AirPlay Opens Door to Almost Any Web Video on Apple TV

[needthephone]

I'm getting an apple TV don't get me wrong but I'm missing something here. What's the big deal about streaming some crappy videos in websites?

Am I missing out on something here?

Apart from YouTube Where is all this web TV content then? Can You watch TV episodes. I know the eg BBC iplayer but that's only available in the UK unless you pay for one of those proxy server services.

But I need educating obvioulsy

 

[mr_flibble]

why??

Why don't they just mirror/redirect video output of the whole screen to AppleTV? I am very happy with my internet TV provider using RealPlayer - I have my Mac connected to TV set through HDMI. I turn on RealPlayer, select anything I want to watch, go full-screen and I watch it on my 56" TV. With AppleTV I would get rid of HDMI cable, thats all I want (and now when Apple loosen regulations for iOS apps we can even get RealPlayer to iPhones and iPads for our traveling TV needs). Such VGA-WiFi-TV transmitters exist for years, why would Apple cripple this awesome functionality by limiting it to several video codecs as some of you guys are suggesting here?? That would be sad.

 

[dbrothers]

What about the local sports networks that the cable/fibre providers have locked up? My wife is a RedSox fan (short for fanatic), and if I told her that we were ditching Comcast and NESN (New England Sports Network, partially owned by Comcast), I'd wind up in divorce court. MLB has a great app, but video streaming is blacked out in the local market. There's no way to see RedSox games except by paying some local cable company their thirty pieces of silver.

- Dennis

 

[hazmatzak]

Why don't they just mirror/redirect video output of the whole screen to AppleTV?

Too much data. 24-bit color x 1024 x 768 x 30 frames/sec yields about 566 Mbit/sec. Dedicated encoder hardware is preferred since software encoding is too CPU intensive (and only recently possible in real-time on the desktop, never mind portable devices).

Such VGA-WiFi-TV transmitters exist for years, why would Apple cripple this awesome functionality by limiting it to several video codecs as some of you guys are suggesting here??

Such devices cost at least a couple hundred by themselves. They have hardware encoders, and have hardly caught on. While they probably do a fine job with slide shows, how do both video games and HD movies look?

Nobody here wondering about what streaming via WiFi will do to your iDevice battery [life]?

Going the other way, Netflix streaming to the iPad, it still runs for hours and hours. The battery works well enough that I don't bother trying to tell any difference.

 

[Master Chief]

I'm not wondering at all.Hint:it won't ADD battery life.

LOL I knew something like this would pop up. Anyway. I can't wait for the day that wireless charging will be possible (I've seen Intel's master piece in action Intel and it is looking promissing).

...

Going the other way, Netflix streaming to the iPad, it still runs for hours and hours. The battery works well enough that I don't bother trying to tell any difference.

Yeah but that is easy. I mean you can't compare the two. I'm more concerned about streaming from the iPad/iPhone/iPod touch to the Apple TV, because that has to hurt. I think.

 

[ranReloaded]

Nice article by Seth.

9to5 and MacRumors are the only Mac sites I visit anymore.

What's wrong with Apple Insider?

 

[stordoff]

I have doubts about that. Pulling video from the Internet over wifi which mostly works fine, then streaming that back over the same interface to the TV? Perhaps I am not fully understanding what is going on but that sounds like a bad idea.

Why? A typical steaming video will at most be 4Mbps (usually much less). typical WiFi connection is 54Mbps (higher for N networks), so I can't see this being an issue for any other than highly congested networks.

 

[viet2100]

Can't wait!

 

[milo]

So is Apple going to add Airplay streaming to OSX itself (or iTunes)?

It's great to be able to stream from a mobile device but it would be weird to have that but not be able to do it from a computer.

And why don't they just put direct video streaming straight into the aTV? Why not just support things like the web version of Hulu and ABC from their website?

 

[Mistrblank]

So is Apple going to add Airplay streaming to OSX itself (or iTunes)?

It's great to be able to stream from a mobile device but it would be weird to have that but not be able to do it from a computer.

And why don't they just put direct video streaming straight into the aTV? Why not just support things like the web version of Hulu and ABC from their website?

I suspect it will be an iTunes update released around the release of AppleTV or release of iOS4.2 Right now you can use iTunes to push sound since the audio component is untouched, it works well too consider the existing AppleTV doesn't have built in support for iTunesDJ (or generating genius lists on the fly I believe).

 

[Fanfoot]

Getting a little ahead of ourselves here...

The AirPlay button may be showing up NOW in these applications because they haven't been updated yet. Doesn't mean they won't be. Just because the button shows up by default doesn't mean an application can't get rid of it. We'll have to wait and see won't we?

To me the most interesting questions are whether Hulu Plus, the ABC app, Sling Player, Netflix, HTML 5 video from CBS.com, video from VLC, video from ZumoCast or AirPlayer, or flash video played thru SkyFire (if it gets approved) will work. I think we may not really know until iOS 4.2 ships, and even then application updates could block things.

BTW, while Hulu clear tries to block anybody trying to render Hulu videos on the big screen, Hulu Plus is another matter, and is enabled on various game consoles for playback on the big screen already. Not saying its a given it will work, but its not a given they'll kill it either.

Assuming the speculation of previous posters is right that AirPlay doesn't actually transcode the video but just sends it over to the Apple TV, then something like VLC playback via AirPlay is unlikely to work, while something like SkyFire or AirPlayer, which transcode the video in the cloud or on your desktop, should work fine. Suspect that means SlingPlayer won't work either.

 

[Surf Monkey]

Maybe this has already been covered? What I'm the most interested in being able to do is play video on my desktop in AVI format and send it to the ATV2 over AirPlay. Sounds like that's not going to be a possibility without converting files via something like Handbrake, right? ATV2 can't handle AVI, so at some point the video/audio has to be transcoded to H.264, right?

 

[mrochester]

I'm getting an apple TV don't get me wrong but I'm missing something here. What's the big deal about streaming some crappy videos in websites?

Am I missing out on something here?

Apart from YouTube Where is all this web TV content then? Can You watch TV episodes. I know the eg BBC iplayer but that's only available in the UK unless you pay for one of those proxy server services.

But I need educating obvioulsy

I'm in the same boat as you as I'm sitting here scratching my head wondering what this does that my Media Centre PC doesn't. For years now I've been watching Internet content on my TV simply by firing up and browsing and going to the website. So what is it additionally that this thing is supposed to do above and beyond that, as I seem to be missing something?