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Apple in Talks to Build Cable Set-Top Box to Display Live Television

I wonder if it would screw you like providers do with Tivo. I have comcast and not only do you have to pay the monthly tivo fee, comcast charges you the same price as if you are renting one of their HD boxes. You end up paying like $30 for the Tivo service.
 
mattopotamus said:
I wonder if it would screw you like providers do with Tivo. I have comcast and not only do you have to pay the monthly tivo fee, comcast charges you the same price as if you are renting one of their HD boxes. You end up paying like $30 for the Tivo service.
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There is a reason comcast sucks. They charge fees for everything. Hello the only reason I have crapcast is because they are my only choice. Due to the fees I went Internet only and there they really pushed me to rent their over priced rented modems instead of buying my own better one which I did.
 
If there's anything to this rumor, the facts are certainly off. If Apple were to create a cablecard DVR, they wouldn't need to be in discussions with individual cable companies about it; they'd just need to work with cablelabs to get it certified. A while back I posted that I thought it would be great if Apple made an updated AirPort Extreme/TimeCapsule with a cablecard slot and the ability to do high-quality on-the-fly MPEG2-to-MP4 conversion. And they could even do without the cablecard slot (and the hassle of working with cablelabs) by having it interact with existing network-based cablecard boxes (e.g., SiliconDust HDHomeRun Prime).

That said, it wouldn't surprise me if this rumor is farther off the mark, and the reality is that they're in discussions with the cable companies to allow for the existing Apple TV hardware to stream live TV. This could be done by way of an app (a la the Netflix app) which would stream from the cable companies' servers, where the source material was already encoded by the cable company in MP4 format.
 
faroZ06 said:
The lack of coax input on the Apple TV has always been the dealbreaker for me. I don't care about paid TV, but I want an antenna input for recording and watching live TV.
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On the back of your television set is a connector where you can connect a coax from an antenna or cable service. Why would the aTV need to do this?
 
gnasher729 said:
Guess who is selling more. (Hint: It is not Microsoft).
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Guess which one is more in use. It is not Apple. Microsoft is doing much better in that market and provides a much better serves.
What a Apple Tv is less than the 360 in terms of media. The 360 can just do it better, plays more file types and types of media.
 
cant see apple going for this, unless its a device that can be sold on a global level its not going to work.

Here in the UK Sky have a monopoly market, (They OWN their major competitor, Virgin) so the apple device would need to be freeview , and that would need a different tuner for the UK than the US or Europe because we use DVB-T2 to carry out HD not DVB-T for both SD and HD like most other countries.

instead of one device apple can box and sell to the world, they would need many variant boxes for different regions (expensive and annoying to produce for apple) or a "one box with every standard" (Expensive and annoying to get approved by different countries standards committees)

Unlike other companies, apple gets most of its revenue by knowing the world doesn't end at the US boarders
 
Nungster said:
On the back of your television set is a connector where you can connect a coax from an antenna or cable service. Why would the aTV need to do this?
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The coax cable on the back of a TV is not designed for a digital data signal that cable providers do.
If the aTV wants to play with cable providers other than AT&T Uverse it needs a coax input and even with Uverse it would be a good idea to have coax cable input due to the fact that it could connect threw that systems because those coax wires in houses get purposed for other things.


If I head to guess anything the first providers Apple has any hope of working with it would have to be AT&T and Verizon due to how their systems work compared to crapcast.
 
Rodimus Prime said:
There is a reason comcast sucks. They charge fees for everything. Hello the only reason I have crapcast is because they are my only choice. Due to the fees I went Internet only and there they really pushed me to rent their over priced rented modems instead of buying my own better one which I did.
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I have always had good customer service with them, fast internet, and no issues with TV.....but seriously to charge me for wanting to use a Tivo Box, WTF. Oh and they make someone come out and install the CableCard in your Tivo Box, which is literally plug and play. Of course that cost money too...
 
