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Apple TV likely to be upgraded soon?
- Thread starter Adgeman
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Obviously you have never seen an Apple TV nor used one to jump to that conclusion.
I used to think that a DVR built into the aTV would be a great and needed function. After having 1 aTV for a month I added 2 more so that every TV in the house has one. After 6 months of having the aTVs I sold my Tivo HD because I just didn't use them anymore.
I don't think you need the DVR functionality. What Apple needs to do is make people understand that they don't need it anymore.
I will admit that I have used aTVflash to allow other codexs. If you haven't seen the way Boxee manages the TV shows you are missing something.
My opinion is that Apple needs to look more at what the people that really use aTV think works great.
I don't think you need the DVR functionality. What Apple needs to do is make people understand that they don't need it anymore.
I will admit that I have used aTVflash to allow other codexs. If you haven't seen the way Boxee manages the TV shows you are missing something.
My opinion is that Apple needs to look more at what the people that really use aTV think works great.
I do think it would be a killer app if they integrated a app store into the aTV so you could download games, etc.
Of course that would require more than a 2 button remote! : )
Of course that would require more than a 2 button remote! : )
I do like the ATV as is but I don't see how I could get rid of my DVR. At least with the native ATV. I just checked and I have 21 shows that I record. Most of them are network shows in HD. I think if I could watch them via ATV in HD without having to pay $2 per show it would be an option. Maybe if you could get Basic Network Shows via iTunes for maybe $20 per month and with the option to skip commercials then this would be an option.
With that said how do you watch network tv with the ability to skip commercials and not pay a lot more money? I do not use boxee so maybe you have to hack the ATV to accomplish what you are doing. Please provide a little more details.
What are you talking about? That is the dumbest response I have ever heard.. I have two of them, one in the bedroom and one in the living room, and yes the quality does not compare to that of blueray!!
who would think that the aTV needs netflix? isnt that contrary to what Apple is doing themselves? That makes no sense.
As far as features....no DVD drive, no Blu-Ray. An app store for quick widgets would be good. Weather or sports scores. Nothing major or out of control. The ability to plug in an isight or webcam could be fun but not a major features. Just small things.
As far as features....no DVD drive, no Blu-Ray. An app store for quick widgets would be good. Weather or sports scores. Nothing major or out of control. The ability to plug in an isight or webcam could be fun but not a major features. Just small things.
blu ray was designed for 1080p, aTV was designed for 720P. Why compare the two, its 2 different sets of technology.
Well professor.... why don't you read my question again all the way from the beginning.
you sure know how to make friends dont ya noob! You said comparing aTV to Blu-ray is no fun. Of course its no fun, your not comparing like technology. Maybe you need to understand what the aTV is and what it isnt before you go off crying about features that it will never support.
Keep your pants on, the both of you. Send e-mails to each other if you're going to fight.
Now, to my point, who says the Apple TV will never support 1080p?
I dont think it will ever support 1080p because the content is simply too large. Very large files to transfer even with compression. 1080p is still not a majority standard even when just comparing HDTV sales only. Most sets are still 720p and even with broadband the speeds to download an 720p movie are not that great. Sure there are random exceptions to the rule, but in general file size and lack of 1080p sets out there really doesnt send Apple the need to upgrade that portion of the hardware.
Also with ISPs beginning to lockdown bandwidth usage and charge nasty amounts of money when you go over just one 1080p movie could put you near your limit on alot of ISPs.
Also with ISPs beginning to lockdown bandwidth usage and charge nasty amounts of money when you go over just one 1080p movie could put you near your limit on alot of ISPs.
That's an odd comment - you often take your pants off before you're about to fight??
Well, I do. Never say never, but certainly not in its current hardware iteration. First, the existing hardware is simply not capable. That's the reason aTV won't recognize video files above 720p. I have a few movies with "out-of-spec" resolution that I "force" aTV to play via ATVFiles - and they play very choppy.
Second - where are you going to get 1080p content? Broadcast TV, Sattellite, and most of the stuff you download off the Internet is 720p at best. The only source of 1080p content today is BluRay.. this still has ways to go before it gets ported to aTV.
Every so often I see people say they get rid of the DVR or cable and use ATV exclusively. I too don't understand how anyone can do that. Cable is $110 or so for me and between my wife and me we record 25-30 shows. Subscribing to those via ATV would be much more expensive than having cable.
