to 720p the aTV is a dumb product to release at this time.
If 720p is offered on iTunes then its a brilliant product introduced at the right time with the ongoing format war.
Vinea
You aren't average, which should please you.
But you don't make up much of a customer base since you are so far off from average. Therefore, your demographic will be ignored when companies think about how they are going to do this.
It's like the way they rate programs. If they are popular with the 18 to 48 year old male, then they are doing just fine. Well, I am a 57 year old male with more money to spend than most 18 to 48 years olds. But, my needs aren't as important to the Tv programmers, because they believe that most 57 year olds don't spend as much on what they want to advertise.
The absolute need of the advertising model to reign supreme in the face of subscription VOD and IPTV is IMHO questionable. If Apple is able to offer good shows at a competitive price why couldn't they become the online version of HBO? Want a movie? Buy it. Want a show? Buy it. Want to browse? Buy an episode for $2, watch the trailers, whatever. Why surf when you get just drill down and get the exact programming you want right now? Why Tivo when they're trying to stuff ads in anyhow? Plus you have to wait 15 minutes before you start watching to be able the FF through commercials.
VOD that works would kill this business model but I've been less than impressed with VOD from Comcast nor does it have all the breadth of programming on it as you might see on iTunes.
Vinea
even that's too complex for most people.
And few people watch DivX files.
Dude, A LOT of people watch DivX. We're talking in the realms of hundreds of thousands, going into millions. It is the MP3 of video. It's obvious why Microsoft and Apple aren't supporting it on their devices, but I don't understand why. Every DVD player these days plays it. And I would buy an AppleTV alone if it did, and for that reason I'm happy to burn DivX to a re-writeable CD/DVD and play it on my HDTV.
And yes you can get 720p content online, IN DivX.
The problem with this box isn't that it COULD be useful, it is that there is not the cohesion that there was with CDs, .mp3, iTunes, and the iPod.
If I could rip my DVDs and have them "on demand" queued up on my desktop/laptop pc or in an external drive on my Airport basestation, plus augmentation of the impulse buy from the iTunes store, this could be useful. Unfortunately, right now we can do everything except for one important aspect of the chain. It's the ripping of the DVDs onto a digital medium that is easily stored and accessed! If it was not for the DMCA preventing ANY sort of ripping including into another format I would LOVE to get an AppleTV ASAP. Unfortunately, the product is missing a key feature that made the iPod so popular, the ability to use your old format on the device in a convenient way!
In the future, when there is a universal high-def video format that is available to store the digital media in I can imagine this kind of product doing very well. This is not the case today, people have physical media and some digital downloads. If you can not put both of these formats in an accessible device it is going to be hard to justify buying either this device or a large number of digital downloads just for putting your digital media on the TV.
At least that's what I think.
You can do this, it's just not quite legal which has nothing to do with Apple. There is also the new software from Flip4Mac Drive-in which looks to be a legal way to do this, however at least in it's beta form there is no way to look through your catalog in front row. It might be possible that if Apple has a plug-in archetecture, automator, widgets, and or Apple Script support that a method could be developed to look through a catalog and mount the chosen DVD, if Apple TV can gain access to a mounted DVD for viewing. There is also nothing keeping Apple from adding a feature like this in the future even if it is not supported in the first generation.
they saw the competition for the Apple TV as the DVD and not the DVR. It is a little hard for them to compete today with a $299 device against DVD players that sell for $49 or less so I assume that he was talking about the newer HD DVD and Blue Ray devices. Based on that and the specs for Apple TV I would guess that 720p content is coming very soon
I hope you're right.
Based on Steve Jobs saying that it does 720p, and that home photos are already in high definition and look great, and NOT saying anything about high def tv or movies.... I'm worried the AppleTV isn't up to it.
I take it, however, that the graphics card has been looked at and found capable by people!
I'm amazed that some people can actually say that they only watch two or three series a year. It's actually unbelievable.
So, you watch no news, no specials. Don't get the itch to see whats on that's different. Never check out other channels. That amazing. Such restraint!
Totally nailed it on the head
I think the people that watch only a few shows per year, say BSG, 24, and Happy Days, would save money. Though I would be very curious to see what an average day in the life of someone like this is? Seems quite odd.
