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What Ultimate NEW Apple TV Feature Would You Add (other than DVR)?
- Thread starter Cleverboy
- Start date
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I'd like 
TV to have the ability to make me a meatloaf sandwhich!! And maybe a beverage dispenser, yeah! And remote control via mental telepathy. Yeah, that's the ticket!! And it would all be professionally installed by....uh...by PAMELA ANDERSON, yeah! And when she's done, she'd clean my house and cater to me every need!!! YEAH!!
(sorry, New Year, same old me!!)
TV to have the ability to make me a meatloaf sandwhich!! And maybe a beverage dispenser, yeah! And remote control via mental telepathy. Yeah, that's the ticket!! And it would all be professionally installed by....uh...by PAMELA ANDERSON, yeah! And when she's done, she'd clean my house and cater to me every need!!! YEAH!!(sorry, New Year, same old me!!)
1) Ability to install other codecs!!!!! Patchstick doesn't work with Leopard and I've got 100s of videos I can't watch on this [potentially] cool device!!!
2) Ability to create playlist of music videos (downloaded from iTunes) that play serially (without having to select next in list and manually choose Play).
it might already do it?
I would like to be able to change the picture on the movies...how can I explain? I have encoded many cartoons for my son to watch, but as many start with the same screen, the small picture that describes each is the same, so I would like to be able to change the poster frame
also would like the apple TV be able to decode AVI and otheres...I have so many that I could just put on it to watch....
I would like to be able to change the picture on the movies...how can I explain? I have encoded many cartoons for my son to watch, but as many start with the same screen, the small picture that describes each is the same, so I would like to be able to change the poster frame
also would like the apple TV be able to decode AVI and otheres...I have so many that I could just put on it to watch....
Adding CC would essentially by default also add a DVR capability since it would be kinda pointless, otherwise, unless you just wanted to get rid of your non-DVR cable box.
That being said, CC and DVR would likely greatly improve the
tv's acceptance in the "general" marketplace, as would a DVD player (with no built-in ripping ability, though), since you would then have a single box that truly "does it all".thats my dream: I want one box (a super cool, slick, sexy apple box) to do my TV, my DVR, my music, my photos, my videos, my iTunes buys, my rentals and my HD movies on BR/HD-DVD.
Ding Ding Ding. I've got close to 3,000 and it really could use a better browser. Also the ability to sort/search by genre, director, year, etc.
Also, the appletv should be smart enough to use the "synced" copy of movies that are on the machine, rather than trying to stream the movie. For example, HD quality files do not stream successfully over my network. They play fine when synced and played from the apple tv. Nevertheless, when I have my itunes library selected as the source, it will try and play the file over the network rather than the version that is sitting on the box. Essentially, this means I have to memorize which movies are HD and synced, and then change libraries when I want to watch one of those films. That doesn't "just work"
5.1 (better yet, 6.1) audio
HD content via iTunes
A better movie browser
.. and the biggie for me:
Minimum 500gb HD - preferably 750gb.
Do the latter, and I'll be buying one on the day of release - I want to use it as primarily a music player and the big HD would allow me to do away with the old G4 I use as an iTunes server (or at least use it for other things).
HD content via iTunes
A better movie browser
.. and the biggie for me:
Minimum 500gb HD - preferably 750gb.
Do the latter, and I'll be buying one on the day of release - I want to use it as primarily a music player and the big HD would allow me to do away with the old G4 I use as an iTunes server (or at least use it for other things).
Definitely.
The photo slideshow sucks, too. Compared to the competition it's really awful.
It's fun to read threads like this. You can tell who owns an ATV and who doesn't, and who is a home theater hobbyist and who isn't.
Not sure why many think apple won't add a DVD (or Blu-ray/HD DVD) option to the tv. The arguement about taking away from the iTunes movie sales seems silly. Aplle is only in the music/movie business to sell their HARDWARE. They make a lot more money from their hardware sales than they do their music/movie sales. Seems the only reason they created the iTunes store was to create content demand for their music player- the iPod. Apple's smart enough to know that their business is not the entertainment distribution business, it's the player hardware business. When all the big companies pull their music and videos from iTunes, they'll still be making a huge profit by selling iPods and tv's. If they want to keep this new hardware market cornered, they have to give the people what they want, a DVD (or Blu-ray/HD DVD) player. It will happen... eventually.
tv. The arguement about taking away from the iTunes movie sales seems silly. Aplle is only in the music/movie business to sell their HARDWARE. They make a lot more money from their hardware sales than they do their music/movie sales. Seems the only reason they created the iTunes store was to create content demand for their music player- the iPod. Apple's smart enough to know that their business is not the entertainment distribution business, it's the player hardware business. When all the big companies pull their music and videos from iTunes, they'll still be making a huge profit by selling iPods and tv's. If they want to keep this new hardware market cornered, they have to give the people what they want, a DVD (or Blu-ray/HD DVD) player. It will happen... eventually.
MikeL,
Your right, the profit margin's not great, here's an article on the costs associated with making antv. The iPod makes WAY more money. The iPhone make WAY more money, but if your a company like apple, and everybody has 1 of each, then they could afford to take a sizeably lower profit margin on the tv. I think they're out to dominate the way we use all this new media. If they let some other company make a better version of the tv, then that company might make a better version of the iPod and folks stop buying apple's stuff altogether. I just think they're in it to dominate the new media now, and watch it payoff for years to come. To do that, they need to make a better TV.