And now that Tivo streams Netflix ATV is in a weaker position I fear. I still love my ATV and currently have my entire DVD collection encoded for it now but if Apple keeps up it's current business practice for the ATV I just don't see how it can succeed.
While the Boxee hack is nice the quality is terrible and I don't recommend it for anyone who likes HD quality video.
Of those 25-30 shows, what percentage is also available free OTA? If you can pull the majority of the shows literally out of thin air, then you'd save a ton of cash with a DVR feature. Best thing is, the OTA quality is superb.
My 21 shows are mostly available OTA but I would still need a DVR. However, I would think they could put the DVR in a Mac Mini and allow me to stream that to multiple rooms via the AppleTV. My problem with current cable DVR's is that most are 2 channel only and also most do not allow multi-room sharing. What I would like is a minimum of 4 channel recording and also the ability to organize the recording by user. Or if I could just stream those shows that I normally record (going back about 1 week or so) then I would not need a DVR. But the cost would have to be reasonable. In that case I would have 1 AppleTV per TV. Of course you would still need some option to see live local news type shows. Full circle back to a DVR with TV Tuners.
Well, you can do all the PVR stuff on a Mini with EyeTV and a pair of HDHomeRun network tuners.. This gives you a total of 4x digital tuners (although beats me why you'd need so many particularly for OTA..)
Live TV to AppleTV's is a missing bit.. some people run EyeTV on aTV's themselves, I haven't tried that. In my house, I just run coax to each of my TVs for live TV feeds, as all my TVs have built in ATSC tuners already.
So you can pretty much do what you described.
how is that? 25 season passes on itunes (avg of $40 per season)= $1000/yr
Your cable set up at $105 a month = $1260/yr
Then add in all the free news and other content via podcasts...it makes perfect sense.
Plus you are dollar voting for tv shows with your money...not subsidizing all the crap out there with your subscription payments.
We all would like ATV to be a lot of things, but I think Apple a specific agenda on what they want it to be. Apple has made a lot of money in the media content industry by selling music on iTunes. I am sure they plan to try to duplicate their success in the Movie / TV market.
I have heard lots of ATV dream lists and here are my thoughts on what is possible and what is not.
Add a DVD/Blu-Ray player to Apple TV: I love the idea, but apple will never have it. It would be like asking apple to add a CD player to the original iPod. Apple wants you to buy and or rent from iTunes. Apple is ahead of the curve on being medialess. The Macbook Air has no drive. They have been promoting the .me service to upload photos and movies on to send to friends and family instead of burning DVD's. I think the lack of Blu-Ray in general from the Mac line up is solid proof that Apple wants to focus on the content.
PVR and/or Cable card slot: Never going to happen. Again, Apple basicly wants to have their iTunes become self serve online media company. What I mean by this is they want to be an alternative to Cable, Satilite or FTA TV broadcast. Instead of having to set your PVR to record 30 Rock @ 9:00pm, you set your ATV to dowload 30 Rock and watch at your convenience. iTunes only real challenge is trying to stream live events like news and sports.
eSata/external storage: Apple has never ( to my knowledge) sold a product that came with eSATA port. The posibility of exteral storage via USB may be a possibility, but I think Apples master plan is to have one Central iTunes computer in a home and your storage is expandable by how much HD space you have or by any NAS storage.
1080p HD sound: This has a very good possibility of happening sooner than later. With the new graphics cards Apple is adding to their line up, ATV should be able to handle 1080p. That being said, 1080p movies and TV shows would be HUGE files and take a long time to download. Sat and cable HD is only broadcast in 1080i. Apple might be in no rush to get to 1080p except to have the braging rights. Having 1080p too soon, might put too much pressure on them to provide 1080p content, which would provide most people with a very slow and frusterating movie experience.
If ATV does get any updates, it will be the following:
App Store: Very successful on the iPhone, would be a great entry point in trying to use ATV as a game console. Legal way for people to mod their ATV
Bluetooth: If people want to add a keyboard to their set up
SSD: This would give the ATV a bit quicker performance and run as hot
Bigger Processor: faster
iPhone intergration: Be able to choose a moive over your iPhone for your ATV to dowload. Movie or TV show is waiting for you on your ATV when you arrive home ready to watch.
Just my 2 cents.
I have heard lots of ATV dream lists and here are my thoughts on what is possible and what is not.