I'm not on the TV 24 hours a day, and don't even consider myself to be an "avid" watcher or couch potato. But I definitely watch more than a few shows (grab them on Tivo of course, watch whenever -- even download them onto my Mac to watch from Tivo). And as you mentioned, without the option of being able to go through a few channels at will, wtf would I watch? How would I even know if I wanted to watch a new show without paying for it on iTunes (the 30 sec trailer or whatever it is isn't useful at all).
For people with kids, how about the hours of random Disney channel and Cartoon Network shows? That'd be a ridiculous amount of money per-episode. For a normal person with an average or even below average TV watching schedule, the iTV makes no monetary sense. The numbers just don't add up, it would be lunacy to buy them like that.
Another thing I hate about it is that it's so tied to a Mac. Obviously for sharing photos or something like that you'd need your Mac on. But when I'm in the other room watching TV (with no channels available since I don't have cable with iTV), and have to go boot up my Mac Pro (with 150 watts of wasted electricity) just to stream a TV show off of it that's wasting space on my computer......um why? If it had a DVR feature too, I'd get my shows, have cable (and no it wouldn't hurt Apple's iTunes TV plan because I wouldn't be buying them anyways except they may make a random sale here or there on impulse - which is a bonus on top of their initial hardware sale). Then they would get me hooked on the iTV idea and maybe in a few years when they have some type of realistic TV service/fees, they'd convert me full time. But in the meantime, they'll be loosing out on 98% of the TV watching population.
I think they're thinking WAY too ahead on this one. But they need an interim product to hook people now, and when it's truly ready for a home theater device, then they'd get us all. Otherwise it's just another dumb box taking up space with a really stupid remote with only a couple buttons (another remote to add to the pile!).
I'm amazed that some people can actually say that they only watch two or three series a year. It's actually unbelievable.
I watch even less. Colbert Report (and the Daily Show if I get my daughter to bed early enough), Battlestar Galactica (although I'm finding the show less compelling right now), and Robot Chicken (when I both remember and can stay up that late).
So, you watch no news, no specials. Don't get the itch to see whats on that's different. Never check out other channels. That amazing. Such restraint!
Not restraint. Just a busy life. And the realization that, after watching TV for years and years, nothing is in fact on.
For news, I do something crazy and read feeds from AP, Reuters, NYT, the BBC, and the Guardian (UK). Plus I read alternative/independent sites like Counterpunch and listen to Democracy Now podcasts during my commute home. It's faster. I find what I want right away. I don't have to endure endless local "news breaks" covering the latest murder/car chase/apartment fire, commercials, or mind-numbing "entertainment news" or "human interest" garbage. I can also freely ignore the latest wobbles in the stock market that are treated as if they were signs from the gods. If anything interesting does manage to make it onto TV, a station's website will often post the video (not to mention the YouTube feeds). And no commercials (did I mention that?)!
What a limited field of interest!.
Huh? Because he sits in front of the TV less than a typical American? Maybe he paints. Or gardens. Or exercises. Or knits. Or plays with his son. Or has sex with his lover. Or reads. Is the extent of our interests now measured soley by the type and variety of TV we watch? Does being well-rounded now mean that we watch both SciFi and ESPN? (Well, people like that are often well-rounded...at least physically.)
As I said, it's unbelievable.
"There are more things in heaven and earth Horatio than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
The average American watches 4 and one half hours of Tv a night. That's from a recent NYTimes article.
The average American is also uninformed and overweight. Coincidence?
While you may be a Tv hermit, few others are. Watching Tv the way you would want to, would cost far more than cable would ever charge.
But he just explained that it would cost him less.
Now, it would actually cost me a bit more, but that's only because I get basic cable for "free" (with my cable modem subscription). We actually cancelled our TV subscription last year when we realized how little TV we actually watch. But when Ido watch TV, I have to endure commercials (how much is my time worth?), plus conform to the network's schedules, missing episodes, staying up late, etc. And the quality is often low (not digital).
Mel, I usually like what you have to say, but this just struck me as wildly off-base.
Totally nailed it on the head
I think the people that watch only a few shows per year, say BSG, 24, and Happy Days, would save money. Though I would be very curious to see what an average day in the life of someone like this is? Seems quite odd.
