Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Wirelessly posted (iPhone: 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)

This is good news. I don't purchase many tv shows but it is nice to have the option if I miss one that I really wanted to see.
 
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.
As far as I know, the AppleTV doesn't have Bluetooth, so how would this interface work?
 
Apple TV

it just seems like a waste of money when there seems to be so many other ways to get a movie on your tv.

I don't get why people don't get Apple TV, and it does mostly seem to be people that have never used it.

Yes there are lots of ways to get movies to your TV , but I am sick of having to convert, upload, rip.

With Apple TV it's so so simple ... come home , decide you want to watch a movie or TV show ... goto Apple TV, click on the show you want, 30 seconds later your watching it.

No spending hours ripping and converting, no going to the video store

Whats not to like
 
Resolution

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.

Apple have changed something in their compressing, they must have .. when I first tried to watch a TV show (not HD) when Apple TV first came out it was great on my 42" LCD TV BUT on my 7ft Projector screen it was not all that watchable.

Last night we watched a couple of TV episode's on Apple TV on the 7ft Projector screen it was fantastic ... looked DVD quality

Cant wait to watch some of the 720 HD stuff
 
Here is hoping both NBC content comes back and it comes back in HD (where appropriate). I watch precious little network programming, but of what I do, the majority is on NBC and in HD so having it available down the road via the iTunes Store would be nice and something I would definitely patronize. :cool:
 
That was fast. I knew they would come back but I didn't expect it to be so quick. I think they figured out what we all knew: that this was a moronic move.

When Universal/NBC split from iTunes, Apple issued fairly non-accusatory statements about it, but NBC issued all kinds of public comments making ridiculous accusations about Apple. It was easy to see who the troublemaker was. One of NBC's most puzzling accusations was that they didn't want people pirating their content from iTunes (???) and viewing it for free... which they remedied by, of course, giving it away for free. :rolleyes:

I've said it before and I'll say it again. The old media companies will be brought into the 21st century kicking and screaming like angry little kids. It's sad it has to work that way, but whatever gets us there.
 
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.
The idea of using the iPhone as a "universal" remote for a Mac/AppleTV isn't new. In fact, I came up with this idea (not sure if I ripped someone off or not) about 6 months ago. I posted this over at AVSForums and one of the members there (wildrock) who I think is a programmer/developer felt that it was possible (and perhaps rather easy) to make an application that could serve as a keyboard/trackpad/universal remote for a Mac mini.

The only problem was that Apple wasn't releasing an SDK for the iPhone. But maybe he'll be working on something when the SDK comes out.
 
Like I said all along, bringing Andrea onboard was a good thing; and it puts NBC/Universal in Steve Jobs's back pocket.

Not necessarily in Job's back pocket, but she might just be motivated to ask on a board meeting at GE: "I noticed that we cancelled this contract with Apple a while ago. Could someone provide me with a list of all good reasons for doing this, and give me the amount of additional profit we made?", and then encourage appropriate action when she receives a sheet of paper that is blank except one large red number.
 
Ha...asses.
"Why aren't we selling any shows? Oh...maybe people DO want to watch video on their iPod...who knew?!"
:rolleyes:
No... the loss of iTunes is literally LEAVING MONEY ON THE TABLE. No more, no less. NBC is making good money, and reality shows are doing "fine" apparently. But, I'm surprised they'd just opt out of 15 million dollars of revenue. I don't watch Hulu. I could, but I don't make a habit of it. I HATE NBC.com with a passion (not like ABC.com at all). With iTunes, there were some shows I bought regularly... BECAUSE it was on iTunes. Battlestar Galactica. I know a friend who discovered 30 Rock on iTunes. I've generally stopped watching NBC entirely. Heroes has become lame. I think they're now in a huff over the whole strike thing, so its all a moot point. At the end of the day, its like they're just throwing money away that will NEVER be able to be remade. They're getting very little but consumer resentment in return for it. I think most of that potential revenue didn't find another avenue... it simply shriveled and died.

~ CB
 
The idea of using the iPhone as a "universal" remote for a Mac/AppleTV isn't new. In fact, I came up with this idea (not sure if I ripped someone off or not) about 6 months ago. I posted this over at AVSForums and one of the members there (wildrock) who I think is a programmer/developer felt that it was possible (and perhaps rather easy) to make an application that could serve as a keyboard/trackpad/universal remote for a Mac mini.

