The Apple TV and the Airport express both turn AAC into another format before it goes over the TOSLINK cable. What format is this? PCM? Maybe the Apple TV will just take 5.1 AAC and make it 5.1 PCM and the reciever will pick that up. Does it have to be encoded to AC3?
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Apple TV Details and Specs
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The Apple TV and the Airport express both turn AAC into another format before it goes over the TOSLINK cable. What format is this? PCM? Maybe the Apple TV will just take 5.1 AAC and make it 5.1 PCM and the reciever will pick that up. Does it have to be encoded to AC3?
The point is that the Apple TV *encourages* people to download ITMS TV shows and movies. Why would they do so before... to watch them in their office? Only the people who like watching them on the go with an iPod would have bothered in the first place (*yes, and the few of you that DO use your computer as your primary media viewer).
Apple isn't going after any existing maket with this product: they're creating a market. Hence, DivX irrelevance.
Something is not right, either those specs are wrong or none of the 720p trailers I have downloaded, that play fine in iTunes, will play on the Apple TV. There are many that are over 5 Mbps.
While I don't think AppleTV in its current form can accomplish this, but HDMI 1.1 spec allows for upto 8 channels of uncompressed lossless audio in the form of PCM (pulse code modulation). This can actually support 24-bit 192kHz sampling rate. In fact, the PS3 has HDMI and it supports PCM output. So, instead of worrying about good quality DACs in the AppleTV, in a future iteration, Apple could go with multi channel PCM output through HDMI. This is the only way to achieve lossless surround sound through PS3. Optical only provides lossy DD or DTS.
Most mid range receivers today and even lower end receivers of tomorrow will offer HDMI sound processing (including PCM support). In fact, Sony has just released lower end receivers (<$400) that does PCM over HDMI.
So, Apple could use AAC 5.1 encoding in the file and then decode them to PCM and send them out through HDMI. This way, you can avoid DACs and all the analog baggage that comes with it.
The reason the frame rate for the movies is 24fps is because that is the frame rate for movies. It will be converted to 60Hz for 720p and 60 fields for 1080i by AppleTV. The method they use for this could be the 3:2 telecine. In fact, premium TVs and projectors support 24Hz but most consumer TVs don't. Some of the expensive Bluray players support 24Hz. This avoids the entire 3:2 pulldown issue.
I believe Apple might have restricted it to 720p and not 1080p because of cost/processing issues. Remember the PS3 is taking a loss of each device, while AppleTV is not. I have a PS3 and love it, BTW.
Many video cards with fancy features are more than $299. The video card in the AppleTV is a pretty low end one. I am sure they are still optimizing. The next gen should have better capabilities.
Seeing as it's got 802.11 and a hard drive, I think it would be safe to assume that they'd be downloadabe. Most likely in a way much like updating an iPod over firewire from within iTunes.
Probably in iTunes from the "primary" computer.
Rocketman
Who's going to be the first to hook the Apple TV HD to a Mac and determine the OS type and build?
The specs could be somewhat conservative. Maybe anything compressed at those settings is guaranteed to work. Any higher may or may not, depending on setup. Perhaps Apple's own encoding software is intelligent enough to make it work at a bit higher of bit rates.
I think one of the reasons why 
TV has no surround sound, RGB, VGA, and S-Video output is because there's not enough space in the back.
Instead of bitching about the specs ofTV, you can look at it as a non-portable, screen-less, $299 40GB ipod that has much better video output options (component and HDMI, instead of just RGB out) than the 30GB and 80GB video ipods. Also, please correct me if I'm wrong, the video ipods only support stereo sound output, right?
So basically, putting aside the portability issue, theTV does everything the video ipods can do on a TV, but only better picture quality, and a better user interface. You're paying $50 more than a 30GB video ipod and you get an extra 10GB of storage space, or $50 less than an 80GB ipod if you don't need all that space.
Then, if you really need all those freedom with watching dvds, supporting other video formats, etc. Your next best cheapest option from Apple would be a Mac Mini, which is double the price of theTV ($599).
