The new Apple TV

Very good. Windows Media Center is screwed. The hardware is too expensive, and there's no rentable content or movie subscription service. Also no Youtube integration, if you don't want to mess around with dodgy 3rd party addins.

Bas said:

Very good. Windows Media Center is screwed. The hardware is too expensive, and there's no rentable content or movie subscription service. Also no Youtube integration, if you don't want to mess around with dodgy 3rd party addins.

Apple TV's rental-only system just reeks of failure to me. I don't see what value AppleTV provides that Hulu or iPlayer doesn't already. The "push between devices" thing from the iPad to AppleTV is more of a gimmick. I think TV-integrated functionality is the future (see Google TV) rather than having to get another STB. I really can see Apple making their own TVs a few years from now (and I'll bet that will be another case of "our back looks better than their fronts" fun-poking), especially with glass-fronts, which is something I miss from TVs.

As for the iPods, colour me impressed, though I don't know if the 'nano touch' will be as easy to use as a clickwheel; I think the surface is just too small; of course the iPod Nani has always been where Apple experiments, so I expect the form-factor to change again next year.

I'm disappointed there wasn't any developments over the iPod Classic. There will always be a demand for an MP3 player with a large capacity, but as the iPod Touch isn't available with more than 64GB I reckon we won't see the Classic discontinued until the Touch gets 128GB storage, and going by current flash memory capacities that might not be for another 2 years.

Meh, I don't see the appeal. Sure it's small and cheap, but it's very limited. No blu-ray support, locked into iTunes, no HD audio bitstreaming, no extensibility. Paying $1 to watch an episode once doesn't seem very appealing to me.

With today's blu-ray players and TVs coming with Netflix/Youtube/Hulu built-in, the average consumer is not going to benefit from this. The "ethusiast" market for this device already have an HTPC, which offers much greater functionality.

My $500 HTPC plays DVDs, blu-rays, Netflix, Youtube, Hulu, music, photos, live TV, recorded TV, gives me the weather forecast, and this is with no more setup than required of a normal PC.

I don't think the new AppleTV will do any better than the old AppleTV did.

W3bbo said:

Bas said:

*snip*

Apple TV's rental-only system just reeks of failure to me. I don't see what value AppleTV provides that Hulu or iPlayer doesn't already. The "push between devices" thing from the iPad to AppleTV is more of a gimmick. I think TV-integrated functionality is the future (see Google TV) rather than having to get another STB. I really can see Apple making their own TVs a few years from now (and I'll bet that will be another case of "our back looks better than their fronts" fun-poking), especially with glass-fronts, which is something I miss from TVs.

 

As for the iPods, colour me impressed, though I don't know if the 'nano touch' will be as easy to use as a clickwheel; I think the surface is just too small; of course the iPod Nani has always been where Apple experiments, so I expect the form-factor to change again next year.

 

I'm disappointed there wasn't any developments over the iPod Classic. There will always be a demand for an MP3 player with a large capacity, but as the iPod Touch isn't available with more than 64GB I reckon we won't see the Classic discontinued until the Touch gets 128GB storage, and going by current flash memory capacities that might not be for another 2 years.

 

 

I don't see what value AppleTV provides that Hulu or iPlayer doesn't already.

International availability?

spivonious said:

Meh, I don't see the appeal. Sure it's small and cheap, but it's very limited. No blu-ray support, locked into iTunes, no HD audio bitstreaming, no extensibility. Paying $1 to watch an episode once doesn't seem very appealing to me.

 

With today's blu-ray players and TVs coming with Netflix/Youtube/Hulu built-in, the average consumer is not going to benefit from this. The "ethusiast" market for this device already have an HTPC, which offers much greater functionality.

 

My $500 HTPC plays DVDs, blu-rays, Netflix, Youtube, Hulu, music, photos, live TV, recorded TV, gives me the weather forecast, and this is with no more setup than required of a normal PC.

 

I don't think the new AppleTV will do any better than the old AppleTV did.

My $500 HTPC plays DVDs, blu-rays, Netflix, Youtube, Hulu, music, photos, live TV, recorded TV, gives me the weather forecast, and this is with no more setup than required of a normal PC.

