That's a FAQ for iTunes Movie downloads, not the AppleTV. And the surround sound to which they refer is Dolby Pro-Logic, which as I already said is embedded into a stereo signal. It is based on a technique originally developed by Dolby in 1976.
AC3 and DTS have 5 discrete full-bandwidth channels and one dedicated bass channel, and as such are a significant improvement over Pro-Logic.
Excuse my ignorance, but don't you want to pass through the audio to the surround sound processor on your AV amp or TV? You do this for a digital source through the HDMI connection or the digital audio out, Apple TV itself doesn't need to do anything to the audio right?
Excuse my ignorance, but don't you want to pass through the audio to the surround sound processor on your AV amp or TV? You do this for a digital source through the HDMI connection or the digital audio out, Apple TV itself doesn't need to do anything to the audio right?
From what I can tell, the H.264 standard basically uses AAC for audio. I don't know about newer sound systems, but mine do not directly accept AAC. It would have to be decoded into PCM stereo (or heaven forbid, reencoded to DD/DTS) for my recievers to understand the digital audio signal. I don't think it's a big problem, even if the video decoder chip doesn't handle the audio, it's not that tough for the CPU in Apple TV to decode it. AppleTV doesn't really accept a non MPEG-4/H.264 video stream, so for a lot of people, I think it's going to need to do that decoding.
Dolby Surround is an analog stereo matrixed format. It is incorporated in iTunes movies because the Dolby Surround encoding is in the left and right stereo channels. It's inaudible because the signal is phase shifted by 90 degrees, but a Dolby ProLogic decoder pulls out the phase shifted signal and sends it to the surrounds.
Dolby Digital is entirely different. AC-3 is a discrete multichannel encoding schema, as is DTS.
iTunes movies do not presently carry an AC-3 multichannel stream. However, that being said, H.264 AAC encapsulated can, in principle, support multichannel audio.
The problem lies in decoding, though... Say you transcode AC-3 as AAC. A Dolby Digital decoder cannot parse AAC. Then what?
An intermediary is needed to transcode AAC back to AC-3 on the fly. This is where something like Dolby Digital live comes in.
The AppleTV firmware would have to incorporate such software to transcode AAC to AC-3 on the fly and then send as AC-3 to the receiver. This isn't impossible... but there are many considerations including licensing of the technology, quality assurance, etc.
But the long and short of it is...
1. No, currently iTunes H.264 files do not carry discrete multichannel audio of any kind.
2. Yes, the stereo AAC files on iTunes movies DO carry Dolby Surround analog, which any Dolby ProLogic or Dolby Digital decoder can read.
3. Existing models of AppleTV can be software/firmware upgraded to handle AC-3 (or DTS) playback.
4. However, existing stereo AAC iTunes movies would have to be replaced with multichannel AAC files.
There's really no way to embed AC-3 or DTS natively into an H.264 stream, but there's no need. In principle, AAC is actually higher fidelity than AC-3 at every bitrate... and AC-3 at 448kbps is perceptually transparent (DTS at 768kbps is not)... and Dolby Digital Live is Dolby Labs' own answer to the problem which therefore meets their fidelity criteria and therefore indistinguishable from direct AC-3 bistreams.
DTS is arguably inferior to AC-3 despite what the morons at Stereophile say. They don't understand perceptual coding, they don't understand DTS is a different algorithm and they insist that the higher bitrate alone is evidence of better fidelity. This is nonsense because DTS lacks the filtering and metadata parameters that reduce the minimum bitrate required to achieve perceptual transparency in AC-3. So, if it doesn't support DTS... I wouldn't worry one bit.
That hasn't stopped DVD from proliferating despite an insignificant appearance of titles mastered to DTS.
The iTV should be at least able to be a self-sustaining device. When I want it to connect to my Mac(s), great! When I just want to watch/record TV, let me do it with it. They're trying to tie together 2 completely separate devices, unsuccessfully by making the iTV so codependent.
What I proposed right before the AppleTV was officially announced, was that it should be a self sustaining device (though it doesn't necessarily need recording per se). At a minimum, the AppleTV should have had the following capabilities:
Access/purchase content directly from the iTunes Store (Apple already knows what you've bought, why do you need a Mac to access it?)
Sync directly and/or playback content from an iPod (it has a USB 2.0 port, what do you need the Mac for?)
Support for external storage (once again, it has a USB 2.0 port, what do you need the Mac for?)
Act as an AirPort wireless networking hub (it has a hardwired Ethernet port and draft N wireless)
The AppleTV's hardware is already capable of these things. That Apple chose not to include them in software is extremely shortsighted.
The other very practical thing Apple could have included is streaming support for live news and maybe some sports (though the licensing for sports would be more difficult).
All those things Apple could have easily done, in the existing hardware ... don't even get me started on the horrible video specs for the device, lack of codec support, etc. All in all, the Apple TV gets an "F" from me grade-wise. Bascially zero difference from media hubs that were available 1-2 years ago.
Munster estimated that there are at least 110 million users of the digital jukebox software which will combine to represent the preliminary addressable market for Apple TV.
By comparison, the analyst said the closest Windows-based product is Windows Media Center with an estimated 23 million Media Center-enabled PCs in the market. However, he said there appear to be only about 12 million actual Media Center users.
"In other words, Apple has a 10x headstart in the digital living room," he wrote.
110 million apples, 12 million oranges ... that's a hell of a lot of fruit!
Quote:
PiperJaffray believes the digital living room could emerge into $4.7 billion business by 2008 if Apple is able to maintain its 70 percent share of the digital music market and one in ten iTunes users buys an Apple TV that year. One of the device's strongest selling points is expected to be the simplicity it offers consumers looking to view their iTunes content on a living room television set.
