Apple to (possibly) sell movies online

[medea]

"Apple Computer May Sell Movies Online, Berliner Zeitung Says
July 14, 2003 17:59 EDT -- Apple Computer Inc., maker of the iMac personal computer, may start to sell movies online after the success of its iTunes music technology, Berliner Zeitung said, citing Pascal Cagni, the company's Vice President, Europe."

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=conews&tkr=AAPL:US

[bennetsaysargh]

im confused. how will they do this? movies are way too big to download. if they think that buying music online is long for dialup users, think about this!
they already have the record industry on thier case, now the movies? lol:p
at least they are increasing the digital hub and iLife!

[Freg3000]

I think Apple is looking into the future on this one. They see down the line, when practically everyone in the United States and the world has broadband. But by then, broadband will probably be a thing of the past, and many people will have blazingly fast speeds compared to today. At that time, this won't be so weird. I can see this happening in 2005/2006.

Now, if Apple uses the Pixlet codec.....I don't think anyone will have a good enough connection for the next 5 years before they can download a movie that large in a reasonable amount of time.

[evil]

i may be a bit computer dumb...but is pixlet like the AAC of movie files?

[TyleRomeo]

Originally posted by Freg3000
I think Apple is looking into the future on this one. They see down the line, when practically everyone in the United States and the world has broadband. But by then, broadband will probably be a thing of the past, and many people will have blazingly fast speeds compared to today. At that time, this won't be so weird. I can see this happening in 2005/2006.

Now, if Apple uses the Pixlet codec.....I don't think anyone will have a good enough connection for the next 5 years before they can download a movie that large in a reasonable amount of time.

thats why they have mpeg-4 and aac which will soon be in 5.1. so once everyone has broadband or something faster, a 200Mb movie wont be so bad. besides, it's apple, they'll think of something.

tyler

[Jerry Spoon]

Digitally storing full movies downloaded from apple...What size hard drive are you going to need for that? 200 Mb apiece? The new iPod...150 feature length movies in your pocket!

[BaghdadBob]

Not much of a stretch, but, I think not. I think this is just a logical jump, not really a near possibility, and if we're talking about possibilities that are not near then I guess we can discuss how Apple is preparing for the encorporation of 20 GHz processors with OS XI.

[whfsdude]

Light DRM, I'd buy. But I don't think it will happen :-(

[Mosco]

Originally posted by TyleRomeo
thats why they have mpeg-4 and aac which will soon be in 5.1. so once everyone has broadband or something faster, a 200Mb movie wont be so bad. besides, it's apple, they'll think of something.

tyler

Even in Mpeg-4, the movies will be alot bigger than 200 Mb. Even in Xvid, it has to be like 700Mb atleast to look "only" ok.

I just read up on Pix, 20-25:1 compression. So i guess 250 is not all that bad. That would be pretty cool.

[TyleRomeo]

Originally posted by Jerry Spoon
Digitally storing full movies downloaded from apple...What size hard drive are you going to need for that? 200 Mb apiece? The new iPod...150 feature length movies in your pocket!

what else are you going to store on these new SATA drives that will hit over 500GB by next year.

Tyler

[MrMacMan]

Not Suprising, but will probably have some sort of super mega block on it so you can't watch it off your mac.

Which will create a controversy... and people will try and will eventually crack it... etc.

[Waluigi]

It takes me about one to two hours to download a 1GB movie depending on the connection speed with my cable modem. I'm assuming apple will have no problem on their end sending out the movies, but until the average consumer can download a full HD movie in 5 to 15 minutes (yes, I know, it sounds ridiculous), this is just not plausible.

I really love this idea, and I hope apple will take a few years to set up the frame work for the contracts, and user interface, to make this whole thing work. Hopefully by then, internet speeds will increase enough to make it all happen, because right now that is the single limiting factor.

--Waluigi

[frozenstar]

This stuff is not far off. The technology is already there. Using Pixlet, a sustained throughput of 300kbps is sufficient to watch a DVD-quality movie while it downloads.

[tazo]

If they are reasonably priced then i would buy from apple :)

[Plastic Chicken]

Pixlet is NOT a good codec for over the internet. It's designed for Pixar to send stuff around the studio at full rez without artifacts. It's still VERY heavy in size, but 20:1 compared to raw data. 3MB/second Apple's site says. That's 21Gb for a whole movie. I'm assuming 3MB/s is the high def spec, so half of high def (which is probably what they would distribute) would be 5 gigs for a whole movie. (I'm assuming a two-hour movie...now, Lawrence of Arabia...)

[frozenstar]

Originally posted by Plastic Chicken
Pixlet is NOT a good codec for over the internet. It's designed for Pixar to send stuff around the studio at full rez without artifacts. It's still VERY heavy in size, but 20:1 compared to raw data. 3MB/second Apple's site says. That's 21Gb for a whole movie. I'm assuming 3MB/s is the high def spec, so half of high def (which is probably what they would distribute) would be 5 gigs for a whole movie. (I'm assuming a two-hour movie...now, Lawrence of Arabia...)

You're right. I was looking at the ratio in comparison to a 6GB DVD, but I neglected to recall that DVDs are already massively compressed using MPEG2.

[Tha_Sylent1]

I could be mistaken but I thought I read an article about incorporating 26Megabit broadband into US households in the future perhaps along with access from every socket in your house. In the near future though i can't exactly recall...:confused:

[Mosco]

I also forgot that. SO i am guessing that they probably would use Mpeg-4 and multichannel AAC. Those files would be huge.

