Apple TV Delayed Until March

[whatever]

They can put them in the same iTunes store location as all of the Apple Lossless music tracks.

Even if Apple does sell "720p" shows, you can expect them to be so highly compressed that very few people would consider them to be HD.

How can you say that.

Apple today already offers "free" 1080p content. Where you might ask, look at the HD trailers on Apple.com. The quality of both 720p and 1080p there is excellent. The quality of those trailers played in full screen on my 30" ACD blows away watching a fullscreen DVD on the same system.

It seems that people forget that Apple was one of the first to offer 1080p content on the web (they may be the first) and they offer the most (granted that's based on nothing!). They are well aware of HD.

One of the complaints we've been hearing for years has been the lack of 5.1 support in Apple's DVD player, perhaps Leopard finally addresses this, which could explain the delay in TV.

 

[pubwvj]

Good that they are 'perfecting it' but so what. This is a ho-hum product. We have the Internet. We have computers, Mac's no less. TV is so yestercentury.

 

[wethackrey]

Sounds like a manufacturing delay to me

When I ordered an AppleTV on January 30th, the estimated ship date was shown as 2/28. That changed this morning to 3/20. I don't think that's all that unusual for a company launching an entirely new product in a new product category. The fact that the delay was announced as late as it was seems as if they ran into a manufacturing glitch. Personally I'd much rather they got it right the first time. If they have a problem, not shipping is a good thing. A three week delay isn't going to impact me in the least.

I don't think this will have ANY effect on any other product in Apple's product line, especially Leopard. I doubt the AppleTV product team even eats lunch in the same cafeteria as the Leopard product team. I can't imagine that an AppleTV delay is going to cause anyone at Apple to lose focus.

 

[Avatar74]

Good that they are 'perfecting it' but so what. This is a ho-hum product. We have the Internet. We have computers, Mac's no less. TV is so yestercentury.

Yeah. Why, when I can sit and stare at a 15 inch laptop screen with a pair of headphones, would I ever want to watch movies on this:

So very yesteryear...

 

[natejohnstone@g]

.avi is yesterday.

It may be, but I still have 400GB worth of .avi files that don't play in Quicktime, so to me it's a big deal!

 

[Philberttheduck]

Bummed but like everyone says, I'd rather have a good and clean tv then a buggy one.

Til the 20th though!?

 

[AidenShaw]

So very yesteryear...

Good picture of an antique CRT television. Is that in the 20th Century Museum?

 

[DMann]

720p

How can you say that.

Apple today already offers "free" 1080p content. Where you might ask, look at the HD trailers on Apple.com. The quality of both 720p and 1080p there is excellent. The quality of those trailers played in full screen on my 30" ACD blows away watching a fullscreen DVD on the same system.

It seems that people forget that Apple was one of the first to offer 1080p content on the web (they may be the first) and they offer the most (granted that's based on nothing!). They are well aware of HD.

One of the complaints we've been hearing for years has been the lack of 5.1 support in Apple's DVD player, perhaps Leopard finally addresses this, which could explain the delay in ?TV.

True, if Apple can stream trailers via Quicktime at HD quality online, which are amazingly impressive, I can only imagine the content for TV having the same capability. 720p actually exceeds 1080i while the content is rendering. (in motion) I'm not concerned at all about the delay - unlike MS, Apple would rather have it ready for prime time before releasing it and having consumers deal with glitches.

 

[Avatar74]

Good picture of an antique CRT television. Is that in the 20th Century Museum?

That's a brand spanking new Trinitron XBR WEGA (2006) with an HDMI feed. Better color, clarity and contrast than a $7000 Sony SXRD XBR... and for 1/7th the price.

LCoS will catch up, but not for a few years.

Oh, and that picture isn't retouched. That actually is the display image in natural light.

 

[DMann]

1080p

How can you say that.

Apple today already offers "free" 1080p content. Where you might ask, look at the HD trailers on Apple.com. The quality of both 720p and 1080p there is excellent. The quality of those trailers played in full screen on my 30" ACD blows away watching a fullscreen DVD on the same system.

It seems that people forget that Apple was one of the first to offer 1080p content on the web (they may be the first) and they offer the most (granted that's based on nothing!). They are well aware of HD.

One of the complaints we've been hearing for years has been the lack of 5.1 support in Apple's DVD player, perhaps Leopard finally addresses this, which could explain the delay in ?TV.

True, 1080p is astounding in quality. I'm sure we'll have choices as to which format we want to load and buffer. It's gonna be fun to watch this
evolve.....

 

[kcroy]

Could it be that this delay is good news?

Reading over some of the posts regarding the apple TV delay I am hoping Apple is indeed upgrading the device. Like earlier posts, with only partially intended silliness, the apple TV does beg for hard drive to record regular tv shows on and a DVD burner. That would be AWESOME.

I always hope for more, but I cannot help to think, well, hope really, that this apple TV may be the most underestimated gizmo in history. Could it be the hub that somehow uses LEPORAD to mirror our Macs onto our television? Some sort of iPhone connection. The iPhone capacitity just seems too small for everything mentioned in the keynote. Could Apple TV somehow stream content to our phones?

