Upcoming Apple TV loses 1080p playback, gains apps... and will be renamed iTV

http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/11/upcoming-apple-tv-loses-1080p-playback-gains-apps/

by yanowitz • 16 years ago

29 51 16 years ago

engadget.com

donohoe• 16 years ago

Let's forget the fact that ITV is a TV channel in the UK... Not confusing at all

houseabsolute2• 16 years ago

For all short pithy names there is a collision somewhere. It's not really that big of a deal.

adolph3• 16 years ago

Yes.

Change your channel's name. Not that big of a deal.

From: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/11/steve-jobs-to-develop...

spicyj• 16 years ago

Change your channels name. Not that big of a deal.

electromagnetic5• 16 years ago

I doubt it'll be releasing in the UK as iTV, as ITV owns the trademark and has done since forever. The confusion will be great enough that ITV could easily get an injunction in place to prevent the sale of the device so as not to weaken their brand name.

Why? Well because ITV is a video providing service, iTV is a video receiving service. You might get away with it, if ITV hadn't actually tackled the video receiving end of the market when they launched their Freeview (which they still partly own) which was a set-top-box for the receiving of free digital images.

There's going to be no Apple vs Apple in this case.

houseabsolute2• 16 years ago

Unless of course apple licenses the trademark. These things can be settled civilly.

timthorn2• 16 years ago

Indeed, prior to Freeview (and after ONDigital), they called the service ITV Digital, if memory serves.

mgrouchy2• 16 years ago

I was hoping for a refresh of the apple TV product line. Its too bad there is no 1080P playback, thats a dealbreaker for me.

ams61102• 16 years ago

720p is fine for a consumer device as long as the usability is there. That's why I still prefer VHS tapes to DVD, despite the lower image quality.

CamperBob• 16 years ago

720p is fine for a consumer device as long as the usability is there. That's why I still prefer VHS tapes to DVD, despite the lower image quality.

How long has it been since you had a complete physical checkup?

jmaygarden• 16 years ago

I sometimes want to scream when the DVD player won't let me skip all the crap at the beginning and go straight to the menu. A VHS player just does what it's told! (That said, my VHS player is in the attic.)

timthorn2• 16 years ago

Yes, but that's not what the market(ing) is telling the consumers.

bho• 16 years ago

Same. I'm sure I wasn't the only one who wanted the 1080p on the old model. I wonder what the rationale is in not having it.

electromagnetic5• 16 years ago

Probably because people don't receive beyond 720p in most areas (I know I don't) through digital cable or satellite. However, I receive 1080p by streaming through my xbox, so Apple TV won't even have a hope of being a replacement.

adolph3• 16 years ago

Nintendo seems to sell a lot of devices at lower resolution (480p). It'll be interesting to see what kind of cost/performance tradeoff Apple makes.

MrRage• 16 years ago

I think that's acceptable for video games, especially the sort of video games that Nintendo makes. For video content I don't think so. I'll watch upscaled DVDs for certain types of content (e.g. don't really care if episodes of Big Bang Theory are in 1080p), but for movies with great cinematography I want as much resolution as possible.

Tamerlin• 16 years ago

Nintendo is specifically targeting the mainstream consumer. Apple likes being a premium brand. Not supporting 1080p doesn't fit with being a premium product.

mikeryan4• 16 years ago

Just out of curiosity what content would you be watching on an appple itv device that's at 1080p? The vast majority of its content is delivered via IP and 1080p video which streams at about 45Mbps isn't really realistic to be moving around on most networks. Most 1080p video is still going to be distributed the old fashioned way... On blu-Ray.

wmf• 16 years ago

IIRC Sony is selling 8Mbps 1080p content on the PS3. I think Apple is genuinely behind in this case.

gnaffle• 16 years ago

It's realistic enough that it's perfectly doable on Pirate Bay. Apple could have been innovative here and offered a (legal) BitTorrent network for downloading HD content.

I _think_ that a lot of non-technical people (even Apple fans) will have a hard time buying accessories for their shiny new "Full HD" flatscreen TV, and then buying an Apple TV that doesn't support it. Unless they reduce the price to the point where it's a no-brainer.