[Nermal]

I don't think bandwidth will be too much of an issue, not at the consumer's end anyway. Let's say the movies are about 700 MB, that's about 1:30 on a 1 Mb/s connection, which means that your average movie would be able to play in "real-time" while you download it. Let's say you've got a 768k connection, that's about 30 mins of buffering at the start of the movie, which is probably similar to the time it'd take you to drive down to the local video store, find and buy the movie, come home, and prepare chips and dip :) (I live in a smallish town and it might take way more than 30 mins to do this in a city).

I don't know what the average connection speed is for most people. Different countries have substantially different broadband offerings - over here in NZ you can get a 128k or 256k flatrate connection (most people go for 128), or you can get a "full speed" (up to 8 Mb/s) connection but you have to pay by the MB. Therefore most people go for the flat-rate. I hope this changes in the future - the DSL pricing structure hasn't been revised in the last 4 years!

OK, I'll stop ranting...

[sb11710]

This would not stop me of buying DVD's.

[Sun Baked]

Digital video on demand was the Holy Grail of cable companies -- and all the money they spent chasing that dream resulted in their biggest boondoggle to date.

Of course Apple could be firing a Reagan-like (Star Wars) shot across MS's bow to get them to spend enough money to dry up the champagne flowing through Bill's bidet.

[LethalWolfe]

I'm curious as to what goal Apple would have in mind for this. Why would I want to purchase a sub DVD quality movie that I could only watch on/play from my computer? Or, why would I rent/stream a poor/marginal quality movie on my computer when many cable and satillite providers are starting to offer true video on demand?


Lethal

[sebimeyer]

The Berliner Zeitung is hardly what I would call a reputable newspaper. I have read it a couple of times and I would likely compare it with the New York Post, and we all know what garbled half truths they reported about both iPod and iTMS.

[tex210]

Then you could keep the quality and watch on your regular dvd players.

[Shrike_Priest]

This is my hypothesis, which I see as fairly plausible:

Quicktime Movie Store.

Has movies in MPEG-4 with AAC 5.1. Now, when Apple announced MPEG-4, they had a DVD, and the same movie in MPEG-4, that was only one tenth as big, and it looked pretty equal. Granted, this was on a keynote, so I can't judge that much.

But anyway, if it can look failry decent at 10 times less (which would be like 600MB-700MB file, perhaps 800MB with 5.1 AAC. If H.264 is incorporated into MPEG-4, we might even see significantly smaller files, if it's as good as they claim (they claimed DVD-ish quality at 1,5Mbit/Sec)

Now, in a few years, downloading 800Mb might be fairly easy for a LOT of users. If they manage to get FTCP on the market, it will definately be possible.

Now, you would download it from QTMS, and perhaps as someone said, only buffer it and then watch when it has downloaded enough to not "break" in the middle. And with Apple's servers, they would probably be able to deliver fairly steady download speed.

Once you have it on your computer, iDVD will let you encode it to MPEG-2/Dolby 5.1 and burn it onto a DVD. Perhaps iDVD could automatically download meny-themese corresponding with the movie.

Voila.

Still, this is a good five-six years away. but I don't think it's impossible.

[Chef Ramen]

well i think its obvious that youd be able to burn them to dvd to watch on your tv....i dont think people wanna watch a movie on their emac or even their 17" imac....they like their living rooms.

id expect superdrives to become more standard in the next year or so

[danielgrenell]

i very much doubt that this will happen, ever. as per the question above, pixlet is somewhat like the movie version of aac, but not really. pixlet provides the highest quality video compression format on the market. it does not sport high compression, but for the quality, the compression is good.

[danielgrenell]

also, shouldn't this be page 2?

[jettredmont]

Originally posted by Waluigi
It takes me about one to two hours to download a 1GB movie depending on the connection speed with my cable modem. I'm assuming apple will have no problem on their end sending out the movies, but until the average consumer can download a full HD movie in 5 to 15 minutes (yes, I know, it sounds ridiculous), this is just not plausible.


As others have noted, the "startup time" can be 5-15 minutes on a good connection today, and the rest streaming while you are watching it.

As for codec, I'd expect an MPEG-4 variant (Quicktime, XviD, DivX, WMV, etc) offerring VCR-quality video at about 800 MB for a 2-hour movie, or perhaps DVD-ish quality at 1500 MB for a two-hour movie. Pixlet is aimed at minimal-artifacts multiple-round-trip compression, not at get-it-as-small-as-possible-to-stream compression. I wouldn't expect to see that particular technology in play here.

Now, that all having been said, I do agree that it is too early to offer this. Not enough of the country is broadband-equipped (much is not even bb-capable still), and a good portion of that which is bb-equipped has relatively low QoS and reliability (meaning, dropped packets and "hiccups" ... hardly the best basis for a streamed-to-your-living-room video solution). Also, of course, the Mac-in-the-living-room piece isn't quite there yet, although I'd expect both the hardware and the service to debut simultaneously for maximum impact. This may or may not be the best time to be pushing for such hardware, though.

Finally, the real sticking factor for me is that the iTMS should be getting full focus from the web and legal mavens at Apple right now. I don't think it has proven the Apple server capacity and scalability sufficiently yet; I'd hate to inflict massive-demand video streaming on the same servers and see them brought to their knees. As far as this is concerned, a relatively conservative approach woul be to wait at least one year after the full-market iTMS launch to launch a new massive service on the same framework.

That all having been said, all of this would take time to set up and implement. I wouldn't be overly surprised if Apple weren't actively pursuing this line of thought today, perhaps even getting preliminary agreements into place. I just don't expect it to debut any time soon.

