Google and Apple Finally Teaming Up?

nieske writes "Rumors are spreading about Google and Apple teaming