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Apples Agenda for the media event?
- Thread starter btgordon
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milozauckerman said:
O yeah, thats how we have external DVD drives for our computer. I think you may have meant to say wireless-USB, which I haven't heard much about...but I believe it is supposed to have similar transfer rates as USB.
The real question is: Are people's internet connections capable of streaming DVD quality video? I think not.
This is fake. If I'm wrong, then Apple's in trouble because this is a horrible idea. People don't want to pay $15 to stream a movie. No access to your (DVD quality) movie when on a plane flight? People have to clog up their internet connection whenever they want to watch a movie?
NO WAY
Peace said:
Typically, whenever there's videocommunications, it's doing something like showing off a new version of iChat or the iSight or something. iChat? Nope. That won't be getting anything new until Leopard. iSight? Doubt that either. Could updated iSights be released? Doubtful, but possible. If they are, would there be anything to show off? No, the iSight is a camera...nothing more, nothing less. What makes an iSight great is iChat, see my previous point. If there is going to be video chat, then something new will probably be demo'ed. Which leaves us to the only possible product that would be new and need demoing....an iPhone.
That said....do I think there will be any video chat and thus, an iPhone? No. I think it's clear that tomorrows event revolves around movies, with the Showtime stuff and all.
dongmin said:
So, if that's true (and that's a big if), then, you need to have .Mac to purchase movies. And, if you have a slow connection (maybe not dial up, but not super fast broadband either), you're screwed. No, not gonna happen.
Apple calling a device TubePort? I don't think so.
Streaming movies for $15? Who would buy them?
$5 more so you can view it on your iPod? Totally flies in the face of the iTunes model for multiple device sharing.
And 2 dongles?
Give me a break. Nothing to see here, move along...
Streaming movies for $15? Who would buy them?
$5 more so you can view it on your iPod? Totally flies in the face of the iTunes model for multiple device sharing.
And 2 dongles?
Give me a break. Nothing to see here, move along...
OK, so I just looked up wireless USB on Wiki. The range is somewhat limited:
480 Mbps for up to 3 meters (a shade under 10 ft)
110 Mbps for up to 10 meters (33 ft)
So your MacBook + dongle needs to be within 33 ft of your TV for this thing to work. Sounds a bit dodgy.
480 Mbps for up to 3 meters (a shade under 10 ft)
110 Mbps for up to 10 meters (33 ft)
So your MacBook + dongle needs to be within 33 ft of your TV for this thing to work. Sounds a bit dodgy.
Well the TUAW report says the service will be like iDisk so it doesn't necessarily have to have anything to do with .Mac. But it's still bullocks if you ask me.yg17 said:
btgordon said:
I would not be suprised if somthing like this was to be announced, but I'd expect and 802.11 setup, though a Airport, Imagine this Airport Express featuring airport and TELEPORT
I like the teleport name, Tubeport sounds ickey
Not gonna happen.
No remote control of the movies? Uh-uh.
$99 for a "Tube Port" when the airport express costs $129? Uh-uh.
Ah this is written, introduce movies, then a nano, then iPod then this Tube thingy and then the movie price?
Whatever he is smoking is too potent... Maybe Jobs has become scatter brained...
This is the worst one in a while...
No remote control of the movies? Uh-uh.
$99 for a "Tube Port" when the airport express costs $129? Uh-uh.
Ah this is written, introduce movies, then a nano, then iPod then this Tube thingy and then the movie price?
Whatever he is smoking is too potent... Maybe Jobs has become scatter brained...
This is the worst one in a while...
One of these things he quotes here, I know to be 100% accurate.
Information he would not be able to get without being in the know. As far as the rest ? I can't say for sure, but why would he have one thing 100% correct and not the rest ?
Which one I know is correct ? I can't tell you....
Information he would not be able to get without being in the know. As far as the rest ? I can't say for sure, but why would he have one thing 100% correct and not the rest ?
Which one I know is correct ? I can't tell you....
btgordon said:
livingfortoday said:
It could still be a pick-up line for a guy, you just need to phrase it right:
"I'll show you my TubePort, if you show me yours..."
However, I still think it's a terrible name.
Gee, wasn't Apple working on Wireless Firewire at some point in time?
For $15 or whatever, I imagine they keep the movie on the server for you to stream down whenever you want to watch it. And I don't know if it would be tied directly to iDisk since not everyone has .Mac -- and iDisk is so horribly slow over WebDAV to begin with, it wouldn't be any good for streaming video. They'd really need that caching/peering technology to pay off in spades to make something like this happen.
Even still, it's way too expensive. If I'm not going to get fancy packaging and other extras, I'm sticking with my GreenCine subscription.
TubePort sounds daft as hell. What an inelegant solution, worthy of a forgotten skunkworks deep in the bowels of Redmond.
I hope this report is largely BS. If a wide-screen iPod with virtual touchwheel does surface, I'm buying one for myself for Xmas.
For $15 or whatever, I imagine they keep the movie on the server for you to stream down whenever you want to watch it. And I don't know if it would be tied directly to iDisk since not everyone has .Mac -- and iDisk is so horribly slow over WebDAV to begin with, it wouldn't be any good for streaming video. They'd really need that caching/peering technology to pay off in spades to make something like this happen.
Even still, it's way too expensive. If I'm not going to get fancy packaging and other extras, I'm sticking with my GreenCine subscription.
TubePort sounds daft as hell. What an inelegant solution, worthy of a forgotten skunkworks deep in the bowels of Redmond.
I hope this report is largely BS. If a wide-screen iPod with virtual touchwheel does surface, I'm buying one for myself for Xmas.
Chundles said:
I'm no video expert so don't flame me but...
