renting movies on Apple TV. what a joke

[danny_w]

I really wish that Apple would add 4:3 support to TV so that I could make use of this service. I have no desire to go to HDTV, which would actually be a step backward considering the movies that I watch mostly are in 4:3 (to get the same effective size I would have to devote about another 1.5 feet of wall space to completely wasted black bars). Why does every iPod support 4:3 but the TV does not? Makes no sense to me.

 

[fivepoint]

I really wish that Apple would add 4:3 support to TV so that I could make use of this service. I have no desire to go to HDTV, which would actually be a step backward considering the movies that I watch mostly are in 4:3 (to get the same effective size I would have to devote about another 1.5 feet of wall space to completely wasted black bars). Why does every iPod support 4:3 but the TV does not? Makes no sense to me.

For the same reason that macs don't come with floppy drives and that Blu-Ray players don't come with VHS decks. 4:3 is going the way of the Dodo.

 

[mark34]

I really wish that Apple would add 4:3 support to TV so that I could make use of this service. I have no desire to go to HDTV, which would actually be a step backward considering the movies that I watch mostly are in 4:3 (to get the same effective size I would have to devote about another 1.5 feet of wall space to completely wasted black bars). Why does every iPod support 4:3 but the TV does not? Makes no sense to me.

Are you serious? Interesting combination... someone devoted to preserving 4:3 aspect ratios, yet is the owner of a fairly cutting edge device that downloads movies from the internet.

Think about all the space you would free up from behind your TV without needing all the space for the tube and such.

 

[danny_w]

For the same reason that macs don't come with floppy drives and that Blu-Ray players don't come with VHS decks. 4:3 is going the way of the Dodo.

...but not for fans of old movies. Sorry, widescreen has its place and I love it (who could imagine Ben Hur or Westside Story or ... in fullscreen?) but historical movie buffs like myself will always have a need for 4:3. And the newest iPods (which are newer than TV) still support it. And most if not all of the TV competitors support it.

EDIT: And naysayers also said that vinyl records were going out forever when the CD came in. Well guess what? Now there are boutique vinyl producers, and quite a few of the newest releases are being coming out on both CD and vinyl.

 

[danny_w]

Are you serious? Interesting combination... someone devoted to preserving 4:3 aspect ratios, yet is the owner of a fairly cutting edge device that downloads movies from the internet.

Think about all the space you would free up from behind your TV without needing all the space for the tube and such.

Well, I have more space benind the TV than I have wall space. It would require a 65" HDTV to replace my 50" 4:3, and the vast majority of the time that extra width would be totally wasted. It's the same problem as when HDTV's first came out in widescreen but there was very little widescreen programming.

 

[sandman42]

For the same reason that macs don't come with floppy drives and that Blu-Ray players don't come with VHS decks. 4:3 is going the way of the Dodo.

Except that to provide 640x480 support (4:3) would just be a software option, not an incongruous hardware combination like in your analogies. I have to think that for some reason Apple purposely excluded 4:3 when they configured the TV. I've never understood this. For a company that's as interested in marketshare as Apple is, that's a lot of consumers they're leaving out.

 

[danny_w]

Except that to provide 640x480 support (4:3) would just be a software option, not an incongruous hardware combination like in your analogies. I have to think that for some reason Apple purposely excluded 4:3 when they configured the TV. I've never understood this. For a company that's as interested in marketshare as Apple is, that's a lot of consumers they're leaving out.

My point exactly. Since the iPod already has this option, why is it mysteriously missing int he TV? It's not like it would require extra hardware or anything...purely software scaling.

 

[Consultant]

okay, so I tried again this morning and it worked. Worked fine in fact. Still took about 20 minutes before the movie was ready to view, but that is fine. I think it must have had something to do with Apple Tv trying to sync. I had swapped around my albums in iPhoto and it was trying to catch up with that, but was done a few hours earlier, or so I thought.

It just failed the wife test, thats all.

Do you know that everything in the world takes time to set up???

The device didn't fail the wife test, it's you who didn't realize the device is syncing and it's you who failed the wife test. (You could have looked at your computer and sync it later).

Keep in mind that most people have no problems with it.

 

[mark34]

Well, I have more space benind the TV than I have wall space. It would require a 65" HDTV to replace my 50" 4:3, and the vast majority of the time that extra width would be totally wasted. It's the same problem as when HDTV's first came out in widescreen but there was very little widescreen programming.

