yeah, if apple adds an ATSC/clear QAM double tuner to the mix in north america, and an HDTV capable DVB-T/S/C 2x tuner in europe, then it would make much more sense...
also it needs real fullHD capability, people want 1080p capability, even if they have no idea what it really means... LOL
Jeff DM - I live a mile from downtown and the tall buildings. Most of the HD towers are about 6-12 miles away. I tried an OTA antenna for my Directv box. I had to aim the indoor antenna precisely to get results. Do you think I'd do better with Elgato? If so - I'd buy one in a heartbeat.
TV signals travel straight... you always have to point directly to the source... ATSC/DVB-T travels up to 100km, 60miles... but your view towards the emitter has to be unobstructed!
I live some 23 short miles away from NYC and I can't get a single freakin signal! If I can't get a good (nee ANY) HD signal when I'm only 23 miles outside of NYC then that certainly says ALOT about the current status of HD broadcast antennas....
Imagine the US government effectively FORCED me into paying for cable if I want to stay informed about any emergency broadcasts.
Oh and before someone says radio... Unless I'm mistaken they have a roadmap to do away with anal. radio too...
Freakin crock!
Dave
then you have a hill or a wooden area obstructing your signal, you need a rooftop antenna then, will cost you around $200... with a good antenna you will receive ATSC/DVB-T up to 120km/75miles from the emitter... it just needs to be high enough and the further out you need more gain, everything over 30miles you need an amplifier!
it's worth it! ATSc is real 1280x720 or 1920x1080, SAT and cable compress much more and the resolution is 10-20% less than ATSC OTA... SAT/cable usally is 1440x1080 or 960x540 h264 highly compressed as opposed to the ATSC signaal that is mpeg2 @ 10-16Mbit/sec @ full resolution... sometimes the local stations transmit the SAT h264 feed, then the resulting image looks horrible, twice compressed can't look good...
sports should be 1280x720 since it's 60fps, 1920x1080 is 30fps, not enough for fast sports movement... broadcasters should be flexible, movies in 1920x1080i, sports in 1280x720p...
This is an incredibly short-sighted (not to mention just plain stupid) position on the part of Sony and Universal. Apple is NOT a rival. They're a MARKET. Their position is analogous to say, Frito-Lay saying they're not going to sell their chips at Safeway because Safeway is a rival. Of course that would be stupid. Safeway is a major market for snack chips and other food, just as the iTunes Store is a major market for music, video and other media.
Competition is a good thing, and I'm glad to see other media markets, such as the TiVo / Amazon Unbox market coming on strong, but the content providers need to embrace the iTunes Store as a market and not get into this ridiculous notion of seeing them as a 'rival'. It's bad for the content providers, and it's bad for us (consumers). It won't have much of an impact on Apple, as their hardware business largely shields them from the ups and downs of the media market business.
Not quite analogous to Frito-Lay and Safeway in a number of ways.
First both Sony and Apple ARE in the music publishing business already, and Apple could decide to get much deeper in. Think of iTunes exclusive releases and the ability of indie bands to go through a "artist/group aggregator" to get their music on iTunes when it may be available nowhere else. Not to mention non-DRM'ed audio and video podcasts of music.
And Apple's CEO happens to have a bit of experience (and a Board of Directors side gig) in the successful movie-making and distribution biz. So he might have a few trenchant thoughts on the future of that as well.
There have been persistent rumors and speculations that Apple may decide to begin eliminating music middlemen, i.e., music labels entirely, and sign artists to release directly to iTMS. And the labels, who add much more overhead and superstructure relating to ancient distribution/promotion channels are certainly vulnerable, and after 2007's physical media sales drop, have reason to be worried about their dinosaur status.
However, since (if) Apple is not currently -- according to them and others -- not really making much of their income from iTMS, and want to strengthen their hardware lineup across the spectrum that's being carved out by synergy between Macs, iPods and other "Apple/i Devices." The goal would be to become your one-stop digital media and communications stop for all the devices you need, so perhaps they're more likely than posters here think to "cannabalize" some iTMS sales to build a "devices customer base" and make a device that indeed integrates new parts of the experiences currently provided by TIVO, X-Box, optical disc playing, etc., where what's coming over the cable or satellite and what's coming through the door (DVD's of all stripes) is integrated seamlessly with what's available on the net, through iTMS, YouTube, etc. and what's stored on your computers and iPods.
The net result, if such a device captured the public's imagination (an Apple, Inc. specialty) could be larger iTMS sales down the road from a larger, more video-oriented customer base than that which propelled the iPod to prominence then dominance.
