Expo Report

iPO at MWSF - Apple Goes Back to the Drawing Board For Apple TV "Take 2"

Tuesday, January 15th, 2008 at 2:45 PM - by

SAN FRANCISCO - Apple CEO Steve Jobs on Tuesday tied the new movie rentals in iTunes with the release of a second software version of his company's Apple TV set-top box. Acknowledging that the first one didn't sell as well as hoped, Mr. Jobs noted that users don't want to tie Apple TV to their computers, so now they'll be able to access the iTunes store directly from their TV sets.

Rentals are available now, with over 1,000 titles from 20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Lionsgate and New Line Cinema expected by the end of February. Over 100 of those titles will also be available in high-definition, with 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound. Rental pricing is US$2.99 for catalog titles and $3.99 for new ones, with high-definition films costing $1.00 more.

Rentals can be viewed within about 30 seconds of sale, according to Apple, and must be watched within 30 days; they're available for 24 hours after the buyer starts watching them. Purchased movies can be synced from Apple TV back to a computer for viewing there or on an iPod or iPhone.

The new Apple TV also features direct access to the iTunes Store video and audio podcast directory, YouTube's library of more than 50 million original videos, and photos from users computers or their Flickr or .Mac Web galleries. Users can view photos as slideshows or screensavers, and when online galleries are updated, Apple TV will automatically reflect the changes.

The new version of Apple TV sells for $229 for the 40GB version and $329 for the 160GB model. It comes with HDMI, component video, analog, and optical audio ports. Owners of the previous version aren't left out in the cold, however: Apple will issue a software update in about two weeks, allowing existing Apple TV owners to take advantage of the new features too.

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DaiMac said:

member since 29 Jun 2001 with 952 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Tue Jan 15, 2008 4:06 pm

So, looks like they didn't upgrade the hardware at all? I don't mind, being a Rev A AppleTV owner myself, but they could have added 1080p support just for forward compatibility.

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A guest said: (hide)

Tue Jan 15, 2008 4:30 pm

I'm a Rev A and happy that they didn't charge for the new features or make me buy a second one.

Thank you Apple

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deasys said:

member since 08 Apr 2003 with 294 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Tue Jan 15, 2008 4:32 pm

All 1080p sets support Apple TV's 1080i output.

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A guest said: (hide)

Tue Jan 15, 2008 4:39 pm

Still doesn't allow you to do anything with previously purchased content (read: DVDs). Regrettably, I smell another road apple.

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Websnap said:

member since 17 Jun 2005 with 75 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Tue Jan 15, 2008 4:56 pm

DaiMac wrote:
So, looks like they didn't upgrade the hardware at all? I don't mind, being a Rev A AppleTV owner myself, but they could have added 1080p support just for forward compatibility.

Who said it wasn't? From what I gathered, the limitations were software not hardware based. Which it why the update will allow Rev A to now play 720p content. I believe the feature just wasn't turned on yet. And really, why would they, if they are not providing 1080p content yet?

Guest wrote:
Still doesn't allow you to do anything with previously purchased content (read: DVDs). Regrettably, I smell another road apple.

The TV has always been billed by Jobs as the next evolution media device. Why would they include what they are trying to replace?

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A guest said: (hide)

Tue Jan 15, 2008 5:15 pm

This thing needs to be a digital hub so that it can be used with sets that only have one DVI and one Component video input. It's worthless otherwise since once the cable box and DVD player are plugged in there is no room left for Apple TV.

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DaiMac said:

member since 29 Jun 2001 with 952 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Tue Jan 15, 2008 5:26 pm

Websnap wrote:

Who said it wasn't? From what I gathered, the limitations were software not hardware based. Which it why the update will allow Rev A to now play 720p content. I believe the feature just wasn't turned on yet. And really, why would they, if they are not providing 1080p content yet?

Well, I'm pretty sure the required ram and GPU to push 1080p video with no frame drops is above what the AppleTV possesses currently but I could be wrong. People have had 720p video hacked onto the device for several months, and nobody (to my knowledge) has managed 1080p. I'm not completely disagreeing with you on the lack of content at that resolution, but one of the main competitors for AppleTV (IMO) is set-top Blu Ray players, if they did have 1080p they could claim feature near-parity for hundreds of dollars less with those devices. As it is, the only device they clearly beat out is the Xbox360 for VOD content, price-wise.

