Apple TV Specs?

[GregA]

Why does this $299, thin, internally cramped machine have a better GPU than both the MacBook and the Mac mini?

Because the GPU is all that matters. Decoding the video fast & well is all that matters. And not just video - we already know Apple was trying to get Quartz2DExtreme to work directly on the graphics card so the CPU didn't have to worry about the OSX interface. I'd guess all of Frontrow uses the graphics card's features.

Just to be different I'm actually a little disappointed that they put such a powerful CPU in the AppleTV. We don't need the power of a Pentium M - just a great graphics card that can stream from iTunes.

(okay.... so the graphics card... I'd better ask... is it good?)

Airport Express 6.5" square
Mac Mini 6.5" square
AppleTV 7.7" square <snip>

If they built a Mac Mini at that size would that be enough room to give it a 3.5" HDD for real HDD space (250GB+), and N wifi, C2D, and a real graphics card?

Add HDMI, component video outputs etc

I wondered the same thing - will the next MacMini be slightly wider to match the new AppleTV? (If the new Airport Extreme had been 7.7" square I would have considered it almost definite).

I would much prefer that over the AppleTV.

I want EyeTV, FrontRow, & Component output. Too much to ask?

Hey can someone tell me - I want to play iMovies I'm making to an AppleTV. Does Frontrow pickup movies from iTunes movies, or the Mac's Movie folder? (regardless - the DV bandwidth will be about 32Mbps which is rather unlikely unless the new iMovie does some neat compression tricks).

 

[NintendoFan]

That's the MAIN reason I would buy an iTV for, but I am not yet sure about it...putting aside legal hurdles (for some countries) for a moment, are legally-ripped DVDs accepted into the iTunes library? Is that possible at all?

I kindly hope for an answer, as this would, in itself, justify a purchase...I have no use for iTMS shows or movies (being in CH), but I hate having to swap disks or keep a physical pile of discs to watch DVDs downstairs on my LCD TV...

Can anyone clarify this issue for me? Is iTV (and iTunes) able to recognize VIDEO.TS or legally-ripped DVD images? Thanks a lot!

No, you'll need to encode them into something iTunes understand, mp4, mov, etc.

If they built a Mac Mini at that size would that be enough room to give it a 3.5" HDD for real HDD space (250GB+), and N wifi, C2D, and a real graphics card?

I assumed the issue with a 3.5" hard drive wasn't width, rather the height.

if a system of those specs can do HD video than why the hell did my iMac G5 choke on HD like crazy

Because this product was built to play it. You do realize it's a stand alone product and not a so called "computer"?

 

[Xyl]

I heard that the iPhone only has some crappy Arm-processor instead of quad-core Xeon. That makes me not want it. Too bad.

WTF?!?! And I thought it had TWO quad-core Xeons.

I think all those complaining about the Pentium M processor must have absolutely no common sense at all. Obviously, the processor is good enough for what it's being used for. Would Apple sell a product that when used, will lag for 2 minutes every 20 seconds? I don't think so, and this is common sense. All those complaining thus need to start getting some common sense (if that's even possible ).

 

[chabig]

two questions, does this thing act as a WAP as well...

The Apple guy told me "no" at MacWorld.

 

[sartinsauce]

You know, I'm not a one of the people who complains about weak specs when Apple releases a new product. As such, this will be a first for me...

I'm very disappointed with the AppleTV. I was really looking forward to it, so maybe that's part of the problem. I'm hoping that this first generation of AppleTVs is a success, so that Apple releases a second or third generation of the device.

I appreciate that I may not be Apple's target demographic for this device, and I know that they don't design products just for me. These are two insights that are completely foreign concepts to a lot of people here at MR.

That being said, there are only two features I want that this doesn't have:

1) I'd like it to be an 802.11n/g/b WAP.
2) I'd like higher resolution content at the iTS.

You see, I was hoping this this would be designed for SD, and I could use it to enjoy content for the next year or so until I upgrade my home system to HD.

 

[After G]

The more I think about the AppleTV, the more I feel torn about it.

