AppleTV the Worst Tech for 2007?

[jashic]

Obviously they did do an update (to v.1.1) .....betamax was techincally superior to VHS but it was never better........It's all about the content.....and betamax / laserdisc never had it....with AppleTV you make your own....it's because people are lazy that it has perhaps been a sales flop.....for none lazy people it's a frickin marvel....

I never said for those who like it that it isn't a marvel. The point of this thread is that it is considered a flop. Which in fact, it is. I wouldn't be surprised if the Zune sold more units. As for people who are lazy who think its a flop...well, if the device is only made for people with lots of time on their hands, well then it's a flop simply in that regard.

Oh and the 1.1 update? let's see....what did it provide...

Youtube - Just like the Wii, XBox, PS3 and Winshit boxes already provided way before ATV
Parental Controls - Just like the Wii, XBox, PS3 and Winshit boxes already provided way before ATV
Screen saver - JOY!!!
photo syncing priority - Oh right, now the photos sync as advertised in 1.0. Except, 6 months after introduction.
Browsing other iTunes Stores - JOY!!!! A new way to send Apple more money!!

 

[funky28]

Love my ATV

Two things you guys need to remember:

1. That is from an Australian perspective. We have pretty much zero iTunes video content. No movies, no TV shows, just music videos and Pixar short films. This really limits the tv's functionality big time, video podcasts etc are OK but really they need to get proper video content in all the iTunes Stores quick smart because the rest of the world is really falling behind.

2. Downloadable HD content is going to be massively expensive in Australia because of the way that the telcos have the infrastructure in a stranglehold. A 5GB HD movie would often be double what your average Joe Bloggs (remember, none of us are Joe Bloggs, Joe Bloggs thinks the blue e is the internet and does nothing but email and word processing) has as a monthly download limit.

The tv may be a great product in the markets where Apple have invested in video content but here it's nigh on useless.

I love my ATV. Sure there is no video content on iTMS here in Australia yet, but even if there were I'm not so sure that I'd be buying content anyway unless the quality and price was great.

ATV+iTunes+Handbrake+1TB external HD has been a winning combination for me. The quality of video when encoded with the ATV (h.264) setting and at 2500 kbps looks great most of the time. In fact, most of the time I can't tell the difference between an encode and the DVD.

I'd concede that it takes a lot of time to encode the content. For example, it usually takes a few hours to encode a 2 hour video using the settings above on a dual G5 PowerMac. So unless people are willing to spend time encoding, then the ATV would be pretty much useless or at least overpriced (here in Australia).

I don't know much about the XBox, PS3, etc.. but the ATV interface (and remote) are simple and elegant. I wonder what new/extra functionality a new update could bring? To be honest I don't really need it to do any more than what it already does.

 

[jashic]

I don't know much about the XBox, PS3, etc.. but the ATV interface (and remote) are simple and elegant. I wonder what extra functionality an update could bring.

for starters, they would need to make it equal or better than the competition. And not in just the simple remote.

I bought a TiVo DVR unit 3 years ago. It gave me 80+ hours of DVR capability. Pause live tv, record shows, schedule recordings, subscribe to entire seasons of shows (auto-eliminates reruns), gives me recommendations on what I would like based on shows I've recorded, put favorite actors in my wishlist (and records shows or movies that have them in it), check weather, check yahoo mail, stream music from any PC/MAC in my house wirelessly, view photo galleries from any PC/MAC in my house wirelessly, listen to podcasts, etc. AND it lets me download the movies/shows to my laptop so I can watch them on the road.

all for...an amazing $299 USD

What do I get with ATV which debuted a year ago? (remember, I had my unit 3 years ago). Simply...the ability to watch and listen to things from my iTunes and iPhoto. Oh yeah...youtube.

Oh yeah, and the Tivo remote is the most user friendly remote ever created. My grandmother can use it and does.

the business model for ATV is simple. Provide a $15 40GB hard drive. Put a stripped down MacOS in it and put a shiny shell around it and charge $299 for it. Then, give it bare bones functionality such that the easiest way to use it is to give Apple more money by buying movies and music from itunes.

 

[funky28]

Yes the Tivo's a great system. When you compare the ATV with Tivo based on price (at first) it does seem that the ATV is way overpriced.

However, the ATV is not a DVR/PVR like the Tivo.

Hey, correct me if I'm wrong, but does the Tivo wirelessly stream video content from iTunes? Can you rip videos from DVDs onto the Tivo? Can you hook up extra hard drives when you run out of space? From what I've read, when you run out of space you have to archive to VCR tape or delete.