Because 1 in 10 iTunes users want to watch their music on their TV.
PiperJaffray could probably hire chimpanzees who could do a better job of throwing together unrelated facts.
Access/purchase content directly from the iTunes Store (Apple already knows what you've bought, why do you need a Mac to access it?)
Apple allows you to download the content, the point is then that it is on your local system to use not eating up their bandwidth to download on demand. Apple TV is not designed for maintaining a media library, just accessing it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pmjoe
Sync directly and/or playback content from an iPod (it has a USB 2.0 port, what do you need the Mac for?)
Why do you need this if the content is stored on your networked computers which maintain your media library?
Quote:
Originally Posted by pmjoe
Support for external storage (once again, it has a USB 2.0 port, what do you need the Mac for?)
It may have this, and in essence it does via the networked computers running iTunes. Let's not forget AirPort Expresse's Air Disk storage solution.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pmjoe
Act as an AirPort wireless networking hub (it has a hardwired Ethernet port and draft N wireless)
I agree this would be nice, but may not have been possible given the pricing that Apple was going for. If it added another $50-100 to the price then I'm not so sure it would have been a good idea
The whole point of this is that it is a networked device and works in conjunction with your home network, not in isolation of it. I think that the main thing that it is missing from your points is the ability to brows and purchase audio and video content from iTMS through the main account on your computer and have it download and sync with Apple TV. The main question here though is how long it would take for you to begin viewing that download? If it takes 10 minutes to get enough downloaded to begin playing the movie then there isn't much point in it. However if it only takes 2-3 minutes then I imagine that it would boost iTMS sales if you could purchase movies from the couch. Another down side is navigating the iTMS site with the remote, not the best device for doing so.
I think that the two most needed things for Apple TV are a rental/subscription service and access to some form of InterNet TV solution.
From what I can tell, the H.264 standard basically uses AAC for audio.
That's not accurate.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowdog74
There's really no way to embed AC-3 or DTS natively into an H.264 stream, but there's no need.
And neither is that.
What you both seem a bit confused about is what MPEG-4 and H.264 mean.
MPEG-4 is a set of standards encompassing (amongst other things) the following:
Video codecs
Audio codecs
File formats
H.264 is one of the MPEG-4 video codecs, AAC is one of the MPEG-4 audio codecs, and the file format is usually referred to as MPEG4 or .mp4
.mp4 is heavily based on .mov.
It is true to say that there is no MPEG-4 compliant way of using AC-3 and H.264 together, because the .mp4 standard does not support using non-MPEG-4 streams within its file format.
However, that doesn't mean that you can't use H.264 and AC-3 together. You just don't use a .mp4 wrapper. You use a .mov (or other) wrapper. There's nothing stopping a .mov containing an H.264 video track and an AC-3 audio track.
Why on earth would this news "support the theory that they [Apple] will begin offering HD content soon" (Gizmodo)?
iTunes has supported the import of high-bit-rate AAC (up to 320 kbps) and Apple Lossless for a long time, and this has not heralded high-bit-rate music downloads from iTunes. I don't really know why this news has come as any sort of surprise to anyone, we knew from the day of announcement that the AppleTV would support resolutions up to 720p. It stood to reason that if QTpro included an "export to iPod" preset, that they'd probably intro an "export to AppleTV" preset. What would have been odd is if the preset didn't do 720p given the hardware is capable of playing it back.
[*]Access/purchase content directly from the iTunes Store (Apple already knows what you've bought, why do you need a Mac to access it?)[*]Sync directly and/or playback content from an iPod (it has a USB 2.0 port, what do you need the Mac for?)
I agree with most of that for sure. I think that most people, including Apple are looking at this thing completely backwards. Instead of targeting Mac users, or in rare cases, people that are inclined to buy a new Mac ONLY because of the iTV, in order to access and use the iTV.....
They should have targeted anyone with a TV (which is basically everyone). That would have let those people without a Mac see the coolness of Apple products, while subtly letting them know the features they can't use without a Mac (mainly syncing). If the iTV is powerful and useful, then people would see Apple's strengths -- thus when they went to buy a new PC (within a month, year, or even 2) they'd be much more inclined to purchase a Mac.
Which is going to make them more profit, targeting the small Mac userbase (with a few PC using stragglers, because lets face it, I doubt many people will purchase this thing that own a PC with the iTV in its current state); or targeting just about every household in the developed world? The comparison is like night/day.....they just picked night for some odd reason.
I think that the two most needed things for Apple TV are a rental/subscription service and access to some form of InterNet TV solution.
That's the tipping point for me. As it stands now, the iTV has no chance of seeing my living room. Without some major sources of live content, or heck, even a sign that they're trying -- with a few channels of streaming live FOXnews/CNN/whatever, and ESPN. Yes the licensing deals would be an issue, but, it's usually not the Apple way to provide a half-as* device like this. They are masters of striking the goldmine of deals (iTMS for starters). I'm sure they could have easily brokered a very nice deal to get some great ***LIVE*** <BOLD x 100>LIVE</BOLD x 100>.
The other problem I have with it is that what was mentioned before. It's too reliant on another Mac. It's almost like they're just pushing to make your Mac (the one you use for....you know.....work, and stuff) 2nd class server. I can't stress enough, how much I don't want to have my Mac being stressed itself with having to delegate out all of this content. When I'm editing a movie, playing a game, or doing anything on my Mac -- while my kids are downstairs on an iTV pulling tons of content from my same Mac; and also having my wife on her iTV in our bedroom pulling even more data/bandwidth/CPU/RAM resources away from my Mac -- I don't want all of those resources bogging down my computer.