Also if you can't figure out how to use Handbrake and/or MTR to get your video onto the AppleTV Guest, then you're probably not the target market

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DaiMac said:

member since 29 Jun 2001 with 952 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Tue Jan 15, 2008 5:28 pm

Guest wrote:
This thing needs to be a digital hub so that it can be used with sets that only have one DVI and one Component video input. It's worthless otherwise since once the cable box and DVD player are plugged in there is no room left for Apple TV.

Component 3-port switchers are like 20 bucks, big whoop. Even my massive Pelican 8 port switcher with TOSLINK ports was only 80.

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A guest said: (hide)

Tue Jan 15, 2008 6:01 pm

The pricing of content is ridiculous. I can rent a DVD for a whole week for the same price, and it comes with the DVD extras. Why isn't it cheaper to get it over the internet?

Why do the studios charge Apple almost as much as Walmart? Does it cost more for them to encode the film once and give it to Apple than it does to burn thousands of DVDs, package them in fancy custom-printed boxes, and ship them to Walmart? Is that why it costs more to rent a movie from Apple--because the studios are gouging?

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A guest said: (hide)

Tue Jan 15, 2008 6:04 pm

DaiMac wrote:
Guest wrote:
This thing needs to be a digital hub so that it can be used with sets that only have one DVI and one Component video input. It's worthless otherwise since once the cable box and DVD player are plugged in there is no room left for Apple TV.

Component 3-port switchers are like 20 bucks, big whoop. Even my massive Pelican 8 port switcher with TOSLINK ports was only 80.

It's not an issue of adding a switcher, but ANY device can work with a switcher. The Apple TV would help define itself as an easy-to-use hub if you could switch between its various modes AND external devices all from the same screen.

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gslusher said:

member since 13 Nov 2002 with 2088 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Tue Jan 15, 2008 6:54 pm

Guest wrote:
DaiMac wrote:
Guest wrote:
This thing needs to be a digital hub so that it can be used with sets that only have one DVI and one Component video input. It's worthless otherwise since once the cable box and DVD player are plugged in there is no room left for Apple TV.

Component 3-port switchers are like 20 bucks, big whoop. Even my massive Pelican 8 port switcher with TOSLINK ports was only 80.

It's not an issue of adding a switcher, but ANY device can work with a switcher. The Apple TV would help define itself as an easy-to-use hub if you could switch between its various modes AND external devices all from the same screen.

I can't tell if these were posted by the same Guest, but few TVs have DVI inputs. Perhaps you meant HDMI, which is not the same thing, by a long shot. Second, many HDTVs sold today come with multiple HDMI inputs. Some years back, I had a manual switcher to allow my ONE-input TV to access cable, two VCRs and a Colecovision video game. If you want multiple sources, you may have to get a switch. (I just got a DVD recorder/upconverting player that also has a VCR deck, so I can reduce the number of sources by one.)

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Mikuro said:

member since 15 Jun 2002 with 457 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Tue Jan 15, 2008 9:19 pm

Websnap wrote:
The TV has always been billed by Jobs as the next evolution media device. Why would they include what they are trying to replace?

For the same reason iTunes supports CD ripping. Virtually all new digital media platforms have some degree of backwards compatibility.

However, this is not really Apple's fault. There are legal barriers to copying DVDs. I don't think Apple could out this feature in iTunes even if they wanted to. That said, for people who don't care about all that, you can always use Handbrake or iSquint (or several others) to convert your DVDs.

P.S.: Didn't the AppleTV always support 720p output? I thought it was just that Apple didn't sell 720p movies on iTunes until now.

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deasys said:

member since 08 Apr 2003 with 294 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Thu Jan 17, 2008 2:57 am

Quote:
websnap said:

Which it why the update will allow Rev A to now play 720p content. I believe the feature just wasn't turned on yet

It amazes me how widespread this urban myth is.

Apple TV has had built-in support for 720p from day one.

Quote:
Dalmac wrote:

People have had 720p video hacked onto the device for several months

See what I mean?

(Since the beginning, DalMac--and no 'hacking' required.)

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