Apple TV to be a Centrally Controlled P2P Network?

Rolgar writes "PBS' Bob Cringely theorizes that since the Apple TV will be an always-on device with a 40GB hard drive, Apple may move to content distribution via a P2P network. The ISPs will incur higher bandwidth locally, possibly lose some subscribers to cable TV, but have fewer costs through the Tier II Internet backbone providers. Bob also expects that Google will be involved with their fiber network and advertising expertise, and my hope is that they'll bundle in YouTube content as well. The article suspects that they won't get around to announcing the full details of this plan until they hit a half million units or more, and that this Apple and Google pairing will become the equivalent of a cable TV provider with almost none of the infrastructure costs. Eventually, he hopes, we'll see a real HD revolution from Apple and Google for this service." If Apple rolled something like this out to the service, would you bite on it? What would it take you to move to this over Tivo or MythTV?

No, I would not bite...

>If Apple rolled something like this out to the service, would you bite on it?
>What would it take you to move to this over Tivo or MythTV?

I will not pay for any "service" above and beyond my normal ISP fee in order to receive content. I can get all the content I want for free just by having a connection to the internet.

The only way I would subscribe to this service is if it was free.

In Time & On...

as soon as Apple announces it.

I'm tired of the B.S., indecipherable controls, policies, unusable channels and the need to sit down or record in real time when the content is deemed fit to be distributed by some provider that decides it knows when it is best for ME to sit and watch/record.

Re:In Time & On...

The biggest problem I have with this new device is that it's only going to work with iTunes. I want to have a media distribution box (preferrably linux) streaming audio, video, and pictures to my tv and stereo. I don't want the vendor locking that apple is trying to accomplish. By the way, this is the stuff that makes me want to wear a tinfoil hat. The idea of google and apple teaming up to take over our living rooms by selling a little white box, all the while the only thing consumers are thinking of is when can I get one.

Re:In Time & On...

The biggest problem I have with this new device is that it's only going to work with iTunes. I want to have a media distribution box (preferrably linux) streaming audio, video, and pictures to my tv and stereo.

While I agree on geek principles, I don't see how a keyboardless box like the iTV would be able to connect to any streaming software source the user might have, at least not without a lot of PC-end configuration. That sort of thing completely trumps Apple's ease-of-use principle, which is practically the First Commandment of their business.

On the other hand, iTunes is free, and Quicktime supports plugins and can handle just about any codec you want (disclaimer: I'm a Mac user and I know firsthand that there's plenty of things VLC plays better). So for the average user there's little to complain about, and for the non-average geek there's better ways to do what iTV does without buying iTV at all.

40 GB HD

...or... Maybe it's there so Apple can incorporate an "offline mode." I don't necessarily need to be connected to the internet to enjoy my movie, similar to the XBOX LIVE marketplace and their "rentals."

I'm paying for distribution now, too?

Why should I waste my bandwidth on distributing Apple's movies and music for them?

Re:I'm paying for distribution now, too?

You give credits on the online store for "uploads". Say 1 penny per MB (or whatever). Feed 20 songs @ 5 MB, get $1, buy a song for "full price". What could be more transparent than that?

Re:I'm paying for distribution now, too?

I'm pretty sure getting paid to send data would be against my (and most others') TOS

better than ... how?

How is this better than the following workflow (which is what many do now, and more will do soon):

* Find content on the Internet or other places (via whatever means)

* Download/aquire (again, however you need to)

* Watch on your TV (via any network-attached device or stand-alone DVD player that supports lots of codecs and can be controlled with a remote)

The only things outlined in TFA that differs from this is

* What is available is controlled by some bullshit companies who will have your worst interest at heart

* You have to watch ads

* You have to pay for downloads

* Apple and Google spy on you

Er, um ... no thanks!

Re:better than ... how?

Because some people wouldn't mind getting their movies legally. You realize you've stepped far, far out of fair use, right? If you want to rip your own movies, fine, but that's not at all what you just suggested. Apple is at the head of that "updated business and distribution model" that everyone has been harping on about for a while now.

