New Media Content Distribution System?

[MacRumors]

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com)

Think Secret claims (http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0511contentdist.html) that Apple is set to unveil a new media content delivery system, which will include feature-length content, expanded television offerings, and more.

According to their source, the new system will rely on .Mac's iDisk for storage, keeping media files from ever being held locally on the purchaser's hard drive, utilizing the rumored Front Row 2.0.

In addition, Think Secret claims that Apple is poised to offer a number of new partnerships with various content providers, possibly including NBC, CBS and Paramount Pictures. Fox Filmed Entertainment has already gone on record (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2005/12/20051202070333.shtml) as saying they were "open to" a deal with iTunes.

[DCBass]

Wow.

Talk about making .Mac worthwhile for the masses as opposed to the few.

I would not have guessed this. Looking forward to seeing what they have in mind.

Edit: Cool, no longer a newbie

[pdpfilms]

According to their source, the new system will rely on .Mac's iDisk for storage, keeping media files from ever being held locally on the purchaser's hard drive, utilizing the rumored Front Row 2.0.

Oooh... i do not like this concept.

[Mudbug]

Oooh... i do not like this concept.

agreed - seems a little weird to me. Also begs the question of what if you're not a .Mac subscriber?

[susannahyork]

Would this mean that one would have to subscribe to .Mac? Not having the files on one's own computer would eliminate file sharing for sure, but would you have to stream the content then to watch it, essentially making this a quasi video on demand?

[Aaon]

Yeah, would this mean that you'd have to pay for the .mac subscription, then pay for the media? And what happens if you cancel the .mac? Do you lose your media? This sounds like the subscription services offered by Yahoo, Napster, etc, that I really don't like...

[sfhc21]

Well that sucks. What about the Video iPod? You buy all this content, but you can't use it unless you have an internet connection.

[Koodauw]

I would think Apple of all people would understand that people want to own their content. Sure you would 'own' it, but if you cant access it without internet, do you really?

[awesomebase]

Well, it seems like a .Mac account would be needed for "verification" rather than storage. I can't imagine Apple trying to open up .Mac space to hold HDTV programs and such, that would increase their storage requirements exponentially. But, such a service provided to .Mac members would certainly be welcomed. I'll admit that the .Mac service has been slow to add real value over the years and only this year it has finally gotten a Backup system that works. I would welcome anything that adds to the value of this $99 annual subscription price!

[kenaustus]

Here we go again.

I think Apple is taking this road to keep the studios happy and it's something we will have to live with.

My guess is that Apple will store a "key" on .Mac that will let you look at a movie whenever you want. It won't be that hard to transfer this to people who don't use .Mac later when their content library is expanded - just like they brought iTunes to the PC world. I'm happy to let Mac users get the initial experience and I use .Mac (well worth it for $8 a month) so I'm ready. All I need is a way to get FrontRow 2 onto my rev a G5 iMac.

[Cooknn]

Works for me. I would finally have a reason to subscribe to .Mac

Imagine the possibilities with this! Cable companies better be taking notice. Advertisers as well. This is going to start a major shift in television viewing if Apple does it right.

[vrabz]

this stinks. this will be slow, slow, slow. also, no chance of watching this content while on my airline flights on the laptop, either. have to have .mac as well??? come on, apple. you are turning into TiVo in terms of backing down to the entertainment industry.:confused:

[anastasis]

Booo! If I buy something, I want it on my hard drive for archival purposes.

[EGT]

agreed - seems a little weird to me. Also begs the question of what if you're not a .Mac subscriber?

I agree too. Not to mention the fact that iDisk is always horribly slow. It'll be interesting to see how this develops.

[redAPPLE]

i gave this a negative vote. .mac? ha!

i won't even buy/download the videos or tv shows Apple is offering. "low-quality" m4ps, ok? low quality video? no.

i only would buy the videos, if they sell really hard to find stuff.

[dashiel]

obviously .mac would change drastically, to the point where the proposition isn't "i need .mac to make this work?", but "if i subscribe to 'back row', i get .mac functionality for free!"

if true, and i must say i find it far fetched, it will be marketed akin to the ipod 5g and iwork, but in reverse. where those two products were marketed as hey buy this product that you know and love for the same price as the old version (ipod, keynote 1) and you get this bonus (video on the ipod, pages). this new thing will be sold as subscribe to this media thing, like you would cable and you get .mac for free.

[Cooknn]

Booo! If I buy something, I want it on my hard drive for archival purposes.You have to think differently. If you have today's DVR you get to watch your recorded content whenever you want. You can't archive it to another drive though. So what?! It's still yours. Now it will live on .Mac and Apple can deal with the storage issues instead of you. If this rolls out in Hi-Def as I expect it will, you won't want to be archiving this stuff unless you have TB's of HD space anyways :cool:

[blackpeter]

Calm down. Whatever Apple decides to go with, it won't be any worse than the current iTMS scheme. Computers will have to be registered to that iTMS account.

Do any of you *really* expect Apple to ask consumers to pay $100 a year just for the ability to purchase content? I didn't go to business school, but even I know that Apple isn't going to require a .Mac subscription to get episodes of The Simpsons online.

[jdechko]

I'm glad to see that FOX is possibly getting on board with this. Not too happy about the .mac thing, but we still don't know what it all means, so I'll wait a while to comment on that.

[alywa]

I would guess it is a ".mac like" service, with remote content storage (ala gmail), with the ablility to transfer content to matched laptops / computers / video ipods for viewing while a internet connection is not available.

This would work well with a set-top box, but if the ability to view while on the go doesn't happen, I sense this will be dissapointing. However, this is apple, so i'm sure they have thought this through.

Should make for an exciting keynote.

-alywa

[the future]

Not storing the content on your own HD does have advantages, though...

This method, which will be every bit as simple and straightforward for consumers as the iTunes Music Store is now, poses a number of advantages over Apple's current pay-once-download-once system, including saving users' hard drive space and essentially providing a secure back-up of everything purchased. iTunes Music Store customers at present are charged 99 cents every time they download a song, regardless of whether they already bought it, and must back-up purchases themselves. A customer who experiences data loss and loses purchased songs is effectively out of luck as far as Apple is concerned.

[andiwm2003]

....................................
My guess is that Apple will store a "key" on .Mac that will let you look at a movie whenever you want. It won't be that hard to transfer this to people who don't use .Mac later when their content library is expanded - just like they brought iTunes to the PC world. I'm happy to let Mac users get the initial experience and I use .Mac (well worth it for $8 a month) so I'm ready. All I need is a way to get FrontRow 2 onto my rev a G5 iMac.

what's the point when i need an internet connection to be allowed to see my movies? the reason for owning the content is that i can watch it in the car, on the train, on the plain, in my backyard or at the beach.

with this concept i might as well stop at the next blockbuster and rent a dvd.

i don't think it's gonna happen like this.

[ShavenYak]

I can't imagine Apple trying to open up .Mac space to hold HDTV programs and such, that would increase their storage requirements exponentially.

No, there'd probably only be one copy of the video file on the .mac server, and it would be symbolically linked into each user's iDisk who had purchased it. It wouldn't eat into the user's quota, either. Just like the GarageBand Jam Pack samplers in the Software folder... you don't think there's a separate copy of those files for every .mac user, do you?

[BornAgainMac]

This will work for TV shows and movies more than music. I am sure it will be pitched that way.

[rsamo]

As far as I'm concerned this is all worthless. I want something that will enable me to stream all of this content to my TV rather cheaply. I don't want to buy a 5G iPod right now, and I certainly don't want to buy a laptop to hook up to my TV that has inadequate power, speed, and storage for a digital lifestlyle of making movies, and holding thousands of songs and photos on your computer. Where is my Airport Express with video that supports 802.11n???????? Only then will I be tuly happy!

[iTron5]

You have to think differently. If you have today's DVR you get to watch your recorded content whenever you want. You can't archive it to another drive though. So what?! It's still yours. Now it will live on .Mac and Apple can deal with the storage issues instead of you. If this rolls out in Hi-Def as I expect it will, you won't want to be archiving this stuff unless you have TB's of HD space anyways :cool:


Actually with replay tv and i believe tivo, you can archive the shows it records. I have a few replay tv's and 1.5tb's of harddrive space that hold shows that i can either watch on computer or stream back to any replays in my house to watch. I store them on there until the dvds for whatever i recorded come out then i purchase those and delete the shows to make room for new stuff.

If indeed apple would intend to store the shows on .mac and you stream them down, i would not be interested in this service at all. First i don't have any use for .mac so i don't care to pay for that, and 2nd as people have mentioned i want the content local for many reasons, one being what if my internet connection drops, i can't watch a show i've paid for. I would think this would be a nightmare for apple anyway, MASSIVE storage requirements if this takes off, a huge increase in necessary bandwith for them. For me to be interested in any of the content anyway it would have to be high quality or i don't see the purpose of getting it through this distribution method ( atleast for me ) and high quality shows especially going to HD at some point would make the storage requirements that much larger for apple.

[Porchland]

Tivo stock took a big dive this week on the news that they're not going to get anymore new DirecTV subscribers, and this Apple news isn't going to help.

Tivo's market cap is now less than $500 million, or about a third of what Netflix is worth.

[J@ffa]

This article mentions the video iPod; surely it's misguided in saying that you won't actually be able to store the files on your HD? Unless of course Apple has actually discovered the secret of real magic!

[ShavenYak]

Tivo's market cap is now less than $500 million, or about a third of what Netflix is worth.

Tivo = 0.5 gigabucks, Netflix = 1.5 gigabucks?
Then Apple has enough CASH sitting in the bank to buy both these companies four times over. Hmmm.... :D

[Cooknn]

How much bandwidth is required to stream H.264 at 1080i? I know my cable company uses about 16Mbps to get it done. Right now my internet connection approaches 10Mbps. I imagine H.264 does a lot better than Mpeg-2 for compression. This could work...

Actually with replay tv and i believe tivo, you can archive the shows it records.I stand corrected! I have a Comcast DVR (Scientific Atlanta SA8000HD).

[geerlingguy]

this stinks. this will be slow, slow, slow. also, no chance of watching this content while on my airline flights on the laptop, either. have to have .mac as well??? come on, apple. you are turning into TiVo in terms of backing down to the entertainment industry.:confused:

We must remember that this is speculation. I do not think Apple would be stupid enough to not allow some sort of downloading. Part of the reason the subscription music services are down in the dumps is because they initially had no way for people to put the music on portable devices. Apple's model for iTunes works.

Surely Apple sees that hard drive storage is increasing by a vast amount every year, and storage on personal hard drives of movies (especially compressed H.264 files) will not be a huge deal. Plus, if Apple does it right, people could burn movies off to DVDs (with copy protection still on them) and pop them into their Macs when they want to watch them.

The only problem I foresee is the fact that Front Row only works on Macs (justly so!), but that problem could be overcome by turning the Mac mini into a more 'Tivo-like' device - more of an appliance than a computer. Then the whole 'Mac vs. PC' debate would be invalid, since a person or family wouldn't be purchasing the mini as use as a main computer.

[iTron5]

I stand corrected! I have a Comcast (Scientific Atlanta SA8000HD) DVR.[/QUOTE]

I don't know about this particular model, but with my hd box from cox cable ( something like motoroal 6320 or something ), i can use firewire and a couple programs apple provides in their firewird sdk to pull video off of my cable boxes including the above hd pvr from cox. It's not nearly as nice a solution as pulling the video off of my replays but it does work. Don't know if you have any interest in doing this but you might check into it. I don't recall the program name, but a search probably on this site or maybe avsforum should turn up results. I'm not at home or i would post the names of the programs.

[iMeowbot]

How much bandwidth is required to stream H.264 at 1080i?
20-50Mbps, depending on options. (can be less depending on the content.)

[ShavenYak]

How much bandwidth is required to stream H.264 at 1080i? I know my cable company uses about 16Mbps to get it done. Right now my internet connection approaches 10Mbps. I imagine H.264 does a lot better than Mpeg-2 for compression. This could work...

I stand corrected! (I have a Comcast - Scientific Atlanta SA8000HD DVR)

Well, MPEG-4 does decent standard definition at 2 or 3 Mbps, figure four times the data for four times the resolution and you're sitting right at 10Mbps. I have 384kbps broadband, and the fastest I can get is 3Mbps. So if there's HD to be downloaded, Apple's going to have to let me store the files locally at least at some time, because I can't stream it. I'll wait eight hours to watch an HD movie I like - that's still less time than it would take Netflix to mail it to me.

I have an 8000HD also. Man, I wish there was a way to archive the shows off it. You can hook the analog stereo and composite video outs to a standalone DVD recorder, but the quality leaves a LOT to be desired. And the firewire ports look really cool sitting on the back, but they are non-functional.

[stoid]

Well if they do HD h.264 and expect users to mac mini, it's going to have to have one HELL of a processor since decoding 1080p requires a dual 2.0 G5!

Of course if they go 720p which would be reasonable I think (also more bandwidth capable) they would only need a single G5 1.8 (or a 2.8Ghz intel Pentium).

[besler3035]

Okay, first off, the article says iDisk - NOT .Mac. Now I know in order to use iDisk, you need to have .Mac (I'm a subscriber myself). But do you think that Apple could open a portion of iDisk to everyone? That's one option.

Another option is to have specific content only for .Mac subscribers, like Apple does with third party software packages and GarageBand loops. Might be a big positive of .Mac. I'm sure Apple knows that their subscriptions for .Mac aren't exactly high right now, and this might make people want to have it. After all, .Mac is accesible on Macs and PCs.

Or heck, why not make .Mac free?

[neutrino23]

No, there'd probably only be one copy of the video file on the .mac server, and it would be symbolically linked into each user's iDisk who had purchased it. It wouldn't eat into the user's quota, either. Just like the GarageBand Jam Pack samplers in the Software folder... you don't think there's a separate copy of those files for every .mac user, do you?

You beat me to it. Clearly, if Apple goes this route, there are a number of advantages to this. The number of copies of the files is greatly reduced. You don't have to wait for the file to download to view it. You can start watching almost immediately after purchasing. Just like streaming QuickTime the software will probably buffer a minute or two ahead to smooth out network stalls. There is a lot to like about this.

On the other hand, there are serious objections. What about viewing content on your laptop or iPod when you don't have a network connection? I think we'll have to wait and see what Apple does before getting too worked up.

Perhaps, like with music, there will be a way to treat the iPod as a write-only device. Movies could be sent to the iPod but not read out. Currently it is possible to get songs back off an iPod. However, with a firmware change it shouldn't be that hard to disallow getting files out of an iPod.

Maybe the same would apply to a laptop. You could download the low resolution file for viewing away from a network connection while at home where you have the network connection and your large screen TV you can stream the high resolution HD version of the content.

It certainly seems that Apple has been testing the waters of digital streaming lately. Last years MWSF keynote was streamed at 24 fps (move rate) and at quite high resolution. A few months ago there was a period where suddenly downloads from Apple happened at something like one megabyte per second.

This baby step towards the digital age might be enough to keep everyone in the game till we're ready for the next step.

[ShavenYak]

i can use firewire and a couple programs apple provides in their firewird sdk to pull video off of my cable boxes including the above hd pvr from cox. It's not nearly as nice a solution as pulling the video off of my replays but it does work. Don't know if you have any interest in doing this but you might check into it. I don't recall the program name, but a search probably on this site or maybe avsforum should turn up results. I'm not at home or i would post the names of the programs.

I'ts VirtualDVHS. I've tried it with my DVR (from Charter) and it does not work.

[iHavenolife]

I read the there was a lot of piracy the other day in The Wall Street Journal.
Could be good or bad.:confused:

[stuBCN75]

Well, this does not sound so great to me. If this is true then does Apple presume we all have big fat ADSL connections ? Mine is only 1Mbit, which i know is pants, but it's the best I can get at my current location. :(

I would also be not so keen on having to buy a .Mac account, I already pay for hosting elsewhere. I would rather Apple expand the iTunes store to a iMedia store, at least I can download stuff to my Mac in the same way I do when I buy music.

To be honest I am getting a bit fed up with DRM stuff, it would be nice to get a CD quality copy of a song when I buy it. It would also be nice if i am no strangled by Apples DRM.

I just reinstalled my OS and I had to re-authorize my tunes I had bought. I also bought most of them on my laptop. So now i only have 3 'lives' left ! I did by the blo**dy music, it seems a bit unfair. Does it ? It looks like I will have to buy the music again in a few years when I have run out of DRM 'lives'

[GFLPraxis]

I haven't seen ANY indication that you won't be able to have it on your hard drive. Sounds to me like it will auto-backup to your .Mac so you can stream it to any Mac online, but I see no reason you can't also have it on your Mac.

[nagromme]

I don't buy it. Why store the content on Apple's media servers AND on their iDisk servers, AND in their caches? Why add the extra bandwidth, storage, and complexity for the user? Just stream from Apple's media servers directly to the caches to you.

All the user needs for their "library" is a LIST on Apple's servers. No need to involve iDisk.

But if there's some truth to this, then:

a) BOO media companies and their insistence DRM (I don't blame Apple, I blame the media companies and the pirates). I know, the ship has sailed. But it's a reason to look closely at the terms, and for some people to just say No.

b) It's time for a lower-end .Mac package. Dare I say free? Otherwise it would be needlessly limiting the customer base.

Free .Mac would include two things at a minimum: first storage, but ONLY for the paid content (sort of like signing up for iTunes is free, but you pay for songs). And secondly, it would include what should have always been free: a mac.com email address. NOT Webmail--I guess that costs Apple too much--but a simple FORWARDING address you could use as your Reply-To. No server space needed from Apple, then. And it would get "@mac.com" in front of lots and lots of non-Mac email recipients. Good for mindshare.

