Apple Launches Apple TV 3.0 Software and iTunes 9.0.2

[SurfMacJpMtb]

If you go into Parental settings you can now hide the iTunes store on the apple TV, at last. Its worth updating just to get it back to how it was with Apple TV 1.0.

If I'd wanted to turn my apple TV into an itunes store extender box, I would have asked for it Apple !! Thank you for allowing me to turn it of at last !!

GREAT tip!!! Thank You, thank you Apple!

 

[MorphingDragon]

And many will say that you also need to match the quality of a 40 Mbps Blu-ray bitstream to be called "HD".

Stretching a 320x240 video to "HD" screen dimensions is not HD....

It could be HD if the acronym is changed form High Definition to Highly Depressing!

 

[Peace]

And many will say that you also need to match the quality of a 40 Mbps Blu-ray bitstream to be called "HD".

Stretching a 320x240 video to "HD" screen dimensions is not HD....

Aiden we all know the Apple TV doesn't do true HD so you don't have to be extreme by typing 320X240. We all also know the Apple TV will do better quality than that. It WILL do 720P@24fps. 720P IS considered HD.

 

[mambodancer]

I did the update and all, but I can't seem to figure out how to get the "Music LPs" or "Movie Extras" to work on it. Tried to re-Sync, looked through menus, took the movies off and put back on, no luck. If you got the "LP" or "Extras" to work let me know how??

It does say that the update lets you use these features doesn't it??

Had the same problem. Apparently new versions of the LP's and Extras will have to be redownloaded and resynced. You will get a download notification form Apple via email. Here is the link to the tech support article:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3938

 

[dynaflash]

Idle thought though having no intention of derailing this thread: It is entirely possible that the prediction of the demise of the atv may have been premature ... once again.

Afaict a decent upgrade ... nothing earth shattering but worthwhile.

 

[bbydon]

I wonder if the internet tab will make way for channels or hulu. Its kinda begging for it.

 

[fpnc]

For the "full" HD experience you need both the video output capability of 1080p (with a matching display) and the ability to decode and play 1080p source material. The current Apple TV only has the former.

And many will say that you also need to match the quality of a 40 Mbps Blu-ray bitstream to be called "HD".

Stretching a 320x240 video to "HD" screen dimensions is not HD....

Specifying an 1080p source does not infer "stretching a 320x240 video to HD screen dimensions."

 

[fpnc]

I wonder if the internet tab will make way for channels or hulu. Its kinda begging for it.

Hulu is apparently moving to a pay-for-view model so I don't think Apple is going to support that.

 

[scott911]

i don't understand all these people who argue against better hardware... i.e 720 is good enough, the processor does just fine, etc,

go look at anything else in the apple line that was released three years ago - laptop, desktop, original iphone, ipods, etc... now say that your upset that they were all updated with something newer, better, faster, etc.

Of course better hardware is to be expected with the apple TV

 

[winks360]

Well that explains it thanks for that now I know to stop wasting my time trying to get it to work

 

[whatever]

Microsoft has gotten a lot right, but their biggest goof with Media Center, is making it a separate operating system aside from normal "Windows".

Microsofts biggest goof is not making the XBox their media center.

Both MS and Apple talk about the need to get into the living room. And Microsoft is there, but they just don't know it.

 

[mangis]

This is why you buy apple products like Apple TV and iphone.

This new software makes my apple tv feel brand new.

The internet radio feature rules!

 

[brendon2020]

new interface looks good, will be messing with it more this weekend

 

[obey908]

update took about a minute

I got so excited when I saw the Internet tab, but only youtube and radio under it

Why can't they put a search function? i hate scrolling thru 100's of movies

 

[fpnc]

Why should a DVR feature in the AppleTV cost several hundred dollars extra?

Well, a standalone hardware SD encoder/HD capture device for the Mac such as the Elgato EyeTV 250 Plus runs $200. Hardware to match that would not nearly add a full $200 to the cost of the Apple TV but you've also got to handle the TV program guide and the likely overhead for a cable card (if you want to be able to record content from your cable/satellite TV provider). Plus, you'd likely have to pay licensing fees to companies like Tivo (and others) in order to produce a good DVR.

Lastly, Apple sells the Apple TV at pretty low margins since one of its primary reasons for existence is to promote sales from the iTunes Store. A DVR would conflict with that business plan and likely cause Apple to raise the base price of the Apple TV (i.e. an add on, to an add on, to an add on, etc.).

