Apple is missing a trick, a small update for huge advantage.

[trip1ex]

See recent caps on ATT, Comcast, others. The future will be tiered bandwidth and we'll probably care about repeatedly downloading big media files.

Yeah so? Doesn't mean bandwidth isn't getting cheaper and faster.

Do you want to guess what the speed and cap was 5 years ago?

Cap isn't going to get smaller. Only larger. And it's because these companies will be able to shove more data down the same pipe.

 

[mstrze]

Yeah so? Doesn't mean bandwidth isn't getting cheaper and faster.

Doesn't mean it IS (cheaper at least) either. In my personal experience it is in no way, shape or form cheaper. You care to share your personal experiences with cheaper, faster internet?

 

[dagomike]

Yeah so? Doesn't mean bandwidth isn't getting cheaper and faster.

Do you want to guess what the speed and cap was 5 years ago?

Cap isn't going to get smaller. Only larger. And it's because these companies will be able to shove more data down the same pipe.

Counting on the telecom overlords to meet individual demands without charging for it is going to have a pretty short timeline.

 

[trip1ex]

Doesn't mean it IS (cheaper at least) either. In my personal experience it is in no way, shape or form cheaper. You care to share your personal experiences with cheaper, faster internet?

yeah 10 years ago I got 56kbps for $40/month.


A few years ago I got 6 mbps for $45.

Last year it was 12mbps for the same.

Today I get 15mbps for $45.

Cheaper and faster.

 

[jdavtz]

yeah 10 years ago I got 56kbps for $40/month.


A few years ago I got 6 mbps for $45.

Last year it was 12mbps for the same.

Today I get 15mbps for $45.

Cheaper and faster.

How is $45 cheaper than $40?

Anyway, here in the UK dial-up used to be £10/month for 56k.
I now pay £5/month for 8Mbps.

 

[trip1ex]

How is $45 cheaper than $40?

Anyway, here in the UK dial-up used to be £10/month for 56k.
I now pay £5/month for 8Mbps.

because you're getting 20 cases of beer for $45 instead of 1 beer for $40.

Do the math.

IT's not the provider's fault everyone has become a bunch of raging alcoholics.

 

[dagomike]

The original point was that storage is a more attractive future commodity than bandwidth. Providers are not raising caps, and I don't expect them to keep pace with rising performance and demand without charging more for it. It's going to make more sense to store all your owned media locally than to stream it all from the cloud. Cost/performance is not a factor.

 

[GermanSuplex]

Can someone explain what an iTunes server is? Just a basic description... I've seen Drobo advertise their iTunes server software and other NAS devices have iTunes server capabilities.... is it something that merely hosts your iTunes content but prevents the .itl file from corrupting when accessed from multiple devices?

 

[Nermal]

because you're getting 20 cases of beer for $45 instead of 1 beer for $40.

Do the math.

That's not cheaper though (it's $5 more), just better value.

 

[trip1ex]

That's not cheaper though (it's $5 more), just better value.

Split your hairs for $400 Alex.

Plus you're wrong there too. $40 10 years ago factored for inflation is much more than $45 in today's money.


Also you can take a 15mbps connection and split it with 20 neighbors and eek out your cheap 56kbps connection. That way you'll be able to see just how much cheaper internet is today without taking inflation into account.

 

[trip1ex]

The original point was that storage is a more attractive future commodity than bandwidth. Providers are not raising caps, and I don't expect them to keep pace with rising performance and demand without charging more for it. It's going to make more sense to store all your owned media locally than to stream it all from the cloud. Cost/performance is not a factor.

Nonsense.

Your internet connection has likely stayed the same price the past few years while increasing in speed by a healthy margin.

Caps are a recent introduction and haven't needed to be raised. Comcast caps at 250gb. No one I know is eating up that much data per month. The caps certainly will not be lowered and again that's because bandwidth only gets cheaper to provide.

BAndwidth is getting faster just like storage is getting more capacity while the price remains the same or a bit cheaper. Scientists are testing 200gb+ data rates over fiber right now just as scientists are working on putting 4tb on a single platter.

Last when most are watching movie and tv content once instead of multiple times the bandwidth demands are the same anyway.

 

[JimKirk]

You can share your Itunes library on TC

I have done that. Just change the media location in Itunes and tell it to not copy content.

 

[dagomike]

250 GB is only about 50 hours of iTunes video. Figure in a family viewing plus other broadband usage, and no, it's not much at all if the paradigm shifts. Will Comcast shift with it or compensate with higher data rates for loss of TV eyeballs? They'll charge more for those who use more, specifically video content.

Honestly your faith in the telecom industry is baseless considering their behavior to date. The U.S. is so far behind in bandwidth and speeds and we pay more for it.

 

[rritterson]

I've been chatting about this with a few people and I think with a few tweaks to the software, and the Home share on the TC, Apple have a massive potential.

Pete

It would require very minimal tweaking, as the aTV can already connect to remote volumes, like iDisks and MobileMe. All it would require is a standard definition of a 'remote' iTunes library, and the ability in iTunes to copy it from the local library to the remote library and you're done.