I imagine some truth hides behind all this, but not in the form it appears. As TS suggests: what if you want to watch a movie on a flight?

This may simply be a small, heavily-restricted toe-in-the-water type feature. Much like video on iPods. Something the press and rumors made FAR too much of in advance, but Apple was smarter--they made it a SMALL feature, just an "extra" on a MUSIC player. So maybe this rumor is true, it's just not as BIG a deal as it could be. Yet. Sometimes "limited appeal" and a slow start are a fine strategy--as long as it's not "THE reason" to own a Mac Mini.

I can believe the direct-to-iPod part. Sure, people will find ways to extract the files from there, but the iPod versions won't be the full-quality original video--and may not be easy to play even if they're extracted, if computers themselves are never "authorized."

[neutrino23]

Well if they do HD h.264 and expect users to mac mini, it's going to have to have one HELL of a processor since decoding 1080p requires a dual 2.0 G5!

Of course if they go 720p which would be reasonable I think (also more bandwidth capable) they would only need a single G5 1.8 (or a 2.8Ghz intel Pentium).

That is if the decoding is done through the CPU. The better way to do this is through the GPU. Here is ATI's take on it.

http://www.ati.com/technology/h264.html

This is currently how your DVD player works with MPEG2. Think of a Mac mini as a glorified DVD player with a graphics chip that can decode H.264 as well as do a number of other neat tricks. As pointed out above this could obviate the need of working with Windows. Apple wouldn't distribute this as an application (like iTunes or QuickTime). Instead it would be an appliance that happens to use OS X underneath the Front Row interface.

[ShavenYak]

Or heck, why not make .Mac free?

I've thought for some time that they should offer a free ".Mac lite", with a smaller iDisk allocation and maybe banner ads on Homepages. Perhaps tie it to a hardware purchase, and make it good for like three years. With additional revenue coming from video sales, this might be plauible.

[dernhelm]

So does this mean .mac will be opened up for everybody? I'd be ticked if I actually purchased .mac for a year, and then had this open up. Unless of course, this is only available for .mac subscribers, in which case anyone on a windows machine would be out in the cold.

I dunno, seems a bit odd all around...

[Cooknn]

I'ts VirtualDVHS. I've tried it with my DVR (from Charter) and it does not work.So have I. For HDTV content - at least for me - everything is encrypted.

[Yvan256]

agreed - seems a little weird to me. Also begs the question of what if you're not a .Mac subscriber?

Isn't .Mac exclusive to OS X users anyway? What about those on dial-up and low-speed DSL/cable? What about those with metered service (pay-per-GB)?

Seems way too complicated and limiting if you ask me. Also very costly for Apple (bandwidth usage).

And as someone said, such a method wouldn't work with the new 5th gen. iPod.

[DCBass]

Isn't .Mac exclusive to OS X users anyway? What about those on dial-up and low-speed DSL/cable? What about those with metered service (pay-per-GB)?

Seems way too complicated and limiting if you ask me. Also very costly for Apple (bandwidth usage).

And as someone said, such a method wouldn't work with the new 5th gen. iPod.

Good point. If Apple went this route, they would obviously have to open up .Mac, at least a portion of its services, to pc users. I also think that if this is the case, that apple should have some baseline free services mentioned in the post above.

Peace.

[CaptainScarlet]

Booo! If I buy something, I want it on my hard drive for archival purposes.

Do you REALLY need on your hard drive if you watch it maybe once or twice???

I sure in hell wouldn't want it around...


It's just like renting a movie from blockbuster...once you pay for it, watch it, you return it and it's gone!!

[dashiel]

here's an interesting thought... one of the ways that video compression works is by comparing two frames and only changing the pixels on the screen that are different between the two. obviously camera shifts, loads of action etc... are hard to compress and take more filesize/bandwidth.

perhaps apple is planning a system that downloads the more complex frames to a secure location on your hard drive at the initial purchase the rest of the content gets streamed to you. they could also do something where they send you ipod video quality video that would handle transferring the content to ipod and also a situation where your internet connection drops. broadcast television already does this to an extent, but instead of lower quality video you get digital blocking.

it would certainly make piracy more difficult with content DRM's with fair play and with content split in two locations. not that i care about DRM, but obviously the media companies do.

[Xenious]

Fine by me, BUT they seriously need to improve .mac idisk performance.

[knoxer]

It looks like I will have to buy the music again in a few years when I have run out of DRM 'lives'

You can de-authorize any computer to give you back a 'life'.

[puckhead193]

to solve the i want to take it with while i'm flying or whatever, i think you will be able to put it on your ipod video....

[Super Dave]

this stinks. this will be slow, slow, slow. also, no chance of watching this content while on my airline flights on the laptop, either. have to have .mac as well??? come on, apple. you are turning into TiVo in terms of backing down to the entertainment industry.:confused:

READ THIS POST. YOU WON'T REGRET IT

This technology is already in use. And it's not slow. Try front row and look at movie trailers. They're good quality (not 1080i certainly but good) First thing you notice is that they just start quickly, and you say "whatever."

But, try scrubbing to any part in the video, even the very end. It's just plays. It does not do that on the apple.com/trailers site. This technology isn't coming. It's already here.

David:cool:

PS - I doubt it will be a .mac tie in. The think secret report is definitely 2 truths and a mistake.

[mdavey]

<snip>

Hmm. When watching a FrontRow trailer, that is exactly what happens - it buffers a bit until it is confident it can play the rest without gaps, then starts playback. The trailer is then cached locally for a period of time. Playing back again within half an hour or so doesn't require a new network connection. But try again a couple of days later and it'll refetch.

Perhaps Apple is planning to cache movies locally on iDisk for a much longer period of time, but eventually they'll be deleted and just a record of your purchase will be kept if you want to watch again.

A mechanism a bit like iTunes podcasts could be used to allow people to pre-purchase movies. If you are on a 'plane you could watch anything still in your cache (both recently watched stuff and stuff you haven't watched yet). Perhaps it'll even download a lowres version that you can keep forever on your iPod?

I still don't like the idea, but with enough thought Apple could come up with a scheme that everyone except the hardcode geeks would accept.

[otter-boy]

I, too have been thinking that storing movies on iDisk through .Mac and streaming them would be a bad idea (imagine the bandwidth costs, probalby for Apple, if you watched the movie over and over again).

Then I had a thought: maybe your movies/TV shows/songs won't be stored on iDisk, but your purchase history would. If you lost your shows and songs, Apple would let you redownload the ones in your iDisk history. This way, Apple is just adding insurance that wasn't there before (though I guess you could already store your files on iDisk but that would wipe out your space pretty fast). I know you can backup your own stuff now, but most people don't.

For all of the reasons that people have already mentioned here on this thread and all of the animosity shown toward storing the content remotely, I just don't see Apple going down that road at this time. In the future, maybe a couple of years, the technology might be there to stream media from servers to almost anywhere at anytime in real-time, but that can't happen now (especially on laptops).

[Epicurus]

If Apple really intends on selling full movie downloads, then they have two options: make their standard hard drives really, really big, or offer online iDisk storage to all who want to buy a movie. It seems that Apple has gone with the latter. If they are smart, they'll not make this iDisk plan the only option for viewing the movies. Full quality (in some flavor of H.264 HD, 720p or otherwise) downloads should be available to those with the necessary internet bandwidth and local storage capacity. Lower quality, iPod ready downloads should come with the same dual-storage options. If you have the iPod version locally, then you should have access to the HD version online and for download to an external storage medium (DVD or HDD).

The whole content delivery paradigm that we have now with the iTunes Music Store would have to be overhauled. Music works pretty well with a pay-per-download system (allowing the user to keep copies of the song on several local machines and iPods). Moving to a larger file like a movie and you run into storage capacity problems right away. Assume for now that Apple is still going to use the line that "this is all to boost iPod sales". This means iPod versions like the current TV and Music Video content will have to be available and at the forefront. Full versions would only be of interest if Apple comes out with a DVR Mac mini. This new iDisk idea makes the DVR option all the more interesting.

What if instead of simply recording TV content like a TiVo DVR, the mini was you local storage site for all the Movie content you download from Apple. The mini would become the focus of the Movie Store just like the iPod was the focus of the Music Store. Sell more HD movies to boost Mac mini sales!! :eek: The mini would need a much larger hard drive (or two) to make this work, but it is possible. By offering dual-downloads of both HD and iPod sized files Apple would also keep the mini from having to bear the brunt of H.264 encoding for all the movies you choose to download. Click to buy the movie and you instantly* get both formats (*minus the download times). For those without a mini (or a suitable PowerMac with 500GB+ storage) you can always leave your HD content online in you .Mac iDisk and just take the iPod sized file with you.

If all this is tied together with a sweet marketing campaign, flawless software, speedy downloads, and signature Apple hardware, it just might work! :D :D :D

[danielwsmithee]

No, there'd probably only be one copy of the video file on the .mac server, and it would be symbolically linked into each user's iDisk who had purchased it. It wouldn't eat into the user's quota, either. Just like the GarageBand Jam Pack samplers in the Software folder... you don't think there's a separate copy of those files for every .mac user, do you?

This rumor does make their spending make sense. For Apple to do this they are going to have to make a large inverstment in their servers. Coincidentally they just anounced they will be spending a large amount of money on enhancing their "information technology infrastructure."

Planned Spending
Apple projects that is will spend roughly US$390 million for capital expenditures in fiscal 2006, compared to $260 million in fiscal 2005. $210 million of that will be used for further expansion of its retail segment, with the remainder to support normal replacement of existing capital assets, along with enhancements to the company's general information technology infrastructure.

[csubear]

This is one rumor i hope is not true. I would not feel comfrotable have my purchased media on a remote sever.

What if I wanted to watch the movie on an airplane? Or some where else i don't have an internet connection.

I don't think this is going to happen. Steve has always stressed that people want to own there media.

[pgwalsh]

Works for me. I would finally have a reason to subscribe to .Mac

Imagine the possibilities with this! Cable companies better be taking notice. Advertisers as well. This is going to start a major shift in television viewing if Apple does it right.

yeah.. it's sort of like cables on Deman, but through your Mac and possibly your entertainment box in the future. Perhaps they'll reduce the price of .Mac and add a charge per movie.. If they're going to offer HD content, it might be a bit much for downloads, so streaming makes more sense. Who knows, but they have to have some revenu model for the expense. If they do offer full featured HDTV and Films, I wonder how this would effect NetFlicks over time.

It also seems a bit silly if they don't offer this to windows users. Windows users are a big part of ITMS downloads... If there's any merit to this rumor, it should be intersting.

[SiliconAddict]

Pretty freaking useless if you ask me. I mean you can't even bring it down to a laptop to watch it on the go? Umm OK....whatever.

[iGary]

Christ, ThinkSecret' advertising dollars must be down.

This is bunk.

[Fukui]

Well, it seems like a .Mac account would be needed for "verification" rather than storage. I can't imagine Apple trying to open up .Mac space to hold HDTV programs and such, that would increase their storage requirements exponentially.
Not necessarily, they can just mirror the same content to different accounts, so there is only one actual resource for the movie, but is mirrored for speed, and when you make the request for the movie file from the iDisk, it just pipes the request to their heavy duty servers... IOW a kind of trick behind the scenes...

I do hope though, they give is the option to copy it to our disk when/if they want. I think they would make mandatory download unnecessary, but give the option to download too.

[mdavey]

If Apple really intends on selling full movie downloads, then they have two options: make their standard hard drives really, really big, or offer online iDisk storage to all who want to buy a movie. It seems that Apple has gone with the latter.

Or perhaps the new Mac mini media center won't have a hard disk at all. By default you mount your iDisk and 'store' to that (but as others have said, it would just be a symlink). Alternatively, you can buy an optional Xmediaserve, hook it into your home network and store your movies there.

Either way, you can save a version of anything you have bought to your iPod or laptop at any time.

[dashiel]

This is one rumor i hope is not true. I would not feel comfrotable have my purchased media on a remote sever.

it is the wave of the future. bluray and hd-dvd are the last physical media you as a consumer will be able to buy. by 2015, if not earlier, all new media content will be pay-per-use. the concept of local storage of anything - applications, files, entertainment, etc... is going away for the majority of consumers.

What if I wanted to watch the movie on an airplane? Or some where else i don't have an internet connection.


buy a DVD.

people watching movies on a plane is such a minority as to not be a worthwhile hinderance in rolling something like this out. i fly all the time... something like 100,000 miles this year and i see maybe 2-3 people per flight crack open their laptops or portable DVD players.

[rlreif]

oh man i hope this is true... sounds great!

[ScubaDuc]

You have to think differently. If you have today's DVR you get to watch your recorded content whenever you want. You can't archive it to another drive though. So what?! It's still yours. Now it will live on .Mac and Apple can deal with the storage issues instead of you. If this rolls out in Hi-Def as I expect it will, you won't want to be archiving this stuff unless you have TB's of HD space anyways :cool:


What if I want t watch my stuff, say in Nosy be, Madagascar? If I pay for content, I want to use it wherever and whenever I please otherwise, what am I paying for? Can I watch it on a plane? On the road? How does it add value? Seems I might as well use a DVD recorder and burn whatever I wanna take with me or load it onto a 2.5 external disk!

Geez, it takes 20 minutes to copy 1 Hr of MPEG2; How long would it take to stream a 2 Hr movie in HD TV? :confused:

[G5power]

Wow another step towards the media companies ultimate goal that we pay each time we want to hear or watch a song or movie. Pay for play just like a jukebox.

This clearly would pass over from purchasing media to renting.

[boombashi]

You can de-authorize any computer to give you back a 'life'.
You can also contact Apple once a year to give you back ALL your 'lives', in essence resetting all the old registered computers from jobs you got fired from, ex girl friends laptops etc. Don't question mighty Steve and Apple. They know their customers and products, just a little bit.

[network23]

I certainly hope this rumor is false. I am NOT liking this. At. All.

No way will I pay for content that is low-quality, but even more so for low-quality content that requires an internet connection to view!

[aswitcher]

[B]

PS - I doubt it will be a .mac tie in. The think secret report is definitely 2 truths and a mistake.


Except it reinforces a business model of getting as many Mac users as possible into .Mac.

If they offer free stuff (it better be internationally or this will really sux) because your a subscriber, or even a token (I emphasise small) extra amount for a whole series/channel for a year or more, then it would rock. Anyone with a video ipod and a Mac would have to consider .Mac and PC users could really be tempted to the Mac platform if enough good content was made available.

[stuBCN75]

You can de-authorize any computer to give you back a 'life'.

oooh. I didn't know that. Thanks.

(Thats what happens when you dont read the 'Read Me' file.)
Im still no big fan of the way DRM is going though. More technology less freedom.

[Cooknn]

What if I want t watch my stuff, say in Nosy be, Madagascar? If I pay for content, I want to use it wherever and whenever I please otherwise, what am I paying for? Can I watch it on a plane? On the road? How does it add value?I'm thinking of the living room. I don't take my 50" HDTV with me on a plane, so it doesn't bother me that this content might not be portable.

[boombashi]

I really don't think Apple is going to do it the way alot of you are thinking. I believe it will be a mix between how Napster - On - the - Go BS works, mixed with how the current iDisk and iTunes DRM works. You will most likely be able to put videos on your iPod for like 30 days or so before 'timing out' in which case you would have to sync to the registered computer. I'm sure iTunes Music DRM will not change, other than possibly giving access to a iDisk copy, and possibly only referring to those files. Bye Bye JHymn, but I hope not. It will still have local copies, cached on your hard drive similar to how iDisk works in Tiger and Panther. I doubt Apple will be streaming over the internet to watch an HD Movie, unless it allows you to start after partial download, but that would be only for the first watch, they will probably swap cache giving precedent to the most recent files. Anyway we all see soon enough.

[Superdrive]

My iDisk already crawls when I try to move Canon RAW files between computers, why in the hell would I want it for utilizing movies? I'm hoping this is another TS error. Also FOX saying that they are open to iTunes distribution is far from saying they are going to do it, IMHO.

[stuBCN75]

You can also contact Apple once a year to give you back ALL your 'lives', in essence resetting all the old registered computers from jobs you got fired from, ex girl friends laptops etc. Don't question mighty Steve and Apple. They know their customers and products, just a little bit.

Didnt know that either ;)
Not been fired .... yet, touch wood !

I think it's great that Apple are looking at new ways of making $$, i really rate iTunes and would also like to be able to buy films online too. But I think I will have to wait until I can get a decent ADSL connection.

[JoeG4]

Yep, sounds like a rental "You pay $20 a month and have UNLIMITED ACCESS TO EVERYTHING WITH NOOO LIMITS!!!!!" service. :mad:

Steve Jobs & Co is beginning to come off as raging hypocrites. They introduce something, act like it's revolutionary and awesome, then turn around a few months/years later and act as if they never did it in the first place. Shoot, it's come to the point that he even dissed the idea of a video iPod *DAYS* before it was introduced.

Why doesn't this fat old jerk stand behind ANYTHING he says? Business? Some business. That isn't a business, it's a stock investor puppet.

[ScubaDuc]

people watching movies on a plane is such a minority as to not be a worthwhile hinderance in rolling something like this out. i fly all the time... something like 100,000 miles this year and i see maybe 2-3 people per flight crack open their laptops or portable DVD players.

If u fly all that much then you must be aware that unless you are flying business or u are a midget, there just isn't enough room to really do anything. The screen sits at an angle and u have to slide under to see anything....

I really think it is a matter of principle...If we pay for rights, we should have the material. Period.

[seriypshick]

What if you don't always have internet connection for example in airplanes.

I hope they go with iTunes model instead.