"Bob"?

Has everybody forgotten "Cringely" just a pen name for Mark Stephens?

Simple.

What would it take me to move to this over MythTV? Let's see... it'd have to be FOSS by people who aren't entangled in various dealings with all the media companies, it'd have to run on Linux, and it'd have to be something I could tweak to my needs and system specs without too much trouble.

Basically, it'd have to be MythTV.

Re:Simple.

I hear you. But MythTV is a pain to setup. FOSS and all, but if I can't get grabber info reliably outside of the U.S., then I'm not interested. I set up a MythTV (went with knoppmyth) and then went to actually download settings from my cable, to find out they don't have XML grabber in my country. Don't even think about 'Zap2It'. So because I didn't have grabber info, it wouldn't allow me to watch tv?!? No option to enter the channels in manually, huh? No, MythTV is still just a myth. I don't watch my cable TV as it is. If apple and google can offer the tv shows (and they do) and interactive data on a three hundred dollar box that works with me pressing the 'on' button, with RSS feeds replacing XML grabbers for show listings and recordings, then THAT is the Mythical convergence I'm looking for. And no, don't tell me that MythTV is just not mature yet and to wait. This is TV, not heart surgery. I don't have the inclination to wait for features that have been implemented on my TV for the past 25 years.

What the iTV needs

All I need is the iTV to allow me to rent HD movies at a reasonable price ($5). They can destroy Netflix and HD/Blu-Ray in one quick move.

Right now though, I have to buy them off the iTunes store for a much higher price. Given I can get rent 2 DVD's from hollywood for $4 and don't need to buy an iTV, I'm sticking with that option.

Suddenly it doesn't seem like such a waste

$299 for a 720p (only) display extender? Meh.

$299 for a 24/7 torrent node that replaces a PVR? Hmmm.

I'd buy THAT for $299.

Would I?

I suppose if I actually watched TV, then I might think about it.

Leave TiVo? No Way

They can have my TiVo when they pry it from my cold dead hands.

Apple TV, from all the reports I've read, sounds spectacularly weak. I don't expect it to ever succeed.

Conjecture: "Apple TV" is the Newton of Apple's play into the convergence market. A cute idea, nice try, but they totally blew it. Apple will likely go back to the lab and come out with something that doesn't suck so much, just as they did with the iPod.

Crispin

Maybe, depends on Fees

I may bite at such a service if Apple included the functionality in their monthly fee to use the device. If it was an added feature that carried a separate charge, I certainly would not be interested.

Not a replacement for Tivo

The iTV is not meant to be a replacement for Tivo, at least by my understanding. Essentially what it is, is the same thing that the AirportExpress does. It allows you to stream the movies/TV shows from your PC (using iTunes) to your nice big TV instead of your computer monitor. It doesnt have a built-in tuner, so you can't watch live TV. I was really excited about it when I first saw it, but then realized that it's not a DVR.

And...?

Great, more FUD delivered by one of the internet's favorite soothsayers, delivered with all the smarm of a Starbucks-toting liberal arts blogger. Granted, it's no Continuum Transfunctioner, but its mystery IS only exceeded by its power. Get over it, fanboy.

I'm holding out...

... for xtube.com [xtube.com] integration with Apple TV.

......would you bite on it?

No. Apple is nothing more than a wanna be Emperor without clothes. About 90% of the crap that is already available from cable, satellite, internet I don't watch anyway and can't see Apple offering ANYTHING that would prompt me to pay them.

Cost

I have DVR through Comcast for about $75 with digital cable plus. Now if I watch 10 shows a week, and the dowload costs $2 each that is $80 a month (10 shows * 4 weeks * $2), toss in the cost of the unit and then subscribtion costs and it is even less appealing. I won't replace my DVR.

