Brightcove CEO Envisions His Dream Apple Television and Set-Top Box

[Lancer]

Originally Posted by rmwebs

If you read past my quoted post, we basically came to the conclusion that it depends where you live in the world. Apparently everyone in Canada has a 60" TV. In the UK most people have a 32-42" tv - our houses are nowhere near big enough for a 50" let alone a 60".

Seriously 80? How the hell would you even get it through the door!?

and 80" tv would cover our entire wall and then some.

Here in Australia I've seen the 80" in store and wow are they big, you really need a big living room for that size, or a Home Theater room. Not to mention a healthy bank balance or credit card.

I have a 32" but would like something bigger and thinner, my LG is a few years old so not the thinnest one around. My parents have a newer 40" but not much thinner and dad doesn't see the need for anything bigger. But I'd say for the average living room 50" is the sweet spot right now.

[Nightarchaon]

Originally Posted by mrfoof82

People replace their television set every 4 years?! I do very well for myself, and I think my replacement cycle is nearly double that.

Standard replacement on TVs is usually once in a generation barring failure, so most people who bought an HD tv, might have bought an early 1080i set, and upgraded to a 1080P set, and might now be looking at a 3D set.

I am waiting for Glasses free 3D before i look at buying a 3D set, possibly combining that with 4K resolutions, i see no need , baring failure, to replace my current TV set when new "features" are added by connecting a little box to it

[Tanguyvd]

Originally Posted by justperry

No way, Apple is all about streaming content, they won't go anything bigger than needed, 8-16 GB Max.

I hope not, at least make it 250gb

And if they want to have this TV to be the iLife center in your iPhone / iPad but iMac-less life. I mean, I can really see this TV initiative being the central hub in my house if i had no need for a real desk/laptop.

[KanosWRX]

Originally Posted by notsurfeif

It should be mandated by Apple. But just think if your brother has directv and Sunday ticket and hbo... All you need is his directv login and you have access to all of this stuff that directv wants to charge you HUNDREDS for.

(You can actually already do this on a mountain lion Mac, albeit slightly less elegant.)

I don't think Direct TV allows streaming of Sunday Ticket with their app to begin with... but I could be wrong, I don't have it. They don't stream live HBO either I don't think.

But your right I think Mountain Lion does everything to begin with.. Maybe they just need a security feature where only one device can watch live TV at a time. Kind of like Spotify does. That way if you give your login out to people only one person will be able to watch it anyways. That's the best method to protect the content I think.

[JesseW6889]

Physical aspects of the device... maybe. If someone explained to you, pre-iPhone, what the internals were going to be on an iPhone, you'd completely miss the experience aspect, which is what Apple sells.

Couldn't care less what the thing looks like; how it acts will be what matters.

[danerh]

Originally Posted by charlieegan3

I think most are excited about the TV set, not another set top box. (please don't just be another set top box)

I watch most of my TV from a projector with an appleTV plugged in... if they go with a TV only, I probably won't buy one. You're probably right though, and I'm not most people... but I do hope that I'm not left out if there is expanded functionality over my current little black box.
I can't see myself ever going back to having a TV again. When the projector is off I am left with just a wall without any hardware to look at... in my opinion that is more elegant than anything Sir Jony can give me. It's all about the software.

[wyrmintheapple]

If Apple really want to dominate the home media and TV market then they need to do something that seems to be unique in the market..... make it work with all my existing stuff, and by that I mean my existing movie files. Nobody wants to reconvert all of their existing media. Ever. For many people it takes too long. I believe the reason that no one device has totally dominated in the home media/networked streamng movies type market is that there's a compromise with all of them.

Xbox360, PS3, smart TV's, AppleTV..... Most support their own prefferred formats, a few extra ones like old DivX's and Xvids... and that's it. No codec support either.

Apple need to remove any downside to their product. Apple are all about vendor lock in these days.
People will buy their movies from itunes if they have an AppleTV, but they won't even buy an apple TV if they feel affected by vendor lock OUT, which is what all of the current options suffer from. People will stay with the apple product if they move to the apple product.... and that means it needs to be easy to move their current library with them.

[coolspot18]

Originally Posted by Nightarchaon

Standard replacement on TVs is usually once in a generation barring failure, so most people who bought an HD tv, might have bought an early 1080i set, and upgraded to a 1080P set, and might now be looking at a 3D set.

