[Grapho]

Funny, I had thought about this iChat thing being supported on the Apple TV as soon as it was announced. The funny thing is that I think Apple has thought of this too.

[tallscot]

Quote

others have pointed out. TiVo and Apple TV are two deferent ways of solving a similar problem. TiVo essentially is a smart TV recorder. Apple TV is a media extender for iTunes.

It's not that simple.

On the PC, TiVo is a media extender too.

On the Mac, some DVRs are also media extenders using a $20 utility for the Mac.

It's only as simple as you are making it if you have Fairplay media. If you have Fairplay, you are forced to buy Apple if you want a media extender.

EDIT - ah, I get the context of your post. You are talking about the on-demand content from iTunes. The Apple TV doesn't excel at on-demand, IMHO, because it's IP-based. The cable companies offer on-demand content through much fatter pipes. If you have FIOS or Uverse, you have a DVR for HD TV and you can also order movies and TV shows and they start playing much sooner than on Apple TV because they are coming through fiber optics versus IP.

You only need to look at the iPhone activation and MobileMe problems to see why IP isn't really the best technology to distribute on-demand content, IMHO.

[tallscot]

>Netflix announced that it will rent movies online on Microsoft XBox 360 over the last couple of days. If AppleTV competes through its iTunes Movie Downloads and adds TiVo, it will push Microsoft further down its knees.

The problem with this is Microsoft has sold 10 million Xbox 360s. How many Apple TVs has Apple sold? A million yet?

I think Microsoft and Apple with both fail with the content over IP business model that requires special hardware because millions of people get superior on-demand functionality through the much fatter pipes of their cable provider.

The only edge Apple has in any of this is Fairplay. I don't think it's enough, though. Rather, I think it will give people more reason to not get locked into Apple's media and they'll stop buying (I did a while back).

[Grapho]

tallscot said:

>Netflix announced that it will rent movies online on Microsoft XBox 360 over the last couple of days. If AppleTV competes through its iTunes Movie Downloads and adds TiVo, it will push Microsoft further down its knees.

The problem with this is Microsoft has sold 10 million Xbox 360s. How many Apple TVs has Apple sold? A million yet?

I think Microsoft and Apple with both fail with the content over IP business model that requires special hardware because millions of people get superior on-demand functionality through the much fatter pipes of their cable provider.

The only edge Apple has in any of this is Fairplay. I don't think it's enough, though. Rather, I think it will give people more reason to not get locked into Apple's media and they'll stop buying (I did a while back).

But I don't buy, I rent. In my experience, your point about the fatter pipelines has had very little relevance. At least with my setup. When I rented a movie, it literally takes less then 30 seconds before I can start viewing it. Maybe it's my particular area that it not being overly burdened by heavy bandwidth internet usage. Even a Hi definition movie starts playing with in a minute and a half. These conditions might change since I am hardly in a densely populated area.

Sure buying ties you to Apple, but renting?

[tallscot]

[quote name='Grapho']
>

tallscot said:

> >Netflix announced that it will rent movies online on Microsoft XBox 360 over the last couple of days. If AppleTV competes through its iTunes Movie Downloads and adds TiVo, it will push Microsoft further down its knees.
>
> The problem with this is Microsoft has sold 10 million Xbox 360s. How many Apple TVs has Apple sold? A million yet?
>
> I think Microsoft and Apple with both fail with the content over IP business model that requires special hardware because millions of people get superior on-demand functionality through the much fatter pipes of their cable provider.
>
> The only edge Apple has in any of this is Fairplay. I don't think it's enough, though. Rather, I think it will give people more reason to not get locked into Apple's media and they'll stop buying (I did a while back).


But I don't buy, I rent. In my experience, your point about the fatter pipelines has had very little relevance. At least with my setup. When I rented a movie, it literally takes less then 30 seconds before I can start viewing it. Maybe it's my particular area that it not being overly burdened by heavy bandwidth internet usage. Even a Hi definition movie starts playing with in a minute and a half. These conditions might change since I am hardly in a densely populated area.

Sure buying ties you to Apple, but renting?

An HD movie is 5-7 gigs. You must be getting IP performance that I have never seen to start watching an HD movie in 90 seconds. Even if you get 1 meg per second, that's only 90 megs after 90 seconds, not nearly enough buffer to start playing a 5,000 - 7,000 meg movie.

IP's traffic woes are famous. I'm not going to argue that they don't exist. I can't even watch an Apple keynote movie at 320 x 240 right after it is made public because of the servers getting overloaded, let alone a new HD movie made available. IP is like trying to be the 100th caller at a radio station to win rock tickets and it will always be that way. It's only going to get worse for IP as more and more large files are streamed to users. Some analysts predict that all of IP will go to a usage, meter-based business model because of this.

I've used both. I've used AT&T's Uverse and I've used iTunes. The on-demand from the cable company was superior in regards to performance. Millions have cable. They don't have to buy an Apple TV to rent or buy content. They don't have to buy an Apple TV to stream their non-DRM content. They don't have to buy an Apple TV to record their shows (if the Apple TV gets a DVR).