Obviously hasn't seen Apple's presentations

The basis of the article title, wondering what the 40GB HD is doing, is easily answered if you watched the Apple keynote. The AppleTV, while has the ability to stream from any device on the network, is primarily more intended to be used like an iPod, syncing your latest tv shows/movies, etc. from your main computer that you would usually use to get your new content. Heck, the AppleTV is even listed as part of the iPod store option. Since its always on, it can do the syncing constantly and becomes more network connection agnostic. You don't have to worry about your wireless connection crapping out in the middle of a stream if you've got what you want to watch already on the HD. That along with standard buffering/cache/OS stuff, is all I see the HD being for.

If Apple really wanted to put out a p2p distribution node, an easier solution would be to just release it as an update to iTunes. Then they aren't limited to only the AppleTV nodes.

40 GB + Hi Def?

Somehow, I don't think a 40GB drive will suffice for storing enough HD video to have a sufficiently large P2P base.

P2P buzzword swarming

I think Cringely used the power of P2P to combine random buzzwords, product names, and company names faster than ever. Is there any evidence that this particular combination is actually likely to happen?

Apple TV does need more

Honestly, I think the Apple TV does nees something more than what it is now to be a compelling device. Its $299, for $349, I can get a 80gb ipod which plays video, can hook up to my tv, and fits in my pocket. It just isn't high def and it doesn't have the fancy menu system. But the current iTunes store videos aren't hi-def anyways, and since the DRM doesn't let you burn them to DVD so I have a future proof backup, I am not so interested in buying them. Although if I could burn DVDs, and most network shows were on iTunes, I would consider canceling my video cable, as it would be cheaper for me to just buy subscriptions to the few shows I actually watch. If there was a lot of good, affordable, and/or free HD content I could stream or download and watch on an Apple TV I might consider it. P2P is something a device like this could uniquely do, but as a user I don't really care if it uses P2P, I just want something good to watch. (BTW, I wouldn't put YouTube into the category of "good", but a well curated YouTube like system, like the Zed show on CBC, I'd go for) It has a USB port, but I don't really see what for. What does it do? Can I attach extra storage? Can I attach an eyeTV and turn it into a DVR? Or hook up a mouse and keyboard and browse the web? Without the above, I'd be more inclined to buy a mac mini for my living room. Its more money, but since its a full computer, I would get a lot more value out of it, and it comes with the Front Row software and remote too. Without more content and features, I don't see the Apple TV being all that compelling for me beyond the "wow, Apple makes cool stuff" factor. I still think they will sell a ton of them, but there really is a lot more potential in the set top box area I hope they develop. I love ranting. I'll sit back for a while and see what version 2 of apple tv ends up being.

Downloadable TV is the future, bye bye networks.

I'm not sure it's going to be Apple, but something like this is going to kill cable television networks like Comedy Central, Cartoon, SciFi, etc very soon (3 years).

Channels buy the rights to syndicated repeats and programming made by outside production companies, then sell ads during these programs to make money. It's all very inefficient.

Downloadable television cuts out the network middle man. You can buy content directly from the producers, ad free if they want to offer it that way. In such a world Futurama never would have been canceled.

How this is delivered technically remains to be seen, but I wouldn't buy any Viacom stock.
 

Internet killer.

TV should be Broadcast. You should use your MythTV( not Tivo ). We don't need to fill the Internet backbone with copies of the same old thing over and over. It will be worse then spam. clogging the Internet.

At best your ISP's should Work TV like it was Usenet and store the Broadcast shows locally. But that would only add the the Monopoly. And we don't need that. But rather we need to bypass the ISP's and use the "NII BAND" [warpspeed.com] that the FCC would not let us have.

Does Cringely even read?

The new Apple TV media extender is supposed to ship this month, perhaps even by the time you read this column, and if you are like me you are wondering what that 40-gig hard drive is doing inside.

Um, it's called "caching". From Apple's own website:

Open iTunes and Apple TV appears in your devices list, ready to sync. Set iTunes to sync unwatched TV shows, movies, and podcasts. Set it to sync new purchases. Or manually select what you want to watch. Set your syncing preferences once and Apple TV automatically updates as your iTunes library changes.

Apple TV streams as well as it syncs, so you can pair up to five additional computers and let friends and family stream their iTunes libraries to your TV. Apple TV stores up to 50 hours of video, ready to watch when you are.