I think it's even slower than that - normal people who bought a 1080i TV are probably still perfectly happy with them and have not upgraded to 1080p or even 3DTV.

People only upgrade if the technology changes radically, i.e. rear-projector/DLP -> LCD. Even 3D is slow because of the need for glasses. Perhaps once glassless 3D becomes mainstream, people will jump on board 3D.

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Originally Posted by wyrmintheapple

If Apple really want to dominate the home media and TV market then they need to do something that seems to be unique in the market..... make it work with all my existing stuff, and by that I mean my existing movie files. Nobody wants to reconvert all of their existing media. Ever.

Xbox360, PS3, smart TV's, AppleTV..... Most support their own prefferred formats, a few extra ones like old DivX's and Xvids... and that's it. No codec support either.

You still reconvert your video files? Do you have an ATV? Only Apple TV cannot play multi-media formats and requires iTunes (major bummer).

DLNA compatible devices (Xbox, PS3, TVs, etc) can transcode via a media server (i.e. Plex), although most newer devices support a decent range of codecs.

However, if you really want a multi-format player, there are plenty of those, Boxee, XBMC, WDTV, etc.

[calaverasgrande]

Originally Posted by rmwebs

What's wrong with the current methods then?

TV remotes work fine.


(IMO something like a touchscreen 'pad' would be useless as you've got no feedback or knowledge of what buttons you're pressing without looking at the controller - it will need to be something with physical buttons).

Nope. Cable remotes, tv remotes and bluray remotes are awful. Unintuitive. Too many buttons.

[Nightarchaon]

Originally Posted by calaverasgrande

Nope. Cable remotes, tv remotes and bluray remotes are awful. Unintuitive. Too many buttons.

i like my TV remote, its has power, Volume up, and volume down in easy to reach, and stand out shapes, that my fingers can find without having to look away from the screen, or even in the dark, the rest of the things i do, like change channel etc i do through on screen menus, and again the remote has a simple circle that allows me to push left and right, up and down, and a central button to select the option i am on, and a back button to return to the previous menu,

This is more intuitive that waving at a screen, trying to shout at a screen over background noise and being misunderstood because i have a cold , or digging out a touch screen device and finding the battery is dead because i forgot to charge it overnight..

Ill stick with my remote thank you, the one ive had for 5 years now, and that has only had 3 sets of AAA batteries in all that time.

If your average TV/Bluray player remote is too complex and unintuitive for you, i seriously wonder how you manage to get your pants on in the morning without help.

[Yujenisis]

Originally Posted by calaverasgrande

Nope. Cable remotes, tv remotes and bluray remotes are awful. Unintuitive. Too many buttons.

I am with you! Even with my (relatively) simple set up with a television, 5.1 receiver, and a Mac mini - I have three remotes.

Of which, I use about 2-4 buttons on any one of them. Yet each of them have about 40 buttons on them that only serve to confuse my guests.

I've been looking for a long time for "one remote to rule them all" - and sadly there's nothing available for sale. I'm guessing, Apple is unlikely to release a "universal remote" alongside their Television for those of us who don't need to buy a new TV but want the functionality.

The dream, for me at least, is something like the unreleased RF AirMouse
Until then, I'm waffling on the NYXBoard.

[rmwebs]

Originally Posted by calaverasgrande

Nope. Cable remotes, tv remotes and bluray remotes are awful. Unintuitive. Too many buttons.

Last I checked each of those buttons performs a pretty important function.

The essential buttons on a remote:

- Power on/off
- Volume Up/Down
- Channel Up/Down
- Left/Right/Up/Down/Ok
- Play/Pause, Stop, Rewind, Fastforward (note: a lot of boxes have these combined into the left/right/up/down buttons)
- Record
- Numbers 0-9
- Red/Yellow/Green/Blue function buttons (note: you cant drop these - they are actually very important around the world)


You criticised the remote. But what do you propose as an alternative option to perform these tasks? Siri's not reliable enough to do it, and hardly practical to send commands back to Apple servers just to change channel.

[LagunaSol]

Originally Posted by Nightarchaon

If your average TV/Bluray player remote is too complex and unintuitive for you, i seriously wonder how you manage to get your pants on in the morning without help.

Remotes are notoriously awful. Read a review for almost any TV/AV Receiver/Blu-ray or DVD player and the remotes are nearly universally scorned. The remote for my Denon receiver is absurd. If you find device remotes simple and intuitive, you are in the very slim minority.