What would be more useful is a hybrid library setup, so that I can have a single iTunes library file that contains references to both local files in the Music folder and remote libraries that are sometimes connected via home sharing. Right now I have a 1TB drive connected to an airport extreme, a desktop, and a laptop. There is no reason to have my entire library in 3 places (laptop, desktop, backup), yet right now I have it set up that way so I can watch movies on the go, watch movies on the TV (via the desktop) and have a backup.

In reality I should have most of the content only stored remotely, since the vast majority of the time I have fast internet even while on the go, and Back to my mac ensure continuous access to the AE drive. Even if it's too slow to stream an entire movie, I should be able to 'localize' a remote library file by copying back over the internet in a far away hotel.

However, it order for this to work iTunes has to seamlessly integrate them. I don't want songs I can't play to show up while traveling, and I don't want duplicate to show up if a local and a remote library are both connected.

 

[icecavern]

Although the idea of having your data in the cloud is OK, it's just not practical right now. I have a 10Mb cable internet connection at home, great you think, stream no problem... But no, there are fair usage caps on this bandwidth which mean it's completely impractical. You pay for the speed of link here, but every ISP puts a usage cap on it. Once you start streaming all your viewing, it's no longer sufficient.

Same with my iPad. Yes I have a 3G contract, with 3Gb of allowance a month, but is that good enough if I listen to music and/or watch video all day? And this is over 3G, so not good enough to stream a HD movie without stuttering. Hell even BBC iPlayer struggles to be watchable at times over 3G, and that's no where near HD quality.

The other thing is the economy. Do you really want all of the content you've paid for residing on a companies server, with no backup of your own? Just think, Apple servers hold all your content, you've paid them for it. Steve retires and it all goes down the pan. Apple goes bust and you've lost ALL your movies and music. Now I'm not saying that is going to happen, but you just don't know.

There is a huge market for media servers, or else these home media content companies like crestron etc wouldn't exist, and there's an even bigger market IMO for a similar thing but lower cost. Apple are so close to doing it, I just can't see why they wouldn't. It allows you to use all your purchased content, purchase if you like as we do now to download, or stream your data from the cloud. Personally if they gave you both choices like this they must be onto an even bigger winner.

Pete

 

[JLB-UK]

Hmmm, this has me thinking. Do content owners really want viewers to be able to do this? This opens up a can of worms where one country has access to movies that another country does not. What's to stop someone from having a friend or family member in one country to purchase a movie to be viewed in another country?

This would totally kill of the whole Region Coding system.

But the purchase would still be done on your iTunes account. If the cloud is also linked to the iTunes account then there is no problem

You buy a show in the UK iTunes Store and its on your computer and in the cloud. You go travelling, login to your cloud on your iPad and stream it down

This way, the region coding system would still work

 

[mstrze]

yeah 10 years ago I got 56kbps for $40/month.

For just internet access? You got ripped off.

Well, yes based on your experience, you are getting more for less. But most in the US especially are paying a good 2-3 times more for their internet connectivity compared to 10 years ago...WITH some ISPs including those evil download limits.

If you truly think telecom companies won't think twice about changing the consumer $100-200 in the next 5 years for super fast internet, I have a bridge I can sell you.

 

[trip1ex]

250 GB is only about 50 hours of iTunes video. Figure in a family viewing plus other broadband usage, and no, it's not much at all if the paradigm shifts. Will Comcast shift with it or compensate with higher data rates for loss of TV eyeballs? They'll charge more for those who use more, specifically video content.

Honestly your faith in the telecom industry is baseless considering their behavior to date. The U.S. is so far behind in bandwidth and speeds and we pay more for it.

?

First you can't argue bandwidth isn't getting cheaper all the time because it is. IT's a fact. Just like storage. Stop letting your hate of telecom cloud that.

Next, no where did I say anything about the telecom companies themselves. I don't have a crystal ball to know how much they will or won't stiff the customer. If you only have 1 provider in your area you probably won't enjoy as fast or as cheap of internet as someone who has multiple providers in their area. My crystal ball also doesn't tell me if the government will step in or not in the next 5 years and regulate broadband.

last, most people arne't watching the same shows over and over every month. Thus 50 hours of downloading is equal to 50 hours of streaming in terms of bandwidth. Thus you're going to have a problem with your cap no matter how you slice and dice it.

The solution for that is simple: get cable/satellite or rent/buy dvds/brs from Netflix,Redbox or a store.

 

[ftaok]

But the purchase would still be done on your iTunes account. If the cloud is also linked to the iTunes account then there is no problem

You buy a show in the UK iTunes Store and its on your computer and in the cloud. You go travelling, login to your cloud on your iPad and stream it down

This way, the region coding system would still work

Well, if the file is downloaded onto your computer and you bring it with you abroad, then there's no problem. However, if you bring your iPad abroad and stream it via the cloud, then there could be implications if someone wants to define streaming as "broadcasting".