First of all: I like the product. I really do. I like the design and simplicity of it. I want to like it. But... Why oh why they didn't include DVD-player in there? I have a digital receiver/DVR. And I have a DVD-player and a stack of DVD's. And I have no videos from iTunes (since no videos are available in Finland, but I digress). So what should I do?

- I can't get rid of the DVR, since I need it to watch TV (broadcasts are digital, my TV is analog)

- I can't get rid of the DVD, since I have quite a bit of DVD-movies. Yes, I do occasionally watch the extras and I need subtitles.

If AppleTV had included a DVD-player, I could have replaced my DVD-player with AppleTV. But as things are right now, I can't replace anything with the AppleTV.

Jobs said that "AppleTV is the DVD-player of the 21st century". Well, no, it's not. The video-content that AppleTV plays back is not as good as DVD-content (no extras etc.), and the playback-capabilities are limited. And AppleTV does not play back DVD's. But even still, I want to like AppleTV. But as things are right now, AppleTV would be yet another components in my stack of components. I want to make things SIMPLER. Adding yet another piece of equipment does not make things simpler, on the contrary. I currently have a remote for TV, DVR and DVD-player. If AppleTV had a DVD-player, I could have just TV, DVR and AppleTV-remote (with Apple Remote being really simple). As things are right now, I would have remotes for TV, DVR, DVD and AppleTV.

Since Front Row supports DVD-playback, why doesn't AppleTV support is as well? You know it makes sense. Make no mistake: If AppleTV had included a DVD-player, I would have been first in line to buy one.

Would you really have bought a $300 DVD player? My Philips DVD player already does MP4 and music and cost less than $100, but with a not-so-good interface. There were people on this board complaining about the DVD software on OS X ... Apple'd probably use that as the base DVD playback software for the AppleTV too. If the target market is what I am thinking, they probably already have DVD players as well. Better than anything Apple can cram into the AppleTV form factor.

Really, the idea is to give you a reason to pay for content instead of spending the few minutes it takes to rip your DVDs into an AppleTV format and copy them to iTunes, or the time it takes to move your TV shows from the DVR to AppleTV (if you can). It gets time-prohibitive when you have a nice stack of 4-500 DVDs and GBs worth of shows on DVR to AppleTV them all. You can rip extras, but it's even more of a time drain. You might as well not buy an AppleTV as it sounds like your needs are filled with your setup already.

If the AppleTV is not for you, it's not for you. Wait for the next one while people who like the feature-set buy now and get enjoyment out of it. I am not getting one because I don't have component-out or HDMI on my 15 year old TV and can't fork over the money for a new one. However, I have the choice to buy the $20 DVI-Video output cable and replicate the AppleTV functionality with my Intel mini, and you probably have a computer you can dedicate to the task as well. Heck, I could have some sort of video-out and an EyeTV and just use my mini as the all-in-one magical device for digital cable, iTunes, photos, and DVD playback for US$100-150 here. You probably have a similar option that you haven't looked at.

 

[Clive At Five]

Seriously, WHY is there a Hard Drive in this thing? It makes NO SENSE! If it can stream at 300Mb/s, that should be plenty quick for any 802.11n-equipped computer. So assuming that one's AppleTV gets its media from a "host computer" (which is in turn connected to the iTS), everything on the AppleTV would be a duplicate of content on the host computer -- a device which could just as well be streaming the data. Apple could have cut the price by almost $50 by not including the 40GB HD. Very unwise, if you ask me.

Alternatively, they could've added another HD plus a slightly beefier processor and made the device, in effect, a 80GB, dual-turner DVR/media streamer (granted it would probably be a little thicker). Since DVRs are all the rage these days, Apple could see the DVR features available today and raise media streaming... all for a very low price of $400, flat.

Perhaps this will be a future version of the device, and Apple might just be testing the waters, but if the device fails, primarily because it doesn't include DVR capabilities, the AppleTV will not have a second chance. Apple needs to get the product right the first time, not the second time. Same goes for all their computers/devices, practically... 2nd gen is always better. I know I'll receive some flak for saying this, but that's why I'm waiting for the 2nd gen iPhone... that and I don't have money for it now . A big wedding is coming up!