Quote:
Originally Posted by websnap
The PS3 (a well selling BR player) is selling at 399 here in canada. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple and Sony partnered together to give blu-Ray an iPod-like shot in the arm, especially if it looks favorably to entice Sony movie downloads into the iTS eco-system. If this was the case I can see sony taking a hit on the drive to supply them to Apple. People want to get in on the ground floor of the next iPod-like item, just like AT&T did, with the iPhone. If Intel and apple could put aside differences for common business good, I sure SOny can do the same since they have just as much to gain.
There could be more partnering of various kinds down the road, though I suspect AT&T increasingly looks at Apple much the way a male praying mantis looks at the female it's copulating with: very, very carefully. Again, it's all rumor, but people keep speculating that Apple eventually may not need ONE partner in the phone business -- or even any if they decide to stitch together the combo's of various bandwidths to offer phone service.
Numerous ISV's can testify with great authority about the dual-edged sword nature of adding cool new capabilities to the Mac, only to see them reverse-engineered into the next version of OS X and other Apple software. Including, yes, Microsoft. Redmond doesn't own the only photocopying culture in the digital world.
Still, I've always seen potential synergies (as well as major rivalries) between Sony and Apple, so stranger things could happen. And the Starbucks thing happened (a partnership with a company I've followed avidly from day one with another I wouldn't patronize unless a gun's being held to my head, but more power to Apple for it). So why not other unexpected partnerships.....
If they come out with a new piece of hardware thats gonna totally suck and will piss a lot of people off...I for one, just bought my Apple TV for Christmas and as it is now, the UI sucks with the new version of Iphoto and leopard. They could come out with a new hardware but please o please, give us a firmware update to fix all the glitches on it now!
With Apple online movie rental I doubt that they will add any type of media (DVD, HD-DVD, Blue-Ray ... etc) input to AppleTV. Apple want you to use their content on AppleTV.
With Apple online movie rental I doubt that they will add any type of media (DVD, HD-DVD, Blue-Ray ... etc) input to AppleTV. Apple want you to use their content on AppleTV.
Okay so what do I do with my 500+ dvd collection? unplug replug every time I wanna use ATV and no a switch box will not work I have a wife and inlaws etc that will always find a way to screw them up and not be able to watch anything till I get home to 'fix' things.
Okay so what do I do with my 500+ dvd collection? unplug replug every time I wanna use ATV and no a switch box will not work I have a wife and inlaws etc that will always find a way to screw them up and not be able to watch anything till I get home to 'fix' things.
D
you buy a 2TB HDD and rip the 500 DVD's... ;-)
and from now on you dl the DVD's @ mininova/isohunt/TPB ;-) there's tons of HD'DVD/BR discs already available... ;-)
If it includes a Blu Ray player then I might add one to my collection of Apple hardware. At a very minimum, it *needs* to be able to play DVDs. I want to replace a piece of hardware, not another one.
That's my position exactly.
I just bought a Blu-Ray player (placed my HD-DVD player and discs on eBay), but I'm not unpacking the Blu-Ray for a few days. If AppleTV has Blu-Ray, I'll return my Blu-Ray player.
However, I don't think that's likely. It goes against Apple's vision for AppleTV. I'd love to be wrong, though.
If it includes a Blu Ray player then I might add one to my collection of Apple hardware. At a very minimum, it *needs* to be able to play DVDs. I want to replace a piece of hardware, not another one.
Spot on again Bancho! I'd love to see Apple release the AppleTV with a Blu-ray player.
As a concession to those VOD fanatics I'd even accept an add-on optical drive if, and only if, it matched the aTV's aesthetics and stacked securely with it. The point is, with 200 or so DVD's and about 20 BR discs and growing, I don't want to keep adding more and more devices if it isn't absolutely necessary.
What in the world do you need FOUR TUNERS FOR??? If you have to record three streams at once while watching another show, you REALLY need to get out more..
Quote:
Originally Posted by sandor
i'd much rather see a combination of softwares - add SageTV to the AppleTV for tuning needs.
the fact is a dual tuner like the HDHR above is about the same size as the AppleTV - not really a great solution. But if tuner *software* can be integrated into AppleTV (or if Apple releases some kind of SDK for creating 3rd party integration) then the AppleTV simply has to schedule recordings, and the network tuner can record all the data to your desktop computer.
I've been using SageTV for a while now (OTA only) and love it. their mac server and clients work well, and using a pair of HDHDR's i have 4 ATSC tuners at my disposal. I would just love to be able to use the AppleTV as an extender for Sage... I've tried EyeTV as well, and it seems, well, horrid compared to SageTV.
