Apple Introduces Updated Apple TV with Netflix Integration, TV Show Rentals

[KnightWRX]

Again,I'm not getting one either but just because we're not the target audience doesn't mean it's a fail.

It was already a fail. Now it's still a fail, but to me it's a bigger one because in 4 years, they failed to make it better than the original.

Most people probably have no idea how to hack it

That's ok, most people don't even buy it. It's mostly a geek toy. Too bad the world of streamers have moved on to better things. You can get Netflix, DLNA support with MKV (which is now supported by most manufacturers with a clue) and BD in a box for the same price as Apple TV. And the BD players with all that do 1080p and have real audio outputs to boot.

 

[Stuipdboy1000]

£99 to $99 is pretty ridiculous but I'm off to Florida next month on holiday.

Would there be any issues of me picking up one over there and bringing it back to the UK?

 

[pc-proud]

720p, commercial-free, and on demand for 99c doesn't sound too bad to me. it's cheaper than buying DVDs.

Cheaper than buying DVD's??? Well 24-30 episodes = $24-30 plus tax.. A season of a TV show DVD is roughly the same, however you own the DVD's not renting each time you want to watch.. I would like to know from anyone, how long is the TV Show rental period last for $0.99, is it a couple days, weeks, months, all season, for life?

K

 

[Vercingetorix]

Newsflash: there's more to the UK than London.

I've been all over the UK. It's an expensive country. London is merely the staggeringly, rapaciously most expensive epicenter.

(I should clarify that I throughly enjoy visiting the UK and I think it's a great country. I just have to pay my credit card bill when I get back without looking at the details because it makes me want to throw up.)

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Speaking of education...How's this...

The math says it all

1080i = 1920x540 pixels = 1036800 total pixels
720p = 1280x720 pixels = 921600 total pixels

or a difference of 115200 pixels. So per frame 1080i wins with more data / pixel resolution.

Frame rate however tells another story. 720 is often 60p (progressive) while 1080i is 60i (interlaced). One of the reasons ESPN /FOX / ABC use 72060p is due to the high amount of sports programing in those channels. There is a lot less tearing / distortion and better image quality with 60 progressive frames rather than 60 interlaced. Also if you combine the 2 fields of the 1080i signal together to form your complete picture you reduce the effective data stream to 30 progressive frames per second. So in the end during a 1 second period you have the following amount of data / actual pixel information available:

1080i = 540p30 or 1036800 x 30p/s = 31104000 pixels of data
720p = 921600 x 60p/s = 55296000 pixels of data

720p wins with 24192000 more pixels if data (77% more pixels)

So it depends on what you want Frame Rate of Resolution. For me more data = better picture.

So in the end 720p60 provides more actual data and information to process for a "better" picture but with lower resolution. One caveat...if the Apple TV is only 720p24 obviously 1080i60 would be better.

One more caveat: work your math again with 1080p- a pretty common standard in other set top boxes (not just BD players). Pixel counts really change, as does the comparison of progressive vs. progressive.

 

[SBlue1]

i wish this thing would have had 1080 hd.

i am happy about the renting only option, i am renting most of my movies anyway. the few good movies i prefer to own i buy on disk, cause i love the cover art.

and if there is a movie i would like to own without feeling the need to have a physical copy i still can buy it on my mac and stream it.

i guess this means buy. and with just 99 bucks i dont even need to ask my girlfriend.

 

[farmboy]

As am I, so we're allowed to moan about Brits, err, moaning

My grands were from Stainton and Cleveland, Yorkshire, Isle of Man, and County Claire, Ireland, so I feel your pain right in my vicarious, to be sure. But it's still qvetching.

 

[edoates]

Right, no compression artifacts, but artifacts from upscaling absolutely happen.

Oh and by the way, jobs forgot to thank all of the beta testers he ****ed with today's announcement of new atv. No way I'd buy this pos.

Note that there are compression artifacts with the various iTunes et al 720p program content as well. Depending on data rates (and the specs are actually pretty low for ATV), you get them on all the formats. 1080<x> has more resolution to begin with, and upscaling is not needed; so, as long as you have the bandwidth, it is often much better.

 

[AnalyzeThis]

Exactly right!

Right... This is why we come up with device with neither of two.