Furthermore, if you want to look at price, then on top of the cost of a Tivo PVR are the monthly subscription or the extra lifetime service fee.

So to me, the Tivo and the ATV are two different products. The Tivo is basically a device that records television shows for you, but an ATV is a device that plays video and music content from your iTunes library (on your computer) wirelessly.

As for the small hard drive, if one has a fast wireless network, e.g. Wi-Fi 802.11n, then hard drive size becomes irrelevant. In fact, the only reasons I can think of for a hard drive in the ATV is a place for the "cut-down OSX" and also space for some content in the event that some people want to take their ATV with them to a friend's house or wherever..

Seems to me that many are disappointed with the ATV because it is not what they expected or wanted it to be, that being a DVR/PVR. Look, I don't really mean to knock the Tivo or similar systems like Ice TV here in Australia. I think a Tivo or similar device would complement my ATV and the rest of my home entertainment system. I just think that a lot of people don't "get" the ATV or knock it because they wish it had PVR functionality.

 

[jashic]

Yes the Tivo's a great system. When you compare the ATV with Tivo based on price (at first) it does seem that the ATV is way overpriced.

However, the ATV is not a DVR/PVR like the Tivo.

Hey, correct me if I'm wrong, but does the Tivo wirelessly stream video content from iTunes? Can you rip videos from DVDs onto the Tivo? Can you hook up extra hard drives when you run out of space? From what I've read, when you run out of space you have to archive to VCR tape or delete.

Furthermore, if you want to look at price, then on top of the cost of a Tivo PVR are the monthly subscription or the extra lifetime service fee.

So to me, the Tivo and the ATV are two different products. The Tivo is basically a device that records television shows for you, but an ATV is a device that plays video and music content from your iTunes library (on your computer) wirelessly.

As for the small hard drive, if one has a fast wireless network, e.g. Wi-Fi 802.11n, then hard drive size becomes irrelevant. In fact, the only reasons I can think of for a hard drive in the ATV is a place for the "cut-down OSX" and also space for some content in the event that some people want to take their ATV with them to a friend's house or wherever..

Seems to me that many are disappointed with the ATV because it is not what they expected or wanted it to be, that being a DVR/PVR. Look, I don't really mean to knock the Tivo or similar systems like Ice TV here in Australia. I think a Tivo or similar device would complement my ATV and the rest of my home entertainment system. I just think that a lot of people don't "get" the ATV or knock it because they wish it had PVR functionality.

in the end, I think you are right. For the price, I think the ATV should have had PVR functionality.

To answer your questions about the Tivo -
- It does not stream video from itunes. Only photos and music from any windows/mac system
- there are ways to load videos onto the Tivo but it takes a hack to do it. It's not for the faint of heart.
- There is space for a second hard drive. But if that's used up, you either have to archive to DVD, PC, MAC, etc...or delete the program

The Tivo isn't all that different underneath from an ATV. It's a hard drive with Linux as the OS on a logic board with USB, Ethernet and IR inputs. There are a lot of hacks for it just like there are for the ATV.

 

[savar]

You know, I tried and tried to get my music and video (at least the non-Apple protected ones) to play on my XBox 360, but couldn't after a few nights of trying.

I got an TV and got it running in 5 minutes.

XBox 360 I'm having too much fun with playing games and HD DVD's anyways...

Did you install Connect360?

After that, it's silly how easy it is.

 

[milo]

I bought a TiVo DVR unit 3 years ago. It gave me 80+ hours of DVR capability. Pause live tv, record shows, schedule recordings, subscribe to entire seasons of shows (auto-eliminates reruns), gives me recommendations on what I would like based on shows I've recorded, put favorite actors in my wishlist (and records shows or movies that have them in it), check weather, check yahoo mail, stream music from any PC/MAC in my house wirelessly, view photo galleries from any PC/MAC in my house wirelessly, listen to podcasts, etc. AND it lets me download the movies/shows to my laptop so I can watch them on the road.

all for...an amazing $299 USD

But doesn't TIVO require a monthly subscription of some sort? If so, count me out. Is anyone selling a full PVR for $299 yet?

As for the aTV, at the very least it needs 5.1 surround, streaming internet radio, and the ability to buy content from the sofa. 1080p would be nice as well, but I don't know if the hardware can handle it...the other things could definitely come from software updates.