If anything, the iTV should have been equipped with a massive hard drive(s) (or at least an iTV+ model) to act as THE server/file repository. This option would have made much more sense to me......
Then if I have some movies to watch, they're all on my **expandable** iTV's system (we should just refer to it as the mainframe/hub of the house in this case). Then in the more-rare case that I want a movie on my Mac instead of the iTV, it'll stream it back to me, or any Mac in my house. This workflow seems much more logical to me, as my iTV device would be always-on (unlike my power hungry G5 and older CTR iMac). In its current incarnation (incantation?) it works just the opposite of what I'd like, my Macs have to stay on all the time (otherwise I have to run in the other room to boot up my G5 if I want 'movie A', or go in the basement to boot up my hot-CRT-iMac (which heats up the house, works nicely as a space heater as well) to get 'movie B'. All of that time spent running around, I could have just burned a DVD and brought downstairs -- you get my point
Too long of a story short.......how many of you think they should have flipped the entire conception around 180°?
Without going on too much more, they really should have sold an XServer-like device (stripped down, just storage, doesn't need a ton of RAM or CPU speed) for the home media hub. In fact, this is what the Airport Extreme should have been. Like said above, the AirportServerExtreme should have been a router, usb network printer hub (as it is now), AND include a networked storage volume(s) -- at least on par with what the iTV's puny drive is at 40gb -- that would have not added much price at all, and the attractiveness of the product would have gone sky-high....
Then you can buy iTV "hubs" that use that main central storage repository. In practice, the total price the consumer pays wouldn't be all that much more since the iTV is dumbed down (even more) so it costs less, and the AirportServerExtreme would be a bit more to produce, but make up the price. All in all, they could have upped the price on the package (sold together of course) to even $500 and they'd make an absolute killing. Now THAT would make a captivating product that wouldn't stand a chance at failing. And fills a much-needed gap, intelligently.
That's the tipping point for me. As it stands now, the iTV has no chance of seeing my living room. Without some major sources of live content, or heck, even a sign that they're trying -- with a few channels of streaming live FOXnews/CNN/whatever, and ESPN. Yes the licensing deals would be an issue, but, it's usually not the Apple way to provide a half-as* device like this. They are masters of striking the goldmine of deals (iTMS for starters). I'm sure they could have easily brokered a very nice deal to get some great ***LIVE*** <BOLD x 100>LIVE</BOLD x 100>.
The other problem I have with it is that what was mentioned before. It's too reliant on another Mac. It's almost like they're just pushing to make your Mac (the one you use for....you know.....work, and stuff) 2nd class server. I can't stress enough, how much I don't want to have my Mac being stressed itself with having to delegate out all of this content. When I'm editing a movie, playing a game, or doing anything on my Mac -- while my kids are downstairs on an iTV pulling tons of content from my same Mac; and also having my wife on her iTV in our bedroom pulling even more data/bandwidth/CPU/RAM resources away from my Mac -- I don't want all of those resources bogging down my computer.
If anything, the iTV should have been equipped with a massive hard drive(s) (or at least an iTV+ model) to act as THE server/file repository. This option would have made much more sense to me......
Then if I have some movies to watch, they're all on my **expandable** iTV's system (we should just refer to it as the mainframe/hub of the house in this case). Then in the more-rare case that I want a movie on my Mac instead of the iTV, it'll stream it back to me, or any Mac in my house. This workflow seems much more logical to me, as my iTV device would be always-on (unlike my power hungry G5 and older CTR iMac). In its current incarnation (incantation?) it works just the opposite of what I'd like, my Macs have to stay on all the time (otherwise I have to run in the other room to boot up my G5 if I want 'movie A', or go in the basement to boot up my hot-CRT-iMac (which heats up the house, works nicely as a space heater as well) to get 'movie B'. All of that time spent running around, I could have just burned a DVD and brought downstairs -- you get my point
Too long of a story short.......how many of you think they should have flipped the entire conception around 180°?
Without going on too much more, they really should have sold an XServer-like device (stripped down, just storage, doesn't need a ton of RAM or CPU speed) for the home media hub. In fact, this is what the Airport Extreme should have been. Like said above, the AirportServerExtreme should have been a router, usb network printer hub (as it is now), AND include a networked storage volume(s) -- at least on par with what the iTV's puny drive is at 40gb -- that would have not added much price at all, and the attractiveness of the product would have gone sky-high....
Then you can buy iTV "hubs" that use that main central storage repository. In practice, the total price the consumer pays wouldn't be all that much more since the iTV is dumbed down (even more) so it costs less, and the AirportServerExtreme would be a bit more to produce, but make up the price. All in all, they could have upped the price on the package (sold together of course) to even $500 and they'd make an absolute killing. Now THAT would make a captivating product that wouldn't stand a chance at failing. And fills a much-needed gap, intelligently.
whew, all that...good stuff, but don't forget, Apple TV is a 'sync' device. its just a funny iPod with wireless. Very doubtful its going to put much load on your 'server' because it'll be synced up with the content you need on it. That was one of the first things my wife asked....do I have to have my computer on to play music? no. Its already there.
Why on earth would this news "support the theory that they [Apple] will begin offering HD content soon" (Gizmodo)?
iTunes has supported the import of high-bit-rate AAC (up to 320 kbps) and Apple Lossless for a long time, and this has not heralded high-bit-rate music downloads from iTunes. I don't really know why this news has come as any sort of surprise to anyone, we knew from the day of announcement that the AppleTV would support resolutions up to 720p. It stood to reason that if QTpro included an "export to iPod" preset, that they'd probably intro an "export to AppleTV" preset. What would have been odd is if the preset didn't do 720p given the hardware is capable of playing it back.
I'm not saying it will.
