As interesting as the idea might be....
with products like Eyetv 500 available already and 200 GB firewire hard drives available for a couple hundred dollars , would Apple Computer really need to buy Tivo to enter a digital HDTV hub marketplace ? Elgato would be the better buy despite the lack of a known brand name. Apple Computer would be enough of a known brand name. Apple makes 23 " and 30" LCD monitors that have resolution displays that are better than what are used for most LCD HDTV sets. If Apple followed Gateway's example and introduced a LCD tv ( or better yet ShopNBC's Proton 's example ) but used the 1920 X 1080 or better resolution of the Cinema HD display , Apple could raise the bar for the LCD tv market and perhaps grab a big part of it. As the cost of Blu-Ray or HD-dvd drives get cheaper , they can be incorporated into the mainstream Mac desktop systems. Affordable Blu-Ray or HD-DVD players could become standard equipment in the living rooms from the lower income households to the higher income households (if they don't buy a separate recorder ) . I am not convinced that hard drive storeage for permanent copies would be feaseable. I suppose if Apple bought Elgato, Apple could introduce a hard drive that could attach to digital HDTVs and macs through a firewire 800 port for temporary copies to be watched .
with products like Eyetv 500 available already and 200 GB firewire hard drives available for a couple hundred dollars , would Apple Computer really need to buy Tivo to enter a digital HDTV hub marketplace ? Elgato would be the better buy despite the lack of a known brand name. Apple Computer would be enough of a known brand name. Apple makes 23 " and 30" LCD monitors that have resolution displays that are better than what are used for most LCD HDTV sets. If Apple followed Gateway's example and introduced a LCD tv ( or better yet ShopNBC's Proton 's example ) but used the 1920 X 1080 or better resolution of the Cinema HD display , Apple could raise the bar for the LCD tv market and perhaps grab a big part of it. As the cost of Blu-Ray or HD-dvd drives get cheaper , they can be incorporated into the mainstream Mac desktop systems. Affordable Blu-Ray or HD-DVD players could become standard equipment in the living rooms from the lower income households to the higher income households (if they don't buy a separate recorder ) . I am not convinced that hard drive storeage for permanent copies would be feaseable. I suppose if Apple bought Elgato, Apple could introduce a hard drive that could attach to digital HDTVs and macs through a firewire 800 port for temporary copies to be watched .