The only problem was that Apple wasn't releasing an SDK for the iPhone. But maybe he'll be working on something when the SDK comes out.

Actually I thought of it a couple days after Macworld 2007 so....
 
I had been buying some NBC shows, but since they pulled them I've grown accustomed to watching them for free on nbc.com, there's a couple of ads during each episode, but they're available faster than they were from iTunes.

I tried watching an episode of "Life" I missed on nbc.com. Of course, with my slow DSL line, I could get the ad, but the show never seemed to "stream" properly. The ads always seem to run fine (ain't that a coincidence).

I just gave up... wait for the DVD's (or re-runs)...

At least on iTunes, I can download it and walk away for a while, then watch it on my :apple:TV instead of my small 14" iBook screen.

I guess the whole "just watch it for free online" "thing" wasn't working of a lot of other people either...
 
I hope NBC makes up with Apple. The more studios the better - especially if they agree to do things Apple's way. I'm not so naive as to think that Apple isn't in the game for profit too, but as a consumer I'd much rather my fate be in Apple's hands than the studios'.

I agree, Apple seem to be the only one that came up with a real solution that everyone else tries to copy.
 
I understand NBC's point of view of pricing power, but Apple is correct. One price and cheap enough not to hassle with Torrents is the only way this works.

I would like to buy my favorite NBC shows, but won't do so until they are back on iTunes. 30 Rock, Heroes, My Name is Earl, etc. I'll get all of the season passes as soon as they come back.

Once this is complete, we just need the major music labels to give us our DRM free music at a good bit rate. I am ready to give them more of my money to upgrade my current library to iTunes+, but they don't want to take it.
 
... all the old SD TVs will be obsolete in a year, and I think ATV will do well.
SDTV will not be going away. It is only analog broadcasts that are going away. Anybody getting service from cable, satellite or fiber is unaffected by the 2/09 shutdown. And there are SDTV sets with digital tuners (I have one). They downsample the ED/HD programming to SD resolutions and display that. The result looks surprisingly good (at least on my SDTV's 15" screen.)
Do you think Apple will have any effect on the physical media war?
I doubt it. A lot of people (myself, included) like buying DVDs, and will start buying HD discs, once the format war is settled.

I don't like the idea of purchased movie downloads in general. Even if the image quality matches what you get on a purchased disc, and even if the full set of bonus materials are included (which is not the case, so far), I don't like the idea of needing to buy large quantities of hard drives to keep all my purchases. I don't like the idea of storage media that will break if dropped on the floor. I don't like having to bring a hard drive (or computer, or set-top box) to other people's homes in order to show a movie over there.

I actually have less of a problem with rentals. Since those will be seen once, and then be deleted, none of the above problems are a real concern.
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.
Not all component video inputs are HD-capable. If yours are not, the Apple TV may not work with your set.

If the inputs are HD capable, the TV will be able to recognize a 720p or 1080i signal. Since those signals are only specified for widescreen, a good TV should automatically letterbox any image using an HD signal.
Once this is complete, we just need the major music labels to give us our DRM free music at a good bit rate. I am ready to give them more of my money to upgrade my current library to iTunes+, but they don't want to take it.
This is just a matter of time. The labels will come around eventually, especially when they see that the Amazon deal isn't affecting piracy or CD sales in any significant way.

For now, I still get most of my music on CD. Thanks to discount stores, clearinghouses and used-music stores, I don't pay much more than the download price (assuming I like most of what's on the CD).

For those bands where the CDs don't have many good tracks, I'll stick with the iTunes DRM. They play fine on my iPod and I can still burn CDs if I really want to.
 
I don't get why people don't get Apple TV, and it does mostly seem to be people that have never used it.

Yes there are lots of ways to get movies to your TV , but I am sick of having to convert, upload, rip.

With Apple TV it's so so simple ... come home , decide you want to watch a movie or TV show ... goto Apple TV, click on the show you want, 30 seconds later your watching it.

No spending hours ripping and converting, no going to the video store

Whats not to like

I have my Powerpc hooked up to my tv. I'll just play my movies that way. No need waste money on a third product.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.