 

[blybug]

I've got the TV software running on a mac mini with a 500GB external FW drive hooked up to my standard def TV. What my family and I now have at our fingertips includes:

1. Almost 200 (Handbraked) movies
2. 15 years worth of more than 300 home video segments
3. Every episode of Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Office, many classic episodes of kids shows like Sesame Street and Electric Company (also Handbraked)
4. 15,000 songs nicely organized into playlists
5. More than 8000 family photos easily grouped by year, album, etc

This is exactly what the TV is supposed to do, and it is perfect. Granted, I can sync a lot more stuff since I have the large hard drive, but a real TV could stream this content just as well as my TVmini has it sync'ed. I just see it as an extra "backup" by syncing it all.

 

[MikieMikie]

I've got the TV software running on a mac mini with a 500GB external FW drive hooked up to my standard def TV.

Is this a readily available hack? Hadn't heard of anyone using the Apple TV software -- just Front Row.

 

[blybug]

Is this a readily available hack? Hadn't heard of anyone using the Apple TV software -- just Front Row.

http://wiki.awkwardtv.org/wiki/AppleTV_FrontRow_on_Intel_Mac
http://www.hackint0sh.org/forum/showthread.php?t=463

Works flawlessly, adding plugin frappliances like nito, ATVFiles, and Exit is as easy and drag-and-drop into the Front Row app package. iTunes on my mothership Mac sees a standard TV. Only downside is the TV software update does not work, so I am stuck at 1.0 with no YouTube, parental controls, and whatever else 1.1 brought. Also not sure if this would still work in Leopard, I've left the mini on Tiger, since it ain't broke I'm not going to fix it.

 

[APPLENEWBIE]

The xbox 360 does everything and then some for me than an Apple TV could/can do.

Yes, and with the X-box you also get that nice WHOOOOSHH sound to add to whatever you are listening to.

AppleTV certainly ain't perfect, but for those of us who have actually dedicated some time with it, it is pretty good...

 

[FF_productions]

I've got the TV software running on a mac mini with a 500GB external FW drive hooked up to my standard def TV. What my family and I now have at our fingertips includes:

1. Almost 200 (Handbraked) movies
2. 15 years worth of more than 300 home video segments
3. Every episode of Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Office, many classic episodes of kids shows like Sesame Street and Electric Company (also Handbraked)
4. 15,000 songs nicely organized into playlists
5. More than 8000 family photos easily grouped by year, album, etc

This is exactly what the TV is supposed to do, and it is perfect. Granted, I can sync a lot more stuff since I have the large hard drive, but a real TV could stream this content just as well as my TVmini has it sync'ed. I just see it as an extra "backup" by syncing it all.

Sir you couldn't have said it any better.

That's exactly what I'm doing. What else do you want the Apple TV to do for you?

What my goal has been for the last few years (before Apple TV) is to somehow wirelessly get music/movies/etc onto to the TV by using some sort of device. This is the perfect bridge.

I have a Mac Pro with too much space to spare so I dump everything neatly in a folder and Apple TV streams off of it.

 

[trip1ex]

You can upload movies to your Tivo without a hack and start watching them a minute or two after the upload begins.

ATV just isn't quite there yet from a practical point of view. For those that have a massive video library and the patience to convert it to ATV format and don't mind the cost of storing all that content on hard drives then it's ready for prime time.

But for the rest of us it isn't. More content is going to help. So will movie rentals. Then you might be able to say it can truly replace your dvd player at least.

Still it's a lot of dough for something that isn't terribly more convenient than my DVD player and won't beat out Netflix in pricing probably either.

 

[kevinbal]

Sir you couldn't have said it any better.

That's exactly what I'm doing. What else do you want the Apple TV to do for you?

What my goal has been for the last few years (before Apple TV) is to somehow wirelessly get music/movies/etc onto to the TV by using some sort of device. This is the perfect bridge.

I have a Mac Pro with too much space to spare so I dump everything neatly in a folder and Apple TV streams off of it.

I'm going to echo these sentiments, as I've stated many times to many people before. I've owned (pre-ordered months in advance) the TV since day 1 because I saw its potential right from the start.

While it would be insane to say that the TV has changed my life, it has changed the way both my fiance and I watch movies, and tv shows as well. Because of the inherent problems with promoting the use of applications like handbrake and visual hub, Apple has had their hands completely tied in making the general public understand -exactly- what the TV is capable of.

In fact, most of our friends could not visualize what the experience is like by description alone. However once they've come into our living room and seen, as I've dubbed it, a "Star Trek like" set up where all of my movies (500ish), all of my TV series, music, photos, and that great time waster; youtube, are literally a click away, they are blown away.

"Wait? There's no discs in? How.... they are just computer files? Holy crap, I had no idea this was possible."

