The Linux take on what Apple's TV could be

[Madmic23]

http://www.ubuntu.com/tv

Looks like Ubuntu has dne it again. First, they beat Apple to the punch with a desktop app store, and now they are coming out of the gates with a new TV concept.
This isn't actual hardware yet, just software being run off of a computer, but their plan is to get this picked up by TV manufacturers. I don't know how they plan to swing the licensing here, as it looks like they want cable and satellite companies to bypass the boxes and just hook straight into the TV.
You can rent or purchase movies thought he TV, which will be equipped with solid state storage. They will most likely stream content from their cloud service, Ubuntu One, since that's what they already do with music.
I know this is all just vapor ware right now, and what ever Apple comes out with will probably be completely different than this, but what does everyone think of the concept?

 

[CocoaPuffs]

Perhaps I am missing something, but I don't see anything beyond what Google TV tried to do, nor what a jailbroken ATV2 could do.

 

[Madmic23]

They're trying to get this picked up by manufacturers. It has a built in PVR for recording live TV, allows you to rent / purchase movies, and requires no external boxes. Just the TV, and only one remote. That's how it's different.
Will it take off? Probably not. But I like the concept.

 

[Spencie]

I think it's pretty cool, but still waiting for a la carte live TV channels. First to that wins the competition in my eyes.

 

[notjustjay]

In my eyes Boxee Box is sooooo close, but yet falls short in significant ways. For example, when you watch a TV show, it looks like a web browser on your TV -- because it is a web browser. More importantly, the video plays in a frame in the web browser window, with banner ads all around, and if you want to play it full-screen, like most people would on a TV, you have to "mouse" over and click on the full-screen button, just like on your computer. Not very elegant at all!

Otherwise, Boxee is a good model for how it seems to aggregate a great selection of content from TV channels and from the web. Get something like that, with a cleaned up interface, built into a TV, and combine that with live and PVR viewing from the ATSC tuner, and you'll have a great combo that will take on set-top boxes.