[blackpeter]

Yep, sounds like a rental "You pay $20 a month and have UNLIMITED ACCESS TO EVERYTHING WITH NOOO LIMITS!!!!!" service. :mad:

Steve Jobs & Co is beginning to come off as raging hypocrites. They introduce something, act like it's revolutionary and awesome, then turn around a few months/years later and act as if they never did it in the first place. Shoot, it's come to the point that he even dissed the idea of a video iPod *DAYS* before it was introduced.

Why doesn't this fat old jerk stand behind ANYTHING he says? Business? Some business. That isn't a business, it's a stock investor puppet.

Woah. What's with all the hostility? What's so hypocritical about a subscription model for TV and movies? That is, *if* they introduce such a model at all. Seems to make sense.

Right now I pay DirecTV $60 a month. I pay Netflix another $17. That's $77 a month for content I'll never "own" (and don't want to). I don't know about you, but I'm not one of these guys with a DVD collection. Once I watch a movie or television program, I'm done. I don't need to watch it over and over and I don't need to pay $20-per-film to watch something once.

Music is different, which is why Steve was so adamant that their *Music* Store not be subscription based. Are you saying that Apple would be acting hypocritically by going to a subscription based Video Store? Because, I don't see how the two are related. Music is very different than film and TV in this sense.

[johnnyjibbs]

Maybe it's the killer app that .Mac has been waiting for all these years. That said, this would compromise video sales and I'm unsure whether internet bandwidth would be good enough for the job. At the end of the day, I'm sure they'd want to free as many obstacles from a sale as possible, even if this meant having to accept some forms of piracy (which already exists anyway). Anyway - crippling DRM anyone?

[ScubaDuc]

I'm thinking of the living room. I don't take my 50" HDTV with me on a plane, so it doesn't bother me that this content might not be portable.


It is really the principle, like someone posted before, it seems the Time Warners of this world are looking for ways to increase their turnover, and that means less money in our pockets

50 inch? With that size your pixels must be the size of...bricks: I would hate to read teletext on it but I am not sure you ever had it in the U.S.

[jholzner]

Yep, sounds like a rental "You pay $20 a month and have UNLIMITED ACCESS TO EVERYTHING WITH NOOO LIMITS!!!!!" service. :mad:

Steve Jobs & Co is beginning to come off as raging hypocrites. They introduce something, act like it's revolutionary and awesome, then turn around a few months/years later and act as if they never did it in the first place. Shoot, it's come to the point that he even dissed the idea of a video iPod *DAYS* before it was introduced.

Why doesn't this fat old jerk stand behind ANYTHING he says? Business? Some business. That isn't a business, it's a stock investor puppet.

No they are not coming of that way. Jobs has even said that music isn't like movies. You want to own your music because you listen to is so much. But how many times do you watch your favorite movie? Not nearly as much. I think it's inline with what they've said in the past. Besides, this is just a rumor...I bet the final product (if it even exists) will make more sense once we know the whole and true story.

[Cooknn]

It is really the principle, like someone posted before, it seems the Time Warners of this world are looking for ways to increase their turnover, and that means less money in our pockets

50 inch? With that size your pixels must be the size of...bricks: I would hate to read teletext on it but I am not sure you ever had it in the U.S.:) Hi-Def on a 50" looks great from the couch. I actually prefer 720p to 1080i. I guess 1080p is on the horizon as well.

[puuukeey]

According to their source, the new system will rely on .Mac's iDisk for storage, keeping media files from ever being held locally on the purchaser's hard drive, utilizing the rumored Front Row 2.0.

its a fairplay fix.... http://home.comcast.net/~puuukeey/evil2.gif

now we don't even get VIRTUAL copy of our media. we would truly be renting something for buying rates playing it only on apples and media companies terms

HEY APPLE!!! BOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

/recording engineer.
-matt

[laughingboy]

For a bunch of mac users, the minds are quite closed...

1) just because it's referred to as .mac in TS's article, it likely won't be the same infrastructure i.e. so slooooow, or it would be a non-starter. Apple will provide more than enough infrastructure so support whatever this is. I've never had a problem getting any updates or files quickly from Apple servers in recent years - unlike the Mac OS 7,8,9 days...

2) Video isn't the same as audio. It doesn't demand as much replay. How many times to you want to watch last nights Daily Show? Not as many times as the latest album from your favourite artist. It can be subscription...much like cable acts today.

3) Bandwidth. Few, in North America at least, have sufficient bandwidth for 1080 HD. So what. It will come when bandwidth increases. I'm not up on the sweet spot for bandwidth levels of the population vs. content quality, but it's probably going to be on par with most current non-HD, or 720 HD content.

4) Portability. I doubt Apple would require fulltime connection to support some content playback. Probably a 24 hour local download, or more would be doable.

5) Clearly a mini-like chunk of hardware, perhaps acting more like an appliance (like the iPod) than a mac will anchor the release of this.

It would be interesting to count up all the shows I watch in a week, and divide the amount I spend on cable / month, and see what the cost is /hour or per show. I think it's possible I would get better quality, service and content while saving money with the Apple model.

I can't wait to see what's really up. It's an interesting time that will eventually affect all of the tube staring population.

[m-dogg]

This is one rumor i hope is not true. I would not feel comfrotable have my purchased media on a remote sever.

What if I wanted to watch the movie on an airplane? Or some where else i don't have an internet connection.

I don't think this is going to happen. Steve has always stressed that people want to own there media.

Hmmm...he has said that people want to own thier music...because they like to listen to that again and again much more than they'd watch a movie.

But a movie on the other hand, Blockbuster/Netflix/etc...show that a market does exist for renting movies.

[stoid]

Yeah. Steve has said repeatedly that video and music are inherently different. You might watch your favorite show or move two dozen times at most, however your favorite song you could play hundreds of times.

Notice that there are hundreds of video rental brick and mortar places. However, how many music rental places are there? I can't think of any, and certainly none as big as Blockbuster or Hollywood Video or other (inter)national chain.

[Super Dave]

I don't know how many people read my last post (about Apple's Front Row movie trailers already utilizing this streaming technology), but about 20 minutes after I posted it I figured something out.

The iMac using Front Row INTENTIONALLY sucks. It was a trial balloon before the real thing launched. To test how well the new streaming technology works in the real world.

Front Row 2 will undoubtedly fix this.

For those who think this is going to fail, please remember the No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame. (http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23/1816257&tid=107) comments when the original iPod was released. You're just not getting the vision. Video on planes is a non-issue for the vast majority of human beings. This is for your house. Read that again, your house. The only people who watch portable video are kids in the back seats of cars and an ever changing group of 10 teenagers who think it's cool. For a week. And for those kids, the iPod direct download will work fine for them, and for visiting a friends'.

So long as you own the videos, and can put them on your iPod to watch on the go or at your friends' place, no one will care if they have their videos hosted locally on their computer. Who would want to have to buy a hard drive that ridiculously huge anyway?

So long as your ISP is up or you've copied the one you want to watch to your iPod, you have your movies. This won't involve .Mac (Apple's not that stupid), it won't be subscription (Apple's not that stupid). Apple is about to own a huge portion of the television and movie industry in 10 years or less.

EDIT: maybe it will be subscription. I forgot how much Jobs mentions people not wanting to watch movies over and over again. But I stand by the rest of my analysis.

David:cool:

[otter-boy]

Video on planes is a non-issue for the vast majority of human beings. This is for your house. Read that again, your house. The only people who watch portable video are kids in the back seats of cars and an ever changing group of 10 teenagers who think it's cool. For a week. [emphasis added]

David:cool:

I'm not saying that I go around watching movies and TV on the road or in the air that much, but when I travel by plane I do like to have something there that I can watch on my laptop.

I'm not kid, not a teenager, just a regular old boring adult. My wife, my brother, and most of my friends have laptops. We're all pretty tech-savvy, and we all watch at least some media (movies, TV, video blogs) on our laptops.

Watching something on a laptop is not necessarily an optimal experience, but we often settle for it because it's better than watching the latest Ashton Kutcher film on a plane. It's also nice for long train rides and, yes, even car trips. But, I also watch movies on my laptop when my wife has commandeered the TV or when I'm sick and stuck in bed.

I think it would be short-sighted of Apple to tie their content exclusively to TVs and iPods. They would definitely limit their sales and slow adoption of the service.

[vmardian]

Think FAR into the future when the network is everywhere, and its fast enough to stream HD content. In this kind of world, streaming video on demand to a controlled device is the ultimate solution to all the problems associated with content distribution.

[doucy2]

agreed - seems a little weird to me. Also begs the question of what if you're not a .Mac subscriber?
exactly like me
this mini would probally be a total wast of money

i do like the idea of frontrow with idisk

[aprilfools]

I would imagine that almost everybody here is of a "Mac techy" type nature and loves all the cool stuff Apple puts out. I know that I am that way for sure. And I finally just bought .Mac last week on black Friday. Point being, get .Mac and stop complaining about it if Apple makes .Mac a requirement for the new services rumored about. .Mac is kinda fun to have anyway so bust out and buy it c'mon.

[supergod]

I think this idea is brilliant, but that's not what I'm going to talk about. What I think should be pointed out is such an obvious point that most people never think about it; you may think you "own" the albums you have bought with iTunes, but you can not access them without a computer. They are virtual: not real.

With the amount of progress the internet has made over the years, it is quickly replacing most of the duties of regular computers, or supercomputers. Is there any difference between having your bits and bytes of data located on the internet, where it is invisibly and conveniently accessable on your computer to having those same bits and bytes on your Hard Drive? It is the same content either way.

It would be great if Apple made films available for download, but realistically the file sizes would be huge: most people who could want such a service would be unable to use it because they wouldn't have a large enough Hard Drive. This internet based approach means that any computer user, no matter the technology of their computer (how large a HD they option for) can use it and have the same experience.

[johnnyjibbs]

You're just not getting the vision. Video on planes is a non-issue for the vast majority of human beings. This is for your house. Read that again, your house. The only people who watch portable video are kids in the back seats of cars and an ever changing group of 10 teenagers who think it's cool. For a week. And for those kids, the iPod direct download will work fine for them, and for visiting a friends'.
The biggest marketing mistake they could make would be to release the new VIDEO iPod and then produce a video content service that was NOT compatible.

I think this idea is brilliant, but that's not what I'm going to talk about. What I think should be pointed out is such an obvious point that most people never think about it; you may think you "own" the albums you have bought with iTunes, but you can not access them without a computer. They are virtual: not real.
Actually, I do own my iTunes downloaded music because I have the right to use it how I want, when I want. I can burn a CD of it LEGALLY and then use it in a CD player. I hope you're not trying to tell me that I don't own music CDs that I buy from a brick and mortar store and play - they are not virtual because I need a CD player to listen to them!

I own them because no-one can ask for it back.

[JonDownin]

I think this idea is brilliant, but that's not what I'm going to talk about. What I think should be pointed out is such an obvious point that most people never think about it; you may think you "own" the albums you have bought with iTunes, but you can not access them without a computer. They are virtual: not real.

With the amount of progress the internet has made over the years, it is quickly replacing most of the duties of regular computers, or supercomputers. Is there any difference between having your bits and bytes of data located on the internet, where it is invisibly and conveniently accessable on your computer to having those same bits and bytes on your Hard Drive? It is the same content either way.

It would be great if Apple made films available for download, but realistically the file sizes would be huge: most people who could want such a service would be unable to use it because they wouldn't have a large enough Hard Drive. This internet based approach means that any computer user, no matter the technology of their computer (how large a HD they option for) can use it and have the same experience.

Point VERY well made!

[neutrino23]

This could be really great. I really don't want to own videos. We have a shelf full of them and we've watched most of them once.

Most of the movies I've seen more than once are those that happened to be on TV when there was nothing better to watch. In other words, the TV was the network and there was a film catalog of one. If there was a film catalog of tens of thousands I would rarely watch the same movie over again.

If Apple offered a huge library of films for a monthly fee that would suit me fine. New releases could be had for an extra charge.

If the monthly fee was all you want to watch then that would practically be the same as owning. Instead of going to the DVD rack you use the network. If you need a screen shot or short snippet just launch the movie and grab it.

Certainly there will be ways to hack this to do so even if it is not officially supported.

[Marvy]

I've thought for some time that they should offer a free ".Mac lite", with a smaller iDisk allocation and maybe banner ads on Homepages. Perhaps tie it to a hardware purchase, and make it good for like three years. With additional revenue coming from video sales, this might be plauible.

This is moving so fast, don't know if this has been said: This concept reminds alot of the new Amazon DVD rental service in Europe (don't know if it's available in the U.S.): You can order a fixed number of DVDs and keep them as long as you like. When you want to have new ones, you need to send your current ones back. Renting movies costs nothing, other than a monthly subscription fee, and you can return movies for new ones as often as you like.

Apple could do it like this as well. As an example: For $9.99 a month you get enough iDisk space for 3 full movies (for $15, you get space for 5, and so on). When your disk is full, and you'd like a new one, an old one has to go. Other than the subscription fee of disk space, the service would cost nothing.

Wouldn't that be something?

[gangst]

Do not like the idea of this at all. If it is as slow and awful as iDisk then this will be awful, it sounds like a horrible idea, but you can't fully judge till you've seen and used it so I'll wait till I pass full judgement.

[m-dogg]

Do not like the idea of this at all. If it is as slow and awful as iDisk then this will be awful, it sounds like a horrible idea, but you can't fully judge till you've seen and used it so I'll wait till I pass full judgement.

Agreed. They would have to seriously speed up iDisk for this to really happen.

[Multimedia]

I'm not going to subscribe to .mac so Apple can possess my purchases. Draconian protection scheme is a deal breaker for me. :rolleyes:

[mdavey]

If it is as slow and awful as iDisk then this will be awful

More importantly, it could again make the rest of the world second-class citizens to America. American users are reporting that trailers in FrontRow now playback flawlessly (possibly Apple have tweaked their infrastructure?).

But those of us in Europe can't guarantee a big fat network pipe all the way from our pretty little villages across the ocean and on to Infinite Loop. Our trailers take approximately twice as long to download/cache as to play and if FrontRow starts playback too soon, we get freezes and breaks.

Having said that, I am looking at this from the perspective of 2005 and my 512k 'broadband' line. Within the next two years, most UK ISPs expect to be offering their customers 8Mb connections so this point could become moot within just a couple of years.

[rosalindavenue]

Right now I pay DirecTV $60 a month. I pay Netflix another $17. That's $77 a month for content I'll never "own" (and don't want to). I don't know about you, but I'm not one of these guys with a DVD collection. Once I watch a movie or television program, I'm done. I don't need to watch it over and over and I don't need to pay $20-per-film to watch something once.

Music is different[...]

Amen. Other than the Star Wars films (for my kids as much as me) and a few Pixar flicks, the average person has no interest in owning a sagging shelf of DVDs. Even a very good movie does not bear watching more than once or twice.

As far as the rumor goes, I think the .mac rumor will probably be in error. I have seen front row's ability to quickly and seamlessly stream video; this is what apple is going to do, in my opinion-- sell non-owned downloads for a couple of bucks, maybe allowing two viewings and no burns. The 21st century blockbuster. No one will mind, aside from the packrats who feel obligated to have a sagging shelf full of crummy Hollywood product.

[Lepton]

The article mentions downloading to iPods. I think we can assume the ability to download to your computer as well. But it might be optional to do so. You could leave it on .Mac and stream it, perhaps optionally caching/saving it to the HD as it comes in.

And remember that iChat requires a .mac identity, but you do not have to actually subscribe to .mac to have and keep it. This may work similarly to that.

You are going to need some kind of account for billing purposes. We have .mac and iTMS and the Apple Store, it's all consolidating, just add this video store to it.

Also, note the way Front Row lets you view online movie trailers. It's streaming them straight into Front Row - unlike all the other media it works with, it's not calling upon iTunes or any other program to do it. A tweak here and there and it could be grabbing videos from online as well.

Things are converging...

[ddrueckhammer]

If Apple really intends on selling full movie downloads, then they have two options: make their standard hard drives really, really big, or offer online iDisk storage to all who want to buy a movie. It seems that Apple has gone with the latter. If they are smart, they'll not make this iDisk plan the only option for viewing the movies. Full quality (in some flavor of H.264 HD, 720p or otherwise) downloads should be available to those with the necessary internet bandwidth and local storage capacity. Lower quality, iPod ready downloads should come with the same dual-storage options. If you have the iPod version locally, then you should have access to the HD version online and for download to an external storage medium (DVD or HDD).

The whole content delivery paradigm that we have now with the iTunes Music Store would have to be overhauled. Music works pretty well with a pay-per-download system (allowing the user to keep copies of the song on several local machines and iPods). Moving to a larger file like a movie and you run into storage capacity problems right away. Assume for now that Apple is still going to use the line that "this is all to boost iPod sales". This means iPod versions like the current TV and Music Video content will have to be available and at the forefront. Full versions would only be of interest if Apple comes out with a DVR Mac mini. This new iDisk idea makes the DVR option all the more interesting.

What if instead of simply recording TV content like a TiVo DVR, the mini was you local storage site for all the Movie content you download from Apple. The mini would become the focus of the Movie Store just like the iPod was the focus of the Music Store. Sell more HD movies to boost Mac mini sales!! :eek: The mini would need a much larger hard drive (or two) to make this work, but it is possible. By offering dual-downloads of both HD and iPod sized files Apple would also keep the mini from having to bear the brunt of H.264 encoding for all the movies you choose to download. Click to buy the movie and you instantly* get both formats (*minus the download times). For those without a mini (or a suitable PowerMac with 500GB+ storage) you can always leave your HD content online in you .Mac iDisk and just take the iPod sized file with you.

If all this is tied together with a sweet marketing campaign, flawless software, speedy downloads, and signature Apple hardware, it just might work! :D :D :D

I agree with you on everything but would add that Apple needs to add another app for downloading full video content. iTunes and the ITMS is getting pretty cluttered with the addition of TV shows and Music Videos IMHO. I think another app should be added specifically to manage video content downloaded and manage this content in the Movies folder, not in the Music>iTunes> folders.

