Scarpad
macrumors 68020
Similar PPV window I'm sure some will be less, because some movies show up on PPV Day and Date. I think the Xbox has the same conditions. I can do the same from Direct TV.
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Apple Announces Apple TV Take 2 + Price Drop
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Similar PPV window I'm sure some will be less, because some movies show up on PPV Day and Date. I think the Xbox has the same conditions. I can do the same from Direct TV.
CWallace
macrumors G5
Apple is likely operating under the assumption the US dollar will not stay so low or the Euro/Pound will not stay so high. So I imagine they expect the price disparity to adjust a bit more favorably for EU customers in the near term.
The alternative would be to start low, see the exchange rate adjustment happen, and then have to raise the EU price. And I imagine that would go over not so well. 😉
Ah so many bitchin moaners, wouldn't be macrumors without em.
Well i'm here to stake a real complaint! Just been on the ukstore and those sons a b*tches ain't dropped the price one red letter cent.
God darn it, i'm all fired up and ready run those lilly livered lefties oot a Cupertino. Yeah am a gunnin fer u Steve. Sort it lest i pistol whip ya.
😀
Well i'm here to stake a real complaint! Just been on the ukstore and those sons a b*tches ain't dropped the price one red letter cent.
God darn it, i'm all fired up and ready run those lilly livered lefties oot a Cupertino. Yeah am a gunnin fer u Steve. Sort it lest i pistol whip ya.
😀
Kelmon
macrumors 6502a
Apple TV Becomes Useful
Looks like Apple TV finally became useful, or at least it will when the international release happens (US-only release = BOOO!). If you live in the UK then you have a limited selection of TV shows but outside of the US and UK (not sure about Canada) the Apple TV today is entirely useless since there is no damned content to play on it. The release of the rentals store, if it works as advertised, and if the rental prices are at least comparable to the local rental shop, makes the device a much more attractive purchase and one that I would consider now if I had a widescreen television.
Overall details of the rental period seems pretty reasonable and comparable to what the local shop does. Sure, I can watch the movie multiple times over a 2-day period from the shop but in reality we only tend to watch the film once so watching it all in 24-hours is fine with the option of not watching it at all until later.
Looks like Apple TV finally became useful, or at least it will when the international release happens (US-only release = BOOO!). If you live in the UK then you have a limited selection of TV shows but outside of the US and UK (not sure about Canada) the Apple TV today is entirely useless since there is no damned content to play on it. The release of the rentals store, if it works as advertised, and if the rental prices are at least comparable to the local rental shop, makes the device a much more attractive purchase and one that I would consider now if I had a widescreen television.
Overall details of the rental period seems pretty reasonable and comparable to what the local shop does. Sure, I can watch the movie multiple times over a 2-day period from the shop but in reality we only tend to watch the film once so watching it all in 24-hours is fine with the option of not watching it at all until later.
j26
macrumors 68000
So why is the MBA 1699 on the Irish site when it's $1799 on the US?
It doesn't add up
Plus, the dollar is going down the toilet 😛
Bubbasteve
macrumors 65816
matticus008
macrumors 68040
The bigger problem is that people who just want a router won't want to pay $600 for one, just like people who just want a network hard drive, or people who just want to add some remote speakers to their existing network.
The product you're describing is a Mac mini. Almost literally. Front Row, expandable storage, network sharing, connection to home theaters.
Not a chance. The consumer electronics products work because each one can be run on lean, cheaper hardware. Adding functions together and expecting them to run simultaneously ups the hardware requirements right into the Mac mini range and provides a single point of failure, along with requiring that all the desired services/connections be located in one place in your home. It also makes expansion cost-prohibitive. Tremendously so.
That's not a bad idea, but cooling the stack would become a serious problem.
I disagree. I think AirTunes should literally be a wireless device to add to a current network, and much cheaper. People don't necessarily keep their routers near their speakers, and most anyone who buys one of these already has a wireless network, so making it function as a base station seems superfluous to me. I'd much rather see a $49 AirTunes device (and kill the Airport Express) than see it added to the Airport Extreme.
Not really, though I wish it were so. They're still going for $200 on eBay, and before this update, $250 was about the lowest price for a new one. This is an even tighter margin product now, which you can tell from the closeness of the refurb price (and the fact that the product was already Apple's thinnest, margin-wise).
$229 undercut all the other Internet resellers--and doesn't leave much, if any, room for anyone else to squeeze out a better price. Most of those deals were because the stock was slow-moving. At the new price, sales will pick up and remove the incentive for third parties to discount.
No ***** sherlock. Nobody cares about 720p, unless you're trying to defend a piss poor movie deliver service 😉
Eidorian
macrumors Penryn
This is entirely possible. We'll have to wait to see when someone opens an AppleTV up. 😛
gotohamish
macrumors 65816
It's the only thing stopping me from picking one up right now. I'm sure it'll be fine anyway, if they're confident, I'll believe them I suppose!
Per movie, and after 4 movies, I've already exceeded the cost of Netflix. Which offers unlimited streaming, and unlimited movies sent to you. And much higher resolution / sound quality for HDDVD and BluRay.
Millions of people already waste money on a music delivery service that delivers less than CD quality sound. What makes you think they won't gobble up crappy video streams? 720P is far better than SDDVD movie rentals, but the price is ridiculous.
yetanotherdave
macrumors 68000
Hang on 
TV starts from $229 in the US which is about £115. But the UK store has the lower model for £199!! Even with sales tax the absolute most it should be after adjusting upwards for ripping off the UK is £149.
