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Apple TV Unboxing Photos (and Video)

combustible said:
i think one of the most beautiful things about the mac (and appletv) (and ipod) are their limitations. they have a focus and clarity to their use and design that is in clear and relieving in contrast to the scattergun approach of competitors.
the ability to play every bastardised video codec out there would not be a benefit to me, or 95% of the people out here in the real world, whereas the limitting of the codecs allows apple to provide a consistent, trouble free environment to enjoy my movies/music/tv shows. and i think, that is the aim of apple with this product.

(and you can of course, transcode any dodgey divx/avi material easily and for free with a product like iSquint)
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There wouldn't be any additional trouble at all to support divx/vxid, especially if you required it be in the .mp4 container. Wouldn't affect the user experience any more than allowing .mp3 playback on an ipod.

mhouse said:
Or maybe people are actually just encoding their home movies and DVDs that they already own in six or seven different formats.:rolleyes:
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Actually, that's my exact problem. Apple TV wont play back any of my foreign dvd backups since it can't play either standard subtitle format. That's a pretty big feature to lack in my eyes.

combustible said:
this would make the device worse. it opens up channels for content that apple cannot control. media files that need the new version of a codec, or avi wrappers over divx files. it is ridiculously complicated out there in video codec land, and would open up a cornucopia of headaches (which i think most of us have been through) and i wouldn't wish that on consumers.
narrowing the output of the media also narrows the input. makes it clean. makes it simple.
i know it is easy for most of us here to work through an issue with an odd media file, be it codec or corruption, but for most everybody else, (and this is very much a consumer device) they expect the device to just work.

mixel, i understand your frustrations, and perhaps i can be too flippant because i don't have that much transcoding to do, but i think apple got this one right (again).
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VLC manages to keep itself up to date and play every format pretty easily. And it doesn't even have a corporate software team behind it.
 
I really enjoy the unpacking pics. I can't wait to see the iPhone unpacking pics...actually, hopefully I'll be one of the first to post them:D

If I'm not I won't look and spoil the fun...I've been anticipating this phone for wayyyyy to long.

Anyhow...nice :apple: TV I'm sure I'll be getting one someday.
 
nsjoker said:
Just like any other iProduct. The unboxing is getting old, Apple needs to spice things up. Maybe they could throw a ferret in there and when you prep for the unboxing sequence the ferret jumps out and latches itself to your face and you're freaking out screaming, omg omg, there's a ferret on my face.
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"So he hands me the box, and I open up the lid, and the ferrets jump out and they immediately latch onto my face and start bitin' me all over. Oh, man, they were just goin' nuts! They were tearin' me apart! You know, I think it was just about that time that a little ditty started goin' through my head. I believe it went a little somethin' like this:

DOH! Get 'em off me! Get 'em off me! Ohhh! No, get 'em off, get 'em off! Oh, oh God, oh God! Oh, get 'em off me! Oh, oh God! Ah, AaaaaaahhhhhhhhhOhhhhhhhhhh!"

That would SOOOO make the unboxings more interesting.
 
Supporting codecs that have no legal content available for them violates the KISS principle as well has putting them in hot water with the MPAA. AVI is a dead legacy format.


How many people really mean "I can't play my pirate movie bittorrent files" when you complain about a lack of XVid and DivX? Where can I buy legal movies in those formats? Who encodes their home videos with codecs?
 
aristotle said:
Supporting codecs that have no legal content available for them violates the KISS principle as well has putting them in hot water with the MPAA. AVI is a dead legacy format.


How many people really mean "I can't play my pirate movie bittorrent files" when you complain about a lack of XVid and DivX? Where can I buy legal movies in those formats? Who encodes their home videos with codecs?
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uh, dude... do you have a recent model dvd player in your house? well, the big players like samsung support divx. so does that make them accomplices in criminal acts like you want us to believe....?
 
aristotle said:
Supporting codecs that have no legal content available for them violates the KISS principle as well has putting them in hot water with the MPAA. AVI is a dead legacy format.


How many people really mean "I can't play my pirate movie bittorrent files" when you complain about a lack of XVid and DivX? Where can I buy legal movies in those formats? Who encodes their home videos with codecs?
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I would say most people that are stealing movies are actually just more pissed they have to convert their movies to mpeg4. Oh well... :apple: TV is probably not for them.

