Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
I noticed this item on MacNN/Electronista:

Electronista said:
Analyst: Apple DVR by gen 3, Blu-ray soon
Apple may incorporate the technology from its digital video recording patent filing into the Apple TV as early as the media hub's third generation, according to a new investment note by Shaw Wu of American Technology Research. The analyst believes that the live capture functionality and iPhone/iPod remote control functionality could be used either in the third or fourth generation of the product to turn the device into a "real business" as opposed to the "hobby" it has represented for the California firm so far.

Importantly, the addition could provide a significant gain for relatively little cost. "We believe adding the ability to watch and record live TV could turn this into a billion dollar, if not multi-billion dollar business," Wu says. "We estimate that the cost of hardware components is not that expensive or at about $12-15 in incremental cost."
So this guy thinks that apple may bring out this DVR soon... I hope he's right!
 
The only way that I can see this having mass market appeal is if :apple: partners 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.

Local station content isn't that difficult at all to handle. Just partner with Tribune Media Services, as Tivo, Dish, and Directv all do already. They have the database, you tell it the zip code and source (OTA, cable, etc.), and it gets the guide data.

Of course, using the iPhone as an example, they will probably partner with someone (AT&T seems obvious), and market this thing just to that group.

Then again, AT&T only has a couple hundred-thousand UVerse customers, so they might not be the best partner at this time.
 
Local station content isn't that difficult at all to handle. Just partner with Tribune Media Services, as Tivo, Dish, and Directv all do already. They have the database, you tell it the zip code and source (OTA, cable, etc.), and it gets the guide data.

Of course, using the iPhone as an example, they will probably partner with someone (AT&T seems obvious), and market this thing just to that group.

Then again, AT&T only has a couple hundred-thousand UVerse customers, so they might not be the best partner at this time.

Getting the guide is a no-brainer, getting an off the air HD signal is another thing in rural areas...
 
I'm already doing something similar

I have Comcast Business class for $80 ( comes with 'complementary cable' )

I use my computer with free GB-PVR to schedule, capture, remove commercials and then encode H.264 episodes of whole seasons. It does it automagically.

I drag them into iTunes and synch them with my iPod and iPhone.

Each TV in my house has a docking station and an iPod remote...
 
It makes sense for Apple to look into offering such functionality and patenting relevant functionality. However, I expect this is not a product Apple is serious about releasing at this time.

As others have noted, it flies in the face of the iTunes store. And allowing users to DVR content directly "off-air" makes it harder for Apple to try and get that content into the iTunes store, to say nothing of getting folks to pay for it. Especially once some enterprising hacker figures out how to move the content off the DVR and onto your Mac.

However, the iTunes store is evidently not raking in the monies for all of the studios who are members. Disney made only $120 million or so from offering sales and rentals of their content through the iTunes store per a recent Engadget article. So the studios may feel that the ability to make it easier for viewers to time-shift their content digitally is the better option since they can charge more for the cable and satellite providers that carry it, who will recover those costs through advertisements. In such a case, Apple would likely want to leverage DVR functionality with :apple:tv.
 
The thing that's really ticking/pissing/setting me off is NOT the fact that Macs don't have Blu-Ray drives or playback support, but the fact that Apple has implemented a store now with "quasi-HD resolution" videos available...which you CANNOT play on your Mac. To get an iTunes store HD movie and play it, you have to have an AppleTV and a High Definition Television. My Mac Pro is more equipped to play HD, even able to play higher resolution movies, and has much more HD space, yet Apple has implemented a system that requires you to use their little white box system if you even want to be able to access their HD content.

I know you can regular definition movies fine already, but I want to be able to enjoy fullscreen HD on my 30" Cinema Display, and I haven't found a way to do it.