Since storage space is quickly becoming a moot point, encoding for the highest quality produces nearly identical images to the physical DVD media. Once the limited sound issues are resolved and we move into more HD content, it is going to become even more amazing.

The TV is hardly the worst tech piece of 2007. I would go as far as to say it is the most misunderstood tech piece of 2007.

Here's to good things next Tuesday for my beloved TV.

 

[MikieMikie]

The TV is hardly the worst tech piece of 2007. I would go as far as to say it is the most misunderstood tech piece of 2007.

Here's to good things next Tuesday for my beloved TV.

Amen, brother.

 

[blybug]

ATV just isn't quite there yet from a practical point of view. For those that have a massive video library and the patience to convert it to ATV format and don't mind the cost of storing all that content on hard drives then it's ready for prime time.

True, ripping DVDs does take time, but the process does not need to be babysat. I typically set Handbrake off on its task either before I go to work, or before I go to sleep.

Hard drive space is becoming an irrelevant part of the equation...huge capacities for dirt cheap. It's deja vu to 1997 when I bought a 2GB (Apple branded) external SCSI drive for $499...I was just starting to collect/convert MP3s and thought how it would take me forever to fill that thing up . The demand for music storage drove hard drive sizes up through the GBs and prices down through the early 2000s, video will continue to do the same in the TB range for the next several years.

But for the rest of us it isn't. More content is going to help. So will movie rentals. Then you might be able to say it can truly replace your dvd player at least.

To some degree you're right, my Mom does not want to fiddle around with Handbrake. The TV concept won't really take off until obtaining videos is as easy as obtaining music. But again...10 years ago, I was astounding people with my library of a few hundred MP3s that I laboriously converted from CDs, playing them in MacAmp and Soundjam ("You mean all that music is in your computer??!!"). Most people had never heard of such a thing and thought it was ultra-cool, but too complicated for them. Today my 80-year-old Grandma uses iTunes and has an iPod. Video will catch up with "the rest of us" before you know it, and likely Apple will come up with the gee-whiz-why-didn't-anyone-do-that-before paradigm.

Still it's a lot of dough for something that isn't terribly more convenient than my DVD player and won't beat out Netflix in pricing probably either.

TV is actually a terrific complement to a Netflix subscription

 

[ctakim]

Boy, the AppleTV gets no love from the masses. I am perfectly happy with mine. I was looking for a solution to get music and photos to my large screen TV and it does that by streaming very well. The biggest frustration that must be behind all the negativity is the unrealized potential of what this can do. But that does not bother me in the least.

That being said I will be very interested in what Steve has planned for this little "hobby" device come next week!

 

[TelescopeEyes]

TV was a disappointment. It could have been something amazing, and it still can be. Steve just needs to put a little more work into making it something more than just a "hobby".

 

[trip1ex]

I agree with the next poster.

 

[trip1ex]

True, ripping DVDs does take time, but the process does not need to be babysat. I typically set Handbrake off on its task either before I go to work, or before I go to sleep.

Hard drive space is becoming an irrelevant part of the equation...huge capacities for dirt cheap. It's deja vu to 1997 when I bought a 2GB (Apple branded) external SCSI drive for $499...I was just starting to collect/convert MP3s and thought how it would take me forever to fill that thing up . The demand for music storage drove hard drive sizes up through the GBs and prices down through the early 2000s, video will continue to do the same in the TB range for the next several years.


To some degree you're right, my Mom does not want to fiddle around with Handbrake. The TV concept won't really take off until obtaining videos is as easy as obtaining music. But again...10 years ago, I was astounding people with my library of a few hundred MP3s that I laboriously converted from CDs, playing them in MacAmp and Soundjam ("You mean all that music is in your computer??!!"). Most people had never heard of such a thing and thought it was ultra-cool, but too complicated for them. Today my 80-year-old Grandma uses iTunes and has an iPod. Video will catch up with "the rest of us" before you know it, and likely Apple will come up with the gee-whiz-why-didn't-anyone-do-that-before paradigm.


TV is actually a terrific complement to a Netflix subscription

Hey eventually all media will be digitally downloaded. But there's not much of a reason for Joe Schmoe to get an ATV today. It doesn't really do anything he can't do now.

It might be a different story in 2 or 3 years. It might be a different story if Apple gets a lot more content and pricing is right. Because again eventually all media is digitally downloaded.

Oh and there's big differences between the iPod and music listening and the ATV and movie watching. The iPod did things for music listening that cds couldn't do. ATV doesn't really do anything that Cable, DVR and DVD don't do and yet it can't replace any of those devices today either.