I'm no lawyer and I don't pretend to know about copyright and distribution laws. I was just illustrating a potential issue with cloud distribution.

 

[ftaok]

First you can't argue bandwidth isn't getting cheaper all the time because it is. IT's a fact. Just like storage.

I don't think that anyone will argue that local storage is getting cheaper at a much faster rate than broadband speeds. Personally, I would like to have both options (cloud and local)

last, most people arne't watching the same shows over and over every month. Thus 50 hours of downloading is equal to 50 hours of streaming in terms of bandwidth. Thus you're going to have a problem with your cap no matter how you slice and dice it.

Actually, most families will watch the same show multiple times because not everyone in the family will sit down at the same time. Also, children are known to watch the same episode over and over and over. To me, purchasing media that are stored only in the cloud is not acceptable.

 

[KDR]

?

First you can't argue bandwidth isn't getting cheaper all the time because it is. IT's a fact. Just like storage. Stop letting your hate of telecom cloud that.

Next, no where did I say anything about the telecom companies themselves. I don't have a crystal ball to know how much they will or won't stiff the customer. If you only have 1 provider in your area you probably won't enjoy as fast or as cheap of internet as someone who has multiple providers in their area. My crystal ball also doesn't tell me if the government will step in or not in the next 5 years and regulate broadband.

last, most people arne't watching the same shows over and over every month. Thus 50 hours of downloading is equal to 50 hours of streaming in terms of bandwidth. Thus you're going to have a problem with your cap no matter how you slice and dice it.

The solution for that is simple: get cable/satellite or rent/buy dvds/brs from Netflix,Redbox or a store.

You are correct that cost per unit is down, but that's a little misleading. Usage has changed so much that you have to forget the quoted speed for a moment and think about the cost of an acceptable connection in total. That cost hasn't changed and the concern is that many of the same companies who we want to ditch for TV service are the same ones we need for internet access. If we expect them to invest in the infrastructure to support our connected media devices, we're going to have to pay, especially when the revenue from the TV side of their business starts to fall. The only thing that will keep that in check is competition from wireless providers that can service residential units that are currently under the thumb of phone and cable companies. Time will tell.

 

[kiranmk2]

Surely the obvious answer is offer both. So when you buy a film it downloads to your local storage and as you fill up that 2tb nas, you can either buy a bigger disk (3tb drives are trickling out now) or you can delete the film you don't watch so often safe in the knowledge that you can stream it or redownloa it later as you have effectively bought a license to watch that film. Of course, at the moment if you want to buy media you I've to do it on a computer as Apple seems to believe that everyone who buys an AppleTv is too stupid to cope with the idea of storage management.

A big future issue is how families will share content if everyone has their own iTunes account. I can't see the media giants being happy with the idea of the kids leaving home and still being able to watch their parents' films without debuting them...

 

[KDR]

Another thing to consider is that cloud storage is much more consistent with the copyright paranoia that has been crippling audio and video technology. I'm sure the studios would much rather host the content themselves and looking into the future would rather cut out Apple and the cable TV companies altogether or at least as much as possible. Why pay a middleman when you can get money straight from the end user. The only wrinkle in that is they need companies like Apple to invest in the technology for the connected devices. Apple's not going to do that without a cut of the action. It's going to be fun to watch this play out.

 

[Tilpots]

An AirPlay capable Time Capsule/Airport Extreme Base Station is the next logical step. I'm in the market for an AEBS right now, but I'm waiting to see if if this happens. If it does happen, I think the latest would be at Apple's January event.

There's a few opportunities to launch it earlier from the rumors going around. The APTC would work perfectly with a new MBA. It would hook new Verizon iPhone users. And with the Holiday's approaching, they may just release it on it's own... An APTC would be important enough (in my dorky mind) to have a Media Event all it's own.

 

[mstrze]

Does anyone know if hard drive access speed can/is be(ing) improved upon, or will the copying of 1-2 TB of data still take many hours? Isn't there a limit to the amount of data that can be read and written on the discs and also a bottleneck at the port itself (eSATA being the fastest, but many externals on FW and USB)? I may be overthinking this, but surely we should be aiming for a goal where transferring 1TB should take less than an hour. Is that possible with current technology?

Even with larger drives for home storage, I think the sheer amount of time required to back-up and transfer ever-growing files and libraries from one physical disc to another is one of the biggest problems we are facing right now. I think my original Time Machine backup of approximately 700GB took over 12 hours. (Don't know the exacts, but it was something I had to let run overnight. The ironic thing...continual drive access for 12+ hours to perform said backup cannot be good for the physical health of the drive so making a backup actually hastens the need for that backup .)

That's why I see a cloud-based future in media.

Again...in my theory of how this will work, if one wishes to download, it will be allowed, but certainly not necessary. I foresee the iTunes cloud knowing/remembering all of your purchases and allowing you to access your 'owned' songs from anywhere you have an internet connection and iTunes. This would likely include the ability to download those files to (perhaps) a limited number of machines.

Airplay and the pure streaming aspect of the new ATV and the NC data center solidified this idea for me.