[Nebrie]

Originally posted by Nermal
I don't think bandwidth will be too much of an issue, not at the consumer's end anyway. Let's say the movies are about 700 MB, that's about 1:30 on a 1 Mb/s connection, which means that your average movie would be able to play in "real-time" while you download it. Let's say you've got a 768k connection, that's about 30 mins of buffering at the start of the movie, which is probably similar to the time it'd take you to drive down to the local video store, find and buy the movie, come home, and prepare chips and dip :) (I live in a smallish town and it might take way more than 30 mins to do this in a city).

I don't know what the average connection speed is for most people. Different countries have substantially different broadband offerings - over here in NZ you can get a 128k or 256k flatrate connection (most people go for 128), or you can get a "full speed" (up to 8 Mb/s) connection but you have to pay by the MB. Therefore most people go for the flat-rate. I hope this changes in the future - the DSL pricing structure hasn't been revised in the last 4 years!

OK, I'll stop ranting...

The problem isn't on the consumer's side. Broadband is exploding and continues to do so. The problem is on Apple's side. Do you have any idea how much it would cost to stream 600mb? Especially if Apple were to use Akamai (which is expensive as hell). The reason that broadband is so cheap is because all the upload bandwidth is sold to companies at hyper inflated prices leaving a glut of download bandwidth. Unlike streaming trailers, streaming movies would require shifting all the bandwidth charges to the consumer. There already is a rental service for the PC and it's already failed beause it's $5 a rental with inferior quality compared to a DVD. Even if they halved the price. Why do that when I can get 3-6 DVDs a week for $20 a month from Netflix or Walmart.

On-demand is the only advantage right now. The pricing isn't there, the quality isn't there. It's just way too early for a movie service. I just really don't see it taking off, just like the failed pc movie service.

[Nebrie]

Originally posted by Chef Ramen
well i think its obvious that youd be able to burn them to dvd to watch on your tv....i dont think people wanna watch a movie on their emac or even their 17" imac....they like their living rooms.

id expect superdrives to become more standard in the next year or so

Um no. There's a reason why DVD movies have copy protection.

[hvfsl]

It does sound like Apple is looking to the future for this one, the new net standard IP6 is meant to be designed for straming content over the net.

Anway there are at least a few million people that can take advantage of this service now. There are lots of people in Asia in places like Sound Korea that get there TV through their 10-20Mbit net connection.

[Trimix]

LOL
I saw this pop up this morning on various news wires and I was wondering how long it would take to be picked up in MacRumors

For all German speakers here is the quote-

Cagni antwortete darin auf die Frage, ob sein Unternehmen eines Tages einen Internet-Verkaufsladen auch für Videos anbieten werde: "Das kann ich ihnen nicht sagen. Das ist aber sicherlich eine gute Idee."

Cagni answered a question, if 'Apple' would one day offer an Internet-shop for videos as well - I can't say anything about it but it surely would be a good idea.

Now, this quote has been picked up and by many news services.

It gives Apple the publicity we all want for them, however here something was put in his mouth and his comment was entirely innocent when you read it in context. I would not spend too much thought on it -
Sorry to be such a bad sport

[homeshire]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Trimix


For all German speakers here is the quote-

Cagni antwortete darin auf die Frage, ob sein Unternehmen eines Tages einen Internet-Verkaufsladen auch für Videos anbieten werde: "Das kann ich ihnen nicht sagen. Das ist aber sicherlich eine gute Idee."

Cagni answered a question, if 'Apple' would one day offer an Internet-shop for videos as well - I can't say anything about it but it surely would be a good idea.

right. lots of things i think would surely be a good idea. doesn't mean anything. thanks for the original quote in the original tongue. it does show he merely expressed an opinion on an idea offered up for discussion. nothing more.

[lloyd]

Personally, I think Apple should buy TiVO. Either that, or launch a similar product, which sits in your living room and networks with your Mac either via Airport Extreme or wired Ethernet. Then, you could browse the Quicktime store, download any movies you want and watch them in your living room or on your computer. I think they should be in MPEG-4 with 5.1 AAC (Pixlet was never meant for this purpose). The nice thing about MPEG-4 is that when people's connections improve, the quality can be scaled up.

Also, this set-top-box could record TV programs directly to your Mac's hard drive in MPEG-4, and maybe even have a superdrive in it for DVD recording (it would then record in MPEG-2, obviously).

I don't think it should be able to burn the downloaded movies, though, as this would a) piss off the movie companies, and b) result in bad quality due to the MPEG-4 to MPEG-2 conversion (lossy-to-lossy).

You could even use it to browse the store in your living room with your remote control! How cool is that? The quality would be good, too. MPEG-4 can be as good as, or even better than DVD-quality. Of course, it would need to be encoded from the original uncompressed version, not from a DVD.

Despite all this, I don't think Apple are ready for this just yet. They need to wait for people to get faster connections, or more specifically, for more people to get the fast connections that some already have.

As much as I hate it, I think DRM will probably be essential for this movie store. There's NO WAY the movie companies will sign otherwise. It will probably be heavier DRM than in iTunes, too. I reckon we'll be lucky to get one burn of the movie. And it won't convert to DVD, either, as this would sacrifice quality. Instead, they'll just let us burn a DVD with the original MPEG-4 on it (if they let us burn at all). But then, if they release a set-top-box (which I know is far-fetched, it's just an idea), we won't need DVDs. Especially if they make it cheap.