[mhouse]

I just reinstalled my OS and I had to re-authorize my tunes I had bought. I also bought most of them on my laptop. So now i only have 3 'lives' left ! I did by the blo**dy music, it seems a bit unfair. Does it ? It looks like I will have to buy the music again in a few years when I have run out of DRM 'lives'

Dude, you can only have five authorizations *at once*. You can drop any of them at any time and use them for another machine. If you no longer have access to said authorized computer, just call Apple. They'll drop them for ya.

[rosalindavenue]

I agree with on everything but would add that Apple needs to add another app for downloading full video content. iTunes and the ITMS is getting pretty cluttered [...]

Its already been done; or at least prototyped-- Front Row. Find someone with a built-in iSight iMac and check it out-- it is flawless with movie trailers. Take the same computer, go to iTunes and try a full screen download of a trailer from iTunes-- it takes forever. Apple has already figured this out, at least a way to stream the content, with no waiting.

[ddrueckhammer]

Its already been done; or at least prototyped-- Front Row. Find someone with a built-in iSight iMac and check it out-- it is flawless with movie trailers. Take the same computer, go to iTunes and try a full screen download of a trailer from iTunes-- it takes forever. Apple has already figured this out, at least a way to stream the content, with no waiting.

I know but for some reason I can't get my mind around this...It seems like Front Row is more of a Media Center Type app..not really for sitting at your desk and calling up but more for viewing on a screen from 10 feet away. For the OSX desktop I still think there should be another app for organizing video which also takes in some of the features of Delicious Library like cataloging your DVD library as well. Also, as I said before I don't like how iTunes organizes video downloads under the music folder and not movies....

[mhouse]

Woah. What's with all the hostility? What's so hypocritical about a subscription model for TV and movies? That is, *if* they introduce such a model at all. Seems to make sense.

Right now I pay DirecTV $60 a month. I pay Netflix another $17. That's $77 a month for content I'll never "own" (and don't want to). I don't know about you, but I'm not one of these guys with a DVD collection. Once I watch a movie or television program, I'm done. I don't need to watch it over and over and I don't need to pay $20-per-film to watch something once.

Music is different, which is why Steve was so adamant that their *Music* Store not be subscription based. Are you saying that Apple would be acting hypocritically by going to a subscription based Video Store? Because, I don't see how the two are related. Music is very different than film and TV in this sense.

Nothing I read suggests this is a subscription service. Storage is cheap. Very cheap if bought in bulk. Here's the way I read it:

1. You buy movie or TV show and you *own* it
2. You can access the movie immediately if its in your cache or wait for it to DL if it isn't
3. You will be able to transfer it to a video iPod
5. Having an iTunes account doesn't cost you anything now and I doubt this will either
5. Unlike iTunes, your files will be stored on Apple's servers rather than your HD
6. If you don't have high bandwidth, you can't download feature films anyway so what difference does it make?
7. On the road? Plug your iPod into a hotel TV
8. I see nothing that implies a subscription fee at all

No, its not perfect but as someone else said I think its pretty good. Good enough to make Apple a ton of cash.

[Mechcozmo]

I agree too. Not to mention the fact that iDisk is always horribly slow. It'll be interesting to see how this develops.

And if you're on dial-up? :eek:

[kukito]

Well if they do HD h.264 and expect users to mac mini, it's going to have to have one HELL of a processor since decoding 1080p requires a dual 2.0 G5!

ATI comes to the rescue with Avivo (http://theinquirer.net/?article=28061). The only thing needed is a Mac compatible X1000 series video card. According to CHIP.de (http://www.chip.de/artikel/c1_artikel_17670022.html), even the lowly X1300 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102622)will be able to handle the decoding effortlessly.

[texasmafia]

And if you're on dial-up? :eek:

If you are on dial up you have no business trying to download video

[Starfall]

I have no problems with this rumor, if it is true.

I think the idea that I must be able to keep something locally for it to really be "mine" is rapidly becoming antiquated, certainly with respect to digital information. I don't keep my money locally, for example, but instead I rely on technology like the internet to allow me to access it whenever I need it. As long as I can access my money as I please, I consider it "mine" wherever it is actually stored.

With ultra-wide broadband coming, and the eventual ubiquitous reach of wireless technology, why should I care that my copy of "Wallace and Gromit" is on some server in Cupertino instead of on some shiny disc in my drive? As long as I can access it whenever I want, it will seem like "mine".

That being said, all of the whiz-bang technology required for this to work is not quite here yet, so there will be some growing pains for sure, but I think it's great that Apple has apparently been laying the groundwork for this new way of digital distribution. I'll be willing to put up with some early glitches just to get an early up-close look at what things are going to be like in the coming years as all of these technologies mature. That's one of the things that I love about Apple's products - using them is often like getting to play around in an R&D lab. There will be glitches and short-comings, but the "Wow" factor is pretty high.

Sign me up.

[ebunton]

Edit: sorry double post...

[ebunton]

Apple wouldn't force you to sign up with .mac just to get videos. You already have an Apple ID right...? (from using iTunes)
I think it would be just included free when you download. Like the shopping cart feature in iTunes.

[EGT]

And if you're on dial-up? :eek:

Tell me about it. I'm on ISDN! :rolleyes: Ok, faster than 56K but still painfully slow! :eek:

[sfhc21]

Wasn't Netflix supposedly working on technology to stream their service over the internet? It looks like Apple just may have beat them to it.

At first, I wasn't too impressed with the streaming concept. But if it works well, looks as good as a DVD, and I can somehow take it on my laptop or Video iPod if I wanted too, I will no longer need Netflix....or Blockbuster.

I can't wait to hear Steve lay out the details.

[beatle888]

Pretty freaking useless if you ask me. I mean you can't even bring it down to a laptop to watch it on the go? Umm OK....whatever.



hehe, come on. do you really think that apple wouldnt be able to solve a problem like that if they did go down this road? If thinksecret is close to being correct about this rumor, then im sure theres more to it that only apple knows about.

apple will let you download if you want...they already do that with itunes. dont get turned off just because thinksecret might not have all the facts.

[MarkCollette]

I'm thinking of the living room. I don't take my 50" HDTV with me on a plane, so it doesn't bother me that this content might not be portable.

Last time I took my 50" HDTV with me on the plane, the bastards made me pay for TWO seats! Plus I think I got radiation poisoning from being so close to the TV.

[ddrueckhammer]

The only scary thing about this is that Cable/DSL providers like Verizon and Comcast could block or limit traffic coming from Apple's or any other content providers sites so that their own content delivery systems can take off. I have a feeling that Verizon isn't spending billions putting in fiber-optics across America with 15Mbps so that someone else can sell us our content...

[ddrueckhammer]

hehe, come on. do you really think that apple wouldnt be able to solve a problem like that if they did go down this road? If thinksecret is close to being correct about this rumor, then im sure theres more to it that only apple knows about.

apple will let you download if you want...they already do that with itunes. dont get turned off just because thinksecret might not have all the facts.

It looks like this problem may have already been solved as others have said look at the FrontRow movie trailers...They are instantaneous at VERY good quality. If they can provide a streaming service via the internet it would work very well assuming hollywood and the ISPs cooperate...(I went and looked at my friends new iMac just to check this out earlier tonight...)

[dicklacara]

The only scary thing about this is that Cable/DSL providers like Verizon and Comcast could block or limit traffic coming from Apple's or any other content providers sites so that their own content delivery systems can take off. I have a feeling that Verizon isn't spending billions putting in fiber-optics across America with 15Mbps so that someone else can sell us our content...

It ain't the cable providers that will deliver this... it's the telcos... and they are hungry!

[bbyrdhouse]

....

It's just like renting a movie from blockbuster...once you pay for it, watch it, you return it and it's gone!!

Well, this would be fine if you understood up front that you were essentially renting the content. Also the price would have to be cheap (compared to buying a DVD $10 - $25.00) maybe $3.99 per movie. Suppose it would download to your HD and would expire in 3 days or 5 days and then become unusable. Then I could see what you are saying.

I think that if Apple would use tiered pricing for the content that there shouldn't be a problem if people wanted to D/L. Say, $3.99 for a streaming version or $7.99 for a downloadable version for use on the 5G iPod and $12.99 for a high quality downloadable version that you could back-up to a single or double layer DVD.

I mean it just seems silly that you can purchase movies from Wal-Mart for $10.00 why is it such a big deal to make available the same movie for download for say $7.00 or whatever. Seems to me that movie companies would jump all over this because it would actually save them money in the long run by not having as much overhead.

I can at least understand where the recording industry comes from because they have several songs per cd, and don't want you buying only one song, but movies on the other hand only have one movie per DVD.

C'mon stinkin' movie companies get off your high horse!

And Apple quit playing softball, seems to me that you are in the drivers seat with the massive success of ITMS. Other networks and production companies will eventually get on board. You have a good thing going don't mess it up with this "streaming mess". Besides some clever programer will then feel challenged to create an App that lets you capture the stream to your hard drive and this will only make P2P and piracy worse.

Don't automaticly assume that everyone is a thief, it is an insult to honest people. (Like when you go to Wal-Mart and they feel that they have the right to investigate your bags before you leave the store. Dang it I bought it with my money so it belongs to me now and I don't want you touching my merchandise!... It just peeves me that they assume that their customers are thieves. I've got to the point where I don't like to go anymore.):mad:

[Platform]

Don't do this.......c'mon iDisk....WTF :mad:

[qtip919]

This is soooo silly and clearly is a first attempt at appeasing the rediculous media companies.

This is sick and wrong.

I take in video content in almost EXACTLY the same what I take in music content. The only difference (for me) is that I demand a much higher quality experience for my video content since I watch everything on a DLP HDTV. The two things I have downloaded off of the ITMS have been unbelievably low in quality, and hence I would never do it again.

So, I just dont understand the demand to do something different than what we are currently doing on the iTMS. Sure, there will be bumps along the road, and holes will need to be patched. But are we really targeting the right problem? Fix ILLEGAL FILE SHARING and an iTMS type solution for video will turn into a major cash cow

Step into the 21st century people!

[bentoon]

...Applesoft

[ddrueckhammer]

This is soooo silly and clearly is a first attempt at appeasing the rediculous media companies.

This is sick and wrong.

I take in video content in almost EXACTLY the same what I take in music content. The only difference (for me) is that I demand a much higher quality experience for my video content since I watch everything on a DLP HDTV. The two things I have downloaded off of the ITMS have been unbelievably low in quality, and hence I would never do it again.

So, I just don't understand the demand to do something different than what we are currently doing on the iTMS. Sure, there will be bumps along the road, and holes will need to be patched. But are we really targeting the right problem? Fix ILLEGAL FILE SHARING and an iTMS type solution for video will turn into a major cash cow

Step into the 21st century people!

I agree with you that the content currently available on the ITMS is of VERY poor quality but I think it is intentionally limited because it is targeted for those with 5G iPods. iPods won't play video at very high resolutions and it is time consuming to reformat higher quality video into the correct resolution and codec. If you get the chance, check out the movie trailers on a new iMac with FrontRow installed...My friend has one with a 3 Mbps DSL connection and very high quality trailers stream instantaneously from Apple's servers. I will soon have 15 Mbps in my area so I should be able to stream any video content flawlessly then...I think many other major cities will have this capability soon...For rural areas you may have to wait for WiMax solutions in the next few years...

[irobot2003]

Amen. Other than the Star Wars films (for my kids as much as me) and a few Pixar flicks, the average person has no interest in owning a sagging shelf of DVDs. Even a very good movie does not bear watching more than once or twice. [...]


To each his own... there are many movies that I've seen 5-10 times and still enjoy watching. I only buy what I consider to be "great" movies, so I don't have a large DVD collection (~20), but I know folks at work who have more than 100.

[dicklacara]

This is soooo silly and clearly is a first attempt at appeasing the rediculous media companies.

This is sick and wrong.


Exactly the opposite... Steve doesn't care aboout the media companies...

mmm... he cares about setting the pace for everyone to follow...

...And this will be the big one!

[GregA]

Oooh... i do not like this concept.
Booo! If I buy something, I want it on my hard drive for archival purposes.
I like the concept. I would hate to be buying Lost episodes and then deleting them because my hard disk is too small. I'd far rather have an unlimited list of shows I've purchased and be caching 60GB of it locally. It may even be smart enough to pre-cache episode 107 of Lost after I watch episode 106.
i want the content local for many reasons, one being what if my internet connection drops, i can't watch a show i've paid for. I think that, given the iPod, Apple will have plans for "offline" viewing.
Surely Apple sees that hard drive storage is increasing by a vast amount every year, and storage on personal hard drives of movies (especially compressed H.264 files) will not be a huge deal. Plus, if Apple does it right, people could burn movies off to DVDs (with copy protection still on them) and pop them into their Macs when they want to watch them.

The only problem I foresee is the fact that Front Row only works on Macs (justly so!), but that problem could be overcome by turning the Mac mini into a more 'Tivo-like' device - more of an appliance than a computer.Yes hard drive space is increasing, but if people begin to WIDELY accept this model it will still be an issue. "Cached" content solves that... and maybe it'll allow me to login at a different location to watch something I've recorded earlier?

And remember - Front Row only works on NEW iMACS! (for now). Quicktime, iTunes, iDisk all work on Windows, I think this will be more a marketing decision than technology decision.
Why store the content on Apple's media servers AND on their iDisk servers, AND in their caches? Why add the extra bandwidth, storage, and complexity for the user? Just stream from Apple's media servers directly to the caches to you. All the user needs for their "library" is a LIST on Apple's servers. No need to involve iDisk.What makes you think this isn't exactly what the rumour refers to?
Steve has always stressed that people want to own there media.And by making it LOOK like a personal hard disk, people will feel more like they own the content.

[Mechcozmo]

Apple, has history has shown, is fairly reluctant to implement DRM. The DRM in iTunes is weak at best. The same for videos. I predict the same for this.

The videos will not be unavailable to 'offline' users. Instead, the videos will be H.264 files. Users of older Macs are going to be burned by this, but a 300MHz iMac G3 probably isn't running OS X lickety-split either.

The videos can be downloaded. Probably have a limit on the number you will be able to 'check out' at once, but unless you have a huge external drive you aren't going to want to download it anyway. You download, you watch, you keep for a bit... then you delete. But a record is saved on Apple's servers. Perhaps there is a redownloading fee, but I predict not.

Why HD quality? This is the year of HD, true, but I'm not sure that all videos will be HD. The good news is, that Apple can provide normal quality and then at any time 'upgrade' the quality for a simple re-download of the video. I'm not sure I know of anyone of an HD set... statistics show that few people own HD-TV.

This is a logical evolution. Only need one video file... a single Xserve and an Xserve RAID could probably hold the files to start. The bandwidth will be killer, but maybe (extreme maybe here) Apple will implement a Bittorrent like protocol into iTunes. Want a video? Download it from someone else's local cache at the same time you're getting it from Apple. Cool, and major geek points, but probably not.

[Mechcozmo]

Requires a .mac identity, but you do not have to actually subscribe to .mac to have and keep it. This may work similarly to that.

Since when? I've used iChat for years without needing a .Mac account to sign up iChat.

[Super Dave]

I'm not saying that I go around watching movies and TV on the road or in the air that much, but when I travel by plane I do like to have something there that I can watch on my laptop.

I'm not kid, not a teenager, just a regular old boring adult.<snip>

Sorry for the smart alecky tone of my post. I didn't mean to dis people who watch movies, just say that this isn't a product for them, and also imply that they are a small percentage of the people who would want products like this.

David:cool:

[Epicurus]

I agree with you on everything but would add that Apple needs to add another app for downloading full video content. iTunes and the ITMS is getting pretty cluttered with the addition of TV shows and Music Videos IMHO. I think another app should be added specifically to manage video content downloaded and manage this content in the Movies folder, not in the Music>iTunes> folders.

I agree entirely. FrontRow actually opens the door for this, since it lets you interect with all of your content without opening iTunes or iPhoto (or whatever) to get to your files. Adding a new program (iVideo?, iMedia??, I'm not coming up with anything catchy...) to handle video downloads wouldn't radically change the user's interaction with the computer if they all use FrontRow to actually play the content in the end. Want a song? Buy one through iTunes. What a video? Buy one through iFilms (or is iFlicks better?). Whatever the new app is, it will probably grow out of a more mature version of QuickTime. Apple has been slowly merging iTunes and QuickTime recently but I see that coming to an end (it was probably just a stunt to spread QuickTime into all the iPod owner's homes anyway).

iPod video content from the iFlicks Movie Store (or any residual video podcasts or Lost episodes downloaded from the Music Store) would be stored within the iFlicks library in the Movie folder (as you suggest). iTunes would still be responsible for syncing content to the iPod, so video files would be remotely pulled from the iFlicks library just like iPhoto albums are. iMovie might end up taking on this role, but I don't see that happening unless it gets a lot faster than it currently is at importing and encoding videos. This may require Apple to include a little bit of specialized hardware with all their new Macs (such as a dedicated H.264 decoder/encoder chip). That would eliminate some of the bottleneck.

