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New Media Content Distribution System?
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qtip919 said:
I agree with you that the content currently available on the ITMS is of VERY poor quality but I think it is intentionally limited because it is targeted for those with 5G iPods. iPods won't play video at very high resolutions and it is time consuming to reformat higher quality video into the correct resolution and codec. If you get the chance, check out the movie trailers on a new iMac with FrontRow installed...My friend has one with a 3 Mbps DSL connection and very high quality trailers stream instantaneously from Apple's servers. I will soon have 15 Mbps in my area so I should be able to stream any video content flawlessly then...I think many other major cities will have this capability soon...For rural areas you may have to wait for WiMax solutions in the next few years...
rosalindavenue said:
To each his own... there are many movies that I've seen 5-10 times and still enjoy watching. I only buy what I consider to be "great" movies, so I don't have a large DVD collection (~20), but I know folks at work who have more than 100.
qtip919 said:
Exactly the opposite... Steve doesn't care aboout the media companies...
mmm... he cares about setting the pace for everyone to follow...
...And this will be the big one!
pdpfilms said:
I like the concept. I would hate to be buying Lost episodes and then deleting them because my hard disk is too small. I'd far rather have an unlimited list of shows I've purchased and be caching 60GB of it locally. It may even be smart enough to pre-cache episode 107 of Lost after I watch episode 106.anastasis said:
I think that, given the iPod, Apple will have plans for "offline" viewing.iTron5 said:
Yes hard drive space is increasing, but if people begin to WIDELY accept this model it will still be an issue. "Cached" content solves that... and maybe it'll allow me to login at a different location to watch something I've recorded earlier?geerlingguy said:
And remember - Front Row only works on NEW iMACS! (for now). Quicktime, iTunes, iDisk all work on Windows, I think this will be more a marketing decision than technology decision.
What makes you think this isn't exactly what the rumour refers to?nagromme said:
And by making it LOOK like a personal hard disk, people will feel more like they own the content.csubear said:
I know what this is, very elegant!
Apple, has history has shown, is fairly reluctant to implement DRM. The DRM in iTunes is weak at best. The same for videos. I predict the same for this.
The videos will not be unavailable to 'offline' users. Instead, the videos will be H.264 files. Users of older Macs are going to be burned by this, but a 300MHz iMac G3 probably isn't running OS X lickety-split either.
The videos can be downloaded. Probably have a limit on the number you will be able to 'check out' at once, but unless you have a huge external drive you aren't going to want to download it anyway. You download, you watch, you keep for a bit... then you delete. But a record is saved on Apple's servers. Perhaps there is a redownloading fee, but I predict not.
Why HD quality? This is the year of HD, true, but I'm not sure that all videos will be HD. The good news is, that Apple can provide normal quality and then at any time 'upgrade' the quality for a simple re-download of the video. I'm not sure I know of anyone of an HD set... statistics show that few people own HD-TV.
This is a logical evolution. Only need one video file... a single Xserve and an Xserve RAID could probably hold the files to start. The bandwidth will be killer, but maybe (extreme maybe here) Apple will implement a Bittorrent like protocol into iTunes. Want a video? Download it from someone else's local cache at the same time you're getting it from Apple. Cool, and major geek points, but probably not.
Apple, has history has shown, is fairly reluctant to implement DRM. The DRM in iTunes is weak at best. The same for videos. I predict the same for this.
The videos will not be unavailable to 'offline' users. Instead, the videos will be H.264 files. Users of older Macs are going to be burned by this, but a 300MHz iMac G3 probably isn't running OS X lickety-split either.
The videos can be downloaded. Probably have a limit on the number you will be able to 'check out' at once, but unless you have a huge external drive you aren't going to want to download it anyway. You download, you watch, you keep for a bit... then you delete. But a record is saved on Apple's servers. Perhaps there is a redownloading fee, but I predict not.
Why HD quality? This is the year of HD, true, but I'm not sure that all videos will be HD. The good news is, that Apple can provide normal quality and then at any time 'upgrade' the quality for a simple re-download of the video. I'm not sure I know of anyone of an HD set... statistics show that few people own HD-TV.