Sucks. pissing me off - majorly
 
yet Apple has implemented a system that requires you to use their little white box system

Welcome to the world of Apple. I love my Macbook Pro, but I think Apple makes some bad decisions when it comes to customer loyalty. Take the Airport Extreme for instance. It does not officially support backing up with Time Machine when a USB drive it plugged in. The Time Capsule on the other hand does support this, even though the device is basically the same minus the hard drive.
 
Welcome to the world of Apple. I love my Macbook Pro, but I think Apple makes some bad decisions when it comes to customer loyalty. Take the Airport Extreme for instance. It does not officially support backing up with Time Machine when a USB drive it plugged in. The Time Capsule on the other hand does support this, even though the device is basically the same minus the hard drive.

Yeah, I don't use Time Machine, but I still think the Airport Extreme is a great product -- I own one. I hook it to my 8-port gigabit switch, to provide wireless network access so I can use my MacBook Pro, MacBook, and iPhone throughout the house. You can access any other shared drives through File Sharing and transfer/backup files manually though this. Also, you can access a USB drive connected to the Extreme station as a network drive...this was the original purpose, and it works fine, as was the purpose of this feature when the Extreme was introduced (as I might say, Pre-Leopard/Time Machine...thus lack of support for this feature on the Extreme). Still, It's a very solid wireless router, speedy, and dependable. I still like to hook my desktops hardwired Cat6 to my 8-port switch...as well as my cable modem. Thus the cable modem is accessible from all Wired and Wireless macs in my house..

But I know your frustration...it seems like an easy software issue to support Time Machine USB drive backup from the extreme. But Apple does want to sell you that Time Capsule. Remember that.
 
I have experience with two different DRVs:

- A several year old DirecTV integrated TiVo. Hughes HDVR2. It works well, does what I need it to do, and is easy to use. I like it. But it's standard def only.

- A two month trial of AT&T's Uverse. The DVR is a Micorost IPTV client on Motorola hardware. It was limited only by what could be sent over the IP connection - one HD stream, and up to four SD steams. HD support was the only good thing about it. What a horrible piece of absolute crap otherwise. Hit a button to navigate through the guide, and wait anywhere from one to five seconds randomly to get a response. Random reboots during recordings and playback. FF and RW operations that sometimes wouldn't work. Hard to read guide, hard to manage series subscriptions. It went back to Uverse and I canceled the service.

- I haven't used it, but talked to a friend who has DirecTV's own HD DVR, and they say it sucks compared to their old TiVo. YMMV.

An Apple produced DVR would be the ideal. AppleTV doesn't do anything for me because of the shows I watch - a lot of them are simply not available on iTunes. Formula One, MotoGP, and lots more racing, Dallas Stars hockey, Good Eats... I can catch Mythbusters and Dirty Jobs, but add up all that I like to watch (assuming it were all available) and I wouldn't be surprised if it comes out to more $ per year than my DirecTV cost.

Anyway, back to an Apple DVR - if they could partner with a provider (DirecTVs new MPEG4 stuff, AT&T's Uverse) I think I'd finally be convinced to give up my TiVo. As it stands, I plan on keeping it until it breaks, then look for a replacement on eBay.
 
Apple would need to charge a monthly fee, just like any other Tivo or DVR.
It seems like a lot of people seem to be overlooking that.
I'd still get one instantly.

I really find most TV annoying with all their over-edited crap to create drama and reality TV so I hardly watch TV anymore except nerdy stuff that is soothing like documentaries and educational things. Therefore I have never had a TiVo or DVR, I don't even have cable or satellite. What is the monthly fee for? Why would Apple have to charge a monthly fee???

Even with what I just said, I do have an Apple TV and I would buy this in a heart beat as well.

Now they should add Safari to this thing as well. The TV and all media devices are really computers and networks now, so on second thought, why don't they just turn the front row app into this and then you could buy a Mac Mini and it would have DVD and BluRay as well. It would be the ONE home media solution. Thoughts anyone?
 