Whatever complications arise from having two online media stores will, of course, be hidden by FrontRow 2.0 (*Available for all Macs with Intel*). :D :D

[ddrueckhammer]

I agree entirely. FrontRow actually opens the door for this, since it lets you interect with all of your content without opening iTunes or iPhoto (or whatever) to get to your files. Adding a new program (iVideo?, iMedia??, I'm not coming up with anything catchy...) to handle video downloads wouldn't radically change the user's interaction with the computer if they all use FrontRow to actually play the content in the end. Want a song? Buy one through iTunes. What a video? Buy one through iFilms (or is iFlicks better?). Whatever the new app is, it will probably grow out of a more mature version of QuickTime. Apple has been slowly merging iTunes and QuickTime recently but I see that coming to an end (it was probably just a stunt to spread QuickTime into all the iPod owner's homes anyway).

iPod video content from the iFlicks Movie Store (or any residual video podcasts or Lost episodes downloaded from the Music Store) would be stored within the iFlicks library in the Movie folder (as you suggest). iTunes would still be responsible for syncing content to the iPod, so video files would be remotely pulled from the iFlicks library just like iPhoto albums are. iMovie might end up taking on this role, but I don't see that happening unless it gets a lot faster than it currently is at importing and encoding videos. This may require Apple to include a little bit of specialized hardware with all their new Macs (such as a dedicated H.264 decoder/encoder chip). That would eliminate some of the bottleneck.

Whatever complications arise from having two online media stores will, of course, be hidden by FrontRow 2.0 (*Available for all Macs with Intel*). :D :D

I couldn't have summed it up better! As I said before, at first I thought the content would be kept on a users hard drive with DRM but after looking at how fast FrontRow Trailers stream with a 3 Mbps connection I am very confident of streaming video purchases to a set-top Mac Mini or 802.11n Airport Express AV! And I'm not even sure 802.11n is even needed since the bottleneck would be your ISP.

[GregA]

Or perhaps the new Mac mini media center won't have a hard disk at all. By default you mount your iDisk and 'store' to that (but as others have said, it would just be a symlink). Alternatively, you can buy an optional Xmediaserve, hook it into your home network and store your movies there.I'm unsure whether internet bandwidth would be good enough for the job.
That's a very interesting idea mdavey. Automatic OS and application updates, and access to your library. Still, some people will have slower connections ... I prefer the idea of some local storage allowing for slower connections and pre-downloading a show. Perhaps it would be a local hard disk, perhaps an "Xmediaserve", or even some shared space on your PC or Mac.
those of us in Europe can't guarantee a big fat network pipe all the way from our pretty little villages across the ocean and on to Infinite Loop.<snip> Having said that, I am looking at this from the perspective of 2005 and my 512k 'broadband' line. Within the next two years, most UK ISPs expect to be offering their customers 8Mb connections so this point could become moot within just a couple of years.I hope Apple allows for customers who are stuck on ISDN, or often disconnected. I think the TiVo model is interesting here - there are 2 distinct modes - you read the TV guide and select what you want to watch later (ie. what you want recorded), OR you read your list of shows you can watch now.

It would be nice to not have to plan ahead for what you might like to watch - though it's quite feasible to let people with slower connection preselect what they want... and have it download in its own time. For regular series it could automatically download the latest episode as soon as it can.

This is the year of HD, true, but I'm not sure that all videos will be HD. <snip>
The bandwidth will be killer, but maybe (extreme maybe here) Apple will implement a Bittorrent like protocol into iTunes. Want a video? Download it from someone else's local cache at the same time you're getting it from Apple. Cool, and major geek points, but probably not.It would be good for Apple to offer HD options at a higher cost. It may be a small market but those could be good customers.

The peer-to-peer downloading arrangement makes ALOT of sense. Especially if Apple can write a program to search for closer machines first to help with internet efficiency.
Apple needs to add another app for downloading full video content. iTunes and the ITMS is getting pretty cluttered with the addition of TV shows and Music Videos IMHO.Agreed. I hope this is included in iLife '06.

[59031]

I will soon have 15 Mbps in my area so I should be able to stream any video content flawlessly then...I think many other major cities will have this capability soon...For rural areas you may have to wait for WiMax solutions in the next few years...

I currently have 10 Mbps (New York City, RCN) and yes, trailers from Front Row stream FLAWLESS. Really incredible.

[59031]

the average person has no interest in owning a sagging shelf of DVDs.

I guess I'm not average. Not that I have a "sagging shelf" of DVD's, but yes, there ARE films worth owning and viewing over and over. A library of music, a library of books, a library of films. It's all the same concept. I guess you don't have sagging library shelf of books either?



Even a very good movie does not bear watching more than once or twice..

What a false statement, your'e so off. Then again, maybe I just appreciate cinema more than you. After all, I do have a degree in Film History, Theory and Criticism from the top film school in the U.S., if not THE WORLD.

Color me smug. Humph.

(oh, what film school? Why the USC School of Cinema-Television of course)

[MacViolinist]

it is the wave of the future. bluray and hd-dvd are the last physical media you as a consumer will be able to buy.


Are you sure about that?

This looks good: http://www.computerworld.com/hardwaretopics/storage/story/0,10801,105682,00.htm and it's coming in about year year.

This looks even better:
http://colossalstorage.net/home_diskdrive.htm

[artifex]

You have to think differently. If you have today's DVR you get to watch your recorded content whenever you want. You can't archive it to another drive though. So what?! It's still yours.

Ah, you must not have heard of ReplayTV, and the ability to save shows off to your local hard drive, in normal, unwatermarked, MPG format. You can even stream it back to your Replay for showing on your TV again afterwards.

[artifex]

Tivo stock took a big dive this week on the news that they're not going to get anymore new DirecTV subscribers, and this Apple news isn't going to help.

Tivo's market cap is now less than $500 million, or about a third of what Netflix is worth.

Most DirecTivo subscribers have known about this for months, though. I'm just surprised it didn't correct before now.

[artifex]

What a false statement, your'e so off. Then again, maybe I just appreciate cinema more than you. After all, I do have a degree in Film History, Theory and Criticism from the top film school in the U.S., if not THE WORLD.

Color me smug. Humph.

(oh, what film school? Why the USC School of Cinema-Television of course)

Well, you must have gotten As in Snobbery class. :)

Every engineer knows that bumblebees can't fly, too, but they do. Learning theory doesn't make you an expert on feeling, nor is it a replacement for practical experience. Just like being in MENSA doesn't actually mean someone is smart. If you have to fall back on credentials, your position is not sufficiently credible on its own.

[spinko]

... I can't imagine Apple trying to open up .Mac space to hold HDTV programs and such, that would increase their storage requirements exponentially. ....

Not if the files on the iDisk are aliases
:confused:

[Geetar]

Well, you must have gotten As in Snobbery class. :)

Every engineer knows that bumblebees can't fly, too, but they do. Learning theory doesn't make you an expert on feeling, nor is it a replacement for practical experience. Just like being in MENSA doesn't actually mean someone is smart. If you have to fall back on credentials, your position is not sufficiently credible on its own.


Yes, yes, yawn, blah.........
He's still right, smugness notwithstanding.

I'm assuming you read his response to the nonsensical assertion that a good film won't support repeated viewing.

[steve_hill4]

Not if the files on the iDisk are aliases
:confused:
I think most people are assuming this will be the case by now. My only concern would be Apple coping with all the traffic, especially if thousands are all trying to stream the same content at the same time. Could get very slow.

[knatre668]

This is one of the worst ideas to come out of Apple in a long time, if it is actually true. I will not waste 100 bucks a year just to be able to watch content that I pay for. And as others have pointed out, what about mobile viewing on my iPod?

Stupid stupid stupid.

[rosalindavenue]

What a false statement, your'e so off. Then again, maybe I just appreciate cinema more than you. After all, I do have a degree in Film History, Theory and Criticism from the top film school in the U.S., if not THE WORLD.

Color me smug. Humph.

(oh, what film school? Why the USC School of Cinema-Television of course)

Wow-- USC-- congratulations. No wonder you are smug. You seem to have focused more on "criticism" than history and theory. Incidentally, my view of movie ownership is shared by a college dropout; Steve Jobs:

"Finally, Mr. Jobs noted, people just don’t consume music and movies the same way. You might listen to a certain song dozens or hundreds of times in your lifetime. But how many times in your life do you watch a movie? Most people probably wouldn’t watch even their favorite movies ten times in their lives, and therefore are don’t buy nearly as many movies as they do songs or CD’s."

LINK. (http://weblogs.jupiterresearch.com/analysts/gartenberg/archives/002141.html)

[SPUY767]

This is obviously not entirely accurate, if you could never store the video on your hard drive, what about iPod video. . . Believe me, if anything, Apple needs things to drive iPod sales, and making videos unavailable to be put on your iPod is not the way to do it. Apple is Nae this foolish.

[GregA]

I think most people are assuming this will be the case by now. My only concern would be Apple coping with all the traffic, especially if thousands are all trying to stream the same content at the same time. Could get very slow.I hope that Apple uses a peer-to-peer arrangement, especially using local peers (try home network, then computers on the local exchange, then ISP, then ISP's peers, then country, then world.... or something like that). Of course, if Apple could supplement the peer-to-peer (especially to give near-instant playback start), that'd be best.

The more I think about this rumor, the less I think there'll be a PVR integrated into this. It's about downloading and playing a movie. If so it means you'd have to buy an EyeTV to record TV shows.... and then playback through the MacMini or whatever it'll be called.

[SPUY767]

Wow-- USC-- congratulations-- the Harvard of South Central LA. No wonder you are smug. You seem to have focused more on "criticism" than history and theory. Incidentally, my view of movie ownership is shared by a college dropout; Steve Jobs:

"Finally, Mr. Jobs noted, people just don’t consume music and movies the same way. You might listen to a certain song dozens or hundreds of times in your lifetime. But how many times in your life do you watch a movie? Most people probably wouldn’t watch even their favorite movies ten times in their lives, and therefore are don’t buy nearly as many movies as they do songs or CD’s."

LINK. (http://weblogs.jupiterresearch.com/analysts/gartenberg/archives/002141.html)

That my friends, deserves a rimshot.

Three Cheers for rosalindavenue

Hip Hip. . . Hooray

Hip Hip. . . Hooray

Hip Hip. . . Hooray

[SPUY767]

Does anyone other than me realize that it is insanely easy to capture data streaming in from the internet? If Apple decides to stream movies exclusively, which I doubt they will, someone, likely from finland since they seem to be the ones with initiative, will just write an app that captures data on its way in from whatever port. Once captured, it had better have a good DRM scheme, and by this time, you may as well have just let the users download the whole thing to their hard drives to begin with.

[SPUY767]

I watch everything on a DLP HDTV.


Oh yeah, well my dad can beat up your dad.

There are forums to have pissing matches over whose TV is bigger. Thses are not they. Pleas redirect further such comments to. . . The AVS Forum (http://www.avsforum.com/)

[MacWeenie]

My first reaction to this is negative... Sure seems like a concession to the studios to me. I'd probably buy the DVD rather than download a virtual copy. If it were for my iPod, I'd just rip it with Handbrake or some other tool.

I'd almost rather see it downloaded to my HD with the Fairplay DRM stuff that my music videos and iTunes AAC's have.

[artifex]

Yes, yes, yawn, blah.........
He's still right, smugness notwithstanding.

I'm assuming you read his response to the nonsensical assertion that a good film won't support repeated viewing.

Forgot all about that. He's right, some films get better with repeated viewing, and some simply never lose their charm.

[artifex]

Oh yeah, well my dad can beat up your dad.

There are forums to have pissing matches over whose TV is bigger. Thses are not they. Pleas redirect further such comments to. . . The AVS Forum (http://www.avsforum.com/)

I watch everything on a 14 inch non-HDTV in my bedroom. Fear my budget limitations :)

[regan]

Yup. Its begun.

My Dad used to say how in the future, the tv and computer would meld into one and that everyone would have a flat screen on their wall. He said this in the 80s before the internet and flat screens.

And its happening. Slowly but surely. Apple is moving in that direction big time. They nailed music...now its onto video. First the Front Row imacs, and video ipods...now rumours about the mac mini tv recorder and idisk on demand movies.

The technology is there...and will only get better. People thought no one would pay 99 cents a song...and look at itunes now. Video will be the same.

I remember when CDs came out and people said they missed all the big pull outs and space for liner notes that vinyl albums had. But CDs CRUSHED vinyl. Then when itunes/ipods came out...people said they'd miss all the space for liner notes of CDs. Ha!

I used to buy a CD a week. No longer. I still do on occassion...but nowhere near what I used to. I've made the transition to a purely digital music world. Same will happen with video.

But its interesting. I think Steve is TOTALLY right that music and video are different. Most people can listen to a song HUNDREDS of times, while watching their fav movie dozens...if that.

And yet...people DO love to collect video. I worked at a video store once, and people would come in like zombies and buy up the latest video collection of their favorite tv show, or movie or whatever. I don't know where you'd put it all...or ever have time to WATCH it all. I'm a filmmaker and I LOVE movies, but I never bought movies on VHS...and only a few films on DVD. I have a very small collection. Physical collections of movies are cumbersome and unrealistic.

Plus...you can listen to music anytime anywhere and while doing anything. Not so with movies. Its alot different. I think people want the ability to watch what they want when they want to. And if the price is right they will pay for that freedom.

I think apple will come up with a solution to the whole download/no download thing. Mobile video is not like mobile music...but people may want that freedom. Eventually it will happen. Maybe Apple will start off by building the media center aspect of a home unit and then expand from there. Video ipods are cool...but realistically...how many people will watch movies on a saturday night on them? A home media center with the ability to record tv and to order movies on demand sounds much more practical.

About laptops and watching wherever you go? Its nice to watch a DVD or video now and then on the road. But I don't want to carry around DVDS with me. I think having them on your HD is a great convenience. The whole internet thing will be resolved someday. Eventually there will be wireless internet access WHEREVER you go. But for now...its few and far between. So access to .mac while on the road may initially be difficult. I am sure apple will find a solution.

But whatever happens, I for one won't miss the music or video stores. I fully embrace a totally digital world. Being able to access what you want, when you want it is fantastic. I'm sure the big companies love the concept...even if the technology scares them. No overhead. Easy wireless distribution instead of ground transportation. And in a future of higher gas prices and oil shortages...thats not only economical...but good for the environment.

I just got a netflix account...and I think that its cool. Very convenient. Now imagine a digital version of that. Thats what apple wants...and that is just going to be amazing. To be able to download/or watch any movie any time from a virtual library. Pretty cool.

The whole downloadable/not downloadable issue is interesting. But it won't bug me at all if it starts off with just a rental strategy at first. It makes sense. Movies are more rentable. Music is more buyable.

My Dad was right. Its happening. :)

[macmax77]

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com)

Think Secret claims (http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0511contentdist.html) that Apple is set to unveil a new media content delivery system, which will include feature-length content, expanded televisions offerings, and more.

According to their source, the new system will rely on .Mac's iDisk for storage, keeping media files from ever being held locally on the purchaser's hard drive, utilizing the rumored Front Row 2.0.

In addition, Think Secret claims that Apple is poised to offer a number of new partnerships with various content providers, possibly including NBC, CBS and Paramount Pictures. Fox Filmed Entertainment has already gone on record (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2005/12/20051202070333.shtml) as saying they were "open to" a deal with iTunes.

i hate the idea

Is this msft?

[regan]

I don't know why some people are so upset. If you look at this from a rental perspective there is NOTHING to be upset about at all. No lines. No waiting. Instant access to any movie you want.

But even if you look at it from a purchasing perspective...its still great! If the whole idisk...and no copy on your HD thing is true, why does that suck? You don't waste hard drive space. You can never lose the movies you do buy because there will be a catalog of them in your idisk. I think its brilliant.

I think the only people complaining are the laptop people. But I think this is premature. I'm sure apple has a solution to address this. If they have one for the video ipod...you know they will have one for the laptop owners.

Patience people.

itunes video will be just as popular as itunes itself.

Man...I SHOULD have bought aapl stock when it was $30 a share earlier this year. Bummer! :)

[revjay]

Yup. Its begun.

My Dad used to say how in the future, the tv and computer would meld into one and that everyone would have a flat screen on their wall. He said this in the 80s before the internet and flat screens.

And its happening. Slowly but surely. Apple is moving in that direction big time. They nailed music...now its onto video. First the Front Row imacs, and video ipods...now rumours about the mac mini tv recorder and idisk on demand movies.

The technology is there...and will only get better. People thought no one would pay 99 cents a song...and look at itunes now. Video will be the same.

I remember when CDs came out and people said they missed all the big pull outs and space for liner notes that vinyl albums had. But CDs CRUSHED vinyl. Then when itunes/ipods came out...people said they'd miss all the space for liner notes of CDs. Ha!

I used to buy a CD a week. No longer. I still do on occassion...but nowhere near what I used to. I've made the transition to a purely digital music world...

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I believe a CD's "data" is ordered in 1's and 0's, therefore rendering that format "digital." I know this may come as a shock to you...but as soon as you put your vinyl and your 90 minute Maxell cassette tapes away, you joined the "purely digital music world."

On another topic...does your father have any insight for the next 25 years...what can I expect?

I too have seen this convergence coming for quite a while...I am a little mixed about it though. In my house, we have one family computer, shared by all 5 of us, one 'family sized' analog TV, and two 13" tv's (kitchen & bedroom). I'll take what I'm sure is coming, and try to afford the necessary gear...but I still want to just flick on the "boob-tube" and watch survivor, no menus, no fuss, no muss.

Back to the topic at hand...If this report is true, Apple is genius, and consumer pays for it twice...once for the priviledge of "using" the video, and once for a place to "store" it. Oh yeah...Apple controls that too! I do not think this concept will work. Consumers...even staunch (and sometimes blind) Apple supporters will see through this pay twice money grab, product control, that Jobs seems to be trying to take to a new level.

[Super Dave]

Does anyone other than me realize that it is insanely easy to capture data streaming in from the internet? If Apple decides to stream movies exclusively, which I doubt they will, someone, likely from finland since they seem to be the ones with initiative, will just write an app that captures data on its way in from whatever port. Once captured, it had better have a good DRM scheme, and by this time, you may as well have just let the users download the whole thing to their hard drives to begin with.