 

[tuhoops]

Microsofts biggest goof is not making the XBox their media center.

Both MS and Apple talk about the need to get into the living room. And Microsoft is there, but they just don't know it.

Absolutely correct. Can anyone explain why TV is a better option than PS3 @$299? The new PS3 is slimmer, uses less energy, and it includes NetFlix streaming and a Blu-Ray player...

 

[Terminal.app]

Hulu is apparently moving to a pay-for-view model so I don't think Apple is going to support that.

WTF. Seriously? That's so annoying...Hulu Desktop is doing SO WELL for me right now as a temporary replacement for a TV with cable.

Microsofts biggest goof is not making the XBox their media center.

Both MS and Apple talk about the need to get into the living room. And Microsoft is there, but they just don't know it.

MS has never been good at recognizing a potential market and then bringing an innovative product to fill it. They wait for Apple to do it first and then follow along.

 

[obey908]

how come there is still no search function? i hate scrolling thru 100's of movies

 

[whatever]

Absolutely correct. Can anyone explain why TV is a better option than PS3 @$299? The new PS3 is slimmer, uses less energy, and it includes NetFlix streaming and a Blu-Ray player...

The problem is that PS3 is branded as a game system, so a non-gamer will not look at it (although the new ad campaign is highlighting non-game features).

As a game system, people automatically expect it to either sink or swim (and right now being in a distant third place (behind the Wii and the XBox) the PS3 is sinking along with Blu-ray). So what is the known trend in the video game market when a system bombs, you pull the plug and go back to the drawing board. If the PS3 does not overtake either the Wii or the Xbox and becomes the number 2 game system, it's days will be numbered.

The PS3 highlights the greatest flaw of the Blu-Ray technology, it's slow speed. I've heard many gamers state that they prefer buying a XBox version of game over PS3, due to that weakness.

Blu-Ray load times is awful and very noticeable on a PS3.

-------

Is anyone else noticing that you can no longer scroll through a complete list of HD movies on Apple TV.

And if you select a category, such as Comedy, you can only see through the D's.

Or am I the only one that this is happening too.

I noticed this a few weeks ago and thought that 3.0 would fix it....

 

[tuhoops]

The problem is that PS3 is branded as a game system, so a non-gamer will not look at it (although the new ad campaign is highlighting non-game features).

As a game system, people automatically expect it to either sink or swim (and right now being in a distant third place (behind the Wii and the XBox) the PS3 is sinking along with Blu-ray). So what is the known trend in the video game market when a system bombs, you pull the plug and go back to the drawing board. If the PS3 does not overtake either the Wii or the Xbox and becomes the number 2 game system, it's days will be numbered.

The PS3 highlights the greatest flaw of the Blu-Ray technology, it's slow speed. I've heard many gamers state that they prefer buying a XBox version of game over PS3, due to that weakness.

Blu-Ray load times is awful and very noticeable on a PS3.

Very good points again. Sony is trying to market to both the male and female demographic - and older (25 - 49) to add to the "gamer" demo of males 18 - 25 with its "it only does everything" campaign. I see the potential with Apple TV and the like, but most solutions are missing something. Directv offers and "on demand" beta - but it's horribly slow. Other cable companies have the same issues. It requires something pretty compelling to convince a consumer add another box to their living room av setup (Cable/sat box, dvd/blu-ray player, sound system, gaming system, etc.)...right now if I had a unit that could combine these functions, well, now you have something.

 

[mmaxton]

iTunes Playlist Problem?

I found an annoying "feature" in the new iTunes -- Apple removed the ability to sync smart playlists that reference other playlists. So if you were using it, as I was, to make a smart playlist that included all music except music I didn't want synced, that playlist is no longer valid. Of course, this isn't documented anywhere, and Apple doesn't like unnecessary prompts, so the new iTunes just blanked my 160 GB ipod.

So now, I need to create a process that automatically turns my smart playlist into a regular playlist once a day or so. Not a huge issue (I'm more annoyed about my ipod being completely erased without being asked), but still an annoyance. I wonder if this bug was part of the palm pre fight, or just someone playing around with the code at apple and thinking "People don't need to sync playlists the reference other playlists"

I had no problems with my iTunes smart playlists that reference other smart playlists. They are all still intact within iTunes, and synced fine with my Apple TV & iPhone. Don't know what happened to you, but thought you might want to know this is not universal.

 

[Goona]

Can the Apple TV see movies on an NAS and play them?