This is a logical evolution. Only need one video file... a single Xserve and an Xserve RAID could probably hold the files to start. The bandwidth will be killer, but maybe (extreme maybe here) Apple will implement a Bittorrent like protocol into iTunes. Want a video? Download it from someone else's local cache at the same time you're getting it from Apple. Cool, and major geek points, but probably not.
otter-boy said:
Sorry for the smart alecky tone of my post. I didn't mean to dis people who watch movies, just say that this isn't a product for them, and also imply that they are a small percentage of the people who would want products like this.
David
ddrueckhammer said:
I agree entirely. FrontRow actually opens the door for this, since it lets you interect with all of your content without opening iTunes or iPhoto (or whatever) to get to your files. Adding a new program (iVideo?, iMedia??, I'm not coming up with anything catchy...) to handle video downloads wouldn't radically change the user's interaction with the computer if they all use FrontRow to actually play the content in the end. Want a song? Buy one through iTunes. What a video? Buy one through iFilms (or is iFlicks better?). Whatever the new app is, it will probably grow out of a more mature version of QuickTime. Apple has been slowly merging iTunes and QuickTime recently but I see that coming to an end (it was probably just a stunt to spread QuickTime into all the iPod owner's homes anyway).
iPod video content from the iFlicks Movie Store (or any residual video podcasts or Lost episodes downloaded from the Music Store) would be stored within the iFlicks library in the Movie folder (as you suggest). iTunes would still be responsible for syncing content to the iPod, so video files would be remotely pulled from the iFlicks library just like iPhoto albums are. iMovie might end up taking on this role, but I don't see that happening unless it gets a lot faster than it currently is at importing and encoding videos. This may require Apple to include a little bit of specialized hardware with all their new Macs (such as a dedicated H.264 decoder/encoder chip). That would eliminate some of the bottleneck.
Whatever complications arise from having two online media stores will, of course, be hidden by FrontRow 2.0 (*Available for all Macs with Intel*).
physics_gopher said:I agree entirely. FrontRow actually opens the door for this, since it lets you interect with all of your content without opening iTunes or iPhoto (or whatever) to get to your files. Adding a new program (iVideo?, iMedia??, I'm not coming up with anything catchy...) to handle video downloads wouldn't radically change the user's interaction with the computer if they all use FrontRow to actually play the content in the end. Want a song? Buy one through iTunes. What a video? Buy one through iFilms (or is iFlicks better?). Whatever the new app is, it will probably grow out of a more mature version of QuickTime. Apple has been slowly merging iTunes and QuickTime recently but I see that coming to an end (it was probably just a stunt to spread QuickTime into all the iPod owner's homes anyway).
iPod video content from the iFlicks Movie Store (or any residual video podcasts or Lost episodes downloaded from the Music Store) would be stored within the iFlicks library in the Movie folder (as you suggest). iTunes would still be responsible for syncing content to the iPod, so video files would be remotely pulled from the iFlicks library just like iPhoto albums are. iMovie might end up taking on this role, but I don't see that happening unless it gets a lot faster than it currently is at importing and encoding videos. This may require Apple to include a little bit of specialized hardware with all their new Macs (such as a dedicated H.264 decoder/encoder chip). That would eliminate some of the bottleneck.
Whatever complications arise from having two online media stores will, of course, be hidden by FrontRow 2.0 (*Available for all Macs with Intel*).
I couldn't have summed it up better! As I said before, at first I thought the content would be kept on a users hard drive with DRM but after looking at how fast FrontRow Trailers stream with a 3 Mbps connection I am very confident of streaming video purchases to a set-top Mac Mini or 802.11n Airport Express AV! And I'm not even sure 802.11n is even needed since the bottleneck would be your ISP.
mdavey said:
That's a very interesting idea mdavey. Automatic OS and application updates, and access to your library. Still, some people will have slower connections ... I prefer the idea of some local storage allowing for slower connections and pre-downloading a show. Perhaps it would be a local hard disk, perhaps an "Xmediaserve", or even some shared space on your PC or Mac.johnnyjibbs said:
I hope Apple allows for customers who are stuck on ISDN, or often disconnected. I think the TiVo model is interesting here - there are 2 distinct modes - you read the TV guide and select what you want to watch later (ie. what you want recorded), OR you read your list of shows you can watch now.mdavey said:
It would be nice to not have to plan ahead for what you might like to watch - though it's quite feasible to let people with slower connection preselect what they want... and have it download in its own time. For regular series it could automatically download the latest episode as soon as it can.