It sure is. With a VCR or DVD burner or whatever in between your computer and the TV. However, the same is true for a DVD player, yet the companies don't think that enough people will figure out the whole RF Modulator thing to make it worth worrying about.

As for on the computer itself, picture this. If the video is on your machine, people can copy everything the second they get a hack. If it's streamed, Apple can change the streaming software or offer updates automatically that break any recording hacks. So a hack comes out, a few people rip a few movies, and then Apple fixes a leak.

It's actually much safer than DVDs for the video industry because streams are not THAT ridiculously easy to copy, and Apple can fix the DRM after the fact.

David :cool:

[regan]

Oh...I knew CDs were digital. :) I was just illustrating the inevitability of change and how people grumble at first. People complained about CDs at first because they were digital...and that they had less space then albums for art and such.

Its really hard for people to let go of the comfortable and what they've been used to. Even if it is better.

But I wouldn't panic about chucking your tvs anytime soon. Progress is slow. This is apples first foray into such an area. It will be gradual...and fully compatible with your current media systems.

First it will be the media mini and front row and the video system these rumors are alluding to.

If it takes off...then you will see more and more intergration. I think it will be awhile before the average person puts their imac 20" imac where their tv used to be in the den or living room. Thats why I think the screenless mac mini is the perfect way to introduce this technology at first. A cheap unit you can place next to your tv to replace your vcr.

Sneaky apple...berry berry sneaaaaky. Bwah ha ha.

Then little by little, apple will market widescreen tv replacements...like the imac, but not for awhile. Although the wireless remote on the new imacs indicates their intention of replacing the tv as the entertainment center.

I mean why would you need a remote control if you were going to keep your imac on your desk where you'd be sitting right in front of it?

I think most people will continue to keep their imac on their desk for now...but a seperate mac mini replacing their tivo or vcr is very realistic. :)

[heisetax]

Booo! If I buy something, I want it on my hard drive for archival purposes.


This would only work in a lab where you can control line speed, quality & any other things that mean good useful downloads.

In the real world the internet will go down, beome slow, only available via 9600 baud modem, not at all available in your minivan with your 6 kids & spouse on a 2 week vacation with a lot of road time, what do you have? I thought the reason for purchasing audio or video was to allow you to legally listen &/or view the material where & when you want to. For this reason I find the iTunes Music Store to be useless as it puts too many reastrictions on my music. All I have from the Store is a few free songs. Because of that, iTunes restricts everything on my system. With the way it works there is no way that I would even given a passing thought to purchasing any video content that I could not at least store on my local system. Also there would probably be restrictions that would make iTunes restrictions look small in comparison.

This is not for me.

Bill the TaxMan

[regan]

What restrictions for itunes? I haven't had any issues with restrictions hindering my ability to listen to my songs anytime anywhere. I've been able to transfer all my songs between computers and various ipods without a problem.

My whole thought on the downloading issue is one of detachment. I know the movie companies are worried...just like the music companies were. But there will always be a way to get free content on the net. ALWAYS. Just like there was always a way to copy your friends CD or tape back in the day.

True the internet has increased that ability a million fold. BUT. People will still buy. Just look at the success of itunes music store.

Same will happen with itunes video. Most people want to watch movies at home with friends or family. Now you have basically 3 choices. You can either 1)go down to the video store and rent one. 2)Order one thru payper view, or 3) order one thru netflix.

The video store has a bigger selection and isn't limited to new releases like payperview....but you have to go out...and later you have to go return it.

Netflix is convenient in that you don't have to go out at all...but it takes a couple of days to get what you want.

Payperview is instantaneous...but limited to new releases.

SO. Obviously....wouldn't it be great to combine ALL the best things about the three things above? Sure it would. And thats what apple will go for.

[kcmac]

My favorite part about these type of threads is how quickly these thoughts occur;

A. Apple is stupid if they do this!
B. It will never work!
C. Is this Microsoft?
D. Worst thing to come from Apple ever!
E. This will kill those without the newest computer!

This can only mean that immediately after the announcement is made the same people will spew;

A. Insanely brilliant!
B. I've already ordered!
C. You go Apple!
D. Jobs is da man!
E. Bill Gates, eat our dust!

And of course we will see it on the front page of Time Magazine.

It's amazing how Apple always seems to start from ground zero with every new rumor or idea. Like they are newcomers, no track record, so failure is on the way.

Of course, afterwards, we saw it all coming. They must really be listening to us. ;)

Carry on. This is fun as always.

[rtdunham]

...First i don't have any use for .mac so i don't care to pay for that, and 2nd as people have mentioned i want the content local for many reasons, one being what if my internet connection drops, i can't watch a show i've paid for. I would think this would be a nightmare for apple anyway, MASSIVE storage requirements if this takes off, a huge increase in necessary bandwith for them. For me to be interested in any of the content anyway it would have to be high quality or i don't see the purpose of getting it through this distribution method ( atleast for me ) and high quality shows especially going to HD at some point would make the storage requirements that much larger for apple.

I"m seeing two types of posts here. It seems there are two points of view: 1) people who don't see any opportunity for them with the current technology and 2) people expressing seemingly feasible strategies by which a dynamite new product/service could be realized.

But to me #1 seems Luddite-like, as shortsighted as people saying "well, there's obviously no way a photo could ever be transported from one place to another for viewing". But #2 seems highly optimistic, perhaps overly optimistic. I'm reminded of how hyped we are leaving steve's keynotes at Expo, our imaginations running amok with what we THINK he said, only to find that in practice it doesn't work quite as nicely.

On balance, apple's announcements have ended up pleasing me even with the occasions on which they fall short of what (I THINK) was promised. So i'm thinking, keep an open mind, listen to the people explaining why a new technologyi might work--and hope for the best. I would be great if apple could make a breakthrough on this front.

peace
terry

[ncoffey]

(SNIP)
And yet...people DO love to collect video. I worked at a video store once, and people would come in like zombies and buy up the latest video collection of their favorite tv show, or movie or whatever. I don't know where you'd put it all...or ever have time to WATCH it all. I'm a filmmaker and I LOVE movies, but I never bought movies on VHS...and only a few films on DVD. I have a very small collection. Physical collections of movies are cumbersome and unrealistic.
(SNIP)

I own probably a few dozen movies and TV shows that I know I will watch in the future when I haven't seen them in some time. The exception for me is Arrested Development, for which I have watched through seasons one and two about five times each. It's still funny every time.

I probably wouldn't use this service because the consistent bandwidth for something like this just doesn't exist here. It will in time but with HD players coming out in the spring (PS3/Blu-ray) I'll be less interested in downloading (or streaming) a movie than I will in picking up the blu-ray version of it. (Even if it does cost more)

[pubwvj]

I would think Apple of all people would understand that people want to own their content. Sure you would 'own' it, but if you cant access it without internet, do you really?

One word: SnapzPro

[rtdunham]

...With the amount of progress the internet has made over the years, it is quickly replacing most of the duties of regular computers, or supercomputers. Is there any difference between having your bits and bytes of data located on the internet, where it is invisibly and conveniently accessable on your computer to having those same bits and bytes on your Hard Drive? It is the same content either way.

Just a couple of examples besides music:

1. My banking information.
2. My mortgage information.
3. My brokerage information.
4. My hosted webpages and hundreds of photos linked to the webpage.
5. Increasingly, the biggest software companies--think Microsoft--are responding to the notion that applications will int he future be hosted online, and NOT maintained on your computer.

Conversely, I'm a watch-a-movie on my PB on the plane kind of guy. But we DO need to be more open minded about how the tools for our lives are changing. The link to the 2001 Slashdot article showing people's clue-less (I would have been at the time, too, perhaps) responses to the announcement of the very first iPod should function as a slap upside the head for many of us here.

peace
terry

[rtdunham]

...a new program (iVideo?, iMedia??, I'm not coming up with anything catchy...

what about " imMedia " ? the suggestion of immediacy seems to work.

terry

[EricNau]

I don't like this...not one bit.

And personally, I don't think Apple would do this, but we'll see.
Wouldn't this leave out PC users from putting video on their iPod? Or is this just meant for front row?

Maybe, with a .mac subscription you have access to watch any videos Apple has on their servers for free, and then have the option to buy it and put it on your own HDD. Then, once you buy you are able to put it onto your iPod, or watch it on an airplane, ect.
But if Apple made it so you could watch 1 of 1000's of videos any time you wanted, this could very well complete the media experience (along with DVR on their computers).

[59031]

Wow-- USC-- congratulations. No wonder you are smug. You seem to have focused more on "criticism" than history and theory. Incidentally, my view of movie ownership is shared by a college dropout; Steve Jobs:

"Finally, Mr. Jobs noted, people just don’t consume music and movies the same way. You might listen to a certain song dozens or hundreds of times in your lifetime. But how many times in your life do you watch a movie? Most people probably wouldn’t watch even their favorite movies ten times in their lives, and therefore are don’t buy nearly as many movies as they do songs or CD’s."

LINK. (http://weblogs.jupiterresearch.com/analysts/gartenberg/archives/002141.html)

NEVER EVER LISTEN TO STEVE JOBS.

Quote (more or less): "People aren't interested in watching video on their iPods."

He's famous for making quotes and then turning 180 degrees on them.

Weak argument, rosalindavenue. Weak, weak, weak. (Where is the "shaking my head" icon?)

[59031]

Well, you must have gotten As in Snobbery class. :)

Every engineer knows that bumblebees can't fly, too, but they do. Learning theory doesn't make you an expert on feeling, nor is it a replacement for practical experience. Just like being in MENSA doesn't actually mean someone is smart. If you have to fall back on credentials, your position is not sufficiently credible on its own.

Rosalindavenue's comment about movies not worth watching over and over again, was just so ridiculous, so lame, so not-thought-out, just so DUMB, that I had to reply with something that obnoxious. In fact when I originally posted I left out the part about USC - then went back and added it later. I very self conciously knew it would be obnoxious, and that's why I flat out admitted smugness, and I did it all purpousely. I also was looking for an emoticon for "rolling eyes" but there didn't seem to be one, though now I see one that is probably it and just didn't recognize it at 2:30am (thought's it's not the best emoticon I've seen to convey that feeling/attitude).

As someone else said, some movies actually get better with repeated viewing, just like some music gets better with repeated listening and books with repeated reading, allowing you to appreciate all the subtle details and nuances and layers you may have missed the first time around, or to listen, read and hear things from different perspectives.

[poohat1000]

y'all are missng the point, idisk and .mac dont come into it - just like the trailers you can watch in front row there will be a "movies" section where you can pay a couple of dollers to stream and watch the movie online, front row will come in ilife 06 with this feature, aswell as in all new macs...

apple will do this to say to all the movie companies LOOK HOW WE'VE DONE THIS SOOOOO WELLL.... couple of months down the line and we'll get small h.264 content on the itunes store for DOWNLOAD....

frontrow for rent/stream and itunes for downloading content for the ipod.



i can't wait, frontrow will be the new cable television service. and itunes will be the new media shop :-D

no reason why these two services cannot co-exist together in perfect harmony

[poohat1000]

As someone else said, some movies actually get better with repeated viewing, just like some music gets better with repeated listening and books with repeated reading, allowing you to appreciate all the subtle details and nuances you may have missed the first time around, or to listen, read and hear things from different perspectives.


this is precisely why they need to get the price point right. on sky tv you can purchase a film and watch it once, it works - people do it - but to buy it on dvd is 3x the price. So i expect the itunes downlaodable media to cost more whereas one can rent it via front row for waaaay cheaper.... hell we could see feature films on frontrow before they are out on dvd/itunes store, like 2 weeks after they finish in the cinema - that would be amazing.

[EricNau]

NEVER EVER LISTEN TO STEVE JOBS.

Quote (more or less): "People aren't interested in watching video on their iPods."

He's famous for making quotes and then turning 180 degrees on them.

Weak argument, rosalindavenue. Weak, weak, weak. (Where is the "shaking my head" icon?)

If I recall properly, he never said people didn't want to watch video on their iPods, he said the content and purpose wasn't there yet. If you had bought a video mp3 player at that time, you couldn't do hardly anything with them, but when the iPod started to support video (to keep up with the market) they gave it the content and the purpose, now you can download over 2,000 music videos, and episodes from 5 different TV shows + much more.

Jobs is very careful about what he says, he always leaves anything open so he can do it without making a fool of himself.

[EricNau]

i can't wait, frontrow will be the new cable television service. and itunes will be the new media shop :-D

no reason why these two services cannot co-exist together in perfect harmony

I think that is pushing it, Apple won't be able to replace Cable television. How are you going to watch your local news? Apple may be able to let you watch movies, but even if they make TV shows available, you'll be watching them atleast a day later than everyone else, not to mention, they will not be able to get all TV shows that people want. And if they started doing TV shows, no doubt you'd have to pay for this service, in which case, no one would.

[rosalindavenue]

Rosalindavenue's comment about movies not worth watching over and over again, was just so ridiculous, so lame, so not-thought-out, just so DUMB, that I had to reply with something that obnoxious.

Dude, you need to chill out. (You should also read the terms of service, and not call other posters, or their comments, ridiculous, lame or dumb. ) Use that USC education. We have a difference of opinion.

I stand by the basic premise of my post, which is as follows: I have no desire to own, or to re-watch, most of the the movies I watch. None. Not many films are worth watching more than once; fewer are worth owning. That being said, my kids have the Pixar films and a few others; I have some Gilliam films, Citizen Kane, Star Wars, LOTR. etc. I have some silents on VHS; which can't be rented. I did not endorse a blanket prohibition of film ownership; I just stated what Steve Jobs and I believe to be the case-- people do not want to own most of the films that they watch. Me having this opinion does not make me an idiot, or even a film-hater. I don't have much time to watch films and I prefer to read books. I buy a lot of books. To each his own.

[Super Dave]

<snip>

It's amazing how Apple always seems to start from ground zero with every new rumor or idea. Like they are newcomers, no track record, so failure is on the way.

Of course, afterwards, we saw it all coming. They must really be listening to us. ;)

Carry on. This is fun as always.

Agreed. I think it's hilarious. Especially the one about it being the worst Apple move ever. I linked earlier to the original slashdot iPod article. Same predictions of doom and claims of stupidity. Apple hasn't done anything stupid since the Cube, and before that Copland. They're on a roll.

David :cool:

[Super Dave]

<snip>

The link to the 2001 Slashdot article showing people's clue-less (I would have been at the time, too, perhaps) responses to the announcement of the very first iPod should function as a slap upside the head for many of us here.

peace
terry

The funny thing is it's the same thing again: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/02/2110234&tid=186&tid=3

Apple fans are funny. We all bash what Apple might do, and praise what they have already done. I think there are too many people like me who are still recovering from Copland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copland). Microsoft users have Stockholm Syndrome (http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments_opinion/defending_windows_over_mac_a_sign_of_mental_illness/) and Mac users have Copland Syndrome™.

David :cool:

[DPazdanISU]

I noticed there were more people that posted this as negative than a positive. Obviously what we know right now is very little and whatever Apple is up to I'm sure will be amazing. So everyone just sit tight and be ready to be amazed in Jan.

[kcmac]

Apple fans are funny. We all bash what Apple might do, and praise what they have already done.

David :cool:
Yep. I can't wait for January with the Mactels, the media thing, new iWork, et al. And of course, the new rumors and bashing that will start up soon afterwards. Actually, it's hard to tell what is better. :D

[59031]

I don't have much time to watch films and I prefer to read books. I buy a lot of books. To each his own.

Wow.

Everyone knows that reading a book, be it fiction or non-fiction, cheap supermarket paperback or serious literature, is a more time consuming and involved process, than watching a film. You can sit down and watch a film in about an hour and a half to two hours. Yet you claim you "don't have much time to watch films." Well if you don't have time to watch a film, you certainly don't have time to be reading books. I guess you must prefer books, and buy a lot of books, but you must never read them, because if you don't have time to watch movies, then you certainly don't have the time to read all those books you prefer to buy. Unless of course you DO have time to watch films, but choose not to. However, that's not what you said.

And you're an attorney?

[beatle888]

Don't do this.......c'mon iDisk....WTF :mad:


relax, its a rumor.

[beatle888]

I don't know why some people are so upset.


its the macrumors mentality. remember how every geek here bitched and moaned about how intel will be the death of apple and jobs was a #%^$@@? there were posts with people saying they will never buy an apple with an intel processor.

now whenever theres a rumor about a possibility of apple releasing macs with intel processors earlier then anticipated EVERYBODY starts posting how they cant wait and that its the best move that apple could of ever made.

macrumors is a good place to catch up on what might happen but the member posts...well, best to ignore them when they respond to what apple might do.

on the other hand. members can be very helpful with troubleshooting advice.

[59031]

its the macrumors mentality. remember how every geek here bitched and moaned about how intel will be the death of apple and jobs was a #%^$@@? there were posts with people saying they will never buy an apple with an intel processor.

now whenever theres a rumor about a possibility of apple releasing macs with intel processors earlier then anticipated EVERYBODY starts posting how they cant wait and that its the best move that apple could of ever made.

I said basically the same thing in another thread. It's so true. I for one am NOT thrilled about Intel processors in Macs, and remain skeptical. X86 stinks. Intel had damn better have some good $#!% up their sleeves, and I want to keep ALL of my Open Firmware goodness, like holding down the "T" key, the "N" key or "Command + S" at start up, to site a few examples. And drop the fricken legacy support, OS X does NOT NEED IT. Make these "special" processors available only to Apple too. That also might control hacked versions of OS X running on non-Apple hardware.

on the other hand. members can be very helpful with troubleshooting advice.

This is true too.

