I don't either, but it's still DARN NICE to just select a movie from my library and start playing it. I don't have to get up and look for the movie (I own over 400 so it's not as simple as you might think to find it quickly). I don't have to wait for it to load up. I don't have to put up with it trying to make me watch movie previews. I don't have to waste my time watching the same FBI warning from the past zillion years OVER and OVER and OVER. It just starts playing my darn movie! To quote, Doctor Who, "FANTASTIC!" In fact, ALL my media is like that now through AppleTV (photos, movies, tv shows, music). Yes, it was a pain to encode all those movies and scan all those photos (let alone clean them up with Photoshop) and CDs, but now that it's done, it's ALL GOOD. The things I can do having my library digital.... I can quickly transfer movies straight onto my iPod Touch or even my MBP or Netbook to watch on the go. I can copy songs over to an MP3 stick to play in my car stereo (up to 16GB of music at the size of my thumb! AWESOME) and I can show even OLD photos on my 93" projector, transfer them to the notebooks or iPod Touch to show people or just send them over the Internet to family and friends.
DVDs? CDs? BLECH!!!!
They've already offered it for some time now. It is called iPod Touch or iPhone running Apple's Remote app.
How could this only cost $99??? The iPhone 3GS costs $179 to manufacture as it is. Removing the LCD and Digitizer would only knock off $36 from that. So that's a $143 manufacturing cost!
TV functions as part of an improvement to AirTunes.
Apple needs to get over itself concerning iTunes. iTunes is ok as a home music server. I use it and have over 16K tracks (57 days) of audio and I like it for that. But when it comes to the online store, why would I pay money for sub-quality audio and video? Why would I do that? Sure it's easy, but is it practical? I wouldn't buy software online that was of lesser quality than a physical copy why audio and video?
The current Airport express is $99.
So what happens to that?
Or is the device really the upgrade to the express to include
The mobo in Express is probably bigger than the one in the iPod Touch anyway.
Plus with iPhoneOS 4 seemingly going to include printer function then it's a pure upgrade. Just add a HDMI port to the express and it's done.
Plus change the remote to bluetooth.
Would fit with the "small device" claims.
In which case will the whole Airport range get a Aluminum and glass make over to match the Macbook/iPhone/IPad look and feel. As well, as upgrades to include AppleTV function.
you are quick to jump to conclusions. did you not read my last post? (on page 14 i think?). my whole point being that the
TV COULD play full 1080p video IF apple designed the device correctly. never once did i state that it currently was possible without modifications from either apple or 3rd party devices. my post gave evidence as to how it could be possible for apple to modify the current system to allow native full 1080p playback on the TV its true though. the blu-ray versions DO look at lot better then apples pathetic 1-2gb versions. of course they do, as a ~30GB file is going to look better then a 1-2GB file. that being said, apple do get their rips from a higher source then the BD movies themselves (probably from originals directly from the vendor) - so they do normally have a lot more colour/vividness.
i like this point. explains nicely why apple hasnt implemented full quality rips - but they should still give the options for people if they want to.
i am one of the 1080p "people". i can notice the differences between compressed video (720p vs 1080p) using my iMacs 2560x1440 screen, and i can also notice the subtle differences in audio (being a drummer has turned me insane). personally i only deal with uncompressed video/audio because i prefer to "future proof".Ultimately, people want their cake and they want it for nothing. I call it the Wal-Mart mentality. They talk BIG about 1080p and how awful 720p is and then they settle for watching heavily compressed YouTube and Hulu because it's free.
There really isn't anywhere you can purchase videos for the WDTV (it's pretty much an open box which means the content providers aren't going to support it). You need to create your own content from DVD rips or pirate the content over BitTorrent. That's why the WDTV is a geek-oriented, niche product, even more so that the Apple TV.
Okay, I looked at those links and frankly they don't seem conclusive (thanks, however, for providing them). In fact, there are a few sections from those links which seem to place some doubt on your claim that the Apple TV's GPU could easily handle H.264 encoded, 1080p video. For example, that second link was from a user who was having problems with 1080p playback until he upgraded his Core 2 Duo PC system to use a multi-threaded player and upped the CPU clock to 2.33GHz (he was still having some problems when the CPU was running at only 1.86GHz). In any case, your links do suggest the following about the GPU in the Apple TV (NVIDIA GeForce 7300 Go):this issue [1080p decode on the Apple TV's GPU] is VERY un-documented formally. but i will try my best to show you
more: this guy states that the 7300 significantly reduces the load on the CPU. this article here backs up those claims (look at the "H.264 1080p Decoding" image) - CPU usage of 80.8% is reduced to 22.1% using the 7300..