Anyway, i, for one, am really looking forward to an update to AppleTV.
I'll bet there is a Sony-Apple iTunes store deal for movie rentals as well. It is in both companies interest to move this whole thing forward.
After seeing how much Vista gets hosed with the advanced DRM in the new HD movie formats, it makes MUCH more sense to stick a Blu Ray player onto an Apple TV than it does to cripple OS X to enable play back of Blu Ray movies on your basic Mac. Besides, Apple TVs have HDMI outputs, while Macs do not and much of the DRM in the new HD formats relies on HDCP over HDMI.
I have a HDCP graphics card and monitor that both use DVI-D. It's not just HDMI. I even think the new displayport can use HDCP (although I also believe it has it's own encryption built in)
I also don't think Apple would have to go to the length that Vista did just to play Blu movies.
Why oh why I always asked have the Apple stores featured Sony monitors paired with their AppleTVs for demonstration?? Surely Apple could have used another manufacturer other then Sony?? Or a generic one even. Why has Sony been given this free advertising??
lets see.. Sony has some of the best consumer LCDs in the market.. Is that one even debated anymore?
Especially an empty box where you supposed to keep buying content from Itunes only to make it work. Put a disc drive in it already or let is stream DVD's from our computers while they play. If you can't rip DVD's in iTunes then let us stream them from our computers. Or are we only to spend more $$ for Itunes content?
although easily technically feasible (bitrate of DVDs is like 8-10mbps) WHY IN THE WORLD would someone WANT to do that? 99.9% of people who watch movies own a DVD player already connected to their TV. Why would they run to their mac to put the dvd in the drive??? That makes absolutely no logical sense.
I live some 23 short miles away from NYC and I can't get a single freakin signal! If I can't get a good (nee ANY) HD signal when I'm only 23 miles outside of NYC then that certainly says ALOT about the current status of HD broadcast antennas....
Imagine the US government effectively FORCED me into paying for cable if I want to stay informed about any emergency broadcasts.
Oh and before someone says radio... Unless I'm mistaken they have a roadmap to do away with anal. radio too...
Freakin crock!
Dave
"force" ? . Yeah it's called you and all the other analog broadcast people are tying up a ton of expensive and useful bandwidth due to stubbornness to join the 21st century.
Comments
also it needs real fullHD capability, people want 1080p capability, even if they have no idea what it really means... LOL
Jeff DM - I live a mile from downtown and the tall buildings. Most of the HD towers are about 6-12 miles away. I tried an OTA antenna for my Directv box. I had to aim the indoor antenna precisely to get results. Do you think I'd do better with Elgato? If so - I'd buy one in a heartbeat.
TV signals travel straight... you always have to point directly to the source... ATSC/DVB-T travels up to 100km, 60miles... but your view towards the emitter has to be unobstructed!
Can you now?!
I live some 23 short miles away from NYC and I can't get a single freakin signal! If I can't get a good (nee ANY) HD signal when I'm only 23 miles outside of NYC then that certainly says ALOT about the current status of HD broadcast antennas....
Imagine the US government effectively FORCED me into paying for cable if I want to stay informed about any emergency broadcasts.
Oh and before someone says radio... Unless I'm mistaken they have a roadmap to do away with anal. radio too...
Freakin crock!
Dave
then you have a hill or a wooden area obstructing your signal, you need a rooftop antenna then, will cost you around $200... with a good antenna you will receive ATSC/DVB-T up to 120km/75miles from the emitter... it just needs to be high enough and the further out you need more gain, everything over 30miles you need an amplifier!
it's worth it! ATSc is real 1280x720 or 1920x1080, SAT and cable compress much more and the resolution is 10-20% less than ATSC OTA... SAT/cable usally is 1440x1080 or 960x540 h264 highly compressed as opposed to the ATSC signaal that is mpeg2 @ 10-16Mbit/sec @ full resolution... sometimes the local stations transmit the SAT h264 feed, then the resulting image looks horrible, twice compressed can't look good...
sports should be 1280x720 since it's 60fps, 1920x1080 is 30fps, not enough for fast sports movement... broadcasters should be flexible, movies in 1920x1080i, sports in 1280x720p...
This is an incredibly short-sighted (not to mention just plain stupid) position on the part of Sony and Universal. Apple is NOT a rival. They're a MARKET. Their position is analogous to say, Frito-Lay saying they're not going to sell their chips at Safeway because Safeway is a rival. Of course that would be stupid. Safeway is a major market for snack chips and other food, just as the iTunes Store is a major market for music, video and other media.