I get up at 5am and exercise. Get ready for work and help get my daughter up and ready for daycare. I get to work (high school) at 8am and teach until 4:00. Then I coach soccer until 6pm, getting home by 6:30. Cook and eat dinner. Talk with wife and child about our days, and play with daughter until 7:30-8pm. Bathe and put daughter to bed (30-60+ minutes). Talk, etc with wife or watch Colbert Report. More talking, playing games, etc (~1 hour). Wife goes to bed by 10-10:30pm. Check email/websites, and pay bills (30 minutes). Grade quizzes, tests, papers, etc. (1-2 hours if I'm lucky) and plan next day's lesson (15-30 minutes if I'm lucky). In bed by 12-1am (if I'm lucky).
How would I even know if I wanted to watch a new show without paying for it on iTunes (the 30 sec trailer or whatever it is isn't useful at all).
Word of mouth. I heard some good things about BSG, and decided to put the DVDs on my Netflix list. Watched the miniseries and season 1 in about a week. Downloaded the first few eps of season 2 (not on DVD or iTunes yet, so I BitTorrented them), and began watching the next week. We're losing interest in the show now. But have heard good things about Heroes. So that's now on our list.
For people with kids, how about the hours of random Disney channel and Cartoon Network shows? That'd be a ridiculous amount of money per-episode.
Simple solution. Our daughter doesn't watch TV. She draws and paints. Plays with toys. Plays with us. We're not luddites by any means. (She loves watching DVDs (generally Pixar & Disney movies, but they're really the only game in town). And when time is short we do have Season 1 of the Muppet Show.) But we actually have fun playing and like spending time together. Call us crazy.
For a normal person with an average or even below average TV watching schedule, the iTV makes no monetary sense. The numbers just don't add up, it would be lunacy to buy them like that.
Possibly. But then why do people buy DVDs of TV shows? (And most people do this in addition to paying for cable.) Are these people all lunatics?
Totally nailed it on the head
I think the people that watch only a few shows per year, say BSG, 24, and Happy Days, would save money. Though I would be very curious to see what an average day in the life of someone like this is?
Productive?
Vinea
Word of mouth. I heard some good things about BSG, and decided to put the DVDs on my Netflix list. Watched the miniseries and season 1 in about a week. Downloaded the first few eps of season 2 (not on DVD or iTunes yet, so I BitTorrented them), and began watching the next week. We're losing interest in the show now. But have heard good things about Heroes. So that's now on our list.
Apple has also offered preview or postview's of BattleStar Galactica, and the occasional "Free" content which could be expanded to get people started on a new series if Apple and the network want to and write off the expense on their taxes.
Colbert Report [I don't watch it and don't know how many new episodes there are per month]. But it's on 4 days a week, so:
4 episodes week * 4 weeks = 16 episodes per month
$1.99 per episode = $31.84 per month
...for 1/2 hour show. Apple seems to offer a "Multi Pass" for this, but again, every time I want to watch TV, I don't want to be thinking about how much each episode costs or figuring out a package to buy it.
Battlestar Galactica
One season costs $34.99 (current price for iTMS season pass to the show, my estimation is about 20 shows total at the end of season)
Robot Chicken (only 1/2 hour per episode)
One season costs $19.99 (19 episodes total)
Grand Total for just 3 shows = $86.82
How many total hours of TV did you just buy?
Colbert = 8 hours per month (16 1/2 hour episodes)
Battlestar = 20 hours per...6 months or so since there will probably be reruns
Robot Chicken = 10 hours per 6 months or so, even rounded up [whatever their season lasts]
Total number of TV show hours you have to watch = 38 hours
And remember, these shows aren't running continuously, if you're up to date with the season, your iTV will be empty most of the time anyways since you watched the show.
So for say 6 months worth of time (which is about what a normal season lasts), you've paid $86.82. Not much money I guess, but with 4,032 hours in a 6-month period, even if you watched only 1/2 hour of TV a day - you'd be out of content within 19 days (and who wants to watch just 1/2 of a Battlestar Galactica episode at a time without even finishing up the episode?)
This is the part I don't know. What then? What do you do with your TV? Since you don't have cable, you have nothing to watch, nothing. If you add even 1 more season pass of another show, that's going to be around another $34.99 (again, just for a single season). Maybe you have like millions of iPhotos to stream that will tie up that time, I have no clue. I sure don't.
"so I BitTorrented them"
...Apple is really going to make money from you then
"Simple solution. Our daughter doesn't watch TV. She draws and paints."
My children do lots of art also, but Saturday morning cartoons are their favorite. With iTV that's out of the question.
"Possibly. But then why do people buy DVDs of TV shows? (And most people do this in addition to paying for cable.) Are these people all lunatics?"