No SD output.

The thing that KILLS the Apple TV for me is the lack of SD output. I don't have an HDTV right now and don't plan on getting one anytime soon. I'd love to buy this but its few features aren't enough to convince me to buy an expensive TV that I have no need for otherwise. It would have been really simple to add a composite or s-vid out. Sure it wouldn't look quite as nice but it would open up their potential customer base but a large amount.

Not Usable

I probably wouldn't use it unless Microsoft came out with the same service. Then I'd use Microsoft's version.

I was on the fence

I was on the fence about buying an iTV. Gonna buy one now, no doubt.

What a bunch of crap...

"...perhaps even by the time you read this column, and if you are like me you are wondering what that 40-gig hard drive is doing inside. I'm guessing we won't know for sure until later this year, though of course I also think I know the secret answer, too."

Since when did this become a secret? Steve Jobs made it pretty obvious in his last keynote when he said that you can sync your TV shows/movies to the Apple TV (from 1 computer), and you can stream from up to 5 computers. He even went into detail about the syncing process, and how you could have it automatically store your latest 5 unwatched TV shows to your Apple TV hard drive.

Democracy Player

Already does this in a decentralized fashion w/o the DRM. Check it out http://www.getdemocracy.com/ [getdemocracy.com].

Of course Bob's saying that this is going to not be DRMed. So if Apple is sending me pre-release videos which aren't DRMed without my consent, how do they charge me for it? If Suncoast did this via fedex they wouldn't have a leg to stand on when they billed me.

Moving to Apple TV

If Apple rolled something like this out to the service, would you bite on it? What would it take you to move to this over Tivo or MythTV?

1. Be A Free Service
2. Support 1080p (with the way HD is advancing I want something that scales. They've currently lost this consumer with their current HD offering)
3. Give absolute control over content once I have it - don't force me into a proprietary service of any kind or cripple it with DRM schemes.

My 2 cents.

would i bite?

If Apple rolled something like this out to the service, would you bite on it? What would it take you to move to this over Tivo or MythTV?

I watch t.v. on my laptop which i connect to the t.v. I've tested through movielink and cinemanow. I get battlestar galactica on itunes regularily (you HAVE to support those guys... don't get it via bittorrent... my $.02).
Will I get a set-top apple box? probably not. Will I get a set-top box that supports movielink, cinemanow, future netflix downloads, pbs shows from their site, itunes, and any/all 3rd party projects/applications, such as the venice project? Yes. Apple's box probably won't do this, so I probably won't get it. The key is open support for 3rd party apps and movie/t.v. downloads.

tivo and apple might be competing with this box in your eyes, and they might be economic competitors when you see the potential of clients dropping cable/satelite (and thus tivo) and opting for a set-top box similar to apple's, but they really are two different products in my eyes. It's not whether or not i'd move from one to the other... I'll never get tivo and probably never build a myth box. I do, however, watch t.v. via my computer, so my laptop-to-t.v. setup is in direct competition w/ apple. I don't see them getting it right.

Free Content and Live Events

The technology is rapidly approaching a point when I would consider purchasing almost all of my viewed content from Apple.

There are two small issues that I think should be addressed before I ditch Basic Cable, although there are enough perks to make me start thinking about ditching anything above and beyond that.

1.) Free Content.
I know the iTunes store has some 'Free' content that it bandies about, but sometimes I just need to throw the TV on to have something playing in the background. It doesn't have to be high quality stuff, but sometimes I just want to thumb through the channels. I'm not going to buy CSPAN's "Yet another Eighteen Hours with the House of Representatives" but I might thumb through the channels and see what's on, and stick around for 20 minutes on a debate on Net Neutrality.

For shows I watch regularly (The Office, Heroes, House, [adult swim]) I can safely leave all those commercials behind and download and watch the content at my leisure. It's not a complete solution, yet, but with Apple TV coming, and more shows (hopefully, where ARE you House??) showing up on iTunes, as well as movies, I'm at least considering swallowing the bait.