Competition is a good thing, and I'm glad to see other media markets, such as the TiVo / Amazon Unbox market coming on strong, but the content providers need to embrace the iTunes Store as a market and not get into this ridiculous notion of seeing them as a 'rival'. It's bad for the content providers, and it's bad for us (consumers). It won't have much of an impact on Apple, as their hardware business largely shields them from the ups and downs of the media market business.
Not quite analogous to Frito-Lay and Safeway in a number of ways.
First both Sony and Apple ARE in the music publishing business already, and Apple could decide to get much deeper in. Think of iTunes exclusive releases and the ability of indie bands to go through a "artist/group aggregator" to get their music on iTunes when it may be available nowhere else. Not to mention non-DRM'ed audio and video podcasts of music.
And Apple's CEO happens to have a bit of experience (and a Board of Directors side gig) in the successful movie-making and distribution biz. So he might have a few trenchant thoughts on the future of that as well.
There have been persistent rumors and speculations that Apple may decide to begin eliminating music middlemen, i.e., music labels entirely, and sign artists to release directly to iTMS. And the labels, who add much more overhead and superstructure relating to ancient distribution/promotion channels are certainly vulnerable, and after 2007's physical media sales drop, have reason to be worried about their dinosaur status.
However, since (if) Apple is not currently -- according to them and others -- not really making much of their income from iTMS, and want to strengthen their hardware lineup across the spectrum that's being carved out by synergy between Macs, iPods and other "Apple/i Devices." The goal would be to become your one-stop digital media and communications stop for all the devices you need, so perhaps they're more likely than posters here think to "cannabalize" some iTMS sales to build a "devices customer base" and make a device that indeed integrates new parts of the experiences currently provided by TIVO, X-Box, optical disc playing, etc., where what's coming over the cable or satellite and what's coming through the door (DVD's of all stripes) is integrated seamlessly with what's available on the net, through iTMS, YouTube, etc. and what's stored on your computers and iPods.
The net result, if such a device captured the public's imagination (an Apple, Inc. specialty) could be larger iTMS sales down the road from a larger, more video-oriented customer base than that which propelled the iPod to prominence then dominance.
The PS3 (a well selling BR player) is selling at 399 here in canada. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple and Sony partnered together to give blu-Ray an iPod-like shot in the arm, especially if it looks favorably to entice Sony movie downloads into the iTS eco-system. If this was the case I can see sony taking a hit on the drive to supply them to Apple. People want to get in on the ground floor of the next iPod-like item, just like AT&T did, with the iPhone. If Intel and apple could put aside differences for common business good, I sure SOny can do the same since they have just as much to gain.
There could be more partnering of various kinds down the road, though I suspect AT&T increasingly looks at Apple much the way a male praying mantis looks at the female it's copulating with: very, very carefully. Again, it's all rumor, but people keep speculating that Apple eventually may not need ONE partner in the phone business -- or even any if they decide to stitch together the combo's of various bandwidths to offer phone service.
Numerous ISV's can testify with great authority about the dual-edged sword nature of adding cool new capabilities to the Mac, only to see them reverse-engineered into the next version of OS X and other Apple software. Including, yes, Microsoft. Redmond doesn't own the only photocopying culture in the digital world.
Still, I've always seen potential synergies (as well as major rivalries) between Sony and Apple, so stranger things could happen. And the Starbucks thing happened (a partnership with a company I've followed avidly from day one with another I wouldn't patronize unless a gun's being held to my head, but more power to Apple for it). So why not other unexpected partnerships.....
I for one, just bought my Apple TV for Christmas...
That was you?
With Apple online movie rental I doubt that they will add any type of media (DVD, HD-DVD, Blue-Ray ... etc) input to AppleTV. Apple want you to use their content on AppleTV.
Okay so what do I do with my 500+ dvd collection? unplug replug every time I wanna use ATV and no a switch box will not work I have a wife and inlaws etc that will always find a way to screw them up and not be able to watch anything till I get home to 'fix' things.
D
Okay so what do I do with my 500+ dvd collection? unplug replug every time I wanna use ATV and no a switch box will not work I have a wife and inlaws etc that will always find a way to screw them up and not be able to watch anything till I get home to 'fix' things.
D
you buy a 2TB HDD and rip the 500 DVD's... ;-)
and from now on you dl the DVD's @ mininova/isohunt/TPB ;-) there's tons of HD'DVD/BR discs already available... ;-)
If it includes a Blu Ray player then I might add one to my collection of Apple hardware. At a very minimum, it *needs* to be able to play DVDs. I want to replace a piece of hardware, not another one.