Of course, there would be other boons to releasing such a box. Not only could it play your movies on your TV, it could be used to play your MP3s and AACs in your living room, through your stereo or TV, maybe even displaying an iTunes visual on your TV. They could easily make a version of iTunes that is navigable via a remote control. With the superdrive, you could also burn CDs in the living room, and rip them, and have them ready in your iTunes library on your mac. That's the beauty of a networked solution over a stand-alone product that just records to a built-in HD. It could probably do the same with your iPhoto library; displaying slide shows with music and fading effects, ripping Photo CDs, burning Photo CDs and DVDs etc. And, of course, it could do all the stuff that a normal TiVO can, like pausing live TV, rewinding etc. The possibilities are mind-boggling.

Of course, there's no evidence to date that I know of that Apple might be pursuing something like this, I just think it would be a good idea for them.

[Mr. Anderson]

I definitely see this as being possible, but its probably going to be a while before it happens. Also, if you get a streaming movie it might help, but if I bought it I'd want it on my harddrive.

Technology will have to play catch up with this plan though. We've got a bit of a wait.

D

[sushi]

Originally posted by Nermal

I don't know what the average connection speed is for most people. Different countries have substantially different broadband offerings - over here in NZ you can get a 128k or 256k flatrate connection (most people go for 128), or you can get a "full speed" (up to 8 Mb/s) connection but you have to pay by the MB. Therefore most people go for the flat-rate. I hope this changes in the future - the DSL pricing structure hasn't been revised in the last 4 years!

Wow, I didn't realize how good we have it here in Japan.

With FTTH I can DL a CD (650MB) in 70-80 seconds and a DVD (4.2GB) in 7-9 minutes. :D :D

Sushi

[Jeff Harrell]

Originally posted by Plastic Chicken
I'm assuming 3MB/s is the high def spec, so half of high def (which is probably what they would distribute) would be 5 gigs for a whole movie.
First, I'd be stunned if half-HD movies over broadband happened any time soon. The bandwidth is here for SD movies with serious compression now, but even half HD is still 3 times the bandwidth of SD in terms of pixels per second.

Also, I want to get my prediction on the record here: iFlicks. ;)

[jocknerd]

Broadband will never achieve what its capable of until something is done. Cable is pretty much trying to make the internet like television. They have too many restrictions. DSL isn't close to cable in performance.

Now there's talk of fiber to your house but the FCC has decided to let the companies own the fiber. So if Verizon runs fiber to your house, you have to go with Verizon. If you switch services, the fiber is useless.

We really need the government to build the infrastructure and then allow many companies to compete. Instead we get the FCC helping out a few companies which hurts consumers.

[Lanbrown]

Originally posted by TyleRomeo
what else are you going to store on these new SATA drives that will hit over 500GB by next year.

Tyler

Forget that, holographic storage is almost here. Now there is some serious storage.

[Lanbrown]

Originally posted by jocknerd
Broadband will never achieve what its capable of until something is done. Cable is pretty much trying to make the internet like television. They have too many restrictions. DSL isn't close to cable in performance.

Now there's talk of fiber to your house but the FCC has decided to let the companies own the fiber. So if Verizon runs fiber to your house, you have to go with Verizon. If you switch services, the fiber is useless.

We really need the government to build the infrastructure and then allow many companies to compete. Instead we get the FCC helping out a few companies which hurts consumers.

The government does not need to build the infrastructure. Second, Verizon cannot own all the fiber to the house, as they are a regional bell. Your local telephone company owns the infrastructure in their area, but you can get service from a different company. Guess what, it uses the same wire, the same switch, etc. Everything is the same, except where the check is sent.

Not to turn this into politics, but why would anyone want the government to get more control on out lives?

[backdraft]

Let me guess whats next the Movie Store(via iMovie) and the Photo Store(via iPhoto). The Movie Store could be like Netflix (www.netflix.com) and the Photo Store would be for Stock Art/Professional use.

[Lanbrown]

Originally posted by lloyd
Personally, I think Apple should buy TiVO. Either that, or launch a similar product, which sits in your living room and networks with your Mac either via Airport Extreme or wired Ethernet.

A German company has something similar to that. They displayed is earlier this year at an Electronic Expo, within the past 5 months. Wired only connection though.

[iMaZ]

Since the source is the "Berliner Zeitung" I do not believe a single word. The BZ is one of the worst tabloid "news"papers in Germany. Probably just something a bored "journalists" came up with to fill the paper.

[bluedalmatian]

I wouldn't take it too seriously at the moment if Pascal Cagni is behind the rumour. He keeps saying lots of things only to be contradicted by Cupertino.

For excample, the most recent one was that Europe would get Apple Stores then Fred Anderson said 'Apple has no plans for international stores at the moment'

I'm not bothered about that, but what does annoy me is that you can't take anything this man says seriously.

He's come out with other things too which escape me at the moment.

[homeshire]

Originally posted by Lanbrown
Forget that, holographic storage is almost here. Now there is some serious storage.

that's what i've been thinking for some time now -- all these techno advances are gonna be needed for that damn holodeck sitting in the back of my house that i haven't been able to hook up yet.:D

[cooper13]

Originally posted by Jeff Harrell
...The bandwidth is here for SD movies with serious compression now, but even half HD is still 3 times the bandwidth of SD in terms of pixels per second....

Minor quibble here, but wouldn't half HD be the same bandwidth of SD in terms of pixels per second?? (It should be faster than the bandwidth of SD in terms of frames per second).

[GetSome681]

Originally posted by Shrike_Priest


Still, this is a good five-six years away. but I don't think it's impossible.

Go to 25-50% of dorm rooms across the US, your future is already here.

[frozenstar]

Originally posted by GetSome681
Go to 25-50% of dorm rooms across the US, your future is already here.

