No New Apple Television Products Coming in 2012 as Content Negotiations Stall Once Again

[davidgrimm]

Those content owners better get with the program or die out. Now wonder they call them the dinosaur networks!!

They live in fear of several things: 1) missing a nickel of revenue to somebody else, and 2) not being part of the future.

The music industry was pulled into new media against its will (that's what happens when you make a product that is so easily copied and shared). The other media companies are fearful of being forced into a new market like music was.

 

[BJMRamage]

I recently became an AppleTV owner.
I do not really buy iTunes video (TV shows or Movies)
I have Fios for TV/Internet...and like the idea of finding a new show and watching something i would not have even thought about or wanted to buy from iTunes/Amazon/the like. (Storage Wars, Mountain Men, etc)

I would almost think rather than take some sort of buy TV Shows as we want or buy Channels that it might be a nice side-step to allow TV Cable companies to have their own Apps.

Comcast, DirectTV, Verizon Fios, Dish Network, etc could all sell you the internet, and a package of channels, the App comes up and there is no Cable Box but just the AppleTV box...nice and small. You could have a DVR service either through Apple Cloud with "XX GB" of space to record OR maybe it clouds to the TV Provider network. This would allow Cable companies to ditch their boxes, charge a flat fee, and you use the AppleTV to watch Live shows, record, or even purchase shows you missed.

seems almost win:win for most...though probably not going to happen, just my thoughts.

 

[shiseiryu1]

Cable Companies are Stupid!

Cable companies are just throwing money away by not partnering with Apple...don't they realize that?!? They want control over the software...are you kidding me?! I think most people would agree that cable company customer service sucks, their hardware sucks, and their software is clunky.

JUST PARTNER WITH APPLE ALREADY...THEY KNOW WHAT THEY'RE DOING!

 

[tido2012]

Even though I don't and will not subscribe to any cable or satellite contract, I agree with you. I don't see this changing. On the bright side, it does make it easier to be more productive at home.

Or die out? How do you figure? They own the content that everyone wants.

 

[Yvan256]

You know what happens when you're too greedy?

----------

Locking down deals won't be as easy this time knowing what Apple did to the music industry with iTunes/iPod.

You mean how Apple forced the music industry into the 21st century and helped save them from themselves?

 

[ILikeTurtles]

Note to Apple:

Stop playing around making "Toys" for people to play with.
Yes, I know toys make you a lot of money but you are neglecting your roots.

Ok, many people may not NEED real powerful computers any more, but that does not you should just give up pushing.

Please get back to the great company (tech wise, not money wise) you once were and push and push tech as hard as you can every single year so the whole world can move forward to better things.

Don't just dumb society down with easy to use toys, please.

Oh how I wish you were "cutting edge" for people's main computers once again.

One day, perhaps.......

Isn't going to happen. You have to get over it.

 

[topmounter]

The answer is simple.

All Apple has to do is...

...write a check each month to the content owners that is bigger than what DirecTV, Dish Network, Comcast, Time-Warner Cable, Cablevision, Charter, AT&T U-Verse, Verizon FIOS, Cox, Suddenlink, MediaCom, CableOne, etc., etc. write... combined.

Or partner with some or all of the above and work within their existing programming agreements, but that's going to be difficult with the margins being what they are (getting lower all the time since you can't raise subscriber rates as fast as the content owners are raising the rates they charge the cable and satellite companies) on the video side of the cable and satellite business.

 

[prowlmedia]

Problem is how much is an apple TV going to cost...

ATV is £99
The 27" monitor is £899

Given that screens are only getting bigger. I'd want a 55" apple Television... and that's going to be looking at 2K+

And if you are buying something that price it had better be updatable!? Something like a ATV slot?

Even the New Samsungs TV's have upgrade packs now they are going to update the chips / each year.

 

[3282868]

Handbrake works just fine - go get their updated version. I copy Netflix movies all the time with it, works like a charm. At night when I'm tired of watching "World's Dumbest" or "Mobsters" I bring up one of the movies on my Apple TV that I have ripped to our iMac... Works every time.

Handbrake is great, especially for encoding high end Blu-Ray rips. I spent a year learning about encoding, understanding the process, and ripping all my SD/BD DVD's. I went overkill with the "Advanced" Handbrake settings for my BD encodes, mainly as I definitely saw a difference in experimenting with settings and comparing them with the original Blu-Ray. This is the string I used which you can copy/paste into Handbrake:

b-adapt=2:rc-lookahead=50sy-rd=1.5,0.10:bframes=8:ref=8:me=umh:subq=10:trellis=2:analyse=all:merange=32:aq-strength=1.2

I have a 12-Core Mac Pro, encodes took ~7-9 hours for a Blu-Ray, but it shrank it down significantly without compromising quality. Many may not agree with the settings, so feel free to remove anything. I wanted to "future proof" my encodes, however some high end m4v's didn't play on my AppleTV, I got a Mac Mini with my Synology server and haven't had one issue.