Almost everything is on HD these days and therefore widescreen. I very rarely watch SD programming. HD is too beoooooooytiful to spend time watch fuzzy stuff. Also, many of the better TV's these days do a decent job of filling a 16:9 screen with 4:3 material without looking odd... for things like news and the few other things not in HD. Of course, you wouldn't want to mess with the original aspect ratio of classic oldies. I watched Casablanca the other night that I downloaded in HD on AppleTV. It was in 4:3, but looked very nice on a large screen with excellent contrast ratio.

If you truly watch almost only old movies so that "the vast majority of the time that extra width would be wasted" then you admittedly have an unusual situation and I wish you the best of luck.

 

[danny_w]

Almost everything is on HD these days and therefore widescreen. I very rarely watch SD programming. HD is too beoooooooytiful to spend time watch fuzzy stuff. Also, many of the better TV's these days do a decent job of filling a 16:9 screen with 4:3 material without looking odd... for things like news and the few other things not in HD. Of course, you wouldn't want to mess with the original aspect ratio of classic oldies. I watched Casablanca the other night that I downloaded in HD on AppleTV. It was in 4:3, but looked very nice on a large screen with excellent contrast ratio.

If you truly watch almost only old movies so that "the vast majority of the time that extra width would be wasted" then you admittedly have an unusual situation and I wish you the best of luck.

I'm quite aware that I have an unusual situation, but if all of the competitors can do 4:3, and even other Apple products, then why can't the TV? It just seems so stupid for Apple to limit the product when there is no technical reason to do so. And yes, I'm quite sure that Casablanca (my favorite movie of all time BTW) looks great in HD, but I don't have the wall space for the extra black bars (or the several thousand dollars for the screen either). My 1999 Hitachi Ultravision works just fine.

 

[mark34]

Gotcha

 

[CultHero]

Do you know that everything in the world takes time to set up???

The device didn't fail the wife test, it's you who didn't realize the device is syncing and it's you who failed the wife test. (You could have looked at your computer and sync it later).

Keep in mind that most people have no problems with it.

well, lah dee freakin dah man. Thanks for playing!

 

[VTMac]

It just seems so stupid for Apple to limit the product when there is no technical reason to do so.

I'm quite certain this was done because it:
1) Reduces testing necessary to support what is to them a boundary case
2) Reduces support calls / training for said boundary case
3) Reduce complexity (though admittedly not much) in the code to handle said boundary case

This isn't surprising at all for a product that Steve Jobs describes as a "hobby". Hobbies are things you do in your spare time. iPods are core business, so the 3 points above are irrelevant for iPods. The apple tv is a hobby, so they are going to make (seemingly odd) trade offs to conserve resources at all points of the product lifecycle whenever they can.

 

[TomP80]

In our house, the AppleTV passed the wife test with flying colours.

My wife rents more movies on it than I do, and was genuinely quite excited when I ripped and handbraked her yoga dvd's to it.

This is coming from the same person who:

(1) whinges about me "not spending enough time with her" after any more than 10 minutes sitting in front of my computer

(2) made me take down my rear speakers because it interfered with the aesthetics of our living room, and routinely turns off my subwoofer because it "hurts her ears"

(3) still to this day can't understand why we had to replace our faulty AV receiver when it stopped working - saying things like "my friends just plug their DVD player straight into their TV - why can't you do that?"

 

[archesdevil]

my wife and I sat down to watch an HD movie on Apple TV and I was eager to show her that this new box I bought would bring countless wonders and memories to our living room.

Well, first most of the trailers wouldn't work. Chalk that up to my fickle Internet connection. Doesn't bode well for dl'ing an entire movie though.

Then one of the movies we decided on (Michael Clayton) is no longer available on iTunes. Great!

Then when we finally choose something we can both like and I got to purchase it I have to put my password in using the stupid remote and it keeps freezing on every letter. I have to back out and start over like three times.

Then when it finally takes my username, and password it asks if I want Apple TV to remember my username and password. I eagerly click yes and have been in a black screen for about 8 minutes now.

The wife gave up about 15 minutes ago and disappeared upstairs.

This blows goats

Maybe you should give your wife the Apple remote.