My point about people who have purchased Apple's media being tied down to their hardware relates to the millions of people who have purchased iTunes songs. As more and more people become aware that the hardware they have streams content, they will be put off when they find out their Apple media won't run on the hardware they have (Xbox 360, PS3, TiVo, cable/satellite DVR) but non-DRM media will.

Media extenders have been around for years. There are many different media extenders out there at various prices that stream standards-based media without DRM.

[SpinThis!]

tallscot said:

An HD movie is 5-7 gigs. You must be getting IP performance that I have never seen to start watching an HD movie in 90 seconds. Even if you get 1 meg per second, that's only 90 megs after 90 seconds, not nearly enough buffer to start playing a 5,000 - 7,000 meg movie.

Actually you might want to double check your math.

A typical movie is about 2 hours long. That's 7200 seconds; for a 5000 MB movie, that averages about .694 MB/sec (could be less or more depending on the action). In 90 seconds, the movie would require almost 63 MB to watch.

You must have a terrible Internet connection. (My RoadRunner is 7 mbps down... which is 875K /sec).

[Grapho]

I am only reporting my own experience with my Apple TV. Your math must be flawed because that is exactly what my experience has been with my Apple TV.

[tallscot]

[quote name='SpinThis!']
>

tallscot said:

> An HD movie is 5-7 gigs. You must be getting IP performance that I have never seen to start watching an HD movie in 90 seconds. Even if you get 1 meg per second, that's only 90 megs after 90 seconds, not nearly enough buffer to start playing a 5,000 - 7,000 meg movie.
Actually you might want to double check your math.

A typical movie is about 2 hours long. That's 7200 seconds; for a 5000 MB movie, that averages about .694 MB/sec (could be less or more depending on the action). In 90 seconds, the movie would require almost 63 MB to watch.

You must have a terrible Internet connection. (My RoadRunner is 7 mbps down... which is 875K /sec).

A 2 hour HD movie isn't 5 gigs. It's around 7 gigs.

And I rarely have a problem with my connection, it's getting a server to stream at 7 mpbs. I'm not getting that from Apple.

[consumer_x]

May I have the eMusic subscription model, but for TV, please?
Use BitTorrent for distribution, even.
That way I will feel less guilty about grabbing commercial-free TV off the 'net by way of questionable means... that is, if I was to be using these questionable sources in the first place.

[SpinThis!]

Where are you getting 7 gigs from? From Apple's Support Page, they claim the approximate size for a 2 hour film to be 3 to 4.5 GB in size. There's probably some movies that tip the scales but again that's right from the horses mouth.

I'm sorry you're having such problems with the store... you're certainly entitled to your opinion but you make it sound like everyone is having problems with the store. I've generally never had speed problems with Apple...

[tallscot]

Grapho said:

I am only reporting my own experience with my Apple TV. Your math must be flawed because that is exactly what my experience has been with my Apple TV.

I believe you are having flawless performance with HD movies. My point is that my experience with IP, in general, is it's not a "just works" solution yet and I don't expect it ever will be because of the nature of the technology.

I have purchased several SD movies on my Mac, not HD, and I have had mixed results. Sometimes it streams quickly. Other times I have had to wait up to several hours. This experience is matched on other IP movie distribution models, like Xbox.

My main point was that cable providers have an advantage of IP solutions in that they have much fatter pipes.

[tallscot]

SpinThis! said:

Where are you getting 7 gigs from? From Apple's Support Page, they claim the approximate size for a 2 hour film to be 3 to 4.5 GB in size. There's probably some movies that tip the scales but again that's right from the horses mouth.

I'm sorry you're having such problems with the store... you're certainly entitled to your opinion but you make it sound like everyone is having problems with the store. I've generally never had speed problems with Apple...

I think everyone has the same experience with IP that I have. That's my main point.

It seems Apple compresses their movies a bit more than my experience with HD movie downloads (Xbox 360). The math does work out that if you have 6 Mbps or higher, you should be able to stream after a minute or two. However, my main point is that it's my opinion that IP isn't as reliable as the pipes coming from a cable provider. My own experience with just SD movies with iTunes is inconsistent.

The other issue with using IP to stream 4.5 gig movies is this ? soon as anyone else in the house starts going online, they take away bandwidth that might create issues with my two hours movie watching experience.

I'm not saying that his experience is the same as mine. I'm only relaying my opinion based on my experiences and many people have the same experience as me.

[tallscot]

Sorry I second-guessed you. I didn't mean to imply you were lying or wrong or anything.

[Grapho]

It's all good. I guess I just like my Apple TV a lot. Particularly since I am ripping my own material to HD. Believe me, I know it's not the only solution or even the best. I also know I want a PS3, gaming is no longer my main thing (don't have much time to indulge in it these days), but I do enjoy it on occasion. I have also recently acquired two flat screen TV so the appeal for a PS3 as a blu-ray player on the larger setup is their. I also know that my oldest kid will be getting in to gaming probably in the next couple of years.

You make good points with your arguments and I enjoy reading your posts since they always seem balanced and not blindly favoring Apple like others on these board tend to do.