Add a DVD/Blu-Ray player to Apple TV: I love the idea, but apple will never have it. It would be like asking apple to add a CD player to the original iPod. Apple wants you to buy and or rent from iTunes. Apple is ahead of the curve on being medialess. The Macbook Air has no drive. They have been promoting the .me service to upload photos and movies on to send to friends and family instead of burning DVD's. I think the lack of Blu-Ray in general from the Mac line up is solid proof that Apple wants to focus on the content.
PVR and/or Cable card slot: Never going to happen. Again, Apple basicly wants to have their iTunes become self serve online media company. What I mean by this is they want to be an alternative to Cable, Satilite or FTA TV broadcast. Instead of having to set your PVR to record 30 Rock @ 9:00pm, you set your ATV to dowload 30 Rock and watch at your convenience. iTunes only real challenge is trying to stream live events like news and sports.
eSata/external storage: Apple has never ( to my knowledge) sold a product that came with eSATA port. The posibility of exteral storage via USB may be a possibility, but I think Apples master plan is to have one Central iTunes computer in a home and your storage is expandable by how much HD space you have or by any NAS storage.
1080p HD sound: This has a very good possibility of happening sooner than later. With the new graphics cards Apple is adding to their line up, ATV should be able to handle 1080p. That being said, 1080p movies and TV shows would be HUGE files and take a long time to download. Sat and cable HD is only broadcast in 1080i. Apple might be in no rush to get to 1080p except to have the braging rights. Having 1080p too soon, might put too much pressure on them to provide 1080p content, which would provide most people with a very slow and frusterating movie experience.
If ATV does get any updates, it will be the following:
App Store: Very successful on the iPhone, would be a great entry point in trying to use ATV as a game console. Legal way for people to mod their ATV
Bluetooth: If people want to add a keyboard to their set up
SSD: This would give the ATV a bit quicker performance and run as hot
Bigger Processor: faster
iPhone intergration: Be able to choose a moive over your iPhone for your ATV to dowload. Movie or TV show is waiting for you on your ATV when you arrive home ready to watch.
Just my 2 cents.
A lot of you are right, but nobody has pointed out the obvious. Why would Apple sell a device to record from your cable company and let the cable company bill you monthly for content when Apple is also a content provider? Duh. They want you to pay them for the content, not sell you a gadget that will let you pay someone else for the content.
Same goes for the BluRay drive. They want to sell you content. Providing a way for content to get on the device without you paying Apple for it defeats the purpose.
The Apple TV is not going to be a cutting edge device. It's not meant to be upgraded frequently. Why do you think take-2 was free for everyone that owns an ATV? Because Apple is nice? No, because the device isn't the profit center. The content is the profit center, the device is simply the portal.
Look for ATV to only getting needed upgrades. Look for it to stay as cheap as Apple can make it. Don't look for any feature that would give you access to content that you didn't buy from Apple.
Same goes for the BluRay drive. They want to sell you content. Providing a way for content to get on the device without you paying Apple for it defeats the purpose.
The Apple TV is not going to be a cutting edge device. It's not meant to be upgraded frequently. Why do you think take-2 was free for everyone that owns an ATV? Because Apple is nice? No, because the device isn't the profit center. The content is the profit center, the device is simply the portal.
Look for ATV to only getting needed upgrades. Look for it to stay as cheap as Apple can make it. Don't look for any feature that would give you access to content that you didn't buy from Apple.
I like that last one.
The idea that my iTunes Account would KNOW what other devices I have, would be very cool.
Let's say I want to rent an HD movie, I could just go to iTunes on my iPhone and rent it for my Apple TV. It would tell iTunes to tell Apple TV and by the time I got home, it is there.
At the very least throw bluetooth at it for a keyboard/mouse and give us Safari. I mean, that is a no brainer.
I don't think the App store would be the way to go, not enough people out there to make it more than a "hobby".
BZ
The idea that my iTunes Account would KNOW what other devices I have, would be very cool.
Let's say I want to rent an HD movie, I could just go to iTunes on my iPhone and rent it for my Apple TV. It would tell iTunes to tell Apple TV and by the time I got home, it is there.
At the very least throw bluetooth at it for a keyboard/mouse and give us Safari. I mean, that is a no brainer.
I don't think the App store would be the way to go, not enough people out there to make it more than a "hobby".
BZ
I respeactfully disagree regarding the App store. I think an App store for the ATV is a no brainer. It is a way for Apple to make themselves different from the other direct movie boxes out there and let the end user customize their viewing experience. The app store will let Apple control and profit from the use of 3rd party Apps. I think the App store is a way to make ATV MORE than a hobby for Apple.