 

[cmendill]

First impression warn off

Ok, after about 30 min playing with 3.0 everyone should realize that there is nothing new here, and what is new is just a tease. For example, wow, it sure is nice to see my unwatched movies up on the top bar, I wish i could see more that FOUR of them. Oh, and for music -- why on earth is it useful to see 3 of my albums on the top row? I want to go back to 1.0, when it was about my content not the iTunes store. ATV is becoming a big commercial for iTunes. I don't want to spend money every time I sit down to watch TV.

I'm fine with being able to purchase content over ATV, but why is the focus so skewed towards buying new content instead of enjoying content you already own? This is supposed to be a media center first, not a marketplace.

In iTunes you have to select a different section on the left panel to see the store, otherwise it stays out of your way. On ATV it is constantly in my face.

 

[MorphingDragon]

The problem is that PS3 is branded as a game system, so a non-gamer will not look at it (although the new ad campaign is highlighting non-game features).

As a game system, people automatically expect it to either sink or swim (and right now being in a distant third place (behind the Wii and the XBox) the PS3 is sinking along with Blu-ray). So what is the known trend in the video game market when a system bombs, you pull the plug and go back to the drawing board. If the PS3 does not overtake either the Wii or the Xbox and becomes the number 2 game system, it's days will be numbered.

You mean like how the GameCube's or the N64's days were numbered? The only thing to fail as badly as people seem to suggest the PS3 is doing is the Sega Dreamcast. Which had like 20 games or something.

PS3 sales are actually above the 360 at the moment.
http://vgchartz.com/hwcomps.php?con...All&cons3=X360&reg3=All&start=40090&end=40111

The PS3 highlights the greatest flaw of the Blu-Ray technology, it's slow speed. I've heard many gamers state that they prefer buying a XBox version of game over PS3, due to that weakness.

Blu-Ray load times is awful and very noticeable on a PS3.

A, BluRay is being adopted faster than what DVD was.
http://tech.blorge.com/Structure: /2009/01/03/blu-ray-being-adopted-faster-than-dvd/
http://www.google.com/search?client...ing+adopted+faster+than+DVD&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
B, The loading time issue is a programming thing. R&C and Uncharted loads bloody fast. While Bionic Commando loads every few seconds.
C, 2x CD != 2x DVD != 2x BD.

 

[fpnc]

i don't understand all these people who argue against better hardware... i.e 720 is good enough, the processor does just fine, etc,

go look at anything else in the apple line that was released three years ago - laptop, desktop, original iphone, ipods, etc... now say that your upset that they were all updated with something newer, better, faster, etc.

Of course better hardware is to be expected with the apple TV

I don't think people are arguing against hardware upgrades per se, it's just that as you begin to add all of these requested hardware features the price is going to increase and we're not certain that this would be good for the majority of users. Most people will have no way to get 1080p content into their Apple TV and the storage and streaming requirements are pretty huge for moderately compressed 1080p video. This means that you'll either need a very large hard drive in the Apple TV or a directly connected (probably over wired ethernet) media server to hold any significant amount of full-resolution HD content. Moreover, today's internet isn't ready for high-quality 1080p streaming as a daily thing.

Also, Apple can't invest in a radically redesigned Apple TV with high-end features when the content providers could decide at almost any moment to end iTunes HD rentals and purchases. In fact, I'd say that this is probably the biggest obstacle to having support for higher resolution content on the Apple TV (the content providers don't want to do it).

However, there are a couple of things I would like to add to the Apple TV feature set. First, they should be able to support 30fps 720p content with only a minor upgrade to the existing hardware (it might even be possible to do this with only a software update).

Next, I would really like support to be added for streaming content from a hard drive attached to an Airport Extreme (or from a Time Capsule, etc.). What I mean is that I don't want to leave iTunes running on my Mac in order to stream content from a networked hard drive. Another option would be to enable the USB port on the Apple TV to work with external storage (for the life of me I don't understand why this latter hasn't already been done).

Beyond this, I'd like a little more performance in the GUI and general improvements in stability. Better performance might need new hardware, but I suspect a lot could be done in just software tweaks.

Then we have the possibility of limited support for the iTunes App Store. I use to think that this would be the "killer" feature for the Apple TV but now I'm thinking that it would be pretty complex and difficult to achieve and I'm not certain that Apple wants to make any more "waves" in the current iPhone/iPod ecosystem (i.e. the monetary return would not be worth the investment). Now, an Apple tablet would be a different matter, so I do see the App Store expanding on that type of device.