I know, I know...but when Apple's COO reiterated today that the iphone is a revolutionary product, well, that seems to suggest to me there is more...

Leopard myths abundant...but the iPhone, Apple TV, & Leopard...hmmmm what will the connectivity be?

I really can't wait.

 

[kcroy]

Yeah. Why, when I can sit and stare at a 15 inch laptop screen with a pair of headphones, would I ever want to watch movies on this:

So very yesteryear...

I like that NAGEL hanging over the TV.

 

[balamw]

I like that NAGEL hanging over the TV.

How 1980s.

B

 

[Avatar74]

How 1980s.

B

You didn't happen to notice the print to the left of it, did you?

There's a third 80's reference in that pic, too, btw.

 

[DMann]

Connectivity

Reading over some of the posts regarding the apple TV delay I am hoping Apple is indeed upgrading the device. Like earlier posts, with only partially intended silliness, the apple TV does beg for hard drive to record regular tv shows on and a DVD burner. That would be AWESOME.

I always hope for more, but I cannot help to think, well, hope really, that this apple TV may be the most underestimated gizmo in history. Could it be the hub that somehow uses LEPORAD to mirror our Macs onto our television? Some sort of iPhone connection. The iPhone capacitity just seems too small for everything mentioned in the keynote. Could Apple TV somehow stream content to our phones?

I know, I know...but when Apple's COO reiterated today that the iphone is a revolutionary product, well, that seems to suggest to me there is more...

Leopard myths abundant...but the iPhone, Apple TV, & Leopard...hmmmm what will the connectivity be?

I really can't wait.

Let's just say, this will be the beginning of an extraordinary development of, and the true dawning of, The Digital Hub.

 

[Peace]

I suspect it has more to do with new versions of iTunes and Quicktime than anything else.

They are fixing the bugs.

 

[Maccus Aurelius]

Yeah. Why, when I can sit and stare at a 15 inch laptop screen with a pair of headphones, would I ever want to watch movies on this:

So very yesteryear...

Is that a scene from Back to the Future?

 

[Maccus Aurelius]

It may be, but I still have 400GB worth of .avi files that don't play in Quicktime, so to me it's a big deal!

That's weird. I still have loads of .avi files that play just fine in Quicktime. I downloaded the DivX component and Flip4Mac so I can view any codec I like.

When I view .avi or .wmv files in iTunes the playback sucks. I'm wondering if this would also happen for the ATV. With the codec components downloaded QT player runs these videos smoothly, but in iTunes they play like crap.

 

[localoid]

A BusinessWeek article suggests the delay may be because "Apple has yet to receive approval for the device from the Federal Communications Commission" or perhaps due to "a component shortage."

 

[Machead III]

Do you think they'll pack in free copies of Duke Nukem Forever when it finally ships?

 

[Evangelion]

If the iTunes Store offers the same movies but now in Hi-Def, I bet you could convince some people to purchase the same movies again for the uprated quality.

Why do you think some film studios are re-releasing BR and HD discs of previously released films?

This same "people won't buy what they already own argument" went out the window when DVDs were first introduced. People claimed that DVDs would fail to catch on because it would require some people to repurchase movies. In the end though, the consumers sucked it up and gave the movie studies some more of their hard cold cash.

That's because people actually got more with DVD than with VHS. Not only was the picture-quality better, it was also more convenient and there were extras in the disc as well. Right now iTunes offers poorer picture (although that might change), poorer audio and no extras (or subtitles), for more or less the same amount of money. And if we move the comparison to HD-DVD and BD-DVD, then iTunes as a lot of catching up to do.

Then we have the question of selection. Right now movies are only available in USA, and the selection is very limited.

 

[Evangelion]

The paradigm concerning new video formats that we have been living with from the start has been when a new format comes out, we re-buy the movies we like the most in the new format.

But when the format changes, we actually get more than we did with the old format. What do we get with ITMS that we do not get with DVD's? I know what we get with DVD's though: Superior picture, superior audio, extras and subtitles.

 

[Evangelion]

I don't know about the other guy, but I backup on my RAID.

Repeat after me: RAID is not backup. RAID is fault-tolerant storage but it's not backup.

 

[AidenShaw]

There's a third 80's reference in that pic, too, btw.

The tacky white plastic power brick next to the center channel speaker?

 

[AidenShaw]

Repeat after me: RAID is not backup. RAID is fault-tolerant storage but it's not backup.

Perhaps, like me, he puts his backups on a RAID array, so that his backups won't be lost due to a single drive failure.

RAID is not backup, true. But, using RAID for your main drives does greatly reduce the risk of loss due to drive failure - which is certainly a major reason for backups. So, if you are only concerned about drive failures - RAID can be a reasonable replacement for backups.

If you're concerned about corruption, accidental (or purposeful) deletion, and some other issues - then you should have a backup strategy in addition to RAID.