Apple TV's Universal Search Gains Support for Comedy Central, MTV and VH1

[MacRumors]

Apple last week added three new apps to the universal search function on the fourth-generation Apple TV, introducing support for Comedy Central, MTV, and VH1, three popular networks.

For those unfamiliar with universal search, it is a feature that lets users conduct Siri voice searches or text-based searches to find TV and movie content across a wide range of apps. At launch, universal search supported only a few apps, but Apple has been adding new apps on a regular basis.

With the addition of support for Comedy Central, MTV, and VH1, searching for shows available on those networks will now bring up options to watch content within the respective apps.

Apple maintains a dedicated support document that offers Apple TV owners a full list of content that can be found via Siri through universal search. Apple's universal search feature is largely limited to the United States. In most other countries, universal search only displays iTunes content, while Netflix is also supported in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and the UK.

Article Link: Apple TV's Universal Search Gains Support for Comedy Central, MTV and VH1

 

[Glassed Silver]

Just like Microsoft in the 1990's...
Banana software. Ripens at home with your customer.

Glassed Silver:mac

 

[blizaine]

Yet no universal search support for my own library yet?

 

[Altis]

MTV has really dropped the ball as of late. Ditched it altogether.

 

[2010mini]

Yet no universal search support for my own library yet?

Explain how that will work when Siri only searches the web and the device it is on? Siri does not log into devices on your network and search for files.

 

[Glassed Silver]

Explain how that will work when Siri only searches the web and the device it is on? Siri does not log into devices on your network and search for files.

There's the problem. Online-only Siri.

Glassed Silver:mac

 

[oneofakind]

It would be nice if Viacom and Xfinity could come to terms so I could take advantage of these TV Apps! UGH

 

[thisisnotmyname]

All I really want is to work with Home Sharing libraries.

 

[freediverx]

How about support for Home Sharing and Plex?

 

[2010mini]

There's the problem. Online-only Siri.

Glassed Silver:mac

You want to give Apple access to your local network and all your files?

 

[mainstreetmark]

Yet no universal search support for my own library yet?

Why do you need it! All you have to do is go to your list of movies. Then, begin swiping down over and over and over. Don't worry, though, because if one of the swipes is slightly left or right, you can just start all over.

 

[SeattleMoose]

The ATV4 remote sucks. No nice way to put it.

 

[RadioGaGa1984]

MTV has really dropped the ball as of late. Ditched it altogether.

The app for the ATv sucks.

 

[bergert]

Explain how that will work when Siri only searches the web and the device it is on? Siri does not log into devices on your network and search for files.

iTunes can already search for actor and description of all files on the hard-disk. What we are asking is to have this same search on the Apple-TV for home-sharing; using Siri instead of a blutooth keyboard. And there is internet for the voice-recognition of Siri.

It really comes down to Beats or "beat it" (nothing!)

 

[2010mini]

Why do you need it! All you have to do is go to your list of movies. Then, begin swiping down over and over and over. Don't worry, though, because if one of the swipes is slightly left or right, you can just start all over.

Funny. My 6 year old has figured out that is she asks Siri, it will bring up content she wants. And if it says 'play' it's available. Or she can use categories to narrow manual lookup. She figured this all on her own.

If a 6 year old can do that, what's with your wining?

 

[mainstreetmark]

Funny. My 6 year old has figured out that is she asks Siri, it will bring up content she wants. And if it says 'play' it's available. Or she can use categories to narrow manual lookup. She figured this all on her own.

If a 6 year old can do that, what's with your wining?

Hooray! So can my 4 year old!

The point is, if you have more than 10 movies per category, it's an awful lot of scrolling. If you only have 10 per category, it's an awful lot of categories, and therefore a lot of scrolling. Is there even a search feature? Can you just hold down the "down" area of the Siri Remote and have it autoscroll? Can you bookmark stuff? Can you continue watching the last thing you were watching?

Asking Siri to index your own stuff isn't a big leap, so don't go signing your 6 year old up for Oxford just yet.

 

[Glassed Silver]

You want to give Apple access to your local network and all your files?

I want Siri to run offline.
Why the **** does Siri need to connect to the internet just to set a timer for example?

Plenty of times when I sit there waiting for Siri to complete a request that shouldn't take the "power of the cloud" to understand, whatever that **** means, especially after they showed that my local devices are good enough to use AI on photos.
It's also not like Siri has such a VAST set of possibilities that are impossible to store on the 16GB entry models... *cough*

Glassed Silver:mac

 

[KazKam]

Explain how that will work when Siri only searches the web and the device it is on? Siri does not log into devices on your network and search for files.