:D
 
combustible said:
i know it is easy for most of us here to work through an issue with an odd media file, be it codec or corruption, but for most everybody else, (and this is very much a consumer device) they expect the device to just work.

mixel, i understand your frustrations, and perhaps i can be too flippant because i don't have that much transcoding to do, but i think apple got this one right (again).
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I agree Apple have got it right from a business perspective - it's easier for them this way, certainly. But I don't think opening it to stuff they don't control is that much of a biggie.. I don't think stopping power users from being able to do something "because it might go wrong" is all that great. It wouldn't be Apple's fault if it did. 2y/o economy DVD players can play this stuff - from one angle it seems weird that this thing can't.

Anyway, yeah.. I don't think people complaining about the codec support is completely baseless is all. :) Someone will probably hack it to play whatever they want anyway.. (within weeks I'd guess.. remove hd, plug into mac, install extra patches and codecs, etc..) - then it could get really interesting!


I'm definitely for free ferrets too. :)
 
donlphi said:
I would say most people that are stealing movies are actually just more pissed they have to convert their movies to mpeg4. Oh well... :apple: TV is probably not for them.
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What about all the stuff we've (supposedly) legally recorded off TV with devices like eyeTV? Don't be so quick to just lump everyone in some big pirate camp..

Also there's the matter of the truckloads of movies you can't get on DVD and are very infrequently (if ever) transmitted, some foreign films, etc etc.. The piracy issue isn't so simple.

The whole "haha, the pirates will have to convert all their movies!" thing is judgemental and bad.
 
Like people are saying, AppleTV is a trojan horse that will have many many uses. Maybe even when Leopard comes out.

-=|Mgkwho
 
nsjoker said:
Just like any other iProduct. The unboxing is getting old, Apple needs to spice things up. Maybe they could throw a ferret in there and when you prep for the unboxing sequence the ferret jumps out and latches itself to your face and you're freaking out screaming, omg omg, there's a ferret on my face.
Click to expand...

Best post I read all day, LOL.
 
aristotle said:
How many people really mean "I can't play my pirate movie bittorrent files" when you complain about a lack of XVid and DivX? Where can I buy legal movies in those formats? Who encodes their home videos with codecs?
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There is legally purchased/obtained content that has been encoded with Divx.
One such content provider is Mariposa HD. They've been experimenting with many different codecs.

Another is a more adult oriented site. It's run by the guy married to Luba. Do a google if you want.

As for Xvid, I've never seen anything that was legit in Xvid, but it doesn't mean there isn't any.

ft

I was wrong about Mariposa HD, they have WMV-HD episodes. No Divx.
 
mixel said:
The "more codecs please" crowd are well aware of the Apple mindset, and how the limitations it imposes are often good for consumers.

Adding more codec support would *not* in any way effect the .h264 support, or the function of the device. Who knows how many people have divX/xvid encoded stuff? I have lots of it from eyeTV, as I'd imagine do thousands of other people.


Saying 95% of people don't need to do it so the 5% should stop moaning is great and all, but those 5% are still the "real world", and important. Mac users are only 5% of the computer scene and we still manage to pick apart and come up with problems in everything.

More codecs wouldn't make the device any worse, and wouldn't affect the device's successfulness. They wouldn't even probably impact on the itunes media sales - All its absense is doing is meaning a lot of people have to spend ages re-encoding stuff.. Which is fair, but.. a bit annoying for those who have to do it. How would supporting more codecs make it harder to use? All it has to do it play media fer chrissakes.

I appreciate the :apple:TV and see it as a good product, it's just a terribly inconvenient one for a large number of people who'd otherwise appreciate it more. :D I'd still be interested it buying one.. maybe. One day.
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The real question is why are people encoding stuff in crap like divx? Or avi for that matter.

You don't buy a Delorean and walk around town going "DUDE WHAT THE HELL WHY ARE THERE NOT MORE SHOPS FOR DELOREANS!? THIS TOWN SUCKS."