But these guys are fairly familliar with the business. They seem to think it has importance.
I agree with most of that for sure. I think that most people, including Apple are looking at this thing completely backwards. Instead of targeting Mac users, or in rare cases, people that are inclined to buy a new Mac ONLY because of the iTV, in order to access and use the iTV.....
They should have targeted anyone with a TV (which is basically everyone). That would have let those people without a Mac see the coolness of Apple products, while subtly letting them know the features they can't use without a Mac (mainly syncing). If the iTV is powerful and useful, then people would see Apple's strengths -- thus when they went to buy a new PC (within a month, year, or even 2) they'd be much more inclined to purchase a Mac.
Exactly! And, just as much so, even in the 3 pages of comments here, we've had numerous people speak about how they don't want to have to leave their Mac on all the time, run between rooms to do stuff on the Mac and the AppleTV, etc. Those people have Macs and don't get why this thing can't behave as more of a standalone device.
And as far as acting as an AirPort wireless router goes. It just couldn't get any more trivial. The hardware is all there, and if this thing runs a variant of OS X as most imply, the software exists too. Where's your cable modem easiest to hook up? Well, right by your TV of course, and right where the AppleTV is supposed to go.
Like I said, the hardware is there. I'm not 100% happy with the specs but, it's sufficient to do what I proposed. The software just needs a major reconstruction, and add an iTunes Store interface. AppleTV 2.0! As with the AirPort stuff, if this thing is running an OS X variant, much of this would be pretty trivial. Maybe add an API for plug-in codecs while we're at it. Steve Jobs, call me up and I'll whip your AppleTV development group into shape.
As you put it, by making the device more standalone, it targets the general TV owning population. Or at a minimum, target the iPod owning population by supporting syncing and playing directly from an iPod docked to the AppleTV. Then the iPod folks say, hey, maybe I need to have this.
So far, Apple has just done nothing to distinguish this device from every other media hub that's come out in the past 1-2 years. I just don't think "buy it because you bought an iPod from us" is going to be enough to sell it.
All they have to do is offer the pilot episode for free to get you "hooked" as well as rely on how people currently "discover" new series such as word of mouth.
The fastest and most efficient means of "discovery" is to channel surf. Guides and the like can't compare.
Exactly! And, just as much so, even in the 3 pages of comments here, we've had numerous people speak about how they don't want to have to leave their Mac on all the time, run between rooms to do stuff on the Mac and the AppleTV, etc. Those people have Macs and don't get why this thing can't behave as more of a standalone device.
Woohoo someone agrees! Thought it was just me for a moment.
Like you said, someone on the iTV team should surely be fired as this thing is almost a joke. Definitely looks to be a .5beta version or something of the sort -- Vista comes to mind. Is this Apple's Vista flop maybe? It's obvious that this thing was just shoved out the door without much thought because if there was any real thinking behind it, this wouldn't be the result. Apple-branded or not, if a product has no real-world benefit, it's just not going to sell. period. The only thing to do now is wait until the next quarter's profits come in and see what this pathetic thing sold like. I still stand behind my prediction that after the first wave of loyalists buy this thing for the sheer point of getting it because it's Apple's, sales will not pick up whatsoever unless there are some major changes made to its usage strategy. As you also said, some might be able to be upgraded with a massive UI rewrite -- but for everyone that falls for this 1.0 version [.5 I mean], they'll either be sorry because a) the product is an utter flop and dies out; or b) the upgrades needed go way beyond the hardware [like additional storage and some type of AV input] and you'll have to buy a new one once they figure out they made an enormous mistake. We'll see \
Exactly! And, just as much so, even in the 3 pages of comments here, we've had numerous people speak about how they don't want to have to leave their Mac on all the time, run between rooms to do stuff on the Mac and the AppleTV, etc. Those people have Macs and don't get why this thing can't behave as more of a standalone device.
And as far as acting as an AirPort wireless router goes. It just couldn't get any more trivial. The hardware is all there, and if this thing runs a variant of OS X as most imply, the software exists too. Where's your cable modem easiest to hook up? Well, right by your TV of course, and right where the AppleTV is supposed to go.
Like I said, the hardware is there. I'm not 100% happy with the specs but, it's sufficient to do what I proposed. The software just needs a major reconstruction, and add an iTunes Store interface. AppleTV 2.0! As with the AirPort stuff, if this thing is running an OS X variant, much of this would be pretty trivial. Maybe add an API for plug-in codecs while we're at it. Steve Jobs, call me up and I'll whip your AppleTV development group into shape.
As you put it, by making the device more standalone, it targets the general TV owning population. Or at a minimum, target the iPod owning population by supporting syncing and playing directly from an iPod docked to the AppleTV. Then the iPod folks say, hey, maybe I need to have this.
So far, Apple has just done nothing to distinguish this device from every other media hub that's come out in the past 1-2 years. I just don't think "buy it because you bought an iPod from us" is going to be enough to sell it.
They AREN'T targeting Mac users, or those who are about to buy a Mac. How can this be so twisted around?
Apple CLEARLY stated that this product is for anyone who has a computer, whether Mac OR PC, which just about includes everyone these days.
Because 1 in 10 iTunes users want to watch their music on their TV.
PiperJaffray could probably hire chimpanzees who could do a better job of throwing together unrelated facts.
Poor wording on PiperJaffray's part, to be sure. One of the reasons I am getting an AppleTV so I can listen to my music in a simple, convenient manor through my home entertainment system, by far my best place for audio and video.
And before anyone chimes in about listening to 128kbps AAC on an expensive HiFI, don't foget that most iTunes are not comprised of iTS purchases.