Add the fact that the battery door on most remotes is doomed to fail (by design?), resulting in a nice duct-tape patching or pricey replacement, and you have an ancient artifact in the day of intuitive touch-screen devices.

The remote is a component that needs a good kick in the butt from a design perspective.

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Originally Posted by rmwebs

and 80" tv would cover our entire wall and then some.

You must live in London.

[pgiguere1]

Originally Posted by mdelvecchio

youre high. the entry-level Mac is $599.

ipads are $329.

ipods are $50.

iphones are $0.

...and yes, apple DOES have the average person in mind when designing its products -- thats why theyre so damn popular.

You cropped the end end the sentence where I mentioned I was talking about laptops.

All those product are all more expensive than the average selling price of the products in its respective category.

An iPod shuffle is expensive for a music player without a screen (its category).
The iPad mini is expensive for a small ARM-based tablet (its category).

iPhones are not 0$, it's not because your carrier pays it for you that it's free. This also varies a lot by country.

Read my post again too. I said they don't necessarily have average people in mind. You throw me examples of their cheaper mainstream products while I just gave an example of a different product: the Thunderbolt display. Even if your examples were valid, I didn't even claim all their products were more expensive than average.

[ahayes]

Apple should just get rid of Jony and hire this guy. I mean look at that set top box! Whoever designed that has their finger on the pulse of a new generation of 80s-loving teens. I mean... they can even reuse the chasis for the next breakthrough innovation from Apple, the iClockRadio! I just hope Apple remembers to license the digital time display style from Radio Shack. Wouldn't want another Swiss clock debacle.

[HKZ/MST3K]

There is no reason for Apple to tackle this market. Not only is it declining, people won't tolerate the profit margin Apple demands to make it worthwhile to them, not to mention that they won't be able to iterate like they do. The problem isn't the TV, it's the iron grip the media companies have on the content. Apple can't affect that well enough for it to be a smart strategy. People don't replace their HDTV often enough for it to be profitable, and Apple would want far too much for anyone but the hardest of hardcore Apple fans to pay the ridiculous price they would charge. The market is trending downward quickly because people don't buy TVs unless it's Thanksgiving slasher sales, and they are a 10 year replacement cycle device. People literally assault one another because they get a 36"-46" TV for a few hundred dollars, Apple doesn't want to be in that market because they won't make the profit they are accustomed to. Besides, are you going to carry an unwieldy 60 or so pound TV into an Apple store? No.

I'm in no way interested in an Apple TV because streaming content would kill stupidly low data cap with my ISP, and Apple won't affect the fact that they want to charge a ridiculous fee for cable. I'm not interested in cable because I'd have to pay well over $100 a month for what I do want to watch, and even iTunes episodes are out after it airs on TV. They simply won't make a dent because the content is the problem, not what you watch it on. Cable boxes and the UI are crap, I know that, but I want better a freer access to content, not yet another layer of rules and payment for the content in another place.

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Originally Posted by wyrmintheapple

If Apple really want to dominate the home media and TV market then they need to do something that seems to be unique in the market..... make it work with all my existing stuff, and by that I mean my existing movie files.

That will never happen. Apple isn't interested in making your content that you paid for work on anything but their hardware. The same is true for everyone else. On top of that, media companies want you to pay for it either every time you try and access it, or pay to access it on every device you own. That is slowly being eroded, but DRM, different and unsupported formats, and ecosystems are making that a pointless effort anyway. The problem is the media companies.

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Originally Posted by Nightarchaon

Standard replacement on TVs is usually once in a generation barring failure, so most people who bought an HD tv, might have bought an early 1080i set, and upgraded to a 1080P set, and might now be looking at a 3D set.

I am waiting for Glasses free 3D before i look at buying a 3D set, possibly combining that with 4K resolutions, i see no need , baring failure, to replace my current TV set when new "features" are added by connecting a little box to it

Nope. Everyone waits until a really good sale happens on Amazon, or Black Friday. They don't update because a new fangled feature comes out. 3D was, and was always going to be a gimmick. 3D TV sales were never all that great, and the industry is seeing massive decline because people don't buy a TV unless it breaks, or they literally can't plug anything into it anymore. We are nerds, we like hardware, we like shiny new stuff, but we are not everyman. TVs are a 10 year purchase, not a refresh cycle or feature addition purchase. Even though I bought my 1080p set three years ago for a really good price, I'm not going to replace it unless it absolutely dies, or it's too expensive to fix. There's no point in replacing a TV unless it dies.