You keep saying this every time someone asks for Siri on the ATV to search their Home Share, and you're sort of right... but not. As you say, Siri can index and search the "device it's on". The ATV has all the metadata from your Home Shared library cached ON THE ATV, so it CAN search and index your Home Share.

Many of us have hundreds, if not thousands of movies available locally in iTunes. We can't search them with Siri; the interface to browse through them is unwieldy, buggy, and slow; and we don't want results from the iTunes store so that we can buy or stream something we already own. I don't want to try to stream a 5GB movie that's sitting on my HD downstairs, that's asinine.

 

[sinsin07]

Explain how that will work when Siri only searches the web and the device it is on? Siri does not log into devices on your network and search for files.

I'm a little curious as to how this works.
I can use Plex and voice search to search for my content on my local computers.
How is that possible?
Anyone with an idea on this?

 

[2010mini]

I'm a little curious as to how this works.
I can use Plex and voice search to search for my content on my local computers.
How is that possible?
Anyone with an idea on this?

HomeSharing works differently that Plex/Plex server. Plex has direct access to files on a drive. For instance you can delete files using Plex. HomeSharing only allows a second device to "tell" iTunes on a PC to play content. It doesn't let you actually access the file on the HD the way Plex does.
[doublepost=1468511463][/doublepost]

You keep saying this every time someone asks for Siri on the ATV to search their Home Share, and you're sort of right... but not. As you say, Siri can index and search the "device it's on". The ATV has all the metadata from your Home Shared library cached ON THE ATV, so it CAN search and index your Home Share.

Many of us have hundreds, if not thousands of movies available locally in iTunes. We can't search them with Siri; the interface to browse through them is unwieldy, buggy, and slow; and we don't want results from the iTunes store so that we can buy or stream something we already own. I don't want to try to stream a 5GB movie that's sitting on my HD downstairs, that's asinine.

The Apple TV 2 - 4 was made as a streamer only device. Steve Jobs vision was for Apple to be your library. No more doing it yourself. Streaming a 5gb movie is nothing.

Anyhow HomeSharing doesn't work the way you think. It's not like Plex where that service has direct access to the files on a HD.

Whenever this subject comes up it mostly has to do with people wanting Apple to support illegally sourced content they have loaded on their iTunes library. YES ripping movies off DVDs you own is still illegal.
And no two people name these files the same way. No two people have their network set up the same.

 

[Signup]

You want to give Apple access to your local network and all your files?

Siri already have access your personal data. Have you ever asked Siri to call Bobby's home or mom. Siri play this or that on my own personal device and it plays. Siri show photos or new files, find messages and calendar events, text messages from Nacy. Shopping list or to-do items containing Anniversary celebrations. Those are way more personal user generated information than that of asking Siri to play content on my iTunes library, which itunes genius or match already riffle through.

So all external app searches are useles to me until I can search my own iTunes library. Good job Apple but I want my own library first.

 

[richpjr]

Why do you need it! All you have to do is go to your list of movies. Then, begin swiping down over and over and over. Don't worry, though, because if one of the swipes is slightly left or right, you can just start all over.

OMG, I can't tell you how many times I have done this and how freaking annoying it is! If they won't allow us to use Siri to search the metadata about movies, they could at least give us a way to jump up and down to the first letter of the title (similar to how contacts works).

 

[sinsin07]

HomeSharing works differently that Plex/Plex server. Plex has direct access to files on a drive. For instance you can delete files using Plex. HomeSharing only allows a second device to "tell" iTunes on a PC to play content. It doesn't let you actually access the file on the HD the way Plex does.
[doublepost=1468511463][/doublepost]
The Apple TV 2 - 4 was made as a streamer only device. Steve Jobs vision was for Apple to be your library. No more doing it yourself. Streaming a 5gb movie is nothing.

Anyhow HomeSharing doesn't work the way you think. It's not like Plex where that service has direct access to the files on a HD.

Whenever this subject comes up it mostly has to do with people wanting Apple to support illegally sourced content they have loaded on their iTunes library. YES ripping movies off DVDs you own is still illegal.
And no two people name these files the same way. No two people have their network set up the same.

Thanks for the response.
However the reasoning is still unclear.
Itunes is sending the video to Apple TV correct?
Are you saying Plex on Apple TV is pulling the video content?
It is not clear in your answer just how Plex differs from iTunes when it comes to sending content to the Apple TV.