-Clive

 

[NintendoFan]

Seriously, WHY is there a Hard Drive in this thing? It makes NO SENSE! If it can stream at 300Mb/s, that should be plenty quick for any 802.11n-equipped computer. So assuming that one's AppleTV gets its media from a "host computer" (which is in turn connected to the iTS), everything on the AppleTV would be a duplicate of content on the host computer -- a device which could just as well be streaming the data. Apple could have cut the price by almost $50 by not including the 40GB HD. Very unwise, if you ask me.

So your computer doesn't have to be "on" to watch content.

 

[fraggle]

I wonder if, on inserting a DVD into your mac, it can be streamed to the device for playback on your TV and sound system. That'd take a lot of bandwidth but would be a really cool feature.

A DVD (video) has a max. bandwidth of 10Mbit/s so streaming even with 10g would be ok, 10n should not have any problems with it!

 

[fraggle]

Seriously, WHY is there a Hard Drive in this thing? It makes NO SENSE! [...] Apple could have cut the price by almost $50 by not including the 40GB HD. Very unwise, if you ask me.

Well, the box has to get its OS from somewhere! And if you need an HD anyway the price difference between a 40GB and a smaller one will probably be only cents for Apple. And local caching of data also makes sense IMHO.

 

[ClimbingTheLog]

They're also direct descendants of the Pentium II from those infamous snail ads .

And we're direct descendants of chimpanzee-like apes, but we build skyscrapers and moon bases. Did you have a point?

Food for thought: the core-* line of CPU's are direct descendants of the Pentium-M.

It's a really nice chip, and the guys at Intel Israel did a bang-up job with it. Fortunately the Marketing department didn't know what they were doing.

I'm amazed at the pricing of this system. A network appliance with a Pentium-M CPU is closer to $700-$1000. I can't wait to hack on an AppleTV to re-use it for other tasks.

 

[ncbill]

Wonder if you can substitute say a 160GB drive for the 40GB.

Or if it will stream from your iTunes library on an external hard drive attached to the new Airport Express (even if the computer is off)

I would be another of those people who want to see some DVR solution before I would buy this.

That may be as simple as some third party coming out with a tuner and DVR software that can record directly in iTunes format (I don't want to have to manually re-encode recorded shows)

Until then, I'll stick with my paid for Replay (250GB upgrade, commercial skip) and the new dual-tuner Tivo Series 2 I'm testing ($30 for the box, $15/month)

 

[Clive At Five]

Well, the box has to get its OS from somewhere! And if you need an HD anyway the price difference between a 40GB and a smaller one will probably be only cents for Apple. And local caching of data also makes sense IMHO.

The iPhone's OS is less than 500MB. Drop in two 512MB flash chips and you have one for dedicated OS and one for buffering/cache... all for $15. Done.

-Clive

 

[Silentwave]

Rant below. Apologies in advance.
[RANT]
Time to clear it up: NetBurst vs. P6

The Pentium architecture has always stank. I would have hoped that Apple would never have used it. Imagine if they had put Pentium 4's in the MacPro's.

ARGH!!!
I see Pentium!
The dreaded name of crappy computers!
Please Apple, make this not so. Put in a low power core architecture chip.
The day that Apple uses Pentium chips is a dark one.
I don't care how well it does the job, it's the priciple of the matter. Even a Pentium M is a dark remnant of a philosophy and needs to die. The poor AppleTV! It must be in constant pain.

You're both wrong.

The Pentium M is a remnant of the BRIGHT spot, Erasmus.

One Day, Intel decided clock speed would be nice to kick up a few billion notches. The result was NetBurst, the horribly inefficient microarchitecture used in the Pentium 4 and Pentium D. Oops. Bad idea. THAT architecture is what you guys are thinking of.

But it was power hungry, hot, and inefficient per clock - not what laptops needed. So they went back to the previous generation, back to the P6 ARCHITECTURE.

