Apple TV is the future of media entertainment
By Triston McIntyre
With the release of Apple TV, the face of modern media entertainment has changed forever. In fact, it might just be too modern.
Though the last year or so has seen the first skirmishes between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD high definition video formats, Apple’s vision for Apple TV may just be a step in front of that.
Let’s take a step back and look at the big next-generation picture. High definition is a no-question permanent part of next generation technology. However, are discs truly going to define the 21st century?
Discs have limits, and take up space. They get scratched, stolen (or “borrowed”), and require ample amounts of shelf space for any real movie buff.
Why not skip right past the disc phase and go directly to hard drive stored content? With the price of hard drives dropping rapidly, 500 gigabytes and even terabytes are now affordable to many people.
A terabyte of storage could hold a multitude of HD-quality movies, and many, many more DVD-quality movies. Storing movies on a hard drive keeps them from getting scratched, permanently “borrowed,” and saves that valuable shelf space, and with a backup drive for those catostrophic occasions, you don’t have to worry about losing your precious movies.
Apple TV is the first step in that direction. It unifies computer storage technology with home networking and television to present the way media will be distributed and stored in the home of the future.
Unfortunately, there are a few drawbacks to Apple TV. First, you must use iTunes and only content available on iTunes for streaming to your television set. This means you can’t buy content anywhere else but iTunes and integrate it with Apple TV.
Secondly, Apple is not providing any HD content. This could be linked to the fact that the market is not full of large-sized hard drives, and lets be honest; an HD movie takes up a lot of space. I think we can predict HD content being released when larger-sized hard drives become standard.
Now, onto why I think Apple TV will have to become better very shortly. First, Apple and DRM protected content in general is under an immense amount of pressure to allow users to integrate downloadable content in many different programs and controllers.
Essentially that means that Apple will be forced, at some point, to allow users to upload their own content to iTunes for viewing on Apple TV. That will also mean users will be able to download content via iTunes and view it in other programs. With pressure from both US and EU consumers, it must change at some point.
Though Apple’s iTV may have some drawbacks currently, Apple will be forced to vastly improve the nature of iTunes and Apple TV in the very near future, and hopefully we can skip over this messy HD video business.
Update 1: I wanted to thank some of the more astute readers for correcting my misconception that only iTunes-purchased content could be played. If that truly is the case, we can overlook all of that fluff about how it is a picture of the future and skip straight to the future being present! Thanks again.
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March 22nd, 2007
“Essentially that means that Apple will be forced, at some point, to allow users to upload their own content to iTunes for viewing on Apple TV. That will also mean users will be able to download content via iTunes and view it in other programs.”
You can already “upload your own content” and “view it in other programs”. Nothing is preventing a 3rd party from creating a program that will play FairPlay content using Quick Time library!
March 22nd, 2007
Dan,
Thanks for the comment; I realize (as a mac user) that you can load content not purchased through iTunes into iTunes. However, for viewing on Apple TV, the content must be compliant with the protocol of iTunes (i.e. fairplay), for it to be streamable to Apple TV. If you know otherwise, please let me know; this is fairly new technology and from what I know of it, such is the case.
Furthermore, in regard to viewing iTunes content in other players, I was not accounting for the type of “workaround” of an illegal nature that you refer to. I’m sure there is someone who has developed software to circumvent fairplay; however, in reference to Apple TV, I think it is fairly irrelevant to discuss the possibility of some 3rd party program that could crack Fairplay.
March 22nd, 2007
“However, for viewing on Apple TV, the content must be compliant with the protocol of iTunes (i.e. fairplay), for it to be streamable to Apple TV. ”
Assuming you mean “format” (a protocol is a communications method, not a file type), the format of iTunes is not Fairplay. Fairplay is the optional DRM layer that is added to AAC song or h.264 video purchased at the iTunes store. H.264 and AAC are industry standard open formats controlled by the MPEG group. They are just two of the formats iTunes uses, but the only two the store sells.
Video content does not (repeat: does not) require Fairplay to be playable on AppleTV. It does, however have to be in H.264 standard MPEG-4 format. Likewise, audio does not have to be in AAC format, nor does it have to come from the iTunes store.