But I will agree, they are just codecs, and it's not like it would take 10 years of R&D to put a few more measly codecs in there (even if they do suck).
 
pale9 said:
uh, dude... do you have a recent model dvd player in your house? well, the big players like samsung support divx. so does that make them accomplices in criminal acts like you want us to believe....?
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No, but it's not like Samsung is negotiating with the major studios to be able to provide their content as downloadable DVDs in the Samsung Store, either.

Apple needs the studios' support.

Putting out a device that makes it amazingly easy to watch content that is almost always pirated isn't a great way to get that support.

mixel said:
What about all the stuff we've (supposedly) legally recorded off TV with devices like eyeTV? Don't be so quick to just lump everyone in some big pirate camp..
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Napster tried that argument. The court didn't buy it.
 
Stridder44 said:
The real question is why are people encoding stuff in crap like divx? Or avi for that matter.

You don't buy a Delorean and walk around town going "DUDE WHAT THE HELL WHY ARE THERE NOT MORE SHOPS FOR DELOREANS!? THIS TOWN SUCKS."
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Just my opinion, but Divx is a pretty good codec. I've seen stuff encoded with Divx compared to the same stuff encoded with QT mpeg-4. The Divx material was markedly better at the same bit rate.

ft
 
Right, right.

The total price is $319.95 and you get to choose your own cable as you're checking out.

From what I've seen in other online forums, audio/videophiles are anal beyond belief about their freaking cables. For some, if it's not gold-tipped titanium wrapped Monster brand, but made on Tue-Thur (because Mon and Fri are bad days), then they would never use it on their fabulous home theatre.
 
aristobrat said:
But isn't MPEG-4 becoming the standard? If the satellite providers are using it, ...
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MPEG-4 is not the standard. It's a good codec, but just because DirecTV and Dish are using it doesn't mean a thing. MPEG-2 (like it or not) is the de-facto standard for TV content. ATSC calls for MPEG-2 and if ATSC lasts as long as NTSC did, MPEG-2 will be around for many years to come.

The only reason that the satellite companies are going MPEG-4 is to cram more HD channels to their subscribers. I don't believe that they will stop down-rez'ing their HD offerings. They'll just provide more channels of HD-Lite(R)

ft
 
aristobrat said:
Right, right.

The total price is $319.95 and you get to choose your own cable as you're checking out.
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$20 for an HDMI cable is just plain robbery. If you know where to go, you could get an HDMI and component cables and have enough left over to buy a couple of iTS TV shows.

ft
 
aristotle said:
Supporting codecs that have no legal content available for them violates the KISS principle as well has putting them in hot water with the MPAA. AVI is a dead legacy format.


How many people really mean "I can't play my pirate movie bittorrent files" when you complain about a lack of XVid and DivX? Where can I buy legal movies in those formats? Who encodes their home videos with codecs?
Click to expand...

I have a DVD player that plays DivX. I have lots of stuff I've recorded off TV and converted to DivX so I could play on my DivX player. Suddenly all that stuff has to be converted to H.264.

In Australia, there is NO legal content in ANY format that works on a Mac. We have no iTunes movie store!

As for the guy who asked why anyone would use DivX to encode stuff - it has been around a long time, before Apple started pushing H.264. What were we all supposed to do back then?

As I've said previously, imagine if Apple had come out with the iPod and said "Here is a great new music player. It only plays AAC". When the iPod came out, people had been encoding their music for years in mp3 format. The thing would have been a massive flop.

I'm not saying Apple TV will be a flop - just that it would have been a bigger hit if Apple weren't being so stubborn. It is ok to support legacy codecs.
 
ftaok said:
MPEG-4 is not the standard. It's a good codec, but just because DirecTV and Dish are using it doesn't mean a thing. MPEG-2 (like it or not) is the de-facto standard for TV content. ATSC calls for MPEG-2 and if ATSC lasts as long as NTSC did, MPEG-2 will be around for many years to come.
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Cool, I didn't know that.

ftaok said:
If you know where to go, you could get an HDMI and component cables and have enough left over to buy a couple of iTS TV shows.
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This is very true, but obviously the average person doesn't know that. If the cheapest HDMI cable you can find at Best Buy is $49.99 for three feet (and $89.99 for three feet at Circuit City), $19.99 for 6-feet at the Apple store isn't half-bad.
 
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