AppleTV could be the new cable

To me, AppleTV as it currently exists looks cool but I just can't get excited enough about it to actually spend money on it and hook up yet another box to my TV. You want me to spend money on a box so I can then spend more money to order PPV movies? I can do that with the cable box from Comcast. And I can stream my music from iTunes on my Mac to the living room stereo with my AirPort Express.
But imagine that the next version of AppleTV does everything that the current iteration does plus it has a dual HDTV tuner in it that decodes ATSC signals from antenna and a QAM tuner for digital cable signals. It would either have a CableCard slot or the new "Tru2Way/OCAP" technology to allow for the decryption of encrypted digital cable signals (which is pretty much all cable channels other than the broadcast networks). It would offer full HD DVR functionality with a beautiful Apple interface using a reliable FREE guide downloaded over the internet. You could record one show while watching another or watch two shows with picture-in-picture. Since it also provides access to movie/TV show downloads and rentals (with HD quality that beats most cable HD PPV/VOD), it would offer all the functionality of a cable box/DVR, plus integration with iTunes and iPhoto on your Mac/PC. It would also have some very slick features that integrate with the iPod and iPhone (although probably only Apple-supplied video, not DVR-recorded shows, could be transferred to an iPod or iPhone).
This could totally replace the cable box and would bring a lot more sales to the AppleTV. Sure, Apple might sell fewer TV shows via iTunes to the average AppleTV owner (since it would be easier to capture shows with DVR functionality), but that would be made up for by the fact that A LOT more people would have an AppleTV. Plus, they would have their AppleTV turned on every time they watched anything on TV. It would be THE portal for everything on the TV (live TV, recorded TV, downloaded content, PPV rental content, music, photos), making it more likely that an AppleTV owner actually USES it to purchase or rent content from Apple. I imagine that most of Apple's current video content business is for movies anyway, not TV shows. Apple's real competition there is the pay-per-view feature that most people already have in their cable box from Comcast/Time Warner/etc. If Apple could get a significant percent of those people to ditch that box in favor of an AppleTV, then they could sell a LOT more movie rentals.
An additional possibility is that Apple partners with TV content providers to offer monthly subscription plans. Perhaps for a certain amount per month you get to stream a certain number of hours of TV shows. Watching the same 30 minute show 4 times in a month would still only count as 30 minutes of your monthly allotment. Apple would let you watch the first 3 minutes of any show for free to see if you like it (and also to provide AppleTV users with a decent substitute for channel surfing, which probably constitutes a fair share of the time that guys spend in front of the tube). In effect, you could create your own cable channel, picking and choosing just the shows you like from various networks. If you're a cable TV subscriber, AppleTV would be smart enough to monitor what you watch each month (without reporting it back to Apple, of course) and, if it turns out that you watch fewer than a certain number of hours of cable TV, it could present a message telling you that you would have saved money by getting your cable TV content via an AppleTV video subscription. For folks (like me) who mainly watch stuff from the free broadcast networks, this would be a great solution. Stick up an antenna to get my locals in HD and cherry pick a few shows here and there from cable without having to pay Comcast $75 a month for DVR functionality and a whole bunch of narrow-interest content (hello, Oxygen) that I never watch, along with a few channels I do watch. Cable viewers have long wanted the ability to get just the stuff they want a la carte. This would give it to us. It's just a matter of getting content providers to play along.
A subscription plan option could also be introduced for movie rentals to better compete with Netflix/Blockbuster Online. Instead of spending $5 per movie, perhaps you spend $20 per month for 3 new/recent releases per month plus unlimited older films, all in 720p HD.
If Apple were to add a DVR to the AppleTV, it could help them grow a sizeable install base, gain major leverage with movie and TV studios, and possibly even replace cable and satellite companies as the next-gen internet-based video distribution system. Just as the iPod and the iTunes Music Store made Apple a major player in music content, the AppleTV and its ability to serve as a portal to paid video content could make Apple a major player in video. The trick is making AppleTV attractive enough to pay $200 to $300 for it in the first place. Making it a DVR with a free lifetime service should do the trick.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.