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Apple Researching Digital Video Recorder (DVR) Possibilies
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The only way that I can see this having mass market appeal is ifpartners with Dish or DirectTV. Local station content would be too difficult to manage otherwise IMHO, and off-air HD reception is not a viable option for a vast portion of the population.
You do know that only 58.4% of all American homes have cable, right?
You do know that if you have DirectTV, you get local channels in HD by putting an over-the-air antenna on your roof, right?
You do know that Apple could include a cable card slot or slots to eliminate the need for a cable company box, and that cable companies are required to provide cable cards to consumers by law, right? Then you get the same exact channels you get today with cable (minus on demand stuff).
I must say i sort of like this idea....going all out..imagine an AppleTC with DVR funcionality...including a cable card perhaps. Very little downside outside of the movie rental options...do you rent from Apple...or On-demand. actually...does satellite have a cable card type device? OUtside of those two possible issues...this would be a kick @$$ device long as it has the accompanying specs. Like full 1080p output..sure nothing's being broadcast in 1080p yet. However that lovely little feature pop in a DVD and copy it to iTunes...be nice to pop in a Bluray DVD and copy it into itunes. Oh the possibilities....
I'm afraid the statistics don't agree with you. According to redherring.com and other statistics that I found,
"At the end of 2007, there were 67.9 million U.S. cable TV households, or about 67 percent of the pay-TV market."
That would mean that the pay-tv market (cable, satellite, etc). is about 101 million households. Nielson says that their will be 112.8 million total tv households in the US by Jan 1, 2008. Therefore, about 101/112.8 = 89% of US tv households have pay tv of some kind, and over 60% of US tv households have cable.
EDIT: Sorry, ignore my post. Apparently you edited after I read it and before I posted, or else I misread it from the start. Sorry!
WOW talk about symantics!!! 58.4%, 60% Your right, the numbers aren't the same.
Now we're gonna defend websites that post statistics on which statistic website is right and which one is not. Man, talk about having nothing to do.
No, the original post said "most US households do not have cable" or something to that effect (at least I think it did). That is what I was refuting.WOW talk about symantics!!! 58.4%, 60% Your right, the numbers aren't the same.
Now we're gonna defend websites that post statistics on which statistic website is right and which one is not. Man, talk about having nothing to do.
This obviously wouldn't work. I mean, look how unhappy the people in the patent drawing are.
LOL!!!
For the foreseeable future, the media companies get their money from "premieres" or "new episodes" of various shows, as well as for the in-theater movies. Yes, there are residuals, and some ongoing income, but the studios look to the initial showing of a particular show/movie to make their money back.
Who would have been watching "The Sopranos" if it was only available via a download? The promotional engine and "watercooler talk" is what turned me onto the show, and I couldn't wait for the next episode to air. Hard to imagine that show would have made even half of the money it did if it was only availble "on demand".
Believe me, I understand this. "Live" TV will still exist as what is being premiered at that moment (afterall there has to be a first time that anything is added to the content available), but mark my words: this artificial harsh divide between the two is going to fall away. Already you have Family Guy episodes available on Hulu the day after they're aired. Just imagine a system that makes them available the moment after they're done first "airing." Premieres would, in fact, become more important than ever before if all non-premiering content is constantly available. The idea that you have to manually record the content locally in order to access it later, however, is -- pardon the phrase -- so 20th century.
WOW talk about symantics!!! 58.4%, 60% Your right, the numbers aren't the same.
Now we're gonna defend websites that post statistics on which statistic website is right and which one is not. Man, talk about having nothing to do.
You are correct in that it did say that originally.
I find it difficult to to believe that many people have satellite and I can find no stats to either prove or refute your claim. Also I'd bet there a good number of people that have both. Do you really think 30% of the country has DirectTV or Dish?
But with digitial TV streams, it's more like you're downloading than re-encoding or recording in the analogue sense, just set at real-time. I actually think one of the great things about DVRs is that they are separate from the internet right now - unless I miss something I wanted to see and there's no repeat, I don't actually want to tie up my moderately slow and bandwidth capped internet connection downloading GBs of video when I can capture perfectly good streams down my TV aerial thanks.
I'm sure video on the internet is the future, and for the lucky ones with really fast net connections it is the present. And maybe when the UK has a reasonable internet infrastructure I'd see your point.
But for now, Blu-rays and DVRs rule over downloading movies and TV for me, and will for some time I think. And of course EVERYTHING is stop-gap measure in a way. The VCR until the DVR, the DVR until the downloadable content, the downloadable content until whatever replaces that....And your point is? Besides, those that don't have some sort of pay service are probably not going to pony up for an Apple DVR anyway.