I personally don't, but for the people that do, at least they're getting a hard copy. Most people that buy them I assume just do it more for collecting (but I have no idea).
As for missing shows, staying up late, etc etc......
That's what a DVR is for. It records them for you, whenever they're on. Keeps them on its hard drive, and lets you play them back whenever you want. With Tivo you can burn them to DVD if you choose, transfer to any other Tivo in the house, or your computer.
Obviously none of us have a clue what Apple has planned or what the original vision for the thing was. We'll all be seeing how it goes. I feel strongly that after the initial hype is over [the first round of early adopters, and probably not even all that many for this device due to its limited functionality], that it won't sell very well at all unless some major changes are done to the iTMS prices and offerings. On the other hand, I'd be more than happy to subscribe to an Apple Cable service for even $50/month if it was an all access pass. That would <almost> equal cable; but even then, not entirely. Since you would miss out on all live events, local news [which is important, not sure how you dismiss that], etc.
The appletv is just like the xbox360, because if you have windows media center or new vista you have access to all your computer's movies, pictures, etc. just like apple tv, the only difference the xbox harddrive is for the games, and the internals of the x360 are a lot more advanced and worth the price.
You really don't know what you're talking about do you?!
Why would anyone want Vista, or a MS Media Centre PC? This is an Apple forum for people who know the difference between a games console and a wireless media storage device. I would even be happy to argue your comment regarding the Xbox "internals" being more advanced than those in the Apple TV.
...Apple is really going to make money from you then
"Simple solution. Our daughter doesn't watch TV. She draws and paints."
My children do lots of art also, but Saturday morning cartoons are their favorite. With iTV that's out of the question.
"Possibly. But then why do people buy DVDs of TV shows? (And most people do this in addition to paying for cable.) Are these people all lunatics?"
I personally don't, but for the people that do, at least they're getting a hard copy. Most people that buy them I assume just do it more for collecting (but I have no idea).
As for missing shows, staying up late, etc etc......
That's what a DVR is for. It records them for you, whenever they're on. Keeps them on its hard drive, and lets you play them back whenever you want. With Tivo you can burn them to DVD if you choose, transfer to any other Tivo in the house, or your computer.
Obviously none of us have a clue what Apple has planned or what the original vision for the thing was. We'll all be seeing how it goes. I feel strongly that after the initial hype is over [the first round of early adopters, and probably not even all that many for this device due to its limited functionality], that it won't sell very well at all unless some major changes are done to the iTMS prices and offerings. On the other hand, I'd be more than happy to subscribe to an Apple Cable service for even $50/month if it was an all access pass. That would <almost> equal cable; but even then, not entirely. Since you would miss out on all live events, local news [which is important, not sure how you dismiss that], etc.
These arguments over the logic behind the ATV are absolutely ridiculous. If you are in need of 4 hours of DVR programming on your TiVo to make you happy and fulfill your entertainment requirements for the day, then the Apple TV may not be for you.
I only care to watch Heroes and Lost, and the Apple TV will deliver them to me commercial free, and without a cable subscription/tivo subscription, etc. You are also forgetting that the Apple TV is more than just a portal to recorded television. It also plays my music library, which happens to be well organized through iTunes. It plays back the thousands of pictures I have stored on my hard drive, and I can watch video podcasts as well.
As far as Saturday morning cartoons, they come free of charge over broadcast TV.
The absolute need of the advertising model to reign supreme in the face of subscription VOD and IPTV is IMHO questionable. If Apple is able to offer good shows at a competitive price why couldn't they become the online version of HBO? Want a movie? Buy it. Want a show? Buy it. Want to browse? Buy an episode for $2, watch the trailers, whatever. Why surf when you get just drill down and get the exact programming you want right now? Why Tivo when they're trying to stuff ads in anyhow? Plus you have to wait 15 minutes before you start watching to be able the FF through commercials.
VOD that works would kill this business model but I've been less than impressed with VOD from Comcast nor does it have all the breadth of programming on it as you might see on iTunes.
Vinea
Because there are hundreds of shows being broadcast at the same time, plus specials, sports, etc.
Apple would have to carry most of them for that to work. They would have to have free samples of each show, possibly two episodes, so that people could check them out without paying. When I was in advertising, we knew that people don't like to pay for something they aren't sure about.
That's a lot of content. What Apple has now barely scratches the surface.