TV has no surround sound, RGB, VGA, and S-Video output is because there's not enough space in the back.Instead of bitching about the specs of
TV, you can look at it as a non-portable, screen-less, $299 40GB ipod that has much better video output options (component and HDMI, instead of just RGB out) than the 30GB and 80GB video ipods. Also, please correct me if I'm wrong, the video ipods only support stereo sound output, right?So basically, putting aside the portability issue, the
TV does everything the video ipods can do on a TV, but only better picture quality, and a better user interface. You're paying $50 more than a 30GB video ipod and you get an extra 10GB of storage space, or $50 less than an 80GB ipod if you don't need all that space.Then, if you really need all those freedom with watching dvds, supporting other video formats, etc. Your next best cheapest option from Apple would be a Mac Mini, which is double the price of the
TV ($599).
The real question is this:
How long until this thing is hacked and taught to run Linux, play games, and be a DVR via the USB port?
I give it 3 weeks. We will here about Hacking the
Any other takers?
-Clive
The most interesting thing about
TV may well be what can be done with it, rather than what it's intended to do. Surely someone will be popping one open and showing photos of its insides soon, and revealing details such as whether or not its cpu is soldered or socketed, etc. But I find it amazing no one has done much looking at the insides of Apple's other new "interesting device", the AirPort Extreme Base Station.
Thanks a lot for the info.
So just so I understand this correctly, this would be a hardware change (the HDMI 1.1) or can this be done via a firmware upgrade?
I think the Apple TV was made for the casual iTunes Store customer, for just playing his/her iTunes content on his/her TV, easily and the Apple way. He/She doesn't even know what DivX and all the other stuff is, in contrast to the average MR member.
When the Minis got their update, the "pro" users (like me ) better get one of this babys and do everything they want to, with a full OS, a big HD, a DVD-ROM, N-Standard, VLC-Player, DivX and so on...
Dave
When the Minis got their update, the "pro" users (like me
) better get one of this babys and do everything they want to, with a full OS, a big HD, a DVD-ROM, N-Standard, VLC-Player, DivX and so on...Dave
People with Blu-ray and/or DIVX videos = nobody. This is aimed squarely at the DVD market with an eye towards replacing Blu-ray in the future. Would you buy DVDs if they *only* played on a computer? No. Same with Apple TV.
Apple Porn
The first unboxing:
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/home-entertainment/appletv-first-unboxing-246057.php
The first unboxing:
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/home-entertainment/appletv-first-unboxing-246057.php
sorry AppleTV, I'll wait for rev.2.0.
I want 1080p support
and
5.1 audio.
till then, forget it.
I want 1080p support
and
5.1 audio.
till then, forget it.
This is aimed at those who use the iTunes store, those who are thinking of using the iTunes store in the future, and trying to tempt those who haven't tried it yet. It is all about pushing iTunes and online movies.
I don't think I'll ever buy an
tv until the iTunes store has 1080p content and the tv supports it. It's great for those that are more than happy with 720p, but it just doesn't cut it for me - and I know I'm not the only one out there. I would never choose this over blu-rau or HDDVD due to the lack of the aforementioned 1080p mainly, but l also like the whole host of extras you get on the disc itself.Still seems a half-hearted effort to me, which is a shame...
People who buy from the iTMS are "suckers?" Really? I thought it was just a convenient way to get video content I wanted to see. I don't subscribe to cable, and really don't give a damn about HD content.
(Of course, since I'm thinking of ditching my TV altogether for viewing multimedia content solely on the iMac, I doubt I'm a target purchaser of the apple TV. Still, though, your tone is a bit strident.)
.... However, this
That's was exactly my point! That's what apple wants, and even though this apple tv is limited, people will buy it and start getting movies via iTunes because apple is making it EASY for them to watch the movies on their "HD" tvs
Again, apple tv is nothing more than infrastructure to support iTunes movie sales.
I'd like to address this since I have a trademark service agreement with Dolby Laboratories to use Dolby Digital logos/trademarks in conjunction with content I produce that meets their fidelity criteria...
Both AAC and AC-3 are perceptual coding schema. In fact, AAC is partially a descendant of AC-3, and was co-developed by Dolby Laboratories, Fraunhofer-IIS and a few other partners.
AAC supports multichannel audio, but it's not readable by an AC-3 decoder. In order for this to happen, the multichannel content must be transcoded.