[steve_hill4]

I said basically the same thing in another thread. It's so true. I for one am NOT thrilled about Intel processors in Macs, and remain skeptical. X86 stinks. Intel had damn better have so good $#!% up their sleeves, and I want to keep ALL of my Open Firmware goodness, like holding down the "T" key, the "N" key or "Command + S" at start up, to site a few examples. And drop the fricken legacy support, OS X does NOT NEED IT. Makes these "special" processors available only to Apple too. That also might control hacked versions of OS X running on non-Apple hardware..
I agree with a lot of what was said there, but I do think Apple need to continue perhaps producing some hardware/software for the next few years that helps the transition from Classic, for those who still desperately still need to use it.

[dernhelm]

I just stated what Steve Jobs and I believe to be the case-- people do not want to own most of the films that they watch. Me having this opinion does not make me an idiot, or even a film-hater.

I didn't catch the beginning of this thread, but I have to say that I'm in the same camp as you are. We belong to NetFlix precisely because we like to watch stuff that can't be found at our local Blockbuster's (e.g. Red Dwarf, and Ripping Yarns). We also don't care to _own_ any of this stuff, and have three movies out at any one time is MORE than enough for us.

That said, the following service (which could be something like what Steve Jobs is considering) could be a big hit. I'm sure it would be seen as taking on NetFlix head to head, which would be a pretty bold move, but it would certainly interest me! Anyway, here goes:

Offer a _subscription_ (yes I used the 'S' word) service at somewhere around $8-10 per month. Allow the user to "rent" whatever movies they would like by simply downloading them and streaming them. If you have the right hardware (say, mac-mini media center edition) you can have this content streamed directly to your HD TV screen. Otherwise you can watch them on the computer screen or use whatever video-out capabilities your computer has to view them on your TV.

The money Apple charges for this service can help them recoup the investment they will be making in their internet backbone. They do need to get most of the major studios on board, along with the BBC and getting the major american broadcasters (and cable stations) wouldn't hurt either.

The biggest gripe that you'll hear from most anyone who has NetFlix is either that they have to wait 3-4 days to get their movie, or that they've misplaced the stupid envelope to return the one they are done with. These are pretty minor hassles, but it is a point of differentiation that Jobs can point out....

[xsnightclub]

I think that is pushing it, Apple won't be able to replace Cable television. How are you going to watch your local news?


Have you heard of the internet?

There is already a good deal of content from local news online and it is growing rapidly. The local networks have realized advertising dollars from their websites. Instead of asking how would you watch loacl news, the question should be 'why do you watch the local news when they decide to air it on tv?' You can download the stories of interest to you and move on.

[conradzoo]

Its all ok to me all this speculations. But what does it mean to me in Europe?

[2nyRiggz]

not too fond of this being a .mac thing but its sounds alright.


Bless

[Mechcozmo]

To make sure that your computer supports the demand a HD H.264 video will place on it, Front Row 2.0 only will allow you access to the video store thing.

Also, you can import your own DVDs+make them H.264 videos but not upload them to the .Mac servers. And who would want to, at standard upload speeds anyway?

"Front Row Video Store" :)

iPod Video users will be able to set what videos they want to sync in Front Row. Those will appear in iTunes with a special icon denoting they are really from Front Row, or something to that effect.

Windows users will be insanely jealous for quite some time, at least. Eventually, they will buy a Mac or Front Row for Windows comes out.

The DRM will be iTunes-like in nature.

Possibly, there will be a BitTorrent like way to download videos to increase your streaming download speed. So if you have a few videos downloaded, you can stream them up to others.

It will be linked into your Apple ID, so credit cards and money linked into iTunes will be applicable to the Front Row Video Store. FRVS is kinda catchy...

Those are my predictions insofar. I feel they fit Apple's ideals.

[poundsmack]

not sure if this has been mentioned yet but regardless of if the files are on a .Mac account or on the lacal machine people (if they truly wanted to) could still fle share them. video screen capture software can do this. but i guess most people wouldnt go to those lengths...

[GregA]

its the macrumors mentality. remember how every geek here bitched and moaned about how intel will be the death of apple and jobs was a #%^$@@? there were posts with people saying they will never buy an apple with an intel processor.

now whenever theres a rumor about a possibility of apple releasing macs with intel processors earlier then anticipated EVERYBODY starts posting how they cant wait and that its the best move that apple could of ever made.
I must say I don't follow individual users enough to say they're contradicting themselves. I'm sure some do, but I doubt it's as many as you imply.

I mean, they announce Intel macs, and everyone who cares about the processor gives their opinion... and alot of those are pro-PowerPC. But it's only everyone who CARES about the processor. Then there's the rumour of january Intel-Macs... and everyone who cares says "Sooner is better than later!". It may seem that "everyone" is contradicting what "everyone" said earlier, but you often have a different set of people responding.

[artifex]

As someone else said, some movies actually get better with repeated viewing, just like some music gets better with repeated listening and books with repeated reading, allowing you to appreciate all the subtle details and nuances and layers you may have missed the first time around, or to listen, read and hear things from different perspectives.
Yah, I think I agree with that person:
Forgot all about that. He's right, some films get better with repeated viewing, and some simply never lose their charm.
:rolleyes: there's those eyes ;)

[GregA]

Its all ok to me all this speculations. But what does it mean to me in Europe?Or Australia!?

I think these are the first steps towards the country you are in being unimportant. It's not hard to imagine Disney retaining the worldwide Internet sales to a series (eg. Lost), and selling just the broadcast rights to local channels overseas. (Of course, when I can buy Lost directly from the internet the day after it shows in the US... I might not watch my local channel. Or the local channels might decide to show it at the same time as the US release instead of a year behind!).

Until then... well if Apple's device is a "TiVo killer" then it would need to record FTA stuff wouldn't it? Perhaps you will be able to browse your "library" of videos (either bought, or recorded off FTA?). I assume anything we recorded would be stuck on our own hard disks, not on iDisk.

[neutrino23]

There was a Joy of Tech cartoon which expressed it well. The Mac geek was all bummed out. His two friends were talking and one asked "Why is he bummed out? MacWorld just happened and all sorts of new things came out."

To which his friend replied "It wasn't a phaser."

Many here have very lofty opinions of the goals Apple should be shooting for. Apple's genius, on the other hand, is on finding specs which are a nice balance of what is possible at a reasonable price and what many people want and are willing to pay for.

The pundits were wrong about the iPod, the iPod Micro the Shuffle and more.

The genius of marketing is not designing a product with all of the top end geek features. The genius of marketing is in hitting the right note between features, simplicity, complexity, cost and functionality.

Having said all that, if Apple comes out with a service that supplies movies (and TV shows) on demand for either a per unit cost or a subscription cost I think it will be very popular. Convenience is the reason. You buy a Mac Mini, hook it up to your large screen TV, give Apple your credit card one time then after that you sit on your sofa with the remote and watch almost any movie ever made. No disks to worry about scratching or losing or warping in the sun or cataloging or returning. Just choose a program and view it. There is no need to make this run on windows. People will just treat the Mac Mini as a set top box. If the low end price is a few hundred dollars they will sell like hot cakes. DVD players sold in bunches for lots more. That is a fraction of the price of a wide screen TV.

Apple has put the whole package together and demonstrated this with iTMS. Credit card management, software for selecting programs, hardware for using digital programs, servers for supplying content, licensing agreements with content providers have all been demonstrated on a massive scale. As Steve pointed out recently Apple is the number two on line retailer only behind Amazon. No one else has all of these parts of the puzzle already in place.

[caccamolle]

if Apple can save me from cable TV, oh God Bless Apple !!! I'd do anything to get rid of it, .Mac or not .Mac.

[caccamolle]

I think that is pushing it, Apple won't be able to replace Cable television. How are you going to watch your local news? Apple may be able to let you watch movies, but even if they make TV shows available, you'll be watching them atleast a day later than everyone else, not to mention, they will not be able to get all TV shows that people want. And if they started doing TV shows, no doubt you'd have to pay for this service, in which case, no one would.

no one would ? wrong, I would.
I don't expect cable TV to be "replaced", but if anything at all is made available - even a day late except for news - that'd be a start, and I am all for it.

[Lynxpro]

You have to think differently. If you have today's DVR you get to watch your recorded content whenever you want. You can't archive it to another drive though. So what?! It's still yours. Now it will live on .Mac and Apple can deal with the storage issues instead of you. If this rolls out in Hi-Def as I expect it will, you won't want to be archiving this stuff unless you have TB's of HD space anyways :cool:


Uhm, TiVo-To-Go + *cough* DirectShow Dump *cough* pretty much makes it possible to "archive" your content on your own terms...

[Lynxpro]

Tivo stock took a big dive this week on the news that they're not going to get anymore new DirecTV subscribers, and this Apple news isn't going to help.
Tivo's market cap is now less than $500 million, or about a third of what Netflix is worth.


TiVo's market cap was slightly higher than $400 million a few months back when the rumors flew that Apple was going to acquire the company. It would be a wise strategic acquisition, even if it is only for the intellectual property...

And the DirecTV contract runs until 2007. The Comcast deal goes into effect mid-2006. And perhaps we'll see Dish Network pick up TiVo at the conclusion of whatever settlement the two parties come to in the next year over Dish's patent infringement.

In other news, ReplayTV still only has about 200,000 subscribers to TiVo's 4 million... :)

[robinmurphy]

Anybody think that this new system, and FrontRow, would be part of a new iLife? Isn't it usually January when it gets updated?

[iAlan]

...FRVS is kinda catchy...

As in FRiVolouS...

Just kiding, but I am wanting to know how any such service can be expanded outside the USA? We other-country-ers are still waiting for some of our favourite TV shows to become available...

[Bonte]

I finally read it and one can feel the electricity surrounding this article, its going to be big. :eek:

For as far i can see it all falls into place
- mac mini to test the market for a small almost mediacenter like device.
- Intel with the hardware drm chip, not to protect osX but the new digital content, it fits perfectly
- limited video contend again to test the market and it seems to be ready.
- Contend will be protected with the drm chip so for the time being intel Mini only.
- Sell the mini at no profit, get it with the content.
- Its not a computer but a media device, the next step thats clearly on Apple's roadmap.
- online content only cached on the hard drive or lower quality for the iPod, we can't currently own HD contend so this is the reason its online stored, cached and hardware drm protected.
- acceptable itunes drm conditions to test the market, if its free enough people accept it and don't turn to illegal methods. Apple is not making big profit on iTunes but get a lot more for the video's.
- iTunes phone testing corporate interest, cable companies working with mini mediacenters?
...

It promises to be a very exited speech. :D

[Bonte]

I am wanting to know how any such service can be expanded outside the USA? We other-country-ers are still waiting for some of our favourite TV shows to become available...

Thats another story, i think its going to stay USA only for some time to come. There is no reason whatsoever to not allow the Pixar movies outside the US but they didn't, Apple kept it US only to make it clear that content will not be available in other country's in a short timeframe.

IMHO, Apple is sick of opening a store for each and every country on this planet with each having his own content, pricing and conditions. New video contend is going to be contracted to other country's on new conditions so the creators can distribute it digitally worldwide in there own name. So only new content with the new contracts in 1 online worldwide store, maybe within 1 - 3 years?? :(

[regan]

This whole topic is so interesting. Seriously. It raises so many questions.

Like for instance, if the upcoming mac mini will become a media center capable of recording tv shows like a vcr....what will that do to apples video itunes that charges $1.99 to download a show now? Who would pay for a show when they could record it off the tv for free? Just to put it on their video ipod? Does that make sense? Pay $1.99 to put a tv show on your ipod, but record it for free like a vcr?

To me having the mini act as a normal vcr would be the best choice. And then have a service where you could rent movies on a saturday night lets say by ordering it through itunes. Will movie studios give apple access to its movie library much like music studios did with their music?

I don't think apple would be as successful selling just music videos and tv shows as they were with selling songs.

So many questions. :)

[59031]

Who would pay for a show when they could record it off the tv for free? Just to put it on their video ipod? Does that make sense? Pay $1.99 to put a tv show on your ipod, but record it for free like a vcr?

Me, because, A) I don't like commercials, and B) I'll be too busy or forget every so often to set the thing to record, that's who.

[regan]

Me, because, A) I don't like commercials, and B) I'll be too busy or forget every so often to set the thing to record, that's who.


So do you think then that Apple would offer the ability to both PAY for the tv show AND RECORD the tv show for free?

Would that make sense?

If the media mini won't be able to record tv for free like a current vcr...what kind of media center would that be? :)

It just poses some interesting questions. Guess we will find out in a month. :)

[blybug]

Dude, you need to chill out. (You should also read the terms of service, and not call other posters, or their comments, ridiculous, lame or dumb. ) Use that USC education. We have a difference of opinion.

I stand by the basic premise of my post, which is as follows: I have no desire to own, or to re-watch, most of the the movies I watch. None. Not many films are worth watching more than once; fewer are worth owning. That being said, my kids have the Pixar films and a few others; I have some Gilliam films, Citizen Kane, Star Wars, LOTR. etc. I have some silents on VHS; which can't be rented. I did not endorse a blanket prohibition of film ownership; I just stated what Steve Jobs and I believe to be the case-- people do not want to own most of the films that they watch. Me having this opinion does not make me an idiot, or even a film-hater. I don't have much time to watch films and I prefer to read books. I buy a lot of books. To each his own.

Right...having a Netflix-over-Front-Row type service would compete with and (possibly eventually) replace Netflix and brick & mortar Blockbusters...not the cinemaphile who loves to own his movies and rewatch them over and over. You can still buy the DVD! Nobody is taking them off the shelves when Apple starts selling movies. And if you need to take it with you on the plane you can already rip the DVD to your laptop or iPod with readily available software. Most movies watched by most people are watched once, usually rented, but I'd hazard a guess that most (not all, but most) people who buy a DVD only watch it once too.

The flames of this same (at least) 4-year old argument with regard to music (AAC 128kbps vs CDs) are just now dying down (or are they??). For the average person who can accept a virtually imperceptible degradation in sound quality, purchasing downloadable music directly from the iTMS has great advantages over buying CDs, as 500 million downloads demonstrates. Likewise, for the average person just wanting to rent the latest release for a Saturday night on the couch, clicking up their movies via Front Row would be much more appealing than waiting 3 days for Netflix or a trip (actually 2 trips) across town to Blockbuster.

I've got the same 3 DVDs from Blockbuster online sitting in my house for the last 3 weeks I haven't gotten around to watching yet. And 2 kids DVDs from the store Friday night (free coupons for being an online customer) I still have to take back. I'd much rather have chosen the 3 to watch on demand when I'm ready, and chosen the 2 on demand from my couch and not have the return hanging over me. And believe me, I do not want to own "Are We There Yet?"

But when Harry Potter 4 comes out I'll probably buy the DVD, just like I still buy the physical CDs for my favorite artists (but why?...the last several CDs I've bought I have ripped, iPodded, and stashed away, never to be seen again...hmmm...). Best of all worlds still available no matter what service Apple comes up with.

[regan]

Wow. I just read on Powerpage.Org that some are predicting powerbook updates at MWSF now too.

Hmmm....lets see...

if you believe them all, then we are going to see new intel ibooks, new powerbooks, new ipods, AND a new mini media center.

Yikes! That would be some keynote. I can see Steve now... "oh one more thing"...."one MORE thing"...."really ONE more thing"...."OK...this is the last thing...HONEST!"

It would go on forever.

I'm just hoping for the ibook update. All the rest is gravy to me. :)

[dicklacara]

Just to see what is possible, I started a bunch of streaming remote QT Videos on the desktop-- I was able to get 15 on a 23" Display.

These are shown (all stopped) in the attached pic.

I was able to get 8 of them playing concurrently-- the rest were waiting for connection to the remote server.

Even though the movies are relatively low quality, getting 8 of them going at once is pretty impressive.

None of the movies are h264 encoded.

This is done on an Airport Extreme Network over a SBC DSL connection.

The movies are available through the Archive Classic Movies Podcast.

So... it looks like a broadband connection would be able to handle 1 or more streamed dloads.

Note: The movies show a lot better than what is shown in the following image (reduced quality to meet upload size linit of 244.1 KB).

36187

[Cooknn]

Wow. I just read on Powerpage.Org that some are predicting powerbook updates at MWSF now too.

Hmmm....lets see...

if you believe them all, then we are going to see new intel ibooks, new powerbooks, new ipods, AND a new mini media center.

Yikes! That would be some keynote. I can see Steve now... "oh one more thing"...."one MORE thing"...."really ONE more thing"...."OK...this is the last thing...HONEST!"

It would go on forever.With all the rumors flying around many will be let down for sure. Just sit back and wait to see. Don't get your hopes up and you won't be as let down when whatever it is that you want - isn't announced. Personally I would love to see a 13-inch widescreen laptop. I don't care if it's an iBook or a PowerBook. I just haven't bought into the PDA on the Cellphone gig, and I want something small and wireless - that runs OS X :D

[regan]

I'm with you Curly. "Woob-woob-woob-woob!"

A 13" widescreen ibook is on the top of my wishlist for MWSF. It was also the first big rumour that surfaced about MWSF.

My hopes are not too high...as I have learned over the years to not expect anything as far as apple rumours go.

Better to be pleasantly suprised. :)

Have a great holiday everyone.

[corywoolf]

I doubt apple is going to do this, more likely lots of content will be free with a .mac subscription (but it will only be streamable), but you can purchase it for between $1.99 to $9.99 even without the .mac subscription. And maybe, with a .mac account, be able to have full length music and video previews.
I have a feeling that their will be a completely new app. for Podcasting that will make it easy for .mac subscribers to post their podcasts and videocasts onto their .mac homepage (but is stored on the itunes music store servers). The podcasting all in one app. isn't really a new idea, but one that apple needs to address with ilife '06. The videocasts would be edited in imovie, which would have a new tab near the titles/audio/etc. that is called podcasting. It will act the same way as the iDVD tab that lets you divide it into chapters then it would launch the podcast app., which would let you add art, description, basic audio editing, and then give the option to place a link to the podcast on your private .mac account or/and to the public itunes music store podcast directory. Back to the distribution system though, It would be nice to have bittorrent support for the itms, but that wont happen anytime soon. I don't mean anything to do with pirating, just a controlled bittorrent type distribution system that could make video downloads faster. This will probably not all happen, but it will be interesting to see how much of it does.