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Originally Posted by iAco

I always have the latest technology, and money isn't a limiting factor.

Anyone with common sense would just sell their previous generation model product for the latest. You can easily stay at the cutting-edge at 50% of the cost.

You aren't the everyman. Because you like to waste money replacing something that isn't broken or physically unable to be used (because of different plugs or things like HDCP) doesn't mean that everyone does that. In fact, that's very rare and has been for years. You are the very small minority. Anyone with common sense wouldn't replace something just to have an extra port, or a worthless gimmick (3D).

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Originally Posted by Malmer

Xbox 360 with Kinect already has a lot of these things. It has an intuitive controller method, it has Xbox Music (which is like spotify, but prettier and more song), it has on demand video streaming, which can be a shared viewing experience. It has some programming aswell, such as sports. It has video chat. It has a web browser. It has best in class games. It now also has skydrive so you can access the photos and other stuff you've taken with your phone (if a windows phone they are auto uploaded). It has apps, allthough not yet an open app store - it's just open for partners. And then there is smartglass which integrates it with tablets and phones - running ios, android and windows for a second screen experience.

It's also plastered with annoying ass ads. I simply don't use it because I have to troll through all that garbage to get to what I want. And Kinect is crap. Has been from day one.

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Originally Posted by TheRealTVGuy

And don't tell me it's never going to happen. Just look at the iTunes music store.

It won't. You can quote me on that in 10 years. It will never happen. The iTunes music store is full of garbage at bargain bin prices. Lady GaGa(rbage) latest album was on Amazon on release day at $0.99. That shows you right there what they think their own content is worth. Almost nothing.

Advertising companies don't spend millions on campaigns on the albums or songs you bought. The no-talent "artists" we have today won't be here in 10 years, actors can last for 50 if they are good enough. A really great actor can pull in billions over their career. Music is disposable, overproduced garbage written to fit in between radio commercials. "free" music services are riddled with ads unless you pay a fee, or listen to the same crap over and over. The big media companies own all of it and they won't ever let go of media that they can't shove ads down our throat through. Various formats, hardware requirements, DRM and other things have stopped this for years, and you can bet your last dollar they are hard at work making sure all of that evolves as quickly as possible to make it all still locked down in some way.

Hell, they are sending people to jail for longer than murderers are locked up for distributing media in ways people want, but in ways they can't monetize and control. You honestly think that will change?

[cfs112]

I haven't replaced my TV in 8 years! I guess I'm due for a new TV set with the Apple TV comes out!

[Nightarchaon]

Originally Posted by LagunaSol

Remotes are notoriously awful. Read a review for almost any TV/AV Receiver/Blu-ray or DVD player and the remotes are nearly universally scorned. The remote for my Denon receiver is absurd. If you find device remotes simple and intuitive, you are in the very slim minority.

Add the fact that the battery door on most remotes is doomed to fail (by design?), resulting in a nice duct-tape patching or pricey replacement, and you have an ancient artifact in the day of intuitive touch-screen devices.

The remote is a component that needs a good kick in the butt from a design perspective.[COLOR="#808080"]

My TV remote door (and all my other remotes Doors) are fine, you must mishandle yours something awful (my Dolby surround system i use is now over 10 years old and its remote is still good as new)

Maybe ive just been lucky and picked products with good, intuitive remotes, the one remote i HATE with a passion is the apple TV remote, it just doesn't have enough functions on it, making it needlessly complex to do simple tasks on occasion, with commands like press, hold for three seconds, press down and pray being fairly standard to bring up program information without interrupting playback or jumping back to a previous screen.

I dont find touch screen devices to be intuitive at all, i once tried to combine all my remotes into a single (very expensive at the time) touch screen device and it was awful, ill stick to my current collection of TV, PS3, surround system and fire remotes, i have no need for more.

[LagunaSol]

Originally Posted by Nightarchaon

My TV remote door (and all my other remotes Doors) are fine, you must mishandle yours something awful

Yeah, it's called "having kids."

[calaverasgrande]

Originally Posted by rmwebs

Last I checked each of those buttons performs a pretty important function.