I just did a quick check using http://www.videohelp.com/calc.htm
and a 90minute 1.36 GB DVD quality feature with 224 kbps is 1846kbps
kbps = kilobit per second (not byte)...
I have a 5mbps connection speed but after overhead it is more like 4 so the connection is no problem but you still can't stream at this speed because the movie plays too fast for it to finish downloading first...
The USB2 is a little less than 400mbps so it isn't a problem. 802.11g is 54mbps which may not be able to stream video unbuffered but if you let it buffer for a bit you should have no problem. Main problem people will run into is that if you have a 750kbps connection or less then things won't be too fast to download.
I just downloaded a movie from Amazon Unbox tonight and it took 1.5 hours to completely download the 1.5Gb file but it let me start streaming after 1/3 had completed downloading. My connection is 5mbps but I'm pretty sure Amazon was capping the download spead to 300KBps (Kilobytes) or 2.4Mbps (i'm not sure that I did that right but its something like that) as I checked some bandwidth sites and I should have been getting something like 420KBps after overhead.
So basically, with H.264 Apple should be able to deliver under 3 hour total download times for people with 3Mbps or faster connections and streaming after a certain amount has completed. The wireless part is irrelevent because 802.11g is faster than your internet anyway and if the receiving end has some memory for a small buffer before it delivers it to the TV then you shouldn't see any lag after it begins playing...
If those are the prices, Apple can forget about taking over the living room because Verizon's On-Demand service with Fios is going to kill this where it is available. It will be instant because the content will be delivered at the full 15Mbps or more and it is already at your TV so no need for wireless streaming. Also, the price is crazy. Amazon is already cheaper than what is listed and offers rentals; which, despite the lack of a nice UI and general user-friendlyness is fairly compelling. I rented an older movie for $2.99 and it downloaded in 1.5 hours and was available to stream after 25 minutes. The only piece missing was how to get it from my laptop to the TV which I solved with a $5 S-video cable. Too bad they won't support Mac OS... Wireless would be nice, but in this case the software sells the hardware and what is listed at the beginning of this thread is completely meh to me. Jobs is completely wrong here IMO. At this price structure, rentals are the way to go. Why would anyone buy a movie at full price without the physical packaging or extras? I am not even taking Netflix into account, which, looks like will be a major competitor for a long time to come unless Apple will start offering rentals under $4 like Amazon...Even then, many will stick with the cheaper Netflix...
Moonlight said:
Dumb luck? A good guess? None of this stuff seems too hard to guess at given the rumors that have been around for quite some time. The big problem with the old Think Secret rumor is that Amazon has demonstrated that the studios aren't that scared of downloaded movies.
I don't think that anyone has said it, yet, so I'm happy to be the first. If this is what Apple is going to announce, then it is a far worse solution than what Amazon announced last week. That, in and of itself, is the most powerful argument for this being BS, if you ask me.
One more thing....
This tube device would be Mac only? That in itself doesn't make sense. Especially at $99.
This tube device would be Mac only? That in itself doesn't make sense. Especially at $99.
My take:
Reasons why it may be true:
1. It's kinda disappointing, which is typical for Apple events. I'm not saying Apple is doing bad things, it's just that our expectations are always too high.
2. Has the rhythm and timing of a typical keynote
Reasons Why it may be false:
1. Keeping the Nano at the same capacity is beyond foolish. 8 gig sims are out and in competing products. Why would Apple not bump? (Heck 64 gig SIMMs were announced today from long term partner Samsung. What if the new nano has 64 gigs of flash memory?)
2. TubePort offering sounds too dumb for Apple. How could Apple ensure that the streaming worked between devices and over the internet? They can't, so it won't happen.
3. Pricing seems bad for what it is. I've gotta believe given the fact that Apple basically convinced no vested parties to offer content, the term of service have to be better than this.
My first instinct was that this was correct, and I was disappointed. But the more I thought about it, the more flaws I see. Fingers crossed that Apple has more to show than this.
Reasons why it may be true:
1. It's kinda disappointing, which is typical for Apple events. I'm not saying Apple is doing bad things, it's just that our expectations are always too high.
2. Has the rhythm and timing of a typical keynote
Reasons Why it may be false:
1. Keeping the Nano at the same capacity is beyond foolish. 8 gig sims are out and in competing products. Why would Apple not bump? (Heck 64 gig SIMMs were announced today from long term partner Samsung. What if the new nano has 64 gigs of flash memory?)
2. TubePort offering sounds too dumb for Apple. How could Apple ensure that the streaming worked between devices and over the internet? They can't, so it won't happen.
3. Pricing seems bad for what it is. I've gotta believe given the fact that Apple basically convinced no vested parties to offer content, the term of service have to be better than this.
My first instinct was that this was correct, and I was disappointed. But the more I thought about it, the more flaws I see. Fingers crossed that Apple has more to show than this.
Snowy_River said:
I agree 100% and think that if they offer a worse solution than Amazon then they might as well not announce anything at all. Of course, the studios may have blackballed them for refusing to adopt a variable price structure and Jobs is on the board for Disney. Part of his job is to make sure that they make maximum profits for the shareholders. Can you say confilict of interests?
BWhaler said:
I Agree again...There is no way this is true. If it is then Apple is getting way too greedy and deserve to lose this segment.
I can see them using the iDisk similar to the "media library" at Amazon to back up purchases so that you don't have to buy things twice if you lose them...
All of these movie stores require at least a 3Mbps connection to even be worth looking at although with buffing the wireless device could be compelling if the media store works out. As I said earlier though, Apple has alot of competition with on-demand, physical media (HD, Blueray etc), Netflix, and now Amazon...
dongmin said:
33 ft radius allows for what? a 3400 foot area to arrange your tv and computer in? I think most people could suffer with that.
Granted, the whole thing sounds fallacious but the range of wireless USB is not the problem.