You can't build a business model based on 25% of college students in the US.

[Wes]

Originally posted by bluedalmatian
I wouldn't take it too seriously at the moment if Pascal Cagni is behind the rumour. He keeps saying lots of things only to be contradicted by Cupertino.

For excample, the most recent one was that Europe would get Apple Stores then Fred Anderson said 'Apple has no plans for international stores at the moment'

I'm not bothered about that, but what does annoy me is that you can't take anything this man says seriously.

He's come out with other things too which escape me at the moment.

Well, Apple is opening an official shop in Japan.

[GetSome681]

Originally posted by frozenstar
You can't build a business model based on 25% of college students in the US.

of course not, but you can shut up all the people in this thread saying stuff like this isn't possible.

[Sol]

Originally posted by Shrike_Priest
Once you have it on your computer, iDVD will let you encode it to MPEG-2/Dolby 5.1 and burn it onto a DVD. Perhaps iDVD could automatically download meny-themese corresponding with the movie.

Voila.

I think that iDVD will at some point become to movies what iTunes is to music. Perhaps advanced video playlist features will make their way into a completely new application, an iVideo for example.

Hopefully the content will not be limited to trailers, Star Wars Kid and Pixar films.

[frozenstar]

Originally posted by GetSome681
of course not, but you can shut up all the people in this thread saying stuff like this isn't possible.

It's true that it's possible, but there are definitely hurdles that need to be overcome before this can become a money-making proposition.

[Jeff Harrell]

Originally posted by cooper13
Minor quibble here, but wouldn't half HD be the same bandwidth of SD in terms of pixels per second?? (It should be faster than the bandwidth of SD in terms of frames per second).
Hmm. As it turns out, the truth is halfway in between.

First off, we're talking US formats here: NTSC and ATSC HD. There is one NTSC format: 720x486/30i. (We're gonna ignore interlace here and just deal with frames. The numbers work out the same in terms of informational units--pixels or bytes--per unit time.) There are two ATSC HD formats: 1920x1080/30i and 1280x720/60p. Let's do 'em both.

NTSC is 10,497,600 pixels per second. It's hard to translate that into bandwidth because it depends on how the image data is encoded. At 4:4:4 RGB, 8 bits per pixel, it's 1,049,760 bytes per frame. At 4:2:2 YUV, the data is packed into two bytes per pixel--one byte for luminance data and two four-bit values for color--so that comes to 699,840 bytes per frame. In actual TV production, you don't use 8 bits per pixel; you use 10 bits per pixel. That raises all sorts of complicated pixel-packing and byte-alignment issues that are best left unplumbed right now, because it's too early in the morning for me to think clearly about them.

So let's skip the bytes per stuff and go with pixels per. That's a fine apples-to-apples comparison.

NTSC: 10,497,600

1080/30i is 62,208,000 pixels per second (1920*1080*30).

720/60p is 55,296,000 pixels per second (1280*720*60).

Half 1080/30i is 960x540/30i, or 15,552,000 pixels per second. That's 1.5 times NTSC.

Half 720/60p is 640x360/60p, or 13,824,000 pixels per second. That's 1.3 times NTSC.

So whichever way you slice it, half HD would require considerably more bandwidth than NTSC at the same encoding. I was wrong to say 3X (I foolishly just divided the pixels per second by two, instead of by four), but the figure is still higher.

[Machead III]

It could happen, it should happen, using some incredibly advanced streaming software. I don't think Apple are going to leave QuickTime TV as it is, it's possibilities are endless, I would love to abandon my TV and just use my Mac.

[gwangung]

Originally posted by LethalWolfe
I'm curious as to what goal Apple would have in mind for this. Why would I want to purchase a sub DVD quality movie that I could only watch on/play from my computer? Or, why would I rent/stream a poor/marginal quality movie on my computer when many cable and satillite providers are starting to offer true video on demand?
Lethal

Given the popularity of bootleg videos in Asia and otherwhere, plus the common availability of them on the Internet, and given their often crappy quality, I don't think there's going to be a question about a market....

[Jeff Harrell]

Originally posted by Machead III
It could happen, it should happen, using some incredibly advanced streaming software. I don't think Apple are going to leave QuickTime TV as it is, it's possibilities are endless, I would love to abandon my TV and just use my Mac.
Speaking as someone who just last summer spent $3,000 on a brand new HDTV, I would disagree. ;) I would, however, be amenable to a Mac-like device with SD/HD component analog outputs for watching streamed or downloaded programs.

[themadchemist]

Originally posted by Waluigi
It takes me about one to two hours to download a 1GB movie depending on the connection speed with my cable modem.

One thing you've got to remember with this...Download speed depends both on the person sending and the person receiving. When you download from a P2P, you do not generally get a blazing fast connection because of the shadiness of the originator and his speed.

With Apple, you can expect top-of-the-line servers that will maximize the speed that you could get. That doesn't make enough of a difference to make this plausible yet, per se, but like other posters have said, soon "we" will all have higher-speed broadband.

And who are "we"? Apple is not targetting lower-middle-class and below with this, or people who can just barely check their e-mail. No, they're initial targets are the junkies like us, for whom it has been so long since we bought a DVD or CD in a store that we are just more comfortable downloading it. In general, these people are from above-average educated, above-average (if slightly) income groups who have a bit more knowledge about technology...And are thus more likely to have a higher speed internet connection. These people would also be more likely to dump 15 to 20 bucks online for a DVD.