Fortunately, I'm still able to buy an Apple TV that supports 1080p without problems, called a Mac Mini :)

mgrouchy2• 16 years ago

Well currently in Itunes you can watch/download video in 1080p? Seems like that would be the place where I would start. I'm not certain I care so much about streaming, but I do care about playback. I'm doing my best to not by physical media, so playback of high quality content is important.

dmnd• 16 years ago

Seems kind of strange to open the device up to such easy criticism. iTV? It doesn't even have 1080p!

easyfrag• 16 years ago

This is Apple, no cut&paste on the original iPhone, no USB on iPad. I'm guessing the user experience wasn't what they wanted either with the performance of the playback, or with the speed of the download/streaming of 1080p from the store.

elblanco• 16 years ago

The app bit makes it clear this is set to be a direct competitor to Google's Android based TV solution.

Also interesting to move it to iOS4, the first previously OSX device to move to iOS? A sign of things to come?

nixy2• 16 years ago

If you are insinuating that the Mac lineup will be moving to iOS, I think you might be more than a bit off.

grandalf2• 16 years ago

Apple TV is only 720p for video now. The only thing that's 1080p is the menu!

nrb• 16 years ago

Surely that's so they can release the iTV 2.0 w/ 1080p in a few months for a few hundred more bucks?

adolph3• 16 years ago

Right now their top purchase/rental resolution is 720p.

teilo• 16 years ago

And no doubt it's still slow as molasses. Sorry, I'll take my Mac Mini w/HDMI, running Plex any day.

glhaynes• 16 years ago

The current Apple TV certainly is too slow. But the A4 in the iPhone 4 isn't slow at all driving media on its retina display...

flatulent1• 16 years ago

Consumers will probably like this, geeks probably won't.

The current model is x86 based (1 GHz or so, single core, something like a Celeron M) and runs a stripped down version of OS X. It's a bit underpowered, but with some work loading things it can run standard OS X apps. QuickTime can handle the same codecs used on OS X. With the current model, the more powerful but more costly Mac Mini is an alternative.

As described, the new model has a much less powerful and Mac-binary incompatible CPU, but it will use MUCH less energy and can handle h.264 playback with hardware decoding. That'll pretty much rule out adding codecs for those XViD .AVI videos many have laying around. Lack of an Intel CPU lowers cost significantly. It seems it could run app store stuff except for the input device hmmm.... maybe it should have a touch screen? Add video out somehow to an iPod touch?

Apple so far has stayed clear of directly supporting off-air or cable-tv PVR functionality. The USB tuners from Elgato Systems work well ("Eye-TV"), but with a Core 2 Duo it would take a dedicated hardware compressor to shrink archives down to h.264 etc at a decent quality level and in a reasonable amount of time.

Locked down like an iPad/iPod touch/iPhone, much of the geek appeal would be gone. The thought of a browser without ad-blocking alone is a big deal to some. (perhaps someone can fine a clear way to do some ad-blocking in a router with open-source firmware?)

Hopefully whatever Apple does will allow access to plenty of tv content that isn't costly. DRM issues (and poor support of video that people already have) could be a negative.

It'll probably have (DRMed) HDMI output but no VGA or DVI. Or maybe Apple will prove us all wrong and do something really surprising?

jsz0• 16 years ago

There are always some ways around things:

Ads: Atomic Web on the App Store includes and ad blocker though I do like the idea of taking care of it at the router level.

XVID/DIVX: The free app ServeToMe does real time transcoding. You install the server app and the client just streams H264. Works surprisingly well.

Hacking: Jailbreaking is about the same as rooting an "open" device. I'd bet those guys would have a bunch of emulators and other forbidden apps out within a week or two of its release.

lukifer• 16 years ago

ServeToMe does iPhone-resolution encoding... I doubt it would be easy to do 720p h264 in real-time.

extension• 16 years ago

Damn, I was rooting for "iTube"

silversmith• 16 years ago

Coincidentally, the Apple TV device came up in random office discussion yesterday, and general concensus was that it should have been called iTv. Maybe Apple has secretly bought my company?

henrikhansen• 16 years ago

Wait a second, if it's going to have apps, what is the controller going to be like?

My guess: iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad is going to learn a new trick. Imagine a driving game where the controller is your iPhone (accelerometer and gyroscope for control) the screen can be used to control gear, and watch stats. If this is going to be true, the new Apple TV will seriously be something unique!

cheesey• 16 years ago

iTV? That's going to cause some confusion in the UK.

http://www.itv.com/

Upcoming Apple TV loses 1080p playback, gains apps... and will be renamed iTV

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