BTW, most decent HD camcoders record in 1080i/p AVCHD (ts, m2ts). How exactly folks would watch their home video on it? So, the only viable would be cr$ppy P&S cameras shooting in mov, or mp4 video? Ops, now we need a geek to convert this video to the crippled Apple TV720p specs. What a convenience!!!

 

[Rocketman]

I watched the stream at an Apple store. It was smooth on an iPad and a MacPro with a large display until we got to the AppleTV portion, when the stream became choppy. It became unwatchable. The Mac Pro also had audio and video out of sync. It was impossible to reasonably hear the audio on the iPad without headphones.

I believe in considerable local storage on streamed content.

Rocketman

 

[pc-proud]

What other companies are streaming 1080p over the internet?

Should the AppleTV be made to support the distant future? At $99 what's the big deal? You can get a new one once that happens in a few years.



Hulu is not allowed on TVs. They'd have to change their deals with the studios before they could be added to the AppleTV.

Hulu is available (or available soon) on Xbox360 for streaming.

I think Netflix streams 1080p bc my internet can handle it and the picture is crystal clear, so I think it's 1080p.

 

[sladey]

I am certain people here will $&%^ about the lack of purchasing, but there are 2 things to remember:

1) You can still do it on your Mac and stream them. (Get off the couch for 30 seconds!)

2) I think Steve is right, this AppleTV contains the stuff the regular public cares about the most. I'm betting it will be much more popular because of the things it leaves out.

People want simple things to hook up to their TV. That's why only nerds like us hook up computers to televisions. If everyone liked that they'd have done it by now. But they haven't.




Simple. People want to rent The Bourne Identity.

They DON'T want to rent: AVI (Xvid, AVC, MPEG1/2/4), MPG/MPEG, VOB, MKV (h.264, x.264, AVC, MPEG1/2/4, VC-1), TS/TP/M2T (MPEG1/2/4, AVC, VC-1), MP4/MOV (MPEG4, h.264), M2TS, WMV9

:glassy eyed consumer:

Top comment.

 

[KnightWRX]

Top comment.

Bad comment, BD Players that support everything including the kitchen sink and Netflix allow people to Simply rent The Bourne Identity.

 

[chas0001]

Hmmm .. I don't like it when they change the $ to £ sign on new products, it makes it feel expensive.

£99 - VAT = ~£84
$99 + sales tax for CA (where I go to most) = $108 = £72 (@ 1.5USD to 1 GBP)

..so it's £12 pricier in the UK, or nearly 15% more expensive than US. That's quite a leap.

Anyway, I've pre-ordered as I'll have a few days to mull it over anyway. It's a massive shame that Apple approved apps haven't made it yet .. I was dreaming of a nice XBMC / Plex app running on it without the need for hacks - although to be fair XBMC works pretty nicely on my modded original TV

M

It may be £12 more expensive in the UK but the UK version is missing an equivalent to Netflix. Therefore it has less features but is more expensive.

Apple UK : http://www.apple.com/uk/appletv/
Apple USA : http://www.apple.com/appletv/
Apple Spain : http://www.apple.com/es/appletv/

Its also not available in Spain.

And for that reason I am out........

 

[Vercingetorix]

That's a first.

I don't cough up money to our media overlords when I can get it for free. Maybe it's time to get riled up over trading DVR/PVR materials? Station logos get a free pass?

Ripping a DVD that you checked out from the library to your hard drive is exactly as illegal under the DMCA as downloading a copy with BitTorrent. Not to say that that's right, but the music industry (and therefore the legal system) regards it as the same thing.

You're just not going to see MKV support on a device from a company that's also trying to make deals with movie studios to sell their content.

 

[anjonjp]

Japan - The Forgotten Country

The new features of the Apple TV are overall good. However, I question the decision to move over to streaming and particularly rental when many markets are not yet geared up to support it. That is not necessarily Apple's fault of course, but I do wonder what the local Apple company staff are doing everyday in these countries. Are they actually providing market feedback back to Apple HQ or is Cupertino simply not listening???

This time, the disappointment in Japan (if there is any) will be that Apple tv is no longer available. This is perhaps better than the consistent promise of 'This product can do that....., that can do this...., all true so long as you have the content which many markets still fail to have, which is probably the worse of the two 'disappointment evils'.

Apple should take note however that international customers are getting tired of Apple products that promise so much yet fail to deliver because of lack of content.