[themadchemist]

Originally posted by Jeff Harrell

NTSC is 10,497,600 pixels per second. It's hard to translate that into bandwidth because it depends on how the image data is encoded. At 4:4:4 RGB, 8 bits per pixel, it's 1,049,760 bytes per frame. At 4:2:2 YUV, the data is packed into two bytes per pixel--one byte for luminance data and two four-bit values for color--so that comes to 699,840 bytes per frame

Nice analysis, but one quick possible correction. You say that 4:2:2 YUV has data packed 2 bytes/pixel. That would be twice 4:4:4 RGB (8 bits/pixel). So shouldn't the value be

1,049,760*2, which is not 699840?

Maybe I'm wrong here, not sure. Just wondering.

[MacsomJRR]

This is Apple we are talking about here. You gotta push those limits to the extreme and think outside of the box. An online downloadable movie store would be fantastic. Because of OS X's stand alone application design you could pick a movie and let it download throughout the day while still using your cpu for other stuff... if download speeds were optimized it might be even quicker. Anyway... all I care about is the release of a new 15" Powerbook.

Do you think they'd release it quicker if we all made like Gandhi and didn't eat until they did what we wanted? I'm all for the non violent approach...

Although if anybody want to storm the Apple building brandishing guns and hand grenades I'll do that to. I'm desperate.

[robg]

Ever country needs to be like Sweden and BBS with its 100mbit unmetered connection to 50% of homes (the other 50% are still stuck at 10mbit unmetered; but upgrades are constantly taking place).

[MacsomJRR]

What about this swanky new super high quality quicktime stuff? Maybe they didn't just develop that specifically for Pixar... it could be that they have been thinking about this for a while and the new quicktime with Panther (i forgot what its called, "Pixel" or something like that) is probably going to be used for that.

[j_maddison]

Originally posted by robg
Ever country needs to be like Sweden and BBS with its 100mbit unmetered connection to 50% of homes (the other 50% are still stuck at 10mbit unmetered; but upgrades are constantly taking place).

Curious, but how are the Swedes able to deliver 100mb to the home??? This sort of bandwidth seams a bit much to my ears, are you sure your quoting the correct figrues? just to give you an example of how ludicrous this sounds to my ears, a quote for a 100mb link the uk would cost £919080.00 before VAT. So unless the swedes are very very well off financially, I would possibly either question your stats or like to know how they are managing to deliver such a service.

jason

[frozenstar]

Originally posted by j_maddison
Curious, but how are the Swedes able to deliver 100mb to the home??? This sort of bandwidth seams a bit much to my ears, are you sure your quoting the correct figrues? just to give you an example of how ludicrous this sounds to my ears, a quote for a 100mb link the uk would cost £919080.00 before VAT. So unless the swedes are very very well off financially, I would possibly either question your stats or like to know how they are managing to deliver such a service.

jason

I'm not sure about his/her figures, but I do know that just because they're able to deliver those speeds (probably using Ethernet over Fiber) it doesn't mean they're affordable. Only about 25% of homes in Sweden are subscribed to some type of broadband Internet connection.

[jettredmont]

Originally posted by jocknerd
DSL isn't close to cable in performance.


Knowing several people with cable modems and several people with DSL, I can say with absolute certainty that the above is not always true. Certainly in my area (Comcast Cable) the cable modem network is oversold and slow as mollasses compared to DSL (which clips along at a rated 768 and gets about 500 sustained vs maybe 100 sustained on cable modems, 200 if you surf in the middle of the night).

The problem with cable modems is that your actual per-house bandwidth is not fixed, and is inversely proportional to how many houses in your area the cable company signs up. Now, given the upmost levels of philanthropy cable companies have historically shown, i know this may come as a shock, but I've yet to see a cable company say "No, can't sign you up because that would make your neighbor's connection too slow; sorry!"

To the general point though, yes, there needs to be a general industry upheaval before "broadband for the masses" becomes reality ... DSL and cable both, frankly, suck.

[bennetsaysargh]

argh.
people won't have connections fast enough for this in years! get it through your skulls:p

i have a cable modem. my nieghbor got one around easter. my cable slowed down. it used to be a lot faster. oh well. it still beats dial-up:p

[sushi]

Jason wrote:

Curious, but how are the Swedes able to deliver 100mb to the home??? This sort of bandwidth seams a bit much to my ears, are you sure your quoting the correct figrues? just to give you an example of how ludicrous this sounds to my ears, a quote for a 100mb link the uk would cost £919080.00 before VAT. So unless the swedes are very very well off financially, I would possibly either question your stats or like to know how they are managing to deliver such a service.

Here in Japan, my friend pays about $50 per month for FTTH. That gives him 12.5MB (100Mb) connection speed. Quite a bit cheaper than the UK it seems.

Personally, I have ADSL. They have three levels: 12Mb, 8Mb and 1.5Mb. My service is 1.5Mb due to my location. I pay about $35 per month.

Sushi

[j_maddison]

i guess my point was that I can't see 100mb as being a correct statistic. The figures suspiciously reflect ethernet speeds (gigabit and 10mb speeds). The 100mb product I quoted was for a lease line, DSL technology is obviously substantially cheaper. Presently I belive the fastest speeds available in the Uk are 4mb available in london and 2mb available geographically. The ICT company I work for have plans to deliver 6mb to the home within the next three years and are looking at speeds of up to 17mb within the next six years. We're along way off the speeds in Japan at the moment granted, but three years for 6mb connections isnt far off. with this in mind, it is very conceivable that videop purchases online will become a feasable reality, especialy as the Uk arent generally as quick as the US and far eatern countries with the introduction of new technology.

jason

[Ugg]

Korea and Japan seem to have the broadest broadband takeup so it would make sense for Apple or anyone else to start up a service there. I can't see the US as being a big consumer market for the service in the near future unless radical new technology was introduced. It will happen, it's just a matter of when.