The other app I use, which isn't free, is "RipIt". Great app, rips and encodes into a plethora of presets such as AppleTV, iPhone, even Android platform.

 

[Flux.Capacitor]

Why would Apple go to the cable providers and not the networks directly? They could probably get a deal with ABC (since it's Disney) and that would cover a large portion; ESPN, Disney, Lifetime etc. Then perhaps the other networks, NBC, CBS, TNT etc, would follow suit. I don't get the involvement of the cable companies other than them being a one stop shop.

 

[Le Big Mac]

Though cable companies are required to provide cable cards, they are not required to do so for free. Also, even if you use a cable card, you're still paying a monthly fee for content that you may not want/need.

True, but why would you pay for content when you don't want that content? The broader point is that Apple wants to be able to offer content provided via cable providers--that's the reason for these negotiations--and they can do that simply by offering a cable card (which typically costs no more than the cost of the cheapest converter).

If all they (Apple) want is content directly from various content providers, that's a separate negotiation that can bypass cable providers--they just need to ensure internet access for streaming.

 

[rei101]

Apple has no luck on TV deals.

I work in a cable tv station and we deal with cable operators very closely. They are so disorganized, fragmented and complex that no way Apple is going to make a deal with them.

Even for us, introducing a new TV channel takes at least 2 to 3 years in negotiations.

On the other hand... is not Steve Jobs making the negotiations any more. He has his charisma and vision.

 

[Flux.Capacitor]

Handbrake is great, especially for encoding high end Blu-Ray rips.

The other app I use, which isn't free, is "RipIt". Great app, rips and encodes into a plethora of presets such as AppleTV, iPhone, even Android platform.

I love Handbrake, but I've had random issues backing up my Blu-Ray's with the older version in the past. It was hit or miss so I would go the blu-ray > MakeMKV > Handbrake route. I'll try directly with the new Handbrake. Does it handle Blu-Ray subtitles now?

 

[Rocketman]

If Apple did something akin to Tivo and have a crew following the programming order for say, Time Warner Cable, Comcast, and DirecTV, Apple TV could simply be an alternate menuing, DVR, program reminder and search utility.

The current GUI on all these services suck and never, ever, remember what you know you like and are likely to watch again or prefer not to miss.

Super low hanging fruit here.

I already have a DTV subscription and can put whatever hardware on it I want.

I for one hope any physical ATV with screen includes a "retina" 4K display. It would be a BIG differentiator, would facilitate four HD pictures at once or a sharper full screen experience on existing content, and of course would facilitate next gen 4K and reasonably support 8K at half size, which is currently deploying in Japan in the videophile crowd.

Imagine having a theater quality digital display in your main tv room. . . .

I recently bought a 2 year old HDTV (around 55" diagonal) for $600 and saw a brand new Samsung or LG HDTV (1/4 the thickness) at the local specialist for $2700. It was 48" wide so was probably about 55" diagonal or so.

So I am thinking a 32-36" diagonal 4K included ATV will be somewhere around $1999. Once Apple got to supply-demand balance on 15" rMDP and now that they are producing 10x as many displays for 13" rMBP, they have the production lines suitable for larger displays for TV's at about the same resolution or less.

Rocketman

 

[CWallace]

Not that Apple did not want to release new TV in 2012 but it was due to negotiation deadlock between the cable companies. If Apple can reconstruct its proposal and renegotiate with these companies, there will be new Apple TV in 2013.

Some analysts swear Apple is making an LCD TV right now, so I guess they're going into a warehouse for a year of storage.

But would that make them new Apple TVs in 2013, or old Apple TVs from 2012 sold in 2013?

 

[greytmom]

Exactly. Only handbrake doesnt work anymore in mountain lion, other than that, love the apple tv for what it does

What do you mean? I'm handbraking as we speak, in Mountain Lion. Working perfectly fine.

 

[TheRainKing]

Exactly. Only handbrake doesnt work anymore in mountain lion, other than that, love the apple tv for what it does

Works fine for me.

 

[greytmom]

Apple just needs a deal with HBO

That's it. Once that happens, the rest is history.

