Why iTv will be dooooomed!!! doomed I say!

[balamw]

why the 300 dollar price point.

We still don't know all the details of what the device actually does, so how can you judge.

We do know that it is supposed to be able to render streamed HD over a wireless link, meaning it has to decode H.264 at full HD resolutions, meaning the processing requirements for the decoder are pretty high, so this is very little like an airport express which only has to decode Apple Lossless to straight PCM. More too than an iPod which only has to render 320x240 fro 640x480 source material.

$299 sounds like a good deal to me.

Note too that unlike some of the other HD devices like a DirectTV HD-DVR it's not subsidized by the service provider to lower the barrier to entry. Apple may be able to do this if they come up with a subscription model and amortize some of the cost over the subscription period...

B

 

[mojohanna]

I agree with balmw. If you could RENT a movie, a la pay perview off of iTunes and not have to own it, this device would be amazing. Just as with Leopard and not showing too much of their hand, I am positive that Apple has more up their sleeve. There is too much room in that box to be just AV jacks a power suppy and a WiFi tranceiver.

We are seeing just the tip of the iceburg here.

 

[nylon]

I believe that iTV was sheduled to dayview yesterday. However, Jobs was unable to sign up more movie studios. Without greater content the product would not be well received in the market.

I think as more movie studios sign up to the movie store by the end of the year/beginning of next year iTV will garner more appeal for people.

 

[n8236]

Idea of iTV is a decent one, assuming you have a large screen tv to begin with. In any case, my two bigget concerns is;

1) Lag
2) Quality of the video on tv

 

[ibook30]

Think about how many solutions we now have surrounding visual media:

1. Retail rental (hollywood, blockbuster) and for purchase (Circuit City, Fred Myer, walmart) stores
2. Mail order rental (Netflix) and for purchase (Amazon, eBay, etc)
3. On demand (Comcast)
4. Illegal filesharing networks
5. Television and pay-for networks (SHO, HBO, etc)
.
And something smells very fishy about this 299 price point. That seems awfully high for something that is no more than a glorified 802.11n hub with component and HDMI out.

I am suspicious about this device, the fact that it was sitting on top of a comcast DVR during the presentation, and the fact that it has a USB port.

Anyways, no one is going to understand this thing...its doomed

1,2, & 3 - these folks should be worried about iTunes7 / unbox and other download services. They will loose market share to them.

4 - iTv could be an avenue to send content from a file sharing network to the TV

5 - just like 1,2,&3 these folks have a new challenger, and can loose market share... and eyeballs.

I agree the $299 price is high, and it is inconvenient to add more hardware to get movies to the TV, but I will do it. It will allow me to choose a movie from home (without going to the video store, and maybe finding what I want) and keep that movie (instead of getting it OnDemand for a couple of nights, then it disapears).

Sooooo - i can see some value here, but not $299 worth. I hope the price was meant to ease concern of competitors (like MS). I also hope they under promised, and then over deliver. If it comes out sooner and at a lower price, I am there ! Otherwise, who knows, but I doubt I'll pay $299 for it.

 

[savar]

1: Simple? Simple for geeks, terrifying for average users who never learned how to program their VCR.
2: Apple will make literally thousands of dollars...yipeee...what, are you going to buy more than one or something?

Plenty of people learned how to use the iPod...why can't they learn iTV?

 

[miTunes75]

I have my doubts that it will be a failure. He introduced the "iTV" (which is not the official name) as a unit that will WIRELESSLY stream your media from your mac/pc to your tv. It has nothing to do with recording tv or anything like that.

I think it will be a great unit and will definately be something I purchase upon release.

The movies seem like an amazing feature. Have everything on a series of hard drives and take up SO much less space. How can you go wrong with that. Of course, I'm a person that will most likely never have a HD tv. I, myself, just have a plain ole 27in sony flat screen. Being able to browse through a movie catalog from the couch is fantastic. Same with music of course. I think having a digital catalog of movies, music, photos, etc is genius. This is especially great for people, such as myself, that is lacking in storage. My cds are currently on the top shelf of my closet and haven't been touched in years (about 800 or so). Movies and jammed in the amior in the living room.

Do i think iTV will be a failure? No. Do I think downloadable movies will be a success? Yes, I do.

 

[Mackeyser]

Also note the complete absence of S-video/composite outputs. This is not intended for connection to an SDTV. It's a product squarely aimed at the high end HTDV market.

No, the component and HDMI outs are more a signifier of SOLELY 480p output. You can't output progressive scan via s-video or composite. You need either an optical out, HDMI or component video (RCA connectors).

I suppose they could have included s-video and composite, but that would have added to the clutter in the back AND they would have had to interlace the signal via a hardware device which ups the costs and degrades the quality of the signal. For those that want to use this device, they can simply by an inexpensive component to composit or component to s-video transcoder.

Moreover, there is little chance that the 480p output will look stunning on a 60" SXRD Sony Grand Wega monitor, for example or a plasma. Not enough information.

 

[balamw]

Not enough information.

My thoughts exactly.

You're purportedly disagreeing with me, on the basis of complete hypothesis.

I think it's quite clear from the preview that this box will not be limited to 480p, and will at least support 720p.

I agree and disagree with you on the support for 480i. My guess is that in typical Apple form they would be more than glad to sell you an outboard converter that will take the component output to S-video or composite... This is essentially what they do with all of the Macs and iPods today. However 480i output adds little or no cost since the chipset they are using most likely already supports it. They have just chosen not to expose the functionality.

I stand by the point in my initial post. This product is not aimed at anyone who has a plain jane SDTV with composite video inputs. Let me clarify that by "high-end" I didn't mean "high-end of the HDTV market", but "high-end of the TV market, i.e. HDTV". Don't expect this device to be a particularly good companion to your 27" CRT SDTV.

B

 

[Ugg]

I agree with balmw. If you could RENT a movie, a la pay perview off of iTunes and not have to own it, this device would be amazing. Just as with Leopard and not showing too much of their hand, I am positive that Apple has more up their sleeve. There is too much room in that box to be just AV jacks a power suppy and a WiFi tranceiver.

We are seeing just the tip of the iceburg here.

I agree, any service that doesn't offer rentals is doomed to fail. I've no desire or need to have a library of videos laying around, if I want to watch something again, I'll just rent it a second time. I mostly like Netflix but online rentals would be much, much better.

 

[oldMac]

Need Rentals

I only really want one if I can rent movies with it and the library is huge.

Having a nice interface for renting movies from the comfort of my couch would be great. (Without having to pay $x/month to the cable company for the privilege of renting from a very limited library.)

Would also be great for sharing photos with friends and family without having to break out the laptop or crowd around the computer upstairs and a nice way to play songs from iTunes through the stereo.

But I think this thing would have to rent movies before I'd plunk down $300.

 

[jeremy.king]

Plenty of people learned how to use the iPod...why can't they learn iTV?

Agreed. Plenty of people have also learned to use a DVD player...this can't be much different.