2.) Live Events.
I don't want to watch the Falcons game on Monday. I don't want to see NFL Network highlights or re-airs. I want to watch it live. When it's happening, with a chance to pause and rewind it. Same thing with other sporting events. If I can't watch live sporting events I can't fully buy the Apple ecosystem.

And therein lies the rub: if you can't buy ALL of the Apple TV ecosystem, it's way to expensive to buy any of it.

If I could get my TV service from Apple, a la Apple TV and iTunes, I want to see something like this:
I spend $30-$40 on basic cable. (you'll pay more for a digital solution)
I spend $50-$60 on high speed internet.
I spent $400 on my Tivo/service.
I watch all the shows I want, that are available, when I want to watch them, including random B.S. that happens to be on, and live sporting events.

I want to repeat that last line, but have the cost ratio look something like this.
I spend $30-$50 per month at the iTunes store, including season passes for my most watched shows.
I spend $50-$60 on my high speed internet service, no cable, no phone line (use VoIP and Cell)
I spent $300 on Apple TV.

As it stands I couldn't continue paying Basic Cable and feeding similar revenue to Apple and Co. That means that Apple would be getting a tremendous portion of the monthly revenue that I had allocated for other people, but I think realistically, my needs as a consumer also include an ability to quickly and cheaply access mind-numbing content as well as live events.

It's getting closer though, and my attempts to completely and totally ditch any and all cable/satellite provider and ALL wired telco companies are sounding less and less far-fetched.

It all comes down to content

Currently, I'm very happy with my TiVo. I have many hours of my favorite TV shows, all in HD, available any time.
So if Apple continues to offer just a few shows, the way they do now, with limited resolution, I'd have to think whether I really have a use for this device. After all, I can buy shows to download to my XBox 360 (often in HD), and TiVo is about to start offering a similar service, so if Apple is offering just another video download service with a fairly limited inventory (like what they now offer), I'll probably pass. On the other hand, if I could get any TV show (movies are of less interest to me; I'd rather go to the video store or get them through NetFlix), any time, it would certainly be worth it to me to buy the Apple box.

H.264 Chip...why does it matter?

FTA:

My wish list for those hackers, by the way, isn't to know the clock speed or the type of processor or the amount of memory installed. I want to know the identity of the Apple TV's H.264 decoder chip. There's a lot to be learned from the identity of THAT chip.

Why does he care who makes the video decoder chip? I don't see how it fits in with the rest of the article.

Why bring MythTV into it?

Y'know, its hard to see where the big overlap in potential customer base between homebrew MythTV boxes and AppleTV lies...

What MythTV does for me is near-perfect timeshifting of free-to-air (modulo UK TV license fees) digital terrestrial TV, with all sorts of auto-scheduling goodness. Unless I've missed something, this is not what AppleTV is offering.

Now, if AppleTV (if/when it launches in the UK) offers me a reasonably-priced way of seeing (say) individual episodes of US Sci-Fi shows or recent movies without (a) subscribing to MurdochVision or (b) waiting 18 months and buying the whole series on DVD I might just buy one and sit it alongside my MythBox.

TV isn't like music - I've a shelf full of DVDs but only a select few get watched repeatedly - so I've no particular objection to paying a reasonable fee to see a show once (bit like going to the cinema, but with comfy seats and better food) - if it turns out to be a keeper then I'll be about ready to watch it again when the DVDs come out.

Meanwhile, when there isn't anything good on TV I can always hack around with my MythBox to see if I can fix the 50% chance that the video starts playing with the frame order reversed, or even try and archive some shows to DVD (which now seems to work until it hits some subtleties in the audio stream). If, however, demuxing a stubborn MPEG2 file in ProjectX (whimper!) is not your idea of entertainment there are plenty of imperfect-but-usable-by-mortals video streaming boxen and DVB-T recorders on the market.