[Universe Man]

I would bet even money on there being an Apple set-top box within two years. Remember, the iTMS took 18 months to develop. I would expect it to stream via Airport Extreme as you download a movie and allow the user to pause, rewind, and fast forward. I'd also expect to be able to buy from the couch and also stream any other video I happen to have on my computer.

Recording TV also makes perfect sense. The thing will probably be available with a hard drive, but possibly also without, because by then, lots of people will have hundreds of gigs of storage and fast networking on their main computer.

I'm not in any hurry to see it. I know that when it happens, it will be done right. Such is the beauty of Apple: if you can think of it, they probably thought of it years ago, and if it makes sense, they're probably already working on it.

Oh, and my name prediction:

iWatch

[Lanbrown]

Originally posted by Jeff Harrell

First off, we're talking US formats here: NTSC and ATSC HD. There is one NTSC format: 720x486/30i. (We're gonna ignore interlace here and just deal with frames. The numbers work out the same in terms of informational units--pixels or bytes--per unit time.) There are two ATSC HD formats: 1920x1080/30i and 1280x720/60p. Let's do 'em both.
NTSC: 10,497,600

1080/30i is 62,208,000 pixels per second (1920*1080*30).

720/60p is 55,296,000 pixels per second (1280*720*60).

Half 1080/30i is 960x540/30i, or 15,552,000 pixels per second. That's 1.5 times NTSC.

Half 720/60p is 640x360/60p, or 13,824,000 pixels per second. That's 1.3 times NTSC.

So whichever way you slice it, half HD would require considerably more bandwidth than NTSC at the same encoding. I was wrong to say 3X (I foolishly just divided the pixels per second by two, instead of by four), but the figure is still higher.

There are no HD format standards. They currently have over 17 different HDTV formats they can use.

Don't forget compression. In the digital world, not all of the complete frames need to be sent, only the changed portions.

[wdlove]

I think that having DSL or its equivalent would be a necessary perquisite to downloading a movie. My problem would be saving the downloaded movie. I would want to see the actual cost being less than purchasing a DVD. Would still expect the same quality. Apple's customer base would be lower than for the music store because of the perquisites.

[toes]

... Why do you think downloadable movies need to be the same quality as DVD, whereas Music downloads are clearly inferior to CD and not many people seem to have a problem with that? ...

[Makosuke]

I could of course be wrong here, but I have a feelilng if Apple does this it won't be quite the "play video on demand" store people are picturing. Competing with rental just won't work, partly because of how cheap and easy rentals are, and in part because there's already PayPerView to compete with, and even that isn't hugely successful even though it's got a set-top-box and ins't expensive. Besides, video on demand won't be smoothly available to most people for a long time, and it's not even the model that the iTMS is using now.

I'd find it much more likely it would be more like a "Buy a movie without leaving home" solution. That is, you click "buy" and stick a DVD in the drive, then after a download of heavily compressed video (and probably a re-compress into MPEG2, and a burn, out pops a finished DVD with standard DVD copy protection (if that's possible--I don't know a whole lot about the process). Play it on your computer, or on your TV, and even at $10 or $20, it'd be cheaper and easier than the store.

There'd also have to be a TiVo-like option, which could also provide copy protection, and I suppose you could play the movie directly on your computer, but maybe Apple would avoid that method for copy protection reasons.

These methods are "safer" for Apple, and don't require massive bandwidth--just enough to get the movie to you in a couple hours of download or so, which is certainly available now. Nobody needs to be playing it real time, to be sure.

Whether it's more like this, or more like a legal filesharing service, it probably won't happen for at least a couple years, but it doesn't have to reach every human on earth for Apple to try it--I'd be quite willing to bet that they'd be targeting geeks and high-end users anyway, which would be plenty of a market to start, and probably exists already.

[robg]

Originally posted by j_maddison
Curious, but how are the Swedes able to deliver 100mb to the home??? This sort of bandwidth seams a bit much to my ears, are you sure your quoting the correct figrues? just to give you an example of how ludicrous this sounds to my ears, a quote for a 100mb link the uk would cost £919080.00 before VAT. So unless the swedes are very very well off financially, I would possibly either question your stats or like to know how they are managing to deliver such a service.

jason


The cost is $20 a month. I will admit the backbone to other countries isn't as strong as it is in country. I've transfered between sites in Sweden at 7500KBps (not Kb) numerous times in the past. Speeds to the US can still reach 2000KBps but they don't reach full 100mbit. I believe the gov't subsidised cat5 to the home in the early 90's and now they are subsidisng fiber to the home. I'm not exactly sure how they do it; I just know that there are hundreds of 100mbit and even more 10mbit vcd/divx sites in sweden (at least there were when I got out of that hobby last year).

[Furious Tiger]

As one poster put it. "Looking to the future". Just reading the thread header, I started to invision a Apple Set Top Box connected to a "BROADBAND LINE" (for that klondike that still has the 56k v.2 dial up connection). Apple has the movie hosted on thier servers and you can play, pause, fast forward, rewind, etc. like on MOD (movies on demand). I don't know, it sould cool. If it is true, we may have a lot of Shizzle coming down the pipe from apple my Nizzle. I really do believe that Apple is looking towards the future.

[Jeff Harrell]

Originally posted by Lanbrown
There are no HD format standards. They currently have over 17 different HDTV formats they can use.
If by "over 17" you mean 18. :) There are 18 ATSC formats. All of them are standards. Six of them are HD. Two of those are used for HD broadcast.