My $500 HTPC does that too, except for the Netflix, Youtube, Hulu and weather forecast thing. The Youtube thing I could get if I downloaded a crappy plugin written by a 14 year old color-blind Slovakian kid and tinkered enough with it. Or I could just buy that Apple TV device at one fifth of the cost and get it out of the box. Including something that'll allow me to rent/buy videos and TV series, which my HTPC still can't provide.

CKurt said:

Bas said:

*snip*

How did you het your HTPC to do all that with 'no more setup than a normal PC' ?

 

What program are you using?

What, play DVDs, blu-rays, music, photos, live T and recorded TV? Windows Media Center does that out of the box.

Bas said:

CKurt said:

*snip*

What, play DVDs, blu-rays, music, photos, live T and recorded TV? Windows Media Center does that out of the box.

 

DVDs, music, photos, live tv, recorded TV, and Netflix are bundled with Media Center.

Blu-rays are an install of PowerDVD 9 or 10 Ultra away. This installs blu-ray playback into Media Center.

Weather forecast

The Youtube plugin I got wasn't very good, but I don't use it much, so it doesn't bother me. Same with Hulu.

Renting/buying movies and TV shows isn't something I'm looking for. If Netflix doesn't have it yet, then I can wait.

spivonious said:

Bas said:

*snip*

DVDs, music, photos, live tv, recorded TV, and Netflix are bundled with Media Center.

 

Blu-rays are an install of PowerDVD 9 or 10 Ultra away. This installs blu-ray playback into Media Center.

 

Weather forecast

 

The Youtube plugin I got wasn't very good, but I don't use it much, so it doesn't bother me. Same with Hulu.

 

Renting/buying movies and TV shows isn't something I'm looking for. If Netflix doesn't have it yet, then I can wait.

Netflix isn't available here. Neither is Hulu. Nor any sort of alternative.

This thing sounds alot like the Roku  

CKurt said:

Bas said:

*snip*

and the youtube thing we DO get sucks... Haven't really seen ant good YouTube Media Center plugins.

 

Somebody needs to talk to the US broadcasters and Hollywood movie studies about bringing content to European side of the water.

Ha! Never, not whilst DVD box-set prices are jacked up so much it doesn't make economic sense to provide an affordable option available to, what is essentially, a minority market.

As much as I loathe to advocate the breaking of copyright law, this is a perfect excuse to get everything you need from TV over BitTorrent.

CKurt said:

W3bbo said:

*snip*

Well I can see why rentals. Rentals are better for the movie industry. That way people wills till buy the DVD box of a good series. But rentals should be longer. Rent something for a week or so. So if you watch an episode of something, you can tell your parents "You should really look at this it's really good." The way people used to do it with hardware rentals (what a word).

 

GoogleTV , I don't know. We need integration and able to select a movie in the following order.

1. I want to watch Avatar tonight
2. It's available from NetFlix, Amazon, Zune and Sony Bravia (each with there prices and resolution)
3. Select my provider for this movie
4. Watch it

Can't be that hard, can it? But no, everybody wants their device in the living room. And their software running on it. And their logo in the top right corner of the screen while selecting the movie. It's not wat consumers want.

http://www.wisc-online.com/objects/ViewObject.aspx?ID=ESL1402

elmer said:

CKurt said:

*snip*

http://www.wisc-online.com/objects/ViewObject.aspx?ID=ESL1402

The "they're/there/their" thing used to annoy me, but I learned to live with it after I found out the people making that mistake the most often were actually dyslexic, in which case it's hard to correct.

W3bbo said:

CKurt said:

*snip*

Ha! Never, not whilst DVD box-set prices are jacked up so much it doesn't make economic sense to provide an affordable option available to, what is essentially, a minority market.

 

As much as I loathe to advocate the breaking of copyright law, this is a perfect excuse to get everything you need from TV over BitTorrent.

No it isn't. You're not in any way entitled to that content. It sucks that you can't get it cheaply, but that's not a 'perfect excuse' to take it anyway.

Bas said:

W3bbo said:

*snip*

No it isn't. You're not in any way entitled to that content. It sucks that you can't get it cheaply, but that's not a 'perfect excuse' to take it anyway.

NEVER

although iPad?  4 coming this xmas (gifts)

*sorry Bas - i meant reply root

( it's like GPS/onstar = PAY forever for data..bzzzt  wrong)

edit: i hate apple and itunes - but my mom wil LOVE ipad ..etc

(she loves the ms touch HP thing../. but thats 3k