That's too much of a discrepancy to ignore this time!
TV starts from $229 in the US which is about £115. But the UK store has the lower model for £199!! Even with sales tax the absolute most it should be after adjusting upwards for ripping off the UK is £149.That's too much of a discrepancy to ignore this time!
same in UK. We are still paying £200 / £270, which is pretty much double what they cost in the US. Maybe the price will come down once we get rentals? F-^& it. It's useless until then anyways.
Specs still say only 720p so I don't get why it has "New" next to it. Its the same thing with different firmware and existing users are getting a free upgrade.
Rocketman, I totally agree with you. At least Time Capsule looks like good value when u factor in the cost of a 500 gig lacie and the original Airport Extreme (but then even that's still limited by the lack of audio out you mentioned, and the exclusion of a broadband modem). I might get that anyways and hold out for the midrange tower at MWSF '09/'10/whenever. I'm not making any major purchases until I can get a neat looking machine that can upscale DVDs respectably on the fly and sit next to my projector without looking ugly. Once rentals become available in the UK I'll just stream them using the 5m VGA cable solution I've got going at the moment...
Handbrake already can, actually. Quicktime cannot (including 7.4 fresh off the updater just now), despite all Apple claims, iLounge claims, and all that... I just used the experimental build of Handbrake which does support all those features you're looking for, 0.92 isn't far away from release. Now VLC, will playback 6 channel discreet and AC3 passthrough. That being said, AppleTV doing dolby has yet to be seen... I'm sure of what I just said, I have a G5 with a optical sound system that is totally apple supported, dvd player does support dolby already. Go figure.
If you want the experimental build go visit http://trac.handbrake.fr/wiki/CompileGuide
Heads up, use jam, not make, to do so, in the terminal, type ./configure and then after that type ./jam, and your computer will manually compile it for yah, enjoy.
Eidorian
macrumors Penryn
I'd wait a little bit and see if anything updates here.
http://support.apple.com/specs/
http://support.apple.com/kb/index?page=search&q=kspec appletv
BluRay DVDs don't cost more to mail, but HD does cost more to send over the internet (bandwidth). Don't blame Apple.
I have listened to my mp3/AAC-collection through a pair of Genelecs (same company that propably made the speakers that were used to _record_ your favourite music), and they sounded just fine.
External HD for all my media, and that HD gets continuosly backed up to another separate HD.I believe the feature is called "Time Machine" or something like that....
Hard-drive. What makes you think that CD's are 100% safe? How do you plan to save your CD's if your house burns down? I need to grab hold of one external hard-drive and I'm all set, you can carry maybe dozen or so CD's with you at best.
This is a good start
I'm still disappointed that they didn't give AppleTV internet radio (although I know it'll be a cold day in hell before that happens). Anyways, this is a decent start. I'm sure that the crummy terms (1 day viewing time...etc) was the only way that Apple could get all the major studios to sign on. If the terms were really great (like first rumored...30 days for $2.99) probably only Fox would be on board. I'm optimistic that as people get on board with this the terms will get better.
I'm still disappointed that they didn't give AppleTV internet radio (although I know it'll be a cold day in hell before that happens). Anyways, this is a decent start. I'm sure that the crummy terms (1 day viewing time...etc) was the only way that Apple could get all the major studios to sign on. If the terms were really great (like first rumored...30 days for $2.99) probably only Fox would be on board. I'm optimistic that as people get on board with this the terms will get better.
Why do you people continue to act like the UK isn't the ripoff country of the world? I mean seriously, EVERYTHING is overpriced. Get over it already.Hang on
That's too much of a discrepancy to ignore this time!
matticus008
macrumors 68040
720p is hands-down better quality content than 1080i, and 1080-anything downloads are still overly burdensome for networks and Internet connections. If you want 1080p ("Full HD"), rent BD movies.
For the foreseeable future, network content will be at least one step behind from the best available consumer formats, because it's optimal. More customers, lower cost, better overall presentation (720p looks good on any set), and lower hardware requirements. It's an overall win from a business perspective.
Smoother display? It displays perfectly as-is. It's putting out 1280x720 images at 24 or 30fps consistently. Once you get past that, there's not much to do. RAM and disk storage bumps are far more likely. Your 1080p TV is working with less hardware power than the AppleTV, and it manages fine.
I think everyone would have preferred it to be able to do 1080p, Jobs included. But the movies would take double the bandwidth, and you're already going to have folks on the bargain-basement broadband complaining about download times. It's also possible that the processor in the AppleTV isn't quite stout enough to decode 1080p in realtime smoothly. The thing is, would you want to pay $50 more for the box and have the movies take twice as long (and possibly be more expensive to compensate for the extra storage space and bandwidth required on Apple's end)?
Some of us would. I would, for instance. But many wouldn't. You'd be utterly amazed at the sheer quantity of people who neither know nor care whether they're watching 720p or 1080p. Some are sitting around watching regular TV but seeing the "in HD where available" message, and they think they're watching HD. Hell, how has Apple sold 4 billion lossily-compressed songs for basically the same price/song as a CD? By making it good enough for the average Joe and by making it simple and convenient. That's what they're going to do with movie rentals, too.
Is there anyone else out there doing it better? Who is providing 1080p movie rentals for <= $4 ($5 new release) over the internet on a <=$230 box attached to a TV?