The essential buttons on a remote:

- Power on/off
- Volume Up/Down
- Channel Up/Down
- Left/Right/Up/Down/Ok
- Play/Pause, Stop, Rewind, Fastforward (note: a lot of boxes have these combined into the left/right/up/down buttons)
- Record
- Numbers 0-9
- Red/Yellow/Green/Blue function buttons (note: you cant drop these - they are actually very important around the world)


You criticised the remote. But what do you propose as an alternative option to perform these tasks? Siri's not reliable enough to do it, and hardly practical to send commands back to Apple servers just to change channel.

In my home I have TV, bluray and Cable remotes. that is in descending order of usability. The TV remote works just dandy, the bluray is not too bad, but all of the buttons are basically the same size so it is hard to navigate by touch except for power. The Cable remote is awful. It has so many bloody buttons that I never use. And the buttons I do use are layed out in a double concentric circle with arrow buttons in the middle. Way to easy to click exit when I mean to click info.
All of these remotes are awful at interacting with web based content channels like HULU or Netflix.
It takes me 5 minutes to arrow up/down my way through text searching for a TV show. On my Mac I can do the same in 5 seconds.
Along with remotes, the actual menus and interactivity on cable, TV and STBs are awful.
There are ways of setting up favorites on the cable box, but it works terribly. And if you box has to be replaced due to a technical issue (happened 3 times this year already!) you lose those settings.
Same for my bluray player which spends most of its time streaming hulu.
Apple does not have to think up a game changing re-boot of TV. All they have to do is make an IOS type interface that is legible from the couch. Give us a rudimentary alphanumeric keyboard on the remote. More likely it will incorporate something akin to Siri. Though there is no way that will work well from a mic in the TV or a STB. Instead they will have to incorporate it in a remote so they can achieve a better SNR. This is why I think we will see a cheapo clickwheel remote with a mic. And IOS device pairing for more elaborate remote control.


PS. I work for cable btw.

[Ram27]

I doubt they'd do a set top box and monitor. That's not really a streamlined product line, and they already have Apple TV.

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Originally Posted by Benjamins

for Apple TV to be more successful, they need some sort of live channels. People need to be able to just turn on Apple TV, sit on the couch and turn off their brains for a while.

To really be considered a TV to most people I think they'd have to do something like Tivo where you connect your satellite cable and it adapts it to "iOS".

[Nightarchaon]

Originally Posted by LagunaSol

Yeah, it's called "having kids."

That will do it every time, with a touch screen remote id imagine you'll be suffering from cracked screen a lot.

[frjonah]

I'll start this response by stating that I didn't read through the 10 pages of comments, so this idea might have already be stated...

I'm beginning to suspect that the new Apple Television Set will be sort of an All-in-one entertainment center, with gaming functionality as one of the main elements of marketing (i.e. a serious competitor to Wii U, Xbox Kinect and others). As we are seeing with the new Wii system, the main element of the "newness" of the design is the controller implementation, with touchscreen, etc. Apple's approach would leverage existing iDevices against their new gaming concept, built right into the new Apple Television.

One thought I specifically had was that the new iPad Mini might be the main controller they have in mind... it's basically the perfect size for a gaming control application. Couple that with the previous stance that the company had against making a smaller iPad and it could be that the iPad Mini might even have been primarily conceived as a media center / gaming control device. If it was intended that way or not, it might work out very well for Apple in the end.

Maybe the massive revenue generation of the iOS games got some folks thinking (maybe even Steve before he passed) and gaming is an area (perhaps the only area) where Microsoft's domination has basically gone totally unchecked by Apple... I surmise that, within the next year, that will no longer be the case.

Interesting times...

[calaverasgrande]

I don't think Apple will be trying to make gaming part of the mix on any possible apple tv set.
The competition with Sony Nintendo and Microsoft is pretty fierce. They sell gaming boxes with thin or negative margins hoping to make up the loss in licensing. And then there is the question of development. Would it be IOS compatible or would you need to purchase a special developers setup?
You should see the developers boxes for Playstations. Pretty crazy. Pretty expensive.
Putting the requisite hardware into a TV to play contemporary games at decent framerates will put quite a bump on the price. Not that Apple has ever been cheap, but that would probably put it at a price premium higher than the cost of a new Samsung TV and a Wii.
While gaming is a huge industry, I would think Apple is going after the Hulu/Netflix/boxee ecosystem. Perhaps with some content agreements in their back pocket. Heck if they can get Disney/Pixar/Lucasfilm and Comcast/NBCUNIVERSAL they have enough content right there.
Or if they can put a better front end on Hulu and Netflix they have won the battle already.