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Apple, NBC Universal Repairing Relations?

kaisdaddy said:
I just grabbed the free download for last week (I think), which was the pilot episode of Terminator, the series, from Fox. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was in 720P HD format.

Hopefully when they get things ironed out, I'll be able to get the entire season 2 of Heroes in HD, including the episodes that have aired so far. That would be some sweet action. :D
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hold on, are you sure it's 720p? I downloaded this at the standard resolution (640x?), and I'm sure they would've made a big deal if they started doing HD downloads...
 
What's the real story?

I think NBC lost some cash on this. They offer the episodes for free on their website, but you have to watch advertisements.

If they do not get the volume of users watching then they are certainly not going to get any money for the advertisements.

I also noticed during the CES keynote by Microsoft that NBC was brought up a lot. I can't help but think that there are things going on behind the scenes where MS wants to keep NBC from the iTunes platform.

I think a move by NBC back to iTunes is a huge thing and am really happy. Both as a consumer and as an investor.
 
I really hope that we do not see the pricing structure for TV shows that NBC wants.

In a world of DVR's and reruns, why would someone pay more than $1.99 for a TV Show? I really think $1.99 is a bit too much already personally.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A93 Safari/419.3)

I have an old 32" tube tv , will Apple tv work on it?
 
ccunning said:
I agree. The Apple TV doesn't make much sense in conjunction with Cable/Satellite/Tivo, but I do think it starts making a lot more sense if you consider it as a replacement for those components instead of as a companion to them.
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I think the same, and I am hoping this will turn out to be the case. Although even though I am waiting for the content to get to that level so I *can* do that, I live in Canada so it might be a long wait.

In our area, like many, a single cable company has had a monopoly on all cable for twenty years or more. Because of that, the prices are outrageous, the content crap, and the "choice" non-existent (F*ck Shaw cable ;) ). We subsist therefore on free broadcast TV and buying huge amounts of DVD's for our entertainment and refuse to knuckle under to the cable company.

Interestingly, Shaw cable actually *targets* households like us and compared to our neighbors, we get a veritable avalanche of advertising pamphlets, promotions, phone-calls etc. desperately trying to entice us into the Shaw cable "family." When someone in the neghborhood gets a call from Shaw, they come over and knock on our door to ask us one more time if we might like to join.

It's humorous, but really quite creepy, like some kind of futuristic TV cult.

In any case, like Steve J. suggests, there is nothing we would like better than to leapfrog over cable/satellite TV and go straight to broadband delivery through Apple TV. The problem is the content isn't there yet, and the content suppliers are all fractured.

As much as I don't believe in monopolies, what internet based media really needs right now is one single place (iTunes) that is world-wide and includes all or almost all of the mainstream media. If this is what Apple TV is aiming at (and it seems likely that it is), then it's *precisely* what a great deal of people want and could easily make your local cable company obsolete.

At the very least it might encourage them to offer reasonable pricing and something called "choice" to their subscribers. ;)
 
Rant Alert:

“Fortunately,” he half-joked, “there was a writers’ strike, so it didn’t matter as much as it might have
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Not really because the writers they had sucked in the first place. It's sad when Home Improvement is STILL funnier than the "comedy" out now. Oh and the drama shows ... snore. The writing may be good but the plots well, in the end, most suck. This mentality that each show has to out do the others is retarted. "How many plot twists can we add!?"
 
pdjudd said:
No that is not true, Several articles have pointed out that a widescreen TV is not required.
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I was going to say that I have Component In's on my tube TV so it'll work for sure. AppleTV has no clue what's hooked up to that because there's no digital signal telling it what the TV aspect ratio is.
 
KindredMAC said:
In a world of DVR's and reruns, why would someone pay more than $1.99 for a TV Show? I really think $1.99 is a bit too much already personally.
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In a world of re-runs and writers strikes, where reality TV rules, why would someone pay their cable provider $60-100+ a month ($720-$1200 a year)?

For the level of TV I watch my money goes much farther with:
$35-$40/show/season
$10/month/show (Colbert Report/A Daily Show)
 
bluefido said:
I still don't think there is a large enough market for Apple TV. Your reasoning definitely makes sense, but I don't there there are enough people that think the way you do and are willing to dish out $299 for it. If Tivo functionality were added, I would consider it. Otherwise, it just seems like a waste of money when there seems to be so many other ways to get a movie on your tv.
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I think a lot of people have been turned off by cable/satellite TV for a long time. They just haven't had any real alternative. I know I am in that position exactly.