That's my position exactly.
I just bought a Blu-Ray player (placed my HD-DVD player and discs on eBay), but I'm not unpacking the Blu-Ray for a few days. If AppleTV has Blu-Ray, I'll return my Blu-Ray player.
However, I don't think that's likely. It goes against Apple's vision for AppleTV. I'd love to be wrong, though.
Whats the betting we get actual 'real' Apple branded TV's on tuesday? Rather than a box of tricks.
Consumers are pretty dumb, they just want to buy a TV and turn it on, not muck about with extra external boxes and new-fangled connectors.
Anyone savvy enough to be even wanting downloaded content already has some sort of monitor, and has no use for another, hardwired monitor.
Apple is not going to get into selling TV displays.
Why not simply add DVD streaming from your Mac to the AppleTV box?
So that I can go downstairs to put a DVD in the 'puter then trudge back upstairs to watch it?
I said this when AppleTV 1st came out.. many people dismissed it and said "WE HAVE PLENTY OF HDMI" - yea well in my universe most sets come with 3
1 for cable box
1 for dvd
1 for game system
Leaves Apples device out in the cold!
Dave
Check out
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles..._apple_tv.html
Also there are a lot of other HDMI switch boxes available.
If it includes a Blu Ray player then I might add one to my collection of Apple hardware. At a very minimum, it *needs* to be able to play DVDs. I want to replace a piece of hardware, not another one.
Spot on again Bancho! I'd love to see Apple release the AppleTV with a Blu-ray player.
i'd much rather see a combination of softwares - add SageTV to the AppleTV for tuning needs.
www.sagetv.com
then let network tuners do the work
http://www.silicondust.com/wiki/products/hdhomerun
the fact is a dual tuner like the HDHR above is about the same size as the AppleTV - not really a great solution. But if tuner *software* can be integrated into AppleTV (or if Apple releases some kind of SDK for creating 3rd party integration) then the AppleTV simply has to schedule recordings, and the network tuner can record all the data to your desktop computer.
I've been using SageTV for a while now (OTA only) and love it. their mac server and clients work well, and using a pair of HDHDR's i have 4 ATSC tuners at my disposal. I would just love to be able to use the AppleTV as an extender for Sage... I've tried EyeTV as well, and it seems, well, horrid compared to SageTV.
Anyway, i, for one, am really looking forward to an update to AppleTV.
I'll bet there is a Sony-Apple iTunes store deal for movie rentals as well. It is in both companies interest to move this whole thing forward.
After seeing how much Vista gets hosed with the advanced DRM in the new HD movie formats, it makes MUCH more sense to stick a Blu Ray player onto an Apple TV than it does to cripple OS X to enable play back of Blu Ray movies on your basic Mac. Besides, Apple TVs have HDMI outputs, while Macs do not and much of the DRM in the new HD formats relies on HDCP over HDMI.
I have a HDCP graphics card and monitor that both use DVI-D. It's not just HDMI. I even think the new displayport can use HDCP (although I also believe it has it's own encryption built in)
I also don't think Apple would have to go to the length that Vista did just to play Blu movies.
Why oh why I always asked have the Apple stores featured Sony monitors paired with their AppleTVs for demonstration?? Surely Apple could have used another manufacturer other then Sony?? Or a generic one even. Why has Sony been given this free advertising??
lets see.. Sony has some of the best consumer LCDs in the market.. Is that one even debated anymore?
Especially an empty box where you supposed to keep buying content from Itunes only to make it work. Put a disc drive in it already or let is stream DVD's from our computers while they play. If you can't rip DVD's in iTunes then let us stream them from our computers. Or are we only to spend more $$ for Itunes content?
although easily technically feasible (bitrate of DVDs is like 8-10mbps) WHY IN THE WORLD would someone WANT to do that? 99.9% of people who watch movies own a DVD player already connected to their TV. Why would they run to their mac to put the dvd in the drive??? That makes absolutely no logical sense.
Can you now?!
I live some 23 short miles away from NYC and I can't get a single freakin signal! If I can't get a good (nee ANY) HD signal when I'm only 23 miles outside of NYC then that certainly says ALOT about the current status of HD broadcast antennas....
Imagine the US government effectively FORCED me into paying for cable if I want to stay informed about any emergency broadcasts.
Oh and before someone says radio... Unless I'm mistaken they have a roadmap to do away with anal. radio too...
Freakin crock!
Dave
"force" ? . Yeah it's called you and all the other analog broadcast people are tying up a ton of expensive and useful bandwidth due to stubbornness to join the 21st century.