It would be good for Apple to offer HD options at a higher cost. It may be a small market but those could be good customers.Mechcozmo said:
The peer-to-peer downloading arrangement makes ALOT of sense. Especially if Apple can write a program to search for closer machines first to help with internet efficiency.
Agreed. I hope this is included in iLife '06.ddrueckhammer said:
rosalindavenue said:
I guess I'm not average. Not that I have a "sagging shelf" of DVD's, but yes, there ARE films worth owning and viewing over and over. A library of music, a library of books, a library of films. It's all the same concept. I guess you don't have sagging library shelf of books either?
rosalindavenue said:
What a false statement, your'e so off. Then again, maybe I just appreciate cinema more than you. After all, I do have a degree in Film History, Theory and Criticism from the top film school in the U.S., if not THE WORLD.
Color me smug. Humph.
(oh, what film school? Why the USC School of Cinema-Television of course)
dashiel said:
Are you sure about that?
This looks good: http://www.computerworld.com/hardwaretopics/storage/story/0,10801,105682,00.htm and it's coming in about year year.
This looks even better:
http://colossalstorage.net/home_diskdrive.htm
NickCharles said:
Well, you must have gotten As in Snobbery class.
Every engineer knows that bumblebees can't fly, too, but they do. Learning theory doesn't make you an expert on feeling, nor is it a replacement for practical experience. Just like being in MENSA doesn't actually mean someone is smart. If you have to fall back on credentials, your position is not sufficiently credible on its own.
artifex said:Well, you must have gotten As in Snobbery class.
Every engineer knows that bumblebees can't fly, too, but they do. Learning theory doesn't make you an expert on feeling, nor is it a replacement for practical experience. Just like being in MENSA doesn't actually mean someone is smart. If you have to fall back on credentials, your position is not sufficiently credible on its own.
Yes, yes, yawn, blah.........
He's still right, smugness notwithstanding.
I'm assuming you read his response to the nonsensical assertion that a good film won't support repeated viewing.
I think most people are assuming this will be the case by now. My only concern would be Apple coping with all the traffic, especially if thousands are all trying to stream the same content at the same time. Could get very slow.spinko said:Not if the files on the iDisk are aliases
This is one of the worst ideas to come out of Apple in a long time, if it is actually true. I will not waste 100 bucks a year just to be able to watch content that I pay for. And as others have pointed out, what about mobile viewing on my iPod?
Stupid stupid stupid.
Stupid stupid stupid.
NickCharles said:
Wow-- USC-- congratulations. No wonder you are smug. You seem to have focused more on "criticism" than history and theory. Incidentally, my view of movie ownership is shared by a college dropout; Steve Jobs:
"Finally, Mr. Jobs noted, people just don’t consume music and movies the same way. You might listen to a certain song dozens or hundreds of times in your lifetime. But how many times in your life do you watch a movie? Most people probably wouldn’t watch even their favorite movies ten times in their lives, and therefore are don’t buy nearly as many movies as they do songs or CD’s."
LINK.
Don't be fools
This is obviously not entirely accurate, if you could never store the video on your hard drive, what about iPod video. . . Believe me, if anything, Apple needs things to drive iPod sales, and making videos unavailable to be put on your iPod is not the way to do it. Apple is Nae this foolish.
This is obviously not entirely accurate, if you could never store the video on your hard drive, what about iPod video. . . Believe me, if anything, Apple needs things to drive iPod sales, and making videos unavailable to be put on your iPod is not the way to do it. Apple is Nae this foolish.
I hope that Apple uses a peer-to-peer arrangement, especially using local peers (try home network, then computers on the local exchange, then ISP, then ISP's peers, then country, then world.... or something like that). Of course, if Apple could supplement the peer-to-peer (especially to give near-instant playback start), that'd be best.steve_hill4 said:
The more I think about this rumor, the less I think there'll be a PVR integrated into this. It's about downloading and playing a movie. If so it means you'd have to buy an EyeTV to record TV shows.... and then playback through the MacMini or whatever it'll be called.