Comments
That's a FAQ for iTunes Movie downloads, not the AppleTV. And the surround sound to which they refer is Dolby Pro-Logic, which as I already said is embedded into a stereo signal. It is based on a technique originally developed by Dolby in 1976.
AC3 and DTS have 5 discrete full-bandwidth channels and one dedicated bass channel, and as such are a significant improvement over Pro-Logic.
More info about Pro Logic, AC3 and DTS.
Excuse my ignorance, but don't you want to pass through the audio to the surround sound processor on your AV amp or TV? You do this for a digital source through the HDMI connection or the digital audio out, Apple TV itself doesn't need to do anything to the audio right?
Excuse my ignorance, but don't you want to pass through the audio to the surround sound processor on your AV amp or TV? You do this for a digital source through the HDMI connection or the digital audio out, Apple TV itself doesn't need to do anything to the audio right?
From what I can tell, the H.264 standard basically uses AAC for audio. I don't know about newer sound systems, but mine do not directly accept AAC. It would have to be decoded into PCM stereo (or heaven forbid, reencoded to DD/DTS) for my recievers to understand the digital audio signal. I don't think it's a big problem, even if the video decoder chip doesn't handle the audio, it's not that tough for the CPU in Apple TV to decode it. AppleTV doesn't really accept a non MPEG-4/H.264 video stream, so for a lot of people, I think it's going to need to do that decoding.
From what I can tell, the H.264 standard basically uses AAC for audio.
BluRay & HD-DVD both have h264 as one of their standards.
Anyone know if they don't use DolbyDigital anymore when doing that? That would surprise me.
Dolby Surround is an analog stereo matrixed format. It is incorporated in iTunes movies because the Dolby Surround encoding is in the left and right stereo channels. It's inaudible because the signal is phase shifted by 90 degrees, but a Dolby ProLogic decoder pulls out the phase shifted signal and sends it to the surrounds.
Dolby Digital is entirely different. AC-3 is a discrete multichannel encoding schema, as is DTS.
iTunes movies do not presently carry an AC-3 multichannel stream. However, that being said, H.264 AAC encapsulated can, in principle, support multichannel audio.
The problem lies in decoding, though... Say you transcode AC-3 as AAC. A Dolby Digital decoder cannot parse AAC. Then what?
An intermediary is needed to transcode AAC back to AC-3 on the fly. This is where something like Dolby Digital live comes in.
The AppleTV firmware would have to incorporate such software to transcode AAC to AC-3 on the fly and then send as AC-3 to the receiver. This isn't impossible... but there are many considerations including licensing of the technology, quality assurance, etc.
But the long and short of it is...
1. No, currently iTunes H.264 files do not carry discrete multichannel audio of any kind.
2. Yes, the stereo AAC files on iTunes movies DO carry Dolby Surround analog, which any Dolby ProLogic or Dolby Digital decoder can read.
3. Existing models of AppleTV can be software/firmware upgraded to handle AC-3 (or DTS) playback.
4. However, existing stereo AAC iTunes movies would have to be replaced with multichannel AAC files.
There's really no way to embed AC-3 or DTS natively into an H.264 stream, but there's no need. In principle, AAC is actually higher fidelity than AC-3 at every bitrate... and AC-3 at 448kbps is perceptually transparent (DTS at 768kbps is not)... and Dolby Digital Live is Dolby Labs' own answer to the problem which therefore meets their fidelity criteria and therefore indistinguishable from direct AC-3 bistreams.
DTS is arguably inferior to AC-3 despite what the morons at Stereophile say. They don't understand perceptual coding, they don't understand DTS is a different algorithm and they insist that the higher bitrate alone is evidence of better fidelity. This is nonsense because DTS lacks the filtering and metadata parameters that reduce the minimum bitrate required to achieve perceptual transparency in AC-3. So, if it doesn't support DTS... I wouldn't worry one bit.
That hasn't stopped DVD from proliferating despite an insignificant appearance of titles mastered to DTS.
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/new...port-mode/9658
This one as well:
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/a...-tv-245101.php
The iTV should be at least able to be a self-sustaining device. When I want it to connect to my Mac(s), great! When I just want to watch/record TV, let me do it with it. They're trying to tie together 2 completely separate devices, unsuccessfully by making the iTV so codependent.
What I proposed right before the AppleTV was officially announced, was that it should be a self sustaining device (though it doesn't necessarily need recording per se). At a minimum, the AppleTV should have had the following capabilities:
- Access/purchase content directly from the iTunes Store (Apple already knows what you've bought, why do you need a Mac to access it?)
- Sync directly and/or playback content from an iPod (it has a USB 2.0 port, what do you need the Mac for?)
- Support for external storage (once again, it has a USB 2.0 port, what do you need the Mac for?)
- Act as an AirPort wireless networking hub (it has a hardwired Ethernet port and draft N wireless)
The AppleTV's hardware is already capable of these things. That Apple chose not to include them in software is extremely shortsighted.The other very practical thing Apple could have included is streaming support for live news and maybe some sports (though the licensing for sports would be more difficult).
All those things Apple could have easily done, in the existing hardware ... don't even get me started on the horrible video specs for the device, lack of codec support, etc. All in all, the Apple TV gets an "F" from me grade-wise. Bascially zero difference from media hubs that were available 1-2 years ago.
Munster estimated that there are at least 110 million users of the digital jukebox software which will combine to represent the preliminary addressable market for Apple TV.
By comparison, the analyst said the closest Windows-based product is Windows Media Center with an estimated 23 million Media Center-enabled PCs in the market. However, he said there appear to be only about 12 million actual Media Center users.
"In other words, Apple has a 10x headstart in the digital living room," he wrote.
110 million apples, 12 million oranges ... that's a hell of a lot of fruit!
