No Apple Digital Video Recorder (DVR) Planned?

[Bonte]

Crunching the HD content with MPEG4 would allow you to put the files onto a dual layer (at most) DVD-R. Its not like the eventual HD-DVD and Blu-Ray players are not going to play HD content if its only on a DVD-R disc... Thus your only concern right now has to be the fact that you couldn't just pop it into any average DVD player at the moment. It would be an interesting experiment to see if native HD content on such a disc would output to an HDTV courtesy of one of the current "upscaling" DVD players on the market that also play DIVX content.

And serve a small audience, Apple can only promote is as HD when it can play HD disks. There is no need to get in this market so early in the game, its 1 or 2 years off.

 

[bergmef]

All I want ...

Whether Apple creates a dvr in the future or not, all I want for now is a way to add an icon to frontrow that says 'DVR' and have it access my tivo. That way I can record to dvd, edit commercials and stream to my tv. I'd be happy with that for now. The Mac and tivo are both networked ... why not do this? 🙂

 

[Bonte]

Yeah, we need a way to add some extra stuff we can control with the remote, hopefully we see some hacks or a replacement app that works with the same remote.

 

[Dark Horse]

Whether Apple creates a dvr in the future or not, all I want for now is a way to add an icon to frontrow that says 'DVR' and have it access my tivo. That way I can record to dvd, edit commercials and stream to my tv. I'd be happy with that for now. The Mac and tivo are both networked ... why not do this? 🙂

that would be sweet. surely someone can make that happen.

 

[grobik]

what? WHAT?!

apple=simple UI. AND small compact design...(not including the obese hifi system!)

a 4, FOUR inch display?! on an ipod?!?!?! maybe if they took the current 5G model and turned it sideways to make a 'widescreen' and used the nano click wheel...

but I just don't see apple making something that you have to turn sideways to view movies on.

More likely it is a higher video resolution and size and a better compatibility(maybe more codec support) with output to a tv. better battery performance defiantly!

 

[demallien]

The future (as seen by Steve Jobs)

If I had to guess what Apple is trying to do with the Mac Mini, it would be to get the thing into the living room to rule the roost.

Here's the system.

iTMS acts as the video-on-demand server to deliver video content to the home.

The computer in the home (Mac or PC, it doesn't matter so long as it has iTunes) is used to purchase content.

The Mac Mini, sitting behind a big screen in the living room, connects wirelessly to the computer, and, using Bonjour, access the content, and puts it up on the screen.

This effectively turns the Mini into a "tuner" for Video-On-Demand.

At the moment the price is too high for this to go ballistic. But then, that was the case with the iPod as well. The iPod rapidly became huge because people could put their CDs onto it. With VOD, we're going to have to wait a bit longer, because we have to wait until way more content is available on iTMS. As has been noted, there are still many popular TV shows that are missing.

Programs such as the evening news can be done as a video podcast, with the download being initiated automatically if you are subscribed.

I would expect that the price of the mini is going to drop in the future. It is already powerful enough to handle h264 at a decent resolution, so Apple won't need to keep boosting the specs.

All of this IS going to happen. VOD is just so superior as a viewing experience, that once enough content is available, most people will find the advantage compelling. The only question is whether Apple can leverage iTMS and iTunes to make the mini the receiver of choice in people's living rooms...