Perhaps, if Apple produced the proverbial good DVB-T recorder (hint: like a Topfield but with Ethernet and E-SATA) I'd wake up.

tasty apple

If Apple rolled something like this out to the service, would you bite on it?

why not? that's one tasty apple you got there

Strange Sentence of the Day

It wouldn't surprise me at all if the Apple TV hardware is based on the iPhone

I don't think the author thought this one through. Pretty much the only things they have in common are that they both run operating systems and can play back media.

Apart from that, the iPhone is designed for a portable form factor, low power consumption, relatively low screen resolution, touch sensing, relatively low bandwidth use, and cell phone capabilities. The Apple TV can take up a lot of physical space, use up a lot of power, but it has to produce a high resolution picture and be able to sustain streaming video.

These devices are designed for very different purposes so I would expect them to share very little hardware in common.

MythTV frontend

The AppleTV is the ultimate form factor for the MythTV frontend. Too bad there isn't an API for it. I've done the pricing and $299 is not bad for the form factor and cost. The cheapest I could build a front end is $350 and it wouldn't be everything I wanted.

Stupidest troll EVER from Cringley

The new Apple TV media extender is supposed to ship this month, perhaps even by the time you read this column, and if you are like me you are wondering what that 40-gig hard drive is doing inside. I'm guessing we won't know for sure until later this year [...]

...unless you listened to Jobs' Macworld Keynote or read the flurry of articles that flew around afterwards -- such as this Macworld article [macworld.com] -- in which case you would know that the AppleTV is a glorified video iPod that can be synced with iTunes like any other iPod. (Sorry, that's not technically true; apparently the AppleTV can sync over a wireless network connection.)

It will be interesting to hear Apple's explanation for the hard drive.

Is he seriously unaware of the purpose of the hard drive? Can he honestly not find the AppleTV page where they discuss how the AppleTV syncs with iTunes [apple.com]?

Or is this simply the most egregious example of not letting the facts -- easily-obtained facts, no less -- get in the way of his "secret answer"? I know these Cringely pieces are often light on substance and heavy on BS, but this in unbelievable...

Two things..

Two things rub me about the AppleTV.
Firstly, the networking hardware:

It has 802.11 (n!) wireless and 100BaseT ethernet. I think it's a bit tight not to have Gig-Ethernet, surely for the sake of pennies, and it appears that the wireless is only capable as a client. It's a shame that it doesn't seem like it can be used to create or extend a network, like the old Airport Express. I can see the business argument for making you buy another unit, however, I could be wrong about this.

Secondly, especially with the announcement of this product, I ask myself again "Why the hell haven't Apple bought Elgato already?". Their eyeTV tuners cater for terrestrial, cable and satellite broadcasts over USB and Firewire, and the lack of any conventional broadcast capability is the most glaring omission from the AppleTV. It's a perfect fit with any of the Elgato boxes, and the eyeTV software is very 'iLife-like', and even includes Front Row integration. I doubt that the Elgato functionality could be hacked into the AppleTV box, even though there's a USB port on the back begging to be connected to a tuner (a self-contained solution - perhaps even usable as a PVR without a computer). The hardware and software should be all integrated, and from where I'm standing the smartest thing that Apple could do is simply buy Elgato and knock the corners off the setup - it's nearly all there already.

Disclaimer: I think the Elgato eyeTV 410 is the best realised peripheral I have bought this millenium.

A couple of things ...

What would it take you to move to this over Tivo or MythTV?

No DRM and completely portable data. If it can't do that, it's no better than an ordinary PVR.

What exactly is this extending?

I dont know... looks like a very limited extender for iTunes to me... but maybe i just dont see what the fuss is about. I think the key for Apple will be integrate this with their other products... they need to make this device deliver all their content to the TV.... Music, Video, On-Demand, gaming, Live Broadcasting and Photos. I think that this device may do this... however it is missing some things... no pvr? no live tv? no games? Say what you want about Microsoft the XP/Media Player/Media Center/XBox/Xbox Live integration is pretty sweet. Maybe if Apple partnered with Sony to add the content to the game console?? Sorry, without PVR and a gaming platform, this media device is pretty week. "Apple ain't no dummy" however, im sure that they have something up their sleeve on this one... PVR anyone? Oh btw - HD over 80211g is weak at best... and HD best quailty is ~10GB per hour... 40GB will not save anything... this is just an extender... the real question is... to what?