PiperJaffray believes the digital living room could emerge into $4.7 billion business by 2008 if Apple is able to maintain its 70 percent share of the digital music market and one in ten iTunes users buys an Apple TV that year. One of the device's strongest selling points is expected to be the simplicity it offers consumers looking to view their iTunes content on a living room television set.
Because 1 in 10 iTunes users want to watch their music on their TV.
PiperJaffray could probably hire chimpanzees who could do a better job of throwing together unrelated facts.
Apple allows you to download the content, the point is then that it is on your local system to use not eating up their bandwidth to download on demand. Apple TV is not designed for maintaining a media library, just accessing it.
Why do you need this if the content is stored on your networked computers which maintain your media library?
It may have this, and in essence it does via the networked computers running iTunes. Let's not forget AirPort Expresse's Air Disk storage solution.
I agree this would be nice, but may not have been possible given the pricing that Apple was going for. If it added another $50-100 to the price then I'm not so sure it would have been a good idea
The whole point of this is that it is a networked device and works in conjunction with your home network, not in isolation of it. I think that the main thing that it is missing from your points is the ability to brows and purchase audio and video content from iTMS through the main account on your computer and have it download and sync with Apple TV. The main question here though is how long it would take for you to begin viewing that download? If it takes 10 minutes to get enough downloaded to begin playing the movie then there isn't much point in it. However if it only takes 2-3 minutes then I imagine that it would boost iTMS sales if you could purchase movies from the couch. Another down side is navigating the iTMS site with the remote, not the best device for doing so.
I think that the two most needed things for Apple TV are a rental/subscription service and access to some form of InterNet TV solution.
From what I can tell, the H.264 standard basically uses AAC for audio.
That's not accurate.
There's really no way to embed AC-3 or DTS natively into an H.264 stream, but there's no need.
And neither is that.
What you both seem a bit confused about is what MPEG-4 and H.264 mean.
MPEG-4 is a set of standards encompassing (amongst other things) the following:
Video codecs
Audio codecs
File formats
H.264 is one of the MPEG-4 video codecs, AAC is one of the MPEG-4 audio codecs, and the file format is usually referred to as MPEG4 or .mp4
.mp4 is heavily based on .mov.
It is true to say that there is no MPEG-4 compliant way of using AC-3 and H.264 together, because the .mp4 standard does not support using non-MPEG-4 streams within its file format.
However, that doesn't mean that you can't use H.264 and AC-3 together. You just don't use a .mp4 wrapper. You use a .mov (or other) wrapper. There's nothing stopping a .mov containing an H.264 video track and an AC-3 audio track.
I just came across this article at MacDaily news. It's interesting. we may be seeing something soon, I hope.
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/new...port-mode/9658
This one as well:
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/a...-tv-245101.php
Why on earth would this news "support the theory that they [Apple] will begin offering HD content soon" (Gizmodo)?
iTunes has supported the import of high-bit-rate AAC (up to 320 kbps) and Apple Lossless for a long time, and this has not heralded high-bit-rate music downloads from iTunes. I don't really know why this news has come as any sort of surprise to anyone, we knew from the day of announcement that the AppleTV would support resolutions up to 720p. It stood to reason that if QTpro included an "export to iPod" preset, that they'd probably intro an "export to AppleTV" preset. What would have been odd is if the preset didn't do 720p given the hardware is capable of playing it back.
[*]Access/purchase content directly from the iTunes Store (Apple already knows what you've bought, why do you need a Mac to access it?)[*]Sync directly and/or playback content from an iPod (it has a USB 2.0 port, what do you need the Mac for?)
I agree with most of that for sure. I think that most people, including Apple are looking at this thing completely backwards. Instead of targeting Mac users, or in rare cases, people that are inclined to buy a new Mac ONLY because of the iTV, in order to access and use the iTV.....
They should have targeted anyone with a TV (which is basically everyone). That would have let those people without a Mac see the coolness of Apple products, while subtly letting them know the features they can't use without a Mac (mainly syncing). If the iTV is powerful and useful, then people would see Apple's strengths -- thus when they went to buy a new PC (within a month, year, or even 2) they'd be much more inclined to purchase a Mac.
Which is going to make them more profit, targeting the small Mac userbase (with a few PC using stragglers, because lets face it, I doubt many people will purchase this thing that own a PC with the iTV in its current state); or targeting just about every household in the developed world? The comparison is like night/day.....they just picked night for some odd reason.
I think that the two most needed things for Apple TV are a rental/subscription service and access to some form of InterNet TV solution.
That's the tipping point for me. As it stands now, the iTV has no chance of seeing my living room. Without some major sources of live content, or heck, even a sign that they're trying -- with a few channels of streaming live FOXnews/CNN/whatever, and ESPN. Yes the licensing deals would be an issue, but, it's usually not the Apple way to provide a half-as* device like this. They are masters of striking the goldmine of deals (iTMS for starters). I'm sure they could have easily brokered a very nice deal to get some great ***LIVE*** <BOLD x 100>LIVE</BOLD x 100>.
The other problem I have with it is that what was mentioned before. It's too reliant on another Mac. It's almost like they're just pushing to make your Mac (the one you use for....you know.....work, and stuff) 2nd class server. I can't stress enough, how much I don't want to have my Mac being stressed itself with having to delegate out all of this content. When I'm editing a movie, playing a game, or doing anything on my Mac -- while my kids are downstairs on an iTV pulling tons of content from my same Mac; and also having my wife on her iTV in our bedroom pulling even more data/bandwidth/CPU/RAM resources away from my Mac -- I don't want all of those resources bogging down my computer.
If anything, the iTV should have been equipped with a massive hard drive(s) (or at least an iTV+ model) to act as THE server/file repository. This option would have made much more sense to me......