[corywoolf]

With all the rumors flying around many will be let down for sure. Just sit back and wait to see. Don't get your hopes up and you won't be as let down when whatever it is that you want - isn't announced. Personally I would love to see a 13-inch widescreen laptop. I don't care if it's an iBook or a PowerBook. I just haven't bought into the PDA on the Cellphone gig, and I want something small and wireless - that runs OS X :D

I doubt that an ibook or powerbook will be announced at MWSF, probably just a lot of new features and content for the itms with the new distribution system. And of course the ilife '06, iwork '06 (with a new app. for podcasting) that each ship with 2 discs (dual binaries), a new shuffle that is thinner/ cheaper, talk about the success of OS X Tiger and the progress on porting the software and the infamous one more thing will be the new mac minis running intel proccessors. A demo will be given of the new mini compared to the old and how all the basic apps are ready (and that rosetta alows emulation of the ones that aren't there yet). Ending it all with the insane starting price of $399 and a little hint about the coming months.

[Lepton]

Let's do a "what if" for a second to see where it leads us. What if this service will only be allowed on Intel Macs?

ALL Intel Macs have a hardware-based trusted platform system in them. This assures that the Mac OSX 86 will only be able to run on Intel Macs. But that's not the only purpose it can be put to. It can also be used to insure that intellectual properties - including movies and TV shows - will only be viewable on authorized computers. That is, you can implement a pretty robust hardware Digitial Rights Management system.

Oy! Why would Apple do something like that? Same as with music. With it, all the media companies will play ball and we will have ALL the TV, ALL the movies around.

For those without an Intel Mac, a "hardware assist" board might be required. Yeah, it might have a codec assist in there, but it would really implement the DRM.

I'm not thrilled with this idea. But like music, it's not Apple's fault. You want TV and movies on Macs or not?

[Bonte]

We can rip CD's or download mp3's so a VCR capable Mini is a possibility but i don't think thats going to be in the package, to much multi regio/country trouble and added cost. Just playback and buy.

[regan]

I'm all for "what ifs"....but I seriously doubt apple would FORCE everyone to buy an intel based mac to be able to use this feature.

That would be a bit pyscho if you ask me. :eek:

[Mechcozmo]

Uhm, TiVo-To-Go + *cough* DirectShow Dump *cough* pretty much makes it possible to "archive" your content on your own terms...

<hacking cough>I do this quite a bit to view shows on my Mac</hacking cough>

As in FRiVolouS...

Just kiding, but I am wanting to know how any such service can be expanded outside the USA? We other-country-ers are still waiting for some of our favourite TV shows to become available...

I asked my Majik 8 ball and it said that every country but Australia would get it. Australia would have to wait a year, but be told every other week that they would be getting it, "really really soon"

I'm all for "what ifs"....but I seriously doubt apple would FORCE everyone to buy an intel based mac to be able to use this feature.

That would be a bit pyscho if you ask me. :eek:
I agree. Front Row 2.0 will run on Macs that can handle the decoding of the H.264. And the iTunes DRM works just fine without being hardware enforced. It prevents blatant stealing, but for those that have a CD-RW laying around you're set if you want to use it in a slideshow or something.

[maestro55]

As with everyone else it bothers me that they will not be letting the users keep the hardware that they purchase on their harddrive. If I go an dI buy something I want to keep it, I don't wan to tostre it on the internet. When I go out and buy a DVD, do you see me keeping it at the store and picking it up when I ready to watch it? The fact i, this is not a good idea, and those who would pay for it are ust plain silly. Someone mentioned TiVo, well I don't know how that system works, but I certainly wouldn't pay to have a TiVo system. Instead I am into something call FreeVo, which is a DVR in which you can keep your content.

Big companies are just looking for a way to make an extra buck.. and I am 100% opposed to them keeping the content you buy on the web, and not letting you physically have it.

[zooniverse]

maybe the system will be kept on the idisk if you watch it once (rent it) and you can pay more to keep it on your harddrive

[maestro55]

maybe the system will be kept on the idisk if you watch it once (rent it) and you can pay more to keep it on your harddrive

But why should I have to pay more for content that I ALREADY purchased so I can keep it on *MY* harddrive?

[d.f]

But why should I have to pay more for content that I ALREADY purchased so I can keep it on *MY* harddrive?

the same happens when you rent a video from blockbuster, doesn't it?

[Plymouthbreezer]

Heh - looks like Apple might really be serious with this whole "Media Mac" idea.

Hey, I'm all for it.

[maestro55]

the same happens when you rent a video from blockbuster, doesn't it?

I don't rent movies from blockbuster! Anyhow, I am all for buying the content, but I have no desire to "rent" the content. I want to buy it and make it mine.

[Super Dave]

<snip> There is no reason whatsoever to not allow the Pixar movies outside the US but they didn't, Apple kept it US only to make it clear that content will not be available in other country's in a short timeframe.<snip>

Pixar movies (well shorts) are available internationally. The only things missing from the international stores are television shows and some of the music videos (the US always gets more of anything).

David:cool:

[Bonte]

Pixar movies (well shorts) are available internationally. The only things missing from the international stores are television shows and some of the music videos (the US always gets more of anything).

David:cool:

Haven't seen them in the belgium store but indeed some country's have them an some don't. Damn, again those ********n separated stores, i almost feel like a negro in '60 US. :mad:

But then again, maybe there preparing other country's for the big January gig. :)

[VanMac]

Sounds Good.

Lots of questions around the 'how', but I'm pretty confidant that if Apple decides to do this, they will do it right :cool:

[e-coli]

I don't buy it. iDisk performance is still absolutely TERRIBLE. Even on a very fast connection. Your iDisk actually works better with Windows!

No chance on earth this is true.

[iTron5]

...First i don't have any use for .mac so i don't care to pay for that, and 2nd as people have mentioned i want the content local for many reasons, one being what if my internet connection drops, i can't watch a show i've paid for. I would think this would be a nightmare for apple anyway, MASSIVE storage requirements if this takes off, a huge increase in necessary bandwith for them. For me to be interested in any of the content anyway it would have to be high quality or i don't see the purpose of getting it through this distribution method ( atleast for me ) and high quality shows especially going to HD at some point would make the storage requirements that much larger for apple.


I"m seeing two types of posts here. It seems there are two points of view: 1) people who don't see any opportunity for them with the current technology and 2) people expressing seemingly feasible strategies by which a dynamite new product/service could be realized.

But to me #1 seems Luddite-like, as shortsighted as people saying "well, there's obviously no way a photo could ever be transported from one place to another for viewing". But #2 seems highly optimistic, perhaps overly optimistic. I'm reminded of how hyped we are leaving steve's keynotes at Expo, our imaginations running amok with what we THINK he said, only to find that in practice it doesn't work quite as nicely.

On balance, apple's announcements have ended up pleasing me even with the occasions on which they fall short of what (I THINK) was promised. So i'm thinking, keep an open mind, listen to the people explaining why a new technologyi might work--and hope for the best. I would be great if apple could make a breakthrough on this front.

peace
terry


Wow luddite and shortsighted huh. Interesting take on the quoted text. I know you weren't just speaking of this exclusively, but since you quoted my text, and i didn't like the announcement i'm guessing you are saying that i don't see how this 'new' technology could benefit. Well considering i in no way stated there was no oppurtunity to it, i am not sure why you quoted me. My misgivings about this just deal directly with the way the rumor states this would happen. Storing all the videos directly on idisk for everyone would create massive storage requirements. Not to mention would give you no physcial access to something you purchased. There are ways around all of this and we have no idea what apple will eventually do. For rental purposes this could be cool if handled well. I'm all for digital distribution. I love video on demand, and i've bought software through digital distribution for years. Ofcourse when i do it downloads to my computer which is what i would want if i were to purchase a movie from a service like this. By the way, this is not a new technology as you state, there are a few companies that have made movies in very limited amounts available for download for a couple years. Just not on what the level this will probably turn into.

So please before you start using words like luddite and shortsighted atleast understand what's being talked about and what your talking about.

[jinzo012]

Anyone up for an arousing song of Winter Wonderland? :D

[mhouse]

I'm not seeing the complaint that you don't 'own' this. I see no indication that you won't own it. You just don't store it yourself. You would have access to it whenever you wanted to watch it.

The system is great for all but two groups of people:

1. People without a high speed internet connection. But so what? These folks wouldn't be able to download significant video content regardless.

2. People who want to illegally copy their content and trade it. You may not like the fact that copying a DVD is illegal but it is. Maybe it shouldn't be but it is. If Apple (or Sony or MS or whoever) is going to get digital content they will have to protect it from widespread copying or the content providers will not play ball.

And anyway the ubergeeks among us will find a way to capture the stream and copy it anyway. Apple just has to eliminate the easy piracy. Neither they, or the content companies, care if a few thousand geeks copy Toy Story to their hard drive.

[Mechcozmo]

I'm not seeing the complaint that you don't 'own' this. I see no indication that you won't own it. You just don't store it yourself. You would have access to it whenever you wanted to watch it.


The concern is that you could suddenly stop owning it at any time, due to the clause in the EULA that says that "at any time, subject to change" or something.

[Super Dave]

The concern is that you could suddenly stop owning it at any time, due to the clause in the EULA that says that "at any time, subject to change" or something.

I definitely understand the concern. That's why I don't rent music from any of the companies I think will soon go under or exit the online music market.

However, and be honest here, do you believe this is remotely probable? If you all of a sudden couldn't watch your videos no EULA would save the movie companies from legal retribution.

Plus I'm sure Apple has it in THEIR contract with the companies that they can't do anything like this without Apple's permission. I suspect Apple negotiated the 3 to 5 computer bump as a trade off with the 10 to 7 CD burn between Fairplay 1 and 2. The RIAA would have just taken the CD burns without giving more computers.

David :cool:

[Spike72afa]

Over the last few years, we have seen the mothership putting sleeper cells out there waiting for the signal to take over the world. I believe that Jan 10, we will hear the signal go out....
Consider the following:
1. You have the computer system which best support audiovisual content delivery.
2. "Year of HD" has put h.264 on everybody's machine. (that is everyone with QT7.
3. h.264 allows you to scale video from ipod size up to TV size...
4. Airport express: wirelessly transmit content within your home.
5. iTunes store has proven to be the only successful business model that is accepted by consumers and gives content producers a reasonably fair control over the sale of their stuff.
6. Currently video for sale on ITMS is limited to music and a few broadcast TV items. Already we are hearing of multiple studios approaching apple for distribution.
7. All the pieces are in place. In the new world, you can buy all any content you want from the ITMS. Then you can play it on your computer, on you ipod, or wirelessly transmit it to your home theater. The DRM would allow you to burn an archived copy to DVD.
Very cool!!!

[wkhahn]

...This concept reminds alot of the new Amazon DVD rental service in Europe (don't know if it's available in the U.S.): You can order a fixed number of DVDs and keep them as long as you like. When you want to have new ones, you need to send your current ones back. Renting movies costs nothing, other than a monthly subscription fee, and you can return movies for new ones as often as you like.

Apple could do it like this as well. As an example: For $9.99 a month you get enough iDisk space for 3 full movies (for $15, you get space for 5, and so on). When your disk is full, and you'd like a new one, an old one has to go. Other than the subscription fee of disk space, the service would cost nothing.

Wouldn't that be something?

You beat me to it. It would be a subscription service at the current price of a .mac account but instead of using iDisk, they'll call it iFlix. It would work like Netflix(or Amazon as above) but the movies would be downloaded to your local machine, with the same DRM that are on Videos and TV shows now. You could keep 3 at a time, and when you want to download a new one, it would give you the option of which one to delete. If you don't want to delete a movie, you could bye it outright. You would get one burn to DVD (with DRM intact) and rights for 1 more computer. The downloads would happen overnight/while you're at work. And with this subscription, you would get a free .mac account.

[Bonte]

I don't buy it. iDisk performance is still absolutely TERRIBLE. Even on a very fast connection. Your iDisk actually works better with Windows!

It works better on Intel, small difference. :) But i also don't believe in HD content, way to big for streaming delivery.

Is this technical posible? Not streaming on demand but in batches every 10 minutes to lower the load on the servers and the network. A bit like how digital cable works today, any toughs?

[Super Dave]

<snip>
3. h.264 allows you to scale video from ipod size up to TV size...
<snip>

I'm not sure if you meant what I think you did or not, but just a clarification. Any large screen video can be scaled for small screens, so that is nothing new. As for the reverse process, that is not true.

The reason H.264 is toted as being able to handle anything from cell phones to HD is because the hardware required to decode is minimial if the video size is minimal, but gets quite tasking as the video becomes large. This is why an iPod can decode H.264 at 320x240 (and 480x480?) but it takes a G5 or dual G5 to decode H.264 at 1080i. It's the same codec, but it is certainly not the same file or the same processor.

David:cool:

[Mechcozmo]

I definitely understand the concern. That's why I don't rent music from any of the companies I think will soon go under or exit the online music market.

However, and be honest here, do you believe this is remotely probable? If you all of a sudden couldn't watch your videos no EULA would save the movie companies from legal retribution.

I'm not one of those complaining... concerned? A bit. But I'm not worried that it would happen, and if it did, that Apple could get away with it. I'm confident that it will all be A.O.K. But I do like running my own server... FTP/HTTP/eMail for safety and security reasons. I'm a walking contradiction.

[Sunrunner]

I'm not sure if you meant what I think you did or not, but just a clarification. Any large screen video can be scaled for small screens, so that is nothing new. As for the reverse process, that is not true.

The reason H.264 is toted as being able to handle anything from cell phones to HD is because the hardware required to decode is minimial if the video size is minimal, but gets quite tasking as the video becomes large. This is why an iPod can decode H.264 at 320x240 (and 480x480?) but it takes a G5 or dual G5 to decode H.264 at 1080i. It's the same codec, but it is certainly not the same file or the same processor.

David:cool:

But thats why it is so flexible. The system can autosense what it can handle and retrieve the optimized resolution for the platform.

[Sunrunner]

It works better on Intel, small difference. :) But i also don't believe in HD content, way to big for streaming delivery.

Is this technical posible? Not streaming on demand but in batches every 10 minutes to lower the load on the servers and the network. A bit like how digital cable works today, any toughs?

I think one of the overlooked features Apple is really getting at here if they use the iDisk as part of a video service is the ability to pre-queue subscribed video for the user. For instance, user selects a series that they want to watch and then every week a new episode is delivered through iDisk and auto-synched to the local computer in the middle of the night. Then when the user wants to watch the latest episode, BAM, instant-on.

[GregA]

I think one of the overlooked features Apple is really getting at here if they use the iDisk as part of a video service is the ability to pre-queue subscribed video for the user. For instance, user selects a series that they want to watch and then every week a new episode is delivered through iDisk and auto-synched to the local computer in the middle of the night. Then when the user wants to watch the latest episode, BAM, instant-on.That's a likely scenario. OR even if a user watches an old series, it could pre-queue the next episode in the series.

In fact, it also works well with the concept of buying a show. You have a list of your "bought" shows you can watch any time (assuming a huge cache). And you have a "shopping" mode to buy a show. For people on <1.5Mbps connections, perhaps there's a lag between when you click "buy" and when it appears in your "bought" shows list.

[Super Dave]

Anyone remember "Vingle?" (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2005/10/20051013195042.shtml) Is there perhaps an UberApp coming that will encompass the iTunes music store, the TV downloads, the upcoming rumoured movie streaming store, an ability to chat about the media within the app and who knows what else?

iTunes certainly needs some fixes so that the video content doesn't feel like a giant hack on a previously great program.

David :cool:

[Donm]

what's the point when i need an internet connection to be allowed to see my movies? the reason for owning the content is that i can watch it in the car, on the train, on the plain, in my backyard or at the beach.

with this concept i might as well stop at the next blockbuster and rent a dvd.

i don't think it's gonna happen like this.

What hapens when you introduce WIMAX into the picture. Now you have a broadband connection following you anywhere you are under one account across an entire city. Again, thanks to apple's new friend.

[maestro55]

So... it looks like a broadband connection would be able to handle 1 or more streamed dloads.



As you pointed, the quality wasn't high on the movies you were downloading. How would it be on movie of the higher qualities that you would want if you were paying to view it? I don't want my videos to skip frames. I don't want it to look any bit fuzzy. That is why I generally don't download content, and when I do I get the highest quality possible. The fact is, I want the best. It isn't such a big deal when downloading free content, but if I am paying then I do want the best.

[treblah]

From Paul Thurrott's Internet Nexus (http://www.internet-nexus.com):

Apple will announce a variety of iTunes content deals with NBC on Tuesday, which will bring the following recent and classic NBC TV shows to iPod and iTunes owners: Conan O'Brien, Law & Order, Triumph The Insult Dog, The Office, Surface, Adam 12 (original version), Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Dragnet (color episodes), Knight Rider, Law & Order (first season), Battlestar Gallactica (original version), and Monk.

Also, I've received word about how Apple will tie its upcoming media content system to individual users. It's a great idea, and one that really has very little to do with DRM and more with a common sense approach to curbing piracy. More on that soon.

This was posted last night. Hopefully he will post some real info soon.

[Tupring]

agreed - seems a little weird to me. Also begs the question of what if you're not a .Mac subscriber?Then you save money and download them for free, just like normal.;) :p