Having said that, I just cut cable a couple of weeks ago. The thing that was keeping me from doing so was HBO, but I finally realized I'd much rather wait a few months and then buy Game of Thrones (and maybe True Blood, if it starts getting better) on Blu Ray or iTunes. So, I went from paying $200 per month for internet, cable, 2 DVRs and remotes, and HBO, to paying $63 per month for cable. I already had Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime, and I have an Apple TV and a Roku.

I spent $30 or so on an HD antenna from Monoprice and I get about 29 local HD channels, not counting the shopping channels and foreign language channels (programmed my TV to skip those). I'm not a sports fan, so no worries there. All in all, I wish I had done this years ago.

Incidentally, when I called to cancel my cable, the guy didn't even ask me why or try to get me to stay. He simply said, "we're getting a lot of these phone calls."

 

[Tiger8]

Cable companies are just throwing money away by not partnering with Apple...don't they realize that?!? They want control over the software...are you kidding me?! I think most people would agree that cable company customer service sucks, their hardware sucks, and their software is clunky.

JUST PARTNER WITH APPLE ALREADY...THEY KNOW WHAT THEY'RE DOING!

As much as I love Apple, and as many people draw parallels to the iTunes / Music industry example, I have to admit things have changed since 2001

In 2001 there were no other legal choices, so the music industry -regardless of their reservations- partnered up with Apple.

But now as the article says there are multiple players in the arena: Apple, Google, and Amazon to name a few. Don't forget also Hulu and Netflix, both of which have aspirations to grow bigger and eventually replace cable with a different model.

Needless to say, the TV industry is probably facing the least **crunch** in terms of changes, people still watch TV, great shows still get great ratings, so they are in no hurry.

 

[hipnetic]

One of the things that confuses me about these rumors is this...

There are no particular features hinted at in these rumors that would necessitate new hardware. The current ATV hardware can already do what they need, including live TV. It's really just a licensing issue. But if they could sort that out, there's no reason why you couldn't start watching show X live. Apple could transcode the MPEG2 HDTV broadcasts on-the-fly to MP4, and you would stream it from the Cloud. You could then watch the shows live (possibly delayed by a few seconds) assuming your internet service had the necessary bandwidth to support a real-time stream.

 

[Rogifan]

Why does Apple need to get into the TV business. Especially if, as some people claim, it's a dying industry? I'd much rather have Apple focus on making the best computers, tablets and smartphones on the planet. I actually wonder how deep Apple is getting into this or if it's just wall street noise because they're obsessed with the notion that Apple needs to come up with the "next big thing", game changing product, and assume it will be in the TV space.

 

[Elbon]

I would almost think rather than take some sort of buy TV Shows as we want or buy Channels that it might be a nice side-step to allow TV Cable companies to have their own Apps.

Not a bad idea.

 

[reefoid]

Does anyone know how much bandwidth a HD broadcast uses? I'm asking as I'm with Virgin in the UK for my TV/phone/internet but they have a heavy usage policy in place where if you go over a certain limit (3.5GB in my case) in between 4pm and 9pm, they then throttle your connection by 75% for the next five hours.

So if I'm watching a HD stream in the living room, my son is watching a HD stream in his room and I'm downloading something on my PC, I'm going to hit that 3.5GB limit pretty quickly and get throttled down to 5GB. Is 5GB bandwidth enough that we could both continue to watch two HD streaming broadcasts simultaneously?

 

[Elbon]

True, but why would you pay for content when you don't want that content?

That's exactly my point. The cable companies don't really give you any other option. Under the current distribution model, your *have* to pay for content that you may not want.

The broader point is that Apple wants to be able to offer content provided via cable providers

I don't think we really know enough to know what Apple wants, or what these negotiations are about.

 

[3282868]

I love Handbrake, but I've had random issues backing up my Blu-Ray's with the older version in the past. It was hit or miss so I would go the blu-ray > MakeMKV > Handbrake route. I'll try directly with the new Handbrake. Does it handle Blu-Ray subtitles now?

Good question. I haven't had an issue with subtitles and it's important to note that you no longer need to use mkv containers as mp4 now supports DTS and everything mkv does. For my audio I have multiple layers, the first track is default for iDevices, thus either passthru the stereo track or mixdown to stereo. I passthru the second audio track as the main audio, either DTS or 5.1, etc. I haven't cared for subtitles, so most of my collection I never bothered and could always remux an srt subtitle into the container. However, I haven't had an issue with any nightly Handbrake build and 1080P subtitle encodes.

Hope this helps!

Oh, and I'm running the current Handbrake nightly right now on yesterdays 10.8.2 build. No issues