And no, I don't own one... yet.
Your right, the profit margin's not great, here's an article on the costs associated with making an
tv. The iPod makes WAY more money. The iPhone make WAY more money, but if your a company like apple, and everybody has 1 of each, then they could afford to take a sizeably lower profit margin on the tv. I think they're out to dominate the way we use all this new media. If they let some other company make a better version of the tv, then that company might make a better version of the iPod and folks stop buying apple's stuff altogether. I just think they're in it to dominate the new media now, and watch it payoff for years to come. To do that, they need to make a better TV.And no, I don't own one... yet.
1) 5.1 Surround
2) high def content
3) enable the USB drive and allow software developent
-add TV tuner USB drive and DVR software for all the whiners
-add external HD
-add external blue ray drive (the external drive that will be coming with the ultra portable macbook!)
4) add composite output so the average joe can hook it to their TV and thus theTV will be able to reach a larger audience and be more popular (i use my TV on my SD tv which happens to have component input and the SD looks just fine, same quality as playing a DVD on my TV)
2) high def content
3) enable the USB drive and allow software developent
-add TV tuner USB drive and DVR software for all the whiners
-add external HD
-add external blue ray drive (the external drive that will be coming with the ultra portable macbook!)
4) add composite output so the average joe can hook it to their TV and thus the
TV will be able to reach a larger audience and be more popular (i use my TV on my SD tv which happens to have component input and the SD looks just fine, same quality as playing a DVD on my TV)
second, and better yet microsoft should be held accountable for the money fraud.
it's a win win situation.Click Wheel Remote
You need it to easily browse all your content on the iPod, why should thetv be any different?
You need it to easily browse all your content on the iPod, why should the
tv be any different?Real Parental Controls
1 Real parental controls based upon meta-data ratings in songs and movies.
I can easily block recorded shows on my rented Comcast DVR. So why can't I block songs with explicit, and movies with PG,PG-13 or R ratings on theTV? The current parental controls are a joke. So I can block you-tube.
2 Better IPhoto navigation. - How about an Ipod-like interface where you can see contact sheets, then view individual photos.
3 Any update to the monolithic method of listing your movies. This gets really bad when you get most of your DVD collection on it. What would be nice, someone already mentioned - An option for searching movies by meta-data, e.g. Actor, Genre, etc.
4 Enable the USB for external storage and/or portable DVD.
5 Ditto to a previous post on modifying theTV software to use a local copy rather than streaming a movie from the sync source when it exists on the TV's HD.
1 Real parental controls based upon meta-data ratings in songs and movies.
I can easily block recorded shows on my rented Comcast DVR. So why can't I block songs with explicit, and movies with PG,PG-13 or R ratings on the
TV? The current parental controls are a joke. So I can block you-tube.2 Better IPhoto navigation. - How about an Ipod-like interface where you can see contact sheets, then view individual photos.
3 Any update to the monolithic method of listing your movies. This gets really bad when you get most of your DVD collection on it. What would be nice, someone already mentioned - An option for searching movies by meta-data, e.g. Actor, Genre, etc.
4 Enable the USB for external storage and/or portable DVD.
5 Ditto to a previous post on modifying the
TV software to use a local copy rather than streaming a movie from the sync source when it exists on the TV's HD.Blu-Ray and the like would make the device quite expensive. Maybe they could release a new product (AppleTV Extreme or something like that), but on standard AppleTV it would be quite strange.
1.2 firmware wishlist
- iTunes Web Radios
- iChat (with optional USB webcam with built-in mic)
- support more codecs and file formats (AVI with DivX...)
- drop pairing/authentification for iTunes streaming, so that I can connect to the iTunes server running on my NAS instead of having to leave the PC running all the time
- support USB mass storage devices
This is all very reasonable and should be easy to implement in a firmware revision.
I'm not sure web browsing would be practical with the Apple remote. And while a DVD player could be handy, especially to copy disks to the hard drive, theTV does not have the storage spavce for VOBs, nor the CPU power for H264 encoding on the fly.
- iTunes Web Radios
- iChat (with optional USB webcam with built-in mic)
- support more codecs and file formats (AVI with DivX...)
- drop pairing/authentification for iTunes streaming, so that I can connect to the iTunes server running on my NAS instead of having to leave the PC running all the time
- support USB mass storage devices
This is all very reasonable and should be easy to implement in a firmware revision.
I'm not sure web browsing would be practical with the Apple remote. And while a DVD player could be handy, especially to copy disks to the hard drive, the
TV does not have the storage spavce for VOBs, nor the CPU power for H264 encoding on the fly.As long as they work on the streaming ability (I have problems streaming HD files over 802.11n that are over 1 hour in length) and include an iTunes Store frontend that can sync purchased content back over to my main iTunes library (as is already done with the iPhone), I'll be a happy camper.
I use mine primarily as a music jukebox so all I want is a search facility and to be able to create an on the go playlist. As you can do both of these on an ipod, god only knows why you can't on the Apple TV. It's a nightmare scrolling down through 18,000 songs to find the one you want that begins with a Z!
Fingers crossed...
Fingers crossed...
Well... I mean what do you want? the Mac Mini can output HDMI, DVI, VGA, Composite/S-Video, so what more do you need?
unless your tv only has composite...
It can handle 720P & 1080i no problem, but it does drop frames at 1080P.
If there are no updates after macworld, i'd suggest going with a mini.