This development cycle saw some improvements over the old P6 implementation, creating the Pentium M Architecture. This architecture was far less power hungry, far more efficient per clock, and threw off only a small amount of heat, so performance was overall great.

Intel decided that this was the way to go all across the line.
The first fruits of this change of heart you might know. One was called Sossaman, a low power server chip. It was based on the other one, a chip called Yonah, better known as Intel Core.

Core Solo Yonah chips were, as mentioned before, little more than Pentium Ms with SSE3 and a faster FSB for the full-power versions. Core Duos, on the other hand, had two of them on the same die, with no increase in power consumption over the previous generation of Pentium M.

The Intel Core Microarchitecture used ONLY in the Core 2 and Xeon Woodcrest/Clovertown line is the DIRECT SUCCESSOR of the Pentium M version of P6! .

Incidentally, Intel has not yet released the low power versions of the Core Microarchitecture mobile chip, Merom. So they couldn't do what you ask Erasmus.
[/RANT]
Sorry for the rant. I needed to get it out of my system.

 

[bommai]

Because the GPU is all that matters. Decoding the video fast & well is all that matters. And not just video - we already know Apple was trying to get Quartz2DExtreme to work directly on the graphics card so the CPU didn't have to worry about the OSX interface. I'd guess all of Frontrow uses the graphics card's features.

Just to be different I'm actually a little disappointed that they put such a powerful CPU in the AppleTV. We don't need the power of a Pentium M - just a great graphics card that can stream from iTunes.

(okay.... so the graphics card... I'd better ask... is it good?)

Add HDMI, component video outputs etc

I wondered the same thing - will the next MacMini be slightly wider to match the new AppleTV? (If the new Airport Extreme had been 7.7" square I would have considered it almost definite).

I want EyeTV, FrontRow, & Component output. Too much to ask?

Hey can someone tell me - I want to play iMovies I'm making to an AppleTV. Does Frontrow pickup movies from iTunes movies, or the Mac's Movie folder? (regardless - the DV bandwidth will be about 32Mbps which is rather unlikely unless the new iMovie does some neat compression tricks).

You have to first export your iMovie as H.264 or MPEG4. Apple TV will only play MPEG4 or H.264 files. I would assume that in the next update to Quicktime and/or iLife they will have specific export options that allows for one-click export to Apple TV. They might have options like Export to
Apple TV only (720p 24fps)
Apple TV and iPod Video (640x480)
etc.

 

[Peace]

Man some of you are acting like the Apple TV is a computer.It's NOT.
All it does and all it needs to do is transfer data from one point to another,stream media and utilize a "Front Row" type GUI.Nothing else.

It doesn't need a C2D or Quad core..That's overkill..

 

[Maxwell Smart]

I love all these people who are talking about how Pentium means this thing will suck. Pentium M is just the predecessor of Core Duo / Core Solo people! Jeez. These specs are in line with what I was expecting, and I'll definitely be picking one of these up.

 

[SiliconAddict]

How are they doing high def with 64MB of VRAM? Wait? were only going to 720P right? Never mind....I was thinking 1080i support.

 

[avkills]

You guys are all missing the real question.

Why does this $299, thin, internally cramped machine have a better GPU than both the MacBook and the Mac mini?

Hah hah... Good point. Probably because Apple wants to expand its capability later down the road. 1080p?

-mark

 

[Peace]

How are they doing high def with 64MB of VRAM? Wait? were only going to 720P right? Never mind....I was thinking 1080i support.

720P is better than 1080i anyway.

 

[jcricket]

I agree with the people that say it should have included a DVD player.

I've already got a DVD player, I've got a Tivo, I don't need a third device, for both space + complexity reasons. I also don't want to have my computer on all the time or even to go upstairs just to watch a DVD. I like the ability to get my music and photos, but I'm not really going to buy TV shows or movies via the iTunes store right now.

And since Apple isn't showing any signs of offering a subscription model for TV shows on iTunes and adding DVR features would be pretty complex, the Tivo's gonna stay in my living room for the time being.