Pricing: Many of the UK members are pointing out the discrepancy in price. The Apple tv is hardware and therefore will incur transportation costs etc., so I don't know if the price is appropriate or not (I suspect not though!). However, I can and will question strongly why 99cent apps in the US are priced at an incredibly inflated rate on the iTunes store. There are no transportation costs, tax in Japan is only 5% and there is no translation of the app explanation. Furthermore, the current FX rate stands at 83JPY to the USD. I think this lends to the fact that Apple really is screwing the internationals on price. Why???

 

[macUser2007]

Without streaming from a desktop, without mkv support and without Pandora support, Apple TV is going to get its butt kicked by Google TV.

Plus there are a ton of Netflix-supporting boxes from the likes of WD, which do more than Apple TV, and cost less, although they have butt-ugly UIs.

But what do I know....

 

[AnalyzeThis]

Ripping a DVD that you checked out from the library to your hard drive is exactly as illegal under the DMCA as downloading a copy with BitTorrent. Not to say that that's right, but the music industry (and therefore the legal system) regards it as the same thing.

You're just not going to see MKV support on a device from a company that's also trying to make deals with movie studios to sell their content.

So, all it takes to ruin Apple grand plans - ask pirate content providers to switch to mp4. Simple and effective way to destroy Apple and the rest of the industry brought to you by "Vercingetorix".

There are plenty of "low" quality (figure why low?) BDRips torrents in mp4, so Apple is promoting piracy by supporting mp4 format.

mkv is not a piracy format - it just happens to be a very effective and versatile container, even pirates loved it.
BTW, mkv is official format for divx.


Nice argument, keep honing your points...

 

[ShiftyPig]

So Amazon's offering 99¢ purchases from ABC and Fox.

Great negotiating Steve.

 

[Apple of my eye]

One more caveat: work your math again with 1080p- a pretty common standard in other set top boxes (not just BD players). Pixel counts really change, as does the comparison of progressive vs. progressive.

I was speaking to current broadcast standards / TV shows etc...However the only content regularly used is 1080p24 so here is that math:

1920X1080 = 2073600 pixels per frame or 49766400 pixels per second at 24p.

720p60 still wins (55296000 pixels) with 10% (5529600 pixels) more pixel data

 

[Chopper9]

The new apple TV is ok for those who don't have the newest flat panels and blu-ray players with all these functions and more... a lot more.

I see this as a big failure.

Which sucks cause I was hoping they were going to introduce something revolutionary. Instead we get a closed streaming box with less functionality than all the other competitors.

 

[KnightWRX]

You're just not going to see MKV support on a device from a company that's also trying to make deals with movie studios to sell their content.

The Sony BDP-S370 says you lie unfortunately.

 

[Drag'nGT]

I WANTED to have a reason to buy this. But I can't hook up my own external hdd to this. I already have Netflix streaming options on my PS3 and TiVo. I don't need another device for Netflix.

How good is streaming from the Mac to TV? I have had TERRIBLE luck using the PS3 to stream from the computer. Right now the PS3 does everything I need. And the Boxee Box would work better than the TV.

 

[edoates]

One more caveat: work your math again with 1080p- a pretty common standard in other set top boxes (not just BD players). Pixel counts really change, as does the comparison of progressive vs. progressive.

Remember that most movies start life as 24p on film or video cams; so converting them to 720p<anything> is worse than 1080<anything>; mostly they get converted to p24, then use various pull down schemes to get the native resolution of the display.

So, 1080x1920 (p24) has siginficantly more information that 720x1280(p24):

49,766,400 (1080) vs. 22,118,400.

For sports, you are correct, 720p60 is very good since each frame has all the info; in any interlaced format, each frame has 1/2 the info, but 1/60 of a second temporally displaced. For stuff that's not moving very much, you actually get pretty close to the 1080 lines promised (higher than the 540 you noted); when stuff moves fast, you get those horizontal interlace lines, or with a good scaler (Faroudja comes to mind), those lines disappear, but you get blurring instead. And not it is worse with vertical movement, so watching something moving horizontally on the screen (say, a football flying through the air) is not so severely affected.

 

[totoum]

I was speaking to current broadcast standards / TV shows etc...However the only content regularly used is 1080p24 so here is that math:

1920X1080 = 2073600 pixels per frame or 49766400 pixels per second at 24p.

720p60 still wins (55296000 pixels) with 10% (5529600 pixels) more pixel data

But why compare it to 720p60 when the apple TV is most likely 720p24?