In simpler terms: If it plays on your video iPod, chances are it plays on AppleTV, whether you bought it from Apple, ripped it yourself, or downloaded it from online.
Resolution sizes are pretty much the only difference.
March 22nd, 2007
So, you are saying that Podcasts must contain DRM? Regardless of what the technical specifications state on the Apple TV webpage, I am suggesting one can view their movies on the Apple TV regardless of whether they contain DRM. And Eye TV has stated a software update will allow one to stream shows. As Elgato maker of EyeTV quotes Apple: “if it’s on iTunes, it’s on Apple TV”. Just as you can export TV shows recorded from the EyeTV to iTunes and then to an iPod, one will be able to export from the EyeTV DVR to the Apple TV (via iTunes) using another export feature from a future release of the EyeTV software; I suspect it will be 720p if it was originally aired as such. Why would Apple want to step on the toes of such a fine product as EyeTV? Sounds like the Apple TV is going to be an explosive product once everyone catches on as to its possibilities.
March 22nd, 2007
You can convert basically any kind of video to be played on the Apple TV. It’s just the time of converting it from whatever format it’s in to the H.264 format. I imagine it won’t take long for scripts or apps to appear that will convert those bittorrent HDTV movies into H.264 format for you to watch on the Apple TV.
March 22nd, 2007
thanks for the comments, gents. I was apparently mistaken, and have been promptly corrected, so thanks for the feedback.:) It’s hard to review and analyze a product without getting to play with it, and I haven’t gotten my hands on one yet, so I am more than pleased to know there are ways to get all formatted material to play via Apple TV. Keep up the good commentary, and please, keep me in line when I stray too far :)
March 23rd, 2007
Triston
You can already upload to iTunes your own video content for others to download and watch for free from the iTunes music store: video podcasts.
“Podcasts” (audio) is listed as playable content on Apple TV. Hopefully all the free “video” podcast content currently posted at iTunes music store will be able to play downloaded from the iTunes store as well…
Were you aware of video podcasts at iTunes or did you mean something else when you wrote “Apple will be forced, at some point, to allow users to upload their own content to iTunes”?
Thanks
March 26th, 2007
I don’t see packaged media formats going away anytime soon. Video On Demand services will be developed as an alternative to packaged media for those people who don’t want to go to the video store or use prepaid envelopes anymore (say goodbye to Netflix DVD rentals — don’t mean any offense to Netflix though), no more shipping and handling charges, rewinding won’t be that big a problem anymore for the iTunes, CinemaNow.com, Amazon Unbox or WalMart Video Downloads customer.
Video On Demand is in fact cheaper than buying packaged media because there are no manufacturing costs tied to the sale of the media (like VHS, DVD etc) you are just buying the movie or TV show you want and getting the content not a manufactured product containing the content.
With zero manufacturing costs the content can be sold cheaper — WalMart Video Downloads won’t make their downloads cheaper because they still want to protect their DVD sales but support video on demand as an alternative source of revenue and keep customers at least somewhat happy it won’t take off though unless they come up with a product like Apple TV for bringing Internet video content to the television.
iTunes sells video content cheaper than the traditional price of most DVDs — but the quality of iTunes videos are slightly lower than DVD quality — also the fair use in VHS and DVD is not available in video on demand services.
There are pros and cons for everything — for me I still think buying the DVD is better — unless you plan to buy video on a service like iTunes and transfer to a portable device like iPod and maybe get a product like Apple TV I think DVD is still better despite a few disadvantages you still get fair use. Sure it might cost a little more — but you know iTunes videos are more expensive than they would like you think despite no manufacturing costs their is the cost of DRM or copy protection.
So choose wisely — if you want video on demand downloads that is fine and all but when you buy the DVD you can extract or rip the video to your hard drive, make a copy for your iPod, convert it to Apple TV even but iTunes bought video you can only play on up to 5 computers at a time, play only on iPods or on your television using Apple TV whether running Mac or Windows — your still locked into a proprietary format.
October 17th, 2008
Now with XBMC for AppleTV, NitoTV hacks(USB storage and SMB support) and appletv @ $199.99. Olders xbox users are replacing for ATV. Which became the only NAS live OS as today.
Future is the sky! They will sell like hell on late 2009 and on.