There are hardware and software transcoders. One that strikes me as a distinct possibility for future AppleTV application is Dolby Digital Live. It was specifically designed to transcode multichannel output from, e.g., gaming platforms and other platforms that generate dynamically-changing multichannel audio (an operating system could be one example).
The advantage of this is that AppleTV as it is, is only a software upgrade away from incorporating such a transcoder.
The current bandwidth limitation of 160kbps for H.264-embedded AAC bitstreams are not really relevant to the question because that support too is essentially a software upgrade away. Less powerful processors have been used to decode DVD bitstreams in DVD players that range from 6 to 8 Mbps on a two-pass VBR encoded disc.
5.1-channel AC-3 is generally encoded into bitstreams ranging form 320 to 640kbps, with 448kbps being the fidelity standard for DVD and 320kbps being the standard bitstream encoded for theatrical application of Dolby Digital. Yes, you heard me correctly... Dolby Digital for DVD uses a higher bitrate than the theatrical variant.
It should be noted, however, that AAC's performance as a perceptual coding schema is superior to AC-3 at every bitrate. Put another way, an AAC bitstream would not need to be 448kbps to be perceptually transparent relative to AC-3.
At bitrates from 448kbps to 640kbps, AC-3 is perceptually transparent relative to an uncompressed multichannel stream. That is to say it's indiscernible from the uncompressed equivalent at those bitrates because of the way the encoding algorithm, low pass filtering, and other features reduce the bandwidth requirements for perceptible fidelity in the spectrum of human hearing.
A good reference measure is the performance of AC-3 stereo to AAC stereo. At 192kbps, 2.0-channel AC-3 is perceptually transparent. However, AES states that AAC is perceptually transparent at 128kbps.
The right transcoding algorithm combined with the right AAC parameters could, in principle, be capable of reconstructing a high-fidelity surround mix from 448kbps AAC or less. And this is not including any design improvements or new perceptual coding schema succesors to AAC.
In short, there's no fundamental hardware gap here... Just a software one.
Some will want to wait until that gap is bridged. Others, including myself, see this as an opportunity to support a very promising convergence of technologies that will drive the future of how we purchase, store, distribute, access, and experience home entertainment.
Any way you slice it, this technology is going to move forward and surpass the current fixed media schema. It was done with music recording (DAT is out, HDD is in), it's being done with digital cinematography (Thomson ViperStream, Panavision Genesis HD) and digital theatrical projection (Barco Cinema Projection HD, Texas Instruments DLP), and it continues with AppleTV and its inevitable emerging competitors.
The LAN is emerging as the backbone of home leisure/entertainment activity and all of Apple's efforts since 1997 have been sharply focused on broadening the original "hub" strategy from computer software/hardware integration with digital peripherals (iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto) to design and manufacture of digital peripherals (iPod) to datacenter distribution of content (iTunes Music Store) for digital peripherals to total household integration via the LAN and very soon WAN integration with digital peripherals (Mobile Mac).
The most interesting thing about
Apple is a hardware vendor - they can earn money from just selling the hardware. That said, Steve Jobs is probably going to be happier if you decide to buy more stuff from iTunes store after you buy the
TV, but is still happy even if you just get the hardware.So I'd be surprised if Apple actually puts effort into preventing people from modding their
TV, or "unlock" any "hidden features".
I'm intrigued by the lack of 5.1 audio. The unit already has an optical output. Are they really using an optical audio interface for simple stereo?? Seems very odd to me.
I'm hopeful that this may be remedied soon, since the existing optical interface is fine for surround. (no extra back-panel real estate needed)
Once they add surround, I'm buying one.
I'm hopeful that this may be remedied soon, since the existing optical interface is fine for surround. (no extra back-panel real estate needed)
Once they add surround, I'm buying one.
I think I will ditch my tv as well. I figure most stuff on tv is crap, and the spending money on the content I DO want (which is very little) will be much cheaper that paying an outrageous cable bill every month.
Although I won't purchase downloadable media other than songs until I can make backup copies efficiently.
It's extending (by a small bit) a piece of Apple territory where they have no rivals.
This is not a bad thing for Apple to do; once they have a beachead, it's easier to expand incrementally than to stake out entirely new territory.