So wrong it's painful

Cringely's fantasty is making the rounds and it is amazingly wrong.

The hard drive is there for one basic reason, syncing content with another computer that holds an iTunes library.

No mystery. No hidden agenda. The answer was in the Keynote and is on Apple's web site.

I guess he can't be bothered to do any kind of research.

This whole business of stacking components is pointless. An Airport goes near the cable/DSL modem or home router, not near the TV. And who exactly is telling him to put a Mac Mini near the TV set?

The Apple TV is a computer running OS X that is configured to playback content to a TV. It is not an iPhone or a stealth peer-to-peer device.

This is what I hate about pundits, their inability to discern a technophile wet dream from a well researched and logically consistent prediction based on trends and indicators.

Rabid Speculation

Will you please stop linking Cringley stories? He's like a rabid dog. It's just one endless speculative fantasy after another and I for one am sick of hearing about the his latest clap trap on Slashdot. Mod me troll if you want, but Cringley making stuff up for attention does not fit into 'stuff that matters'. This guy needs serious mental help, not more attention to his bullshit.

40GB HardDrive Where do they make those?

Do they even manufacture 40GB HD's anymore? You certainly can't find anything that small in even the cheapest laptops anymore.

I guess only "MP3" players have anything that small these days, so to use it to store the latest in HD video content seems pretty silly.

Get real Cringely

Get real Cringely. Please stop theorizing reality. It requires you to be unrealistic and uncredible. I think I just gave up on your column. You answered your own question: "Apple might tell us that the Apple TV can play video from the hard drive without requiring a Mac or PC on the network. This is an answer that I would believe and I really hope it is the case, because wouldn't it be great to still watch a movie even when your computer isn't running in the next room? And it might be true because Apple loses nothing since you'd still need the host computer to load video into the Apple TV."

Apple TV is DOA

When I first read about the Apple TV, I was pumped. I whipped out my credit card and was ready to buy one. But I never buy anything without doing a little research first. So I had a look at the specs.

What?! No divx?! No xvid?! Huh? I could overlook the puny hard drive, but to not be able to play the de facto standard of video encoding is inexcusable.

Over the last five years, I have archived dozens of movies and hundreds of hours of my own home video to the ubiquitous video compression standard known as divx. This is the mp3 of the video world, and the fact that Apple TV does not recognize it is an absolute deal breaker.

I'm sorry, I'm just not prepared to sit down and re-encode all of my legally acquired video into another less compatible standard--and pay Apple for the privilege.

Apple, you made a big mistake.

CB

TiVO versus On Demand versus iTV

One of the issues that I have been kicking around back in forth is which is better? TiVO? Or on demand viewing? With regards to TiVO, what are you really doing? You pick your favorite shows and set it record them and then you watch them later. But isn't it just as simple to decide that you want to watch last nights Lost episode that you missed and look it up in some kind of menu system and then start watching it? I have to believe that the vast majority of TiVO users are recording and watching basically the same set of content. I have a feeling that Apple is going to come out and say: Look, the majority of people are watching the same basic set of shows. Recording a show takes too much effort to set up and manage and what if you forget to record the show you wanted to see? What do you do then? We're going to give you a system where you can just pick your favorite show and you just pick the episode that you want to watch. We stream it right to your TV. We're partnering with X,Y and Z networks and offering all of their shows. We're also giving you rentable movies so you don't have to go to the video store. I don't believe for a second that the iTV is just going to be a device to watch content on your TV that is stored on your computer. There just has to be more to this device. Clearly there is a broader vision for this device and I guess we will just have to wait until Apple lays it out for us....

Re:Depends on the features

"I love my Tivo to death, and have it set up just the way I like it. "

I like my Tivo, and really love my MythTV box(es). My thoughts are...will be cool if they do this AND someone figures a way to adapt Myth so that it too can hook into this 'network' and be able to get content off it just like the AppleTV box.