The 18 ATSC formats are:

640x480 @ 30 Hz interlaced
640x480 @ 24, 30, 60 Hz progressive
704x480 @ 30 Hz interlaced
704x480 @ 24, 30, 60 Hz progressive
1280x720 @ 24, 30, 60 Hz progressive
1920x1080 @ 30 Hz interlaced
1920x1080 @ 24, 30 Hz progressive

Only 1280x720@60 progressive (720p) and 1920x1080@30 interlaced (1080i) are used for HD broadcast. 1080/24p is often used for HD production, but is converted to 1080/30i for broadcast. ABC currently broadcasts 720p, and Fox has committed to 720p by the fall. Fox currently broadcasts 480/30p widescreen, but will be phasing out those broadcasts in favor of 720p this year. Everybody else broadcasts 1080i.

Don't forget compression. In the digital world, not all of the complete frames need to be sent, only the changed portions.
Depends on what codec you use. For MPEG codecs, this is true. They use inter-frame compression. For Pixlet, DVCPRO/DVCPRO-HD, and some other codecs, they use only intraframe compression.

None of that matters, though, because we were talking about the ratio of NTSC to HD and half HD in terms of pixels per second. When you throw pixel packing (as I mentioned) and compression into the mix, there are too many variables to keep track of. It becomes impossible to meaningfully compare NTSC to HD.

For example, digital SD is often, but not always, broadcast at 8 Mbps, while digital HD is often, but not always, broadcast at 19 Mbps. But there are so many exceptions to this rule that the rule itself is meaningless.

[sushi]

rbog:

Speeds to the US can still reach 2000KBps but they don't reach full 100mbit.

To test connections I often DL Mac OS 9.2.2 update (83MB) from the Apple site.

My ADSL connection takes 13-15 minutes.

My friends FTTH connection takes 7 to 12 seconds. Yep, DL'ed 4 times in well less than a minute. Average time was 9 seconds for a transfer rate of 9.2MB/sec.

Best rate was 11.85MB/sec (7 seconds).

So FTTH was close, but not quite 100Mb/sec.

Sushi

[Jeff Harrell]

Originally posted by sushi
So FTTH was close, but not quite 100Mb/sec.
Actually, 9-11 MB/s is about what you'd expect over a 100 Mb/s link.

[Phil Of Mac]

A few thoughts...

1. People already download movies, just like they download music. It's not a big deal anymore!
2. TiVo has a Rendezvous-enabled TiVo box.
3. It's called copy-protection. Certify the computers it can play on and play it on other media only by Rendezvous streaming (on the TiVo).
4. Achieve DVD quality and cut out the middleman, or at least the middle medium, to save money for everyone involved.

How could Apple NOT be working on this?

[evolu]

or, cutout the middleman (er, middleBot) and plug a cable line directly into your mac. Apple sets up it's own VOD station and viola... A very large rabbit out of a very small hat.

Am I going too far? I consider myself an 'ideas man' (JK)

[Wardofsky]

Could this have anything to do with it?
(From http://www.apple.com/quicktime/whatson/news_entertainment/)

Never heard of Mega Movies, but it came through Apple quicktime...

http://a772.g.akamai.net/f/772/39/1m/qtpix.apple.com/qtpix/current/no_itms.mov

[bennetsaysargh]

Originally posted by Wardofsky
Could this have anything to do with it?
(From http://www.apple.com/quicktime/whatson/news_entertainment/)

Never heard of Mega Movies, but it came through Apple quicktime...

http://a772.g.akamai.net/f/772/39/1m/qtpix.apple.com/qtpix/current/no_itms.mov


what is that??:confused:

[gooddog]

The "half of full res" option for PIXLET , the wunder codec ... from
what SJ showed us recently , it could really do the job.

Along with some G5 magic coming soon, it could be an incentive for us to buy a coming iMac ---- get movie downloads if you get this G5 iMac with an ADC socket... and/or a 19" screen and surround sound speakers :)

---gooddog

[Wardofsky]

Endorphon which is:
http://www.endorphin.com/images/titles/welcome_swap.gif
(From site)

A quick look at the source code reveals that the movies (which are hi-res) are hosted on Apple's QT servers.

From: http://www.endorphin.com/mega/jellies_560.html

Source code:
<param name="autoplay" value="true">
<param name="controller" value="true">
<embed src="../movies/mega_intros/560_intro.mov" type="video/quicktime" width="560" height="436" controller="true" autoplay="true" pluginspage="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/indext.html" qtnext1="<http://stream.qtv.apple.com/qtv/endorphin/http/mpeg4bigtest/jellies_600.mov> T<myself>"></embed>
</object>
</span></td>
</tr>
</table>

[gooddog]

Originally posted by Wardofsky
Endorphon which is:
http://www.endorphin.com/images/titles/welcome_swap.gif
(From site)

A quick look at the source code reveals that the movies (which are hi-res) are hosted on Apple's QT servers.

From: http://www.endorphin.com/mega/jellies_560.html

Source code:

--------------

I downloaded several to 800 MHz G4 iMac/ 15".

They seemed choppy -- but with QT Pro, I was able to select "Play all frames" from the pull down menu.

This muted the sound, but I got perfectly smooth 30 fps video.

It's pretty nice.

---gooddog

[Wardofsky]

I suppose what I'm trying to point out is that, the movies are being served on Apple's server while being under a different domain.

I can't remember a time when this has happened, I mean, why would Apple serve for something else.