That is true in major metro areas however, there are many areas that can't get an HD signal. I for one live in Scottsdale AZ, and can't receive OTA HD due to a large mountain range that is between my house and the TX only 40 miles away.
I'll give you this one.
However, that does no good for those of us that do not have cable even as remote future possibility. Sat is available throughout NA, and Apple would only need to have a partnership with one or two nationwide companies, vs. multiple regional cable vendors.The only way that I can see this having mass market appeal is if
I hope Apple dont take this approach as this would prohibit international rollout.
According to the stats I quoted then yes, about 30% have some sort of pay service that is not cable. I know quite a few people that have satellite (me included). Unfortunately there isn't any viable cable company in my area IMHO (Cox doesn't count). I'm between Austin and Round Rock, both of which have Time Warner, and I can't get it.
Maybe Apple final realized that people want the ability to DVR programs they are ALREADY paying for?
Maybe Apple realized that AppleTV isn't selling well because it's missing DVR functionality.
Maybe Apple realized that the AppleTV is a few years ahead of it's game for Jon-Q public, so they might add DVR functionality until the bandwidth catches up down the road.
This is the device Apple should have come out with in the first place.
In theory, I'd buy one. But, as I don't watch TV and don't subscribe to more than $13 worth of channels, there's really no point.
In theory, I'd buy one. But, as I don't watch TV and don't subscribe to more than $13 worth of channels, there's really no point.
I would find it hard for any of this to catch on. Unless, like Oilbrnr said, they partner up with someone.
Tivo, which is to DVR as Kleenex is to tissue, only has 30-40% market share, which is down from previous years. They are being outmaneuvered by cable companies creating their own all-in-one DVR/set top boxes. A DVR capable Apple TV would likely share the same fate. Why have two boxes when you can have one?
Tivo, which is to DVR as Kleenex is to tissue, only has 30-40% market share, which is down from previous years. They are being outmaneuvered by cable companies creating their own all-in-one DVR/set top boxes. A DVR capable Apple TV would likely share the same fate. Why have two boxes when you can have one?
could apple sell an appleTV with a cable card slot, like some tvs have? I know there are probs with isp's failing to provide cards in a timely fashion, but would that be a partial (or maybe big? ) solution?
I have tivo and its my only box. My cable runs directly into my tivo. One box and its freakin' fantastic. If Apple did this, I'd sign up in a second.
Apple's had the groundwork for DVR software years with AVCVideoCap in the FireWire Developer Kit. They're probably just waiting until video filesharing/torrents become as ubiquitous as MP3s were so they can again step into the role of supposed savior of the entertainment industry. The iTunes Store succeeded because it made buying legal music downloads easier that stealing them and no more expensive than buying physical media. Television downloads are failing on iTunes because the prices are too high for something the customers are accustomed to legally getting for free and it requires additional hardware to get the content to the living room.
Apple won't make a DVR until it gets to the point the studios are grateful just to have some control over (and make money from) how the content gets to the customers. I see two ways that can work with a PVR: either the software makes it extremely difficult to skip the commercials, or the customers pay a subscription for the privilege or having them removed (with the studios getting a big cut). The latter option might have some potential of working with reasonable subscription pricing. The former option is un-Applelike, but so is DRM. It would force Apple to make a show of disabling GPL comskip software just as they've been doing by blocking DRM-stripping solutions.
The best solution might to combine the two models. They could keep the commercials by default, but charge a nominal per-use fee to skip them either automatically or manually. I'd be willing to pay up to 25 cents per commercial break skipped, at least until studios try to screw us by having more shorter commercial breaks more often.
Of course, with better studio cooperation this using a hardware tuner would be completely unnecessary, and could just be implemented as a new pricing scheme on iTunes, accessible via existing Apple hardware.
Apple won't make a DVR until it gets to the point the studios are grateful just to have some control over (and make money from) how the content gets to the customers. I see two ways that can work with a PVR: either the software makes it extremely difficult to skip the commercials, or the customers pay a subscription for the privilege or having them removed (with the studios getting a big cut). The latter option might have some potential of working with reasonable subscription pricing. The former option is un-Applelike, but so is DRM. It would force Apple to make a show of disabling GPL comskip software just as they've been doing by blocking DRM-stripping solutions.
The best solution might to combine the two models. They could keep the commercials by default, but charge a nominal per-use fee to skip them either automatically or manually. I'd be willing to pay up to 25 cents per commercial break skipped, at least until studios try to screw us by having more shorter commercial breaks more often.
Of course, with better studio cooperation this using a hardware tuner would be completely unnecessary, and could just be implemented as a new pricing scheme on iTunes, accessible via existing Apple hardware.
Me too. Sounds like there would be a lot of hoops to jump thru, but I'd totally buy this device.