Have you guys seen the Visio costar? It basically is the next step for the apple tv. I mean, the costar just upgraded the apple tv and put google on it. No input switching...just passes through satellite or cable via hdmi and then overlays.
 
b166er said:
If apple (or anyone really) could make a box that allows you to access channels ala carte I would pay serious money for it. Cable is ridiculous. Most of the programming is duplicated junk that just reruns non-stop.

Give me a box where I can subscribe to individual channels and pay by the month per channel. They'd get my cash in a heartbeat.
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Yes, but what happens when customers only buy the top 10% of the channels?
 
Not a chance

I think it is extremely unlikely that there is any truth to this. It's completely contrary to the network-based delivery model companies like Apple, Netflix, and Hulu have been establishing.

I think it is more likely is that Apple would consider opening up the AppleTV to 3rd-party developers and device manufacturers, who could provide cable card or antenna support via USB or AirPlay.
 
This makes way more sense to me. Replacing your TV is a pretty big deal.

A set top cable box with siri and all the things on the apple TV currently built in would absolutely crush, and it'd be a much more affordable product.
 
Some of you are already forgetting that this is EXACTLY what Microsoft did with the Xbox 360 and "fibre"-based TV, FiOS, Comcast and [hopefully, soon] Uverse all have a simple App that lets them pull content from the provider and pull DVR content from the house's main DVR.

I imagine the cable companies like Time Warner would need to do a lot of updating to be able to deliver streaming stuff to an Apple TV like box, unless Apple included a universal digital cable tuner, which seems unlikely.
 
Scientific Atlantic is horrible!

I would LOVE to have an Apple Cable box instead of the crap that Scientific Atlantic is allowed to release with their crappy Cisco Java OS. Bring it on!
 
Carniphage said:
My proposal is that the services are received and amalgamated in a data centre. (Imagine a building-sized TiVo serving everyone.)

The recording happens there. The channel switching happens there. Content is unified and searchable in a better way. The data center builds a unique grid of channels for each customer - and delivers it as a single stream.
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That's just moving the problem, not fixing it. The Netflix (and Hulu, etc.) model eliminates the need to record anything by simply making all content available on demand. The only reason newer shows aren't available this way is because the content providers don't currently allow it.
 
bigchrisfgb said:
I wish people would get out of this Apple are saints and won't go to bed with the devil nonsense.

Apple will go to bed with whoever they could gain from. They already have Foxconn making pretty much 100% of their gadgets, they have contracts with competing companies who they have public feuds with, this includes Samsung and Microsoft. If getting into bed with the cable companies could be profitable for Apple then they will do it.
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No, you have the wrong game here. Profit? Of course. But not While turning over content control to the cable companies. They won't do it. Period. It's not about good vs evil, it's about Apple maintaining control.
 
sbrhwkp3 said:
This makes way more sense to me. Replacing your TV is a pretty big deal.

A set top cable box with siri and all the things on the apple TV currently built in would absolutely crush, and it'd be a much more affordable product.
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Siri? Who wants to talk to their set top box?
 
Not gonna happen Apple. Comcast (and I'm sure other providers) charge an insane monthly fee to customers for the use of their horrible boxes and equally as bad remote controls. Comcast is not about to that that money go away.
 
This is exactly what I've been waiting for. The tv set top box is the one piece of living room technology that hasn't improved over the years. It is in the same state that the cell phone was in before the iPhone was released. My DirecTV box is slow and the menu system is not innovative in any way. Forget the Apple TV or the iTV. Place your bets on the set top box folks.
 
Elbon said:
That's just moving the problem, not fixing it. The Netflix (and Hulu, etc.) model eliminates the need to record anything by simply making all content available on demand. The only reason newer shows aren't available this way is because the content providers don't currently allow it.
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Moving hardware to the data center solves two problems immediately.

1) Cost of hardware in the home could be reduced to a single thin client box for all services. No hard drives, no tuners, no cable cards, no dishes.

2) Interface. All content, live, recorded, VOD would be presented through the same interface.

Netflix and Hulu are a proof of concept but are clunky. Anticipating something with zero buffering times and instant channel switching. Less like Netflix, more like OnLive.
 
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