In any regard, I dug deeper. Here is what Plex has to say:

"Well, you need to understand how search works. On Android, search works by providing a hook to every app installed on the device so that it can participate. When the user searches, the search term is given to the locally installed app. This makes it easy for us to participate and return your local search results. On Roku (and a few other platforms, this is the more common design), search happens in the cloud. The search term is sent to Roku's server, where it performs the search and returns results. To participate in this search, you partner with Roku and essentially provide an index of available content. In particular, this is what allows Roku to return search results even for channels that you don't have installed on your Roku.
So, how would we participate? There are two obstacles to this approach. First, we would need an index of every user's media up in the cloud. We very specifically do not have such an index. If it were going to happen, it would have to be on some sort of opt-in basis, but I'm not sure we'd be excited about even that if you want my personal gut reaction. But suppose that we did have such an index, just for the sake of argument. The second obstacle is that we'd need a way to correlate a particular Roku search with only your media in the index and not everyone else's. I'm not 100% sure on this, because we haven't really had a good reason to verify it, but I don't think that's currently possible."
Plex

I realize the above uses Android as the example.
However based on how the roll out of Universal search is working, It would seem that Apple is using a cloud based approach to Universal Search.

It appears Plex keeps a local database that is uses to search for local content when using the voice search feature on Apple TV.
So the point on how no two people name the file the same way is irrelevant.

You went a little too far with this comment:

Whenever this subject comes up it mostly has to do with people wanting Apple to support illegally sourced content they have loaded on their iTunes library.

That's pure speculation.

On a side note, it is not illegal to rip DVDs in all countries.
DVD for Backup and Private Use

 

[2010mini]

Thanks for the response.
However the reasoning is still unclear.
Itunes is sending the video to Apple TV correct?
Are you saying Plex on Apple TV is pulling the video content?
It is not clear in your answer just how Plex differs from iTunes when it comes to sending content to the Apple TV.

In any regard, I dug deeper. Here is what Plex has to say:

"Well, you need to understand how search works. On Android, search works by providing a hook to every app installed on the device so that it can participate. When the user searches, the search term is given to the locally installed app. This makes it easy for us to participate and return your local search results. On Roku (and a few other platforms, this is the more common design), search happens in the cloud. The search term is sent to Roku's server, where it performs the search and returns results. To participate in this search, you partner with Roku and essentially provide an index of available content. In particular, this is what allows Roku to return search results even for channels that you don't have installed on your Roku.
So, how would we participate? There are two obstacles to this approach. First, we would need an index of every user's media up in the cloud. We very specifically do not have such an index. If it were going to happen, it would have to be on some sort of opt-in basis, but I'm not sure we'd be excited about even that if you want my personal gut reaction. But suppose that we did have such an index, just for the sake of argument. The second obstacle is that we'd need a way to correlate a particular Roku search with only your media in the index and not everyone else's. I'm not 100% sure on this, because we haven't really had a good reason to verify it, but I don't think that's currently possible."
Plex

I realize the above uses Android as the example.
However based on how the roll out of Universal search is working, It would seem that Apple is using a cloud based approach to Universal Search.

It appears Plex keeps a local database that is uses to search for local content when using the voice search feature on Apple TV.
So the point on how no two people name the file the same way is irrelevant.

You went a little too far with this comment:

That's pure speculation.

On a side note, it is not illegal to rip DVDs in all countries.
DVD for Backup and Private Use

Ripping DVDs is not illegal. But content owners made sure to lobby for laws that says breaking the encryption on those DVDs are.

And I am not speculating when it comes to this specific site and subject. It is an oft repeated reason. Apple is not going to jeopardize their tenuous relationship with content owners to satisfy rippers.... Which frankly make up a tiny percentage of the digital streaming market.

The lions share of the market are those that stream only.





And in that article you just shown how difficult it would be to implement. Impossible? No, but difficult.

 

[Gasu E.]

Whenever this subject comes up it mostly has to do with people wanting Apple to support illegally sourced content they have loaded on their iTunes library. YES ripping movies off DVDs you own is still illegal.
.

I think people would be perfectly fine if Siri took their legally purchased DVDs, loaded them into the DVD player, and pushed "Play." But since Apple has not given Siri a robot arm yet, people who rip their DVDs are trying to help poor Siri out a bit. Are you so unfeeling as to criticize people who want to assist this poor disabled application?

I'm a big fan of Siri on ATV. But your critique is absurd.