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Mysterious 'Set Top Box' Shipment Records Hint at Refreshed Apple TV Coming Soon

darkazcura said:
Honestly AirVideo is amazing. You can barely tell the difference if you have the bit rate cranked up. I plan on getting a projector one day and that's the main reason I stick with uncompressed rips. Maybe AirVideo will surprise me even more when I get that projector..but if it doesn't, at least I will have the uncompressed rips ready to go..
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New version (Air Video HD) and the beta version of Air Video will stream h.264 without any conversion of the video at all. They basically do what products like MKV Tools do - redo the audio and put in an iTunes compatible container. The new version will also convert and download to your iPhone/Pad.

So anyway, I took an episode of That 70s Show and ripped it with MakeMKV. Came to 5.88 GB for a 22:30 episode, so a two-hour movie at that bit rate would be about 31.3 GB. The audio is DTS-HD.

It’s not stuttering, but it is stopping about once per minute for a few seconds when streamed to the Apple TV. Playing back on the iPhone it doesn’t pause - although it’s a bit ludicrous to play 31 Mb/s video on a 4 inch screen. ;)

So we can handle one uncompressed stream (Mac to Phone via Air Video Server) but not quite two (iPhone to Apple TV)

I then converted it to MP4 with MKV tools - video left untouched, audio converted to AAC and brought it into iTunes. Lots of buffering issues, despite it only needing one stream, from the Mac where it was located, to the Apple TV.
 

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Bishope1999 said:
Well the actual size of Star Trek is around 40 GB, so that version you played is highly compressed and stayed well with in the bitrate output of Apple TV. If you would try an actual uncompressed playback of that movie on Apple TV, you may have more issues.
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I wouldn’t call it highly compressed - the original would contain several sound tracks that have been removed and is likely closer to 30.

But yes, there are definitely issues with streaming high-bitrate items. iPhone plays them just fine though. Trying to download that high-bitrate file to my iPhone to see what happens when Air Video tries to stream it. It didn’t work well from iTunes, but that seemed to be more to do with iTunes than Apple TV.
 
NewbieCanada said:
I wouldn’t call it highly compressed - the original would contain several sound tracks that have been removed and is likely closer to 30.

But yes, there are definitely issues with streaming high-bitrate items. iPhone plays them just fine though. Trying to download that high-bitrate file to my iPhone to see what happens when Air Video tries to stream it. It didn’t work well from iTunes, but that seemed to be more to do with iTunes than Apple TV.
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Yes, the Dolby True HD track would have been replaced and the other lossy audio tracks would have been removed as well, so your right, less video would have had to been compressed. Still, quite a bit of quality loss.... but isn't the bitrate limit of Apple TV somewhere around 25 mpbs? If so, I think that,s where the issue is with high bit rate files.
 
Bishope1999 said:
Yes, the Dolby True HD track would have been replaced and the other lossy audio tracks would have been removed as well, so your right, less video would have had to been compressed. Still, quite a bit of quality loss.... but isn't the bitrate limit of Apple TV somewhere around 25 mpbs? If so, I think that,s where the issue is with high bit rate files.
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Well it played my 32 mbps file smoothly except for the buffering issues.
 
Ieo said:
With so much content available, why should we have to wait for the network dinosaurs to get their acts together? The way to spur them into action is to show them if they don't keep up with the times, eventually we won't need them. Moving forward and facilitating web content in the living room as much as possible is the way to do that.
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I don't disagree with you and don't mean to suggest that apps on AppleTV couldn't do all sorts of amazing things. I was watching a movie just tonight and noticed a great big Universal Pictures logo across the first seconds of presentation. Below that and in tiny print is also said: "A Comcast Company". The dinosaurs own more than the method of delivery, they own the very content we are hoping to gain access to.

Suppose only 25% of apps made for the Apple TV store had the capability to display content. With only 5000 apps in the store, thats over 1000 apps that must be monitored, because any one of them could insult any one of the dinosaurs, straining the relationship Apple has with these companies. For all we know, a paragraph in the deals they've already made, prohibits such activity.

What brought music execs to the table doesn't seem to be happening with the movie execs. If apple wants control of this industry, they're going to have to buy it.
 
NE14T? said:
How many people here actually have real world 300 Mbps capabilities from their ISP in the first place? And how much $ would such bandwidth cost the average user per month? :confused: And let's be honest.. how many people would actually take advantage of it if they did? You'd have to be gobbling down tons of data, streaming HD content and playing several MMORPG's at the same time, to see any real advantage in such a connection.

Or what am I missing?
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Internal network. Streaming from your computer. AirPlay. More solid connection. Better everything.

Same reason why it needs more ram and more GPU power. Make everything better.
 
NewbieCanada said:
New version (Air Video HD) and the beta version of Air Video will stream h.264 without any conversion of the video at all. They basically do what products like MKV Tools do - redo the audio and put in an iTunes compatible container. The new version will also convert and download to your iPhone/Pad.

So anyway, I took an episode of That 70s Show and ripped it with MakeMKV. Came to 5.88 GB for a 22:30 episode, so a two-hour movie at that bit rate would be about 31.3 GB. The audio is DTS-HD.

It’s not stuttering, but it is stopping about once per minute for a few seconds when streamed to the Apple TV. Playing back on the iPhone it doesn’t pause - although it’s a bit ludicrous to play 31 Mb/s video on a 4 inch screen. ;)

So we can handle one uncompressed stream (Mac to Phone via Air Video Server) but not quite two (iPhone to Apple TV)

I then converted it to MP4 with MKV tools - video left untouched, audio converted to AAC and brought it into iTunes. Lots of buffering issues, despite it only needing one stream, from the Mac where it was located, to the Apple TV.
Click to expand...

Hmm thanks for the info. I just noticed the new version of Air Video the other day and didn't get a chance to look into it. Definitely looks like it is worth the cost of admission..gonna download it soon.
 
What if this is the "iOS in Car" Airplay device that they will be offering to the car makers? All they need is some kind of device like AppleTV altered for 12 Volts...

screen-shot-2013-06-10-at-2-48-36-pm.png
 
I'm confident that an updated Apple TV will be announced today. At a minimum, I'm confident that it will support 802.11ac. I suspect it will also include an upgrade from A5 to an A6 or A7 processor and an upgrade from 512MB of RAM to 1GB. I hope it includes an upgrade to HDMI 2.0.

BTW, I expect the Airport Express will also be updated today, with 802.11ac.
 
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