Also there are a lot of people now (again like me) that realise that the majority of the "shows" they watch and the sources for their information and entertainment are on the internet, not on the cable TV.

I am thinking that cable TV will eventually become for Coneheads only (the people that like to "consume mass quantities" of drivel.) Those that like to pick and choose the media they consume, which is arguably an expanding market segment, will go for the internet and for AppleTV.

These trends have been in place and commented upon for years now, the only question really is ... is *now* the moment when the shift really begins?

Feels right to me. :)
 
kresh said:
It's not 720P HD. It's 640x360, I checked just to make sure. It still looks pretty good, IMHO, on my Apple TV with a 46" LCD TV.

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Hah, that's not even DVD resolution... that sucks. 640px wide can't look very good on a 46" TV unless you stand like a block away.
 
is anyone else a hulu user?

They used to have the office season 4 in its entirety and now the episodes have been disappearing with expiration notices. After today the only office episodes online are going to be Money from Season 4 and another from Season 3.

edit: the same thing is happening with 30 rock they used to have all of season 2 and its down to 3 episodes.
 
TheSpaz said:
Hah, that's not even DVD resolution... that sucks. 640px wide can't look very good on a 46" TV unless you stand like a block away.
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While everyone has different standards, you might be surprised at how good these iTMS TV Shows look on a large TV. I have a Sharp 46" 1080p TV and have watched a few shows from the Macbook. While not as good as HD shows, it's very comparable to DVDs.

Keep in mind, that others may have differing opinions and different gear. For prosterity, I have a Macbook CoreDuo 2Ghz using DVI to HDMI connections at 1080p. My DVD player is older, but it was a decent one when I bought it. It's connected via component cables set to 480p (with the TV upconverting to 1080p).
 
TheSpaz said:
Hah, that's not even DVD resolution... that sucks. 640px wide can't look very good on a 46" TV unless you stand like a block away.
Click to expand...

It doesn't look bad on my 47" viewed from about 5-7'. It's not HD to be sure, but it is wide screen which is better than most SD content. Far worse than the picture quality was the content quality.
 
Object-X said:
Backing it up to a Time Capsule and wireless keyboard support should be added.
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I have this desire to control the :apple:TV with the iPhone. With the iPhone's touch screen, virtual keyboard when needed, completely programmable GUI, and bluetooth and WiFi, I think it would make a great universal remote.
 
TheSpaz said:
Hah, that's not even DVD resolution... that sucks. 640px wide can't look very good on a 46" TV unless you stand like a block away.
Click to expand...

That's just not true. I've had a lot of friends over and we've watched this pilot on my 46" LCD and everyone loved the image quality. It most definitely does not suck.

I took some pictures sitting 6' from the panel, admittedly I'm not a photographer. But according to comments the image should be so pixelated as to make it unfit for viewing.


Click on image for full size //or//
Original image may be viewed at: http://tinyurl.com/2zn7xy


Click on image for full size //or//
Original image may be viewed at: http://tinyurl.com/2akvnt
 
Random Ping said:
I have this desire to control the :apple:TV with the iPhone. With the iPhone's touch screen, virtual keyboard when needed, completely programmable GUI, and bluetooth and WiFi, I think it would make a great universal remote.
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ooooooooooooohhhh......
You just got me excited....... and that takes a lot!

That would be AWESOME if you could launch an app on the iPhone that resembled some of those touch screen LCD universal remotes that you always see on MTV CRIBS or DIY's "Tech out your _____room" type shows.

Hell, we do have BT in our iPhone's so why not right?

Apple are you reading these forums???????

Random Ping, do not ask for royalties... we really need this type of feature in our hands in 6 months.
 
MisterMe said:
English translation of NBC Universal's statement:

Uncle.
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Maybe, maybe not.

I could be mistaken, but it seems I remember that in order to get the iTunes Movie Rental deal, which includes Universal I believe, Apple had to allow for some flexibility in pricing.

They could end up doing the same with TV content, which is what NBC has said they wanted all along.

Wouldn't bother me either way, I just want the content to be there.
 
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