OTOH, DVD players are like $30 in the store. Upconverting DVD players are under $100. Throwing a DVD player in the in the appleTV would be a cheap way to get lots of people to more easily consider replacing one piece of equipment in their rack for another one with far more capabilities.

The appleTV would still be for recorded content (DVD, stuff stored on your Mac/PC, iTunes purchases), and your DVR is for channel surfing and recording broadcast material. I'd buy that appleTV in a second.

To me, though, I really hope Apple gets into the movie subscription download service (think netflix via the internet). I'm much more likely to pay apple $15/month for 3 DVD rentals (or whatever) than I am to pay $10/movie.

 

[SiliconAddict]

720P is better than 1080i anyway.

Meh.. I've never had any problems on my HDTV. That being said I have 3:2 pulldown support in my TV...*shrugs*

 

[gkarris]

A Media Player for the rest of us?

Why are people complaining about the specs of Apple's Media Player? It's not meant to be a computer!

It's for people like me. I have an el-cheapo Compaq with Windows filesharing I use as a home server. I have iTunes on that and the purchases I make with my iBook G4 I transfer to the server. I sync my 5th Gen iPod with the server. Now, instead of using S-Video to watch the shows via iPod, I can get an AppleTV and hook into my home theater (and I only have component, not HDMI).

I did try to share my server's unprotected content with my XBox 360 - but that, of course, didn't work (MS website said I have to do some weird configs with my ethernet hub, forget it...).

Awesome, nice job Apple. I have my order in for one...

We need to compare AppleTV to other Media Players such as this:

http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=318

 

[Evangelion]

Would you really have bought a $300 DVD player?

no. but i would have bought an elegant device that plays back content from my computer (photos, videos, music...), plays back content from the net, has a great gui... and it would also play back my dvd's. it wouldn't be a "$300 dvd-player", it would be a device that does a lot more than dvd-player does, while being able to also act as a dvd-player.

My Philips DVD player already does MP4 and music and cost less than $100, but with a not-so-good interface

so there you have it. also, it doesnt stream content, nor does it have a hard-disk.

Really, the idea is to give you a reason to pay for content instead of spending the few minutes it takes to rip your DVDs into an AppleTV format and copy them to iTunes, or the time it takes to move your TV shows from the DVR to AppleTV (if you can)

well, i could "pay for content". but i can;t, since movies and tv-shows are not available here. also, i already have a sizable dvd-collection. what should i do with it? also, to me the video-content on the itunes is not that appealing. slightly cheaper than dvd, only plays back on certain devices, no extras, limited selection etc. etc.

my point is that i could have used appletv to replace my existing devices, thus making my life simper. but as things are right now, appletv would make things more confusing and complex. i dont want a stack of devices, i want as few as possible. appletv could have helped me achieve that. but no. for some reason apple assumed that people have no dvd's, just itunes-content. if they could have made appletv in to dvd-replacement as well, itunes-content woul be a lot more appealng. but since it does not play back dvd's, the device is that much less appealing, and therefore i have one reason less to buy content frm itunes (if i could, that is)

it sounds like your needs are filled with your setup already

yes, my needs are met. but it's awkward and un-elegant. i would love to be able to reduce the amount of equipment. appletv does not let me do that, it would just make everything more compilcated.

 

[carlgo]

The combination of a flat screen 16:9 tv and an iTv makes a stylish and compelling advertising photo. Love the minimalist look.

Nobody hates cable clutter, racks of components, multiple remotes and terrible interfaces more than me.

But, do I want to connect to the world solely through iTunes downloads?

Am I to forego surround sound, 1080i/p resolution, HD media sources and the ability to tune into the broadcast world instantly?

I don't think that is realistic, so if I am to enjoy the benefits of iTv I have to add it to what I already have (or might have). This means more, not less clutter, another remote and so on.

I don't care if iTv runs on worms or atomic chips, but hopefully Apple Inc comes out with a version that combines the features of several existing components.

Lurk on some groups that share (!) their experiences with the horrid interfaces of cable and satellite boxes. There is a huge and useful market there.