Then if I have some movies to watch, they're all on my **expandable** iTV's system (we should just refer to it as the mainframe/hub of the house in this case). Then in the more-rare case that I want a movie on my Mac instead of the iTV, it'll stream it back to me, or any Mac in my house. This workflow seems much more logical to me, as my iTV device would be always-on (unlike my power hungry G5 and older CTR iMac). In its current incarnation (incantation?) it works just the opposite of what I'd like, my Macs have to stay on all the time (otherwise I have to run in the other room to boot up my G5 if I want 'movie A', or go in the basement to boot up my hot-CRT-iMac (which heats up the house, works nicely as a space heater as well) to get 'movie B'. All of that time spent running around, I could have just burned a DVD and brought downstairs -- you get my point
Too long of a story short.......how many of you think they should have flipped the entire conception around 180°?
Without going on too much more, they really should have sold an XServer-like device (stripped down, just storage, doesn't need a ton of RAM or CPU speed) for the home media hub. In fact, this is what the Airport Extreme should have been. Like said above, the AirportServerExtreme should have been a router, usb network printer hub (as it is now), AND include a networked storage volume(s) -- at least on par with what the iTV's puny drive is at 40gb -- that would have not added much price at all, and the attractiveness of the product would have gone sky-high....
Then you can buy iTV "hubs" that use that main central storage repository. In practice, the total price the consumer pays wouldn't be all that much more since the iTV is dumbed down (even more) so it costs less, and the AirportServerExtreme would be a bit more to produce, but make up the price. All in all, they could have upped the price on the package (sold together of course) to even $500 and they'd make an absolute killing. Now THAT would make a captivating product that wouldn't stand a chance at failing. And fills a much-needed gap, intelligently.
That's the tipping point for me. As it stands now, the iTV has no chance of seeing my living room. Without some major sources of live content, or heck, even a sign that they're trying -- with a few channels of streaming live FOXnews/CNN/whatever, and ESPN. Yes the licensing deals would be an issue, but, it's usually not the Apple way to provide a half-as* device like this. They are masters of striking the goldmine of deals (iTMS for starters). I'm sure they could have easily brokered a very nice deal to get some great ***LIVE*** <BOLD x 100>LIVE</BOLD x 100>.
The other problem I have with it is that what was mentioned before. It's too reliant on another Mac. It's almost like they're just pushing to make your Mac (the one you use for....you know.....work, and stuff) 2nd class server. I can't stress enough, how much I don't want to have my Mac being stressed itself with having to delegate out all of this content. When I'm editing a movie, playing a game, or doing anything on my Mac -- while my kids are downstairs on an iTV pulling tons of content from my same Mac; and also having my wife on her iTV in our bedroom pulling even more data/bandwidth/CPU/RAM resources away from my Mac -- I don't want all of those resources bogging down my computer.
If anything, the iTV should have been equipped with a massive hard drive(s) (or at least an iTV+ model) to act as THE server/file repository. This option would have made much more sense to me......
Then if I have some movies to watch, they're all on my **expandable** iTV's system (we should just refer to it as the mainframe/hub of the house in this case). Then in the more-rare case that I want a movie on my Mac instead of the iTV, it'll stream it back to me, or any Mac in my house. This workflow seems much more logical to me, as my iTV device would be always-on (unlike my power hungry G5 and older CTR iMac). In its current incarnation (incantation?) it works just the opposite of what I'd like, my Macs have to stay on all the time (otherwise I have to run in the other room to boot up my G5 if I want 'movie A', or go in the basement to boot up my hot-CRT-iMac (which heats up the house, works nicely as a space heater as well) to get 'movie B'. All of that time spent running around, I could have just burned a DVD and brought downstairs -- you get my point
Too long of a story short.......how many of you think they should have flipped the entire conception around 180°?
Without going on too much more, they really should have sold an XServer-like device (stripped down, just storage, doesn't need a ton of RAM or CPU speed) for the home media hub. In fact, this is what the Airport Extreme should have been. Like said above, the AirportServerExtreme should have been a router, usb network printer hub (as it is now), AND include a networked storage volume(s) -- at least on par with what the iTV's puny drive is at 40gb -- that would have not added much price at all, and the attractiveness of the product would have gone sky-high....
Then you can buy iTV "hubs" that use that main central storage repository. In practice, the total price the consumer pays wouldn't be all that much more since the iTV is dumbed down (even more) so it costs less, and the AirportServerExtreme would be a bit more to produce, but make up the price. All in all, they could have upped the price on the package (sold together of course) to even $500 and they'd make an absolute killing. Now THAT would make a captivating product that wouldn't stand a chance at failing. And fills a much-needed gap, intelligently.
whew, all that...good stuff, but don't forget, Apple TV is a 'sync' device. its just a funny iPod with wireless. Very doubtful its going to put much load on your 'server' because it'll be synced up with the content you need on it. That was one of the first things my wife asked....do I have to have my computer on to play music? no. Its already there.
Why on earth would this news "support the theory that they [Apple] will begin offering HD content soon" (Gizmodo)?
iTunes has supported the import of high-bit-rate AAC (up to 320 kbps) and Apple Lossless for a long time, and this has not heralded high-bit-rate music downloads from iTunes. I don't really know why this news has come as any sort of surprise to anyone, we knew from the day of announcement that the AppleTV would support resolutions up to 720p. It stood to reason that if QTpro included an "export to iPod" preset, that they'd probably intro an "export to AppleTV" preset. What would have been odd is if the preset didn't do 720p given the hardware is capable of playing it back.
I'm not saying it will.
But these guys are fairly familliar with the business. They seem to think it has importance.
I agree with most of that for sure. I think that most people, including Apple are looking at this thing completely backwards. Instead of targeting Mac users, or in rare cases, people that are inclined to buy a new Mac ONLY because of the iTV, in order to access and use the iTV.....
They should have targeted anyone with a TV (which is basically everyone). That would have let those people without a Mac see the coolness of Apple products, while subtly letting them know the features they can't use without a Mac (mainly syncing). If the iTV is powerful and useful, then people would see Apple's strengths -- thus when they went to buy a new PC (within a month, year, or even 2) they'd be much more inclined to purchase a Mac.
Exactly! And, just as much so, even in the 3 pages of comments here, we've had numerous people speak about how they don't want to have to leave their Mac on all the time, run between rooms to do stuff on the Mac and the AppleTV, etc. Those people have Macs and don't get why this thing can't behave as more of a standalone device.
And as far as acting as an AirPort wireless router goes. It just couldn't get any more trivial. The hardware is all there, and if this thing runs a variant of OS X as most imply, the software exists too. Where's your cable modem easiest to hook up? Well, right by your TV of course, and right where the AppleTV is supposed to go.
Like I said, the hardware is there. I'm not 100% happy with the specs but, it's sufficient to do what I proposed. The software just needs a major reconstruction, and add an iTunes Store interface. AppleTV 2.0! As with the AirPort stuff, if this thing is running an OS X variant, much of this would be pretty trivial. Maybe add an API for plug-in codecs while we're at it. Steve Jobs, call me up and I'll whip your AppleTV development group into shape.
As you put it, by making the device more standalone, it targets the general TV owning population. Or at a minimum, target the iPod owning population by supporting syncing and playing directly from an iPod docked to the AppleTV. Then the iPod folks say, hey, maybe I need to have this.
So far, Apple has just done nothing to distinguish this device from every other media hub that's come out in the past 1-2 years. I just don't think "buy it because you bought an iPod from us" is going to be enough to sell it.
All they have to do is offer the pilot episode for free to get you "hooked" as well as rely on how people currently "discover" new series such as word of mouth.
The fastest and most efficient means of "discovery" is to channel surf. Guides and the like can't compare.
Exactly! And, just as much so, even in the 3 pages of comments here, we've had numerous people speak about how they don't want to have to leave their Mac on all the time, run between rooms to do stuff on the Mac and the AppleTV, etc. Those people have Macs and don't get why this thing can't behave as more of a standalone device.
Woohoo someone agrees!
Like you said, someone on the iTV team should surely be fired as this thing is almost a joke. Definitely looks to be a .5beta version or something of the sort -- Vista comes to mind. Is this Apple's Vista flop maybe? It's obvious that this thing was just shoved out the door without much thought because if there was any real thinking behind it, this wouldn't be the result. Apple-branded or not, if a product has no real-world benefit, it's just not going to sell. period. The only thing to do now is wait until the next quarter's profits come in and see what this pathetic thing sold like. I still stand behind my prediction that after the first wave of loyalists buy this thing for the sheer point of getting it because it's Apple's, sales will not pick up whatsoever unless there are some major changes made to its usage strategy. As you also said, some might be able to be upgraded with a massive UI rewrite -- but for everyone that falls for this 1.0 version [.5 I mean], they'll either be sorry because a) the product is an utter flop and dies out; or b) the upgrades needed go way beyond the hardware [like additional storage and some type of AV input] and you'll have to buy a new one once they figure out they made an enormous mistake. We'll see
Exactly! And, just as much so, even in the 3 pages of comments here, we've had numerous people speak about how they don't want to have to leave their Mac on all the time, run between rooms to do stuff on the Mac and the AppleTV, etc. Those people have Macs and don't get why this thing can't behave as more of a standalone device.
And as far as acting as an AirPort wireless router goes. It just couldn't get any more trivial. The hardware is all there, and if this thing runs a variant of OS X as most imply, the software exists too. Where's your cable modem easiest to hook up? Well, right by your TV of course, and right where the AppleTV is supposed to go.
Like I said, the hardware is there. I'm not 100% happy with the specs but, it's sufficient to do what I proposed. The software just needs a major reconstruction, and add an iTunes Store interface. AppleTV 2.0! As with the AirPort stuff, if this thing is running an OS X variant, much of this would be pretty trivial. Maybe add an API for plug-in codecs while we're at it. Steve Jobs, call me up and I'll whip your AppleTV development group into shape.
As you put it, by making the device more standalone, it targets the general TV owning population. Or at a minimum, target the iPod owning population by supporting syncing and playing directly from an iPod docked to the AppleTV. Then the iPod folks say, hey, maybe I need to have this.
So far, Apple has just done nothing to distinguish this device from every other media hub that's come out in the past 1-2 years. I just don't think "buy it because you bought an iPod from us" is going to be enough to sell it.
They AREN'T targeting Mac users, or those who are about to buy a Mac. How can this be so twisted around?
Apple CLEARLY stated that this product is for anyone who has a computer, whether Mac OR PC, which just about includes everyone these days.
The fastest and most efficient means of "discovery" is to channel surf. Guides and the like can't compare.
Right! A subscription would work, if it allowed easy access to all the shows.
Because 1 in 10 iTunes users want to watch their music on their TV.
PiperJaffray could probably hire chimpanzees who could do a better job of throwing together unrelated facts.
Poor wording on PiperJaffray's part, to be sure. One of the reasons I am getting an AppleTV so I can listen to my music in a simple, convenient manor through my home entertainment system, by far my best place for audio and video.
And before anyone chimes in about listening to 128kbps AAC on an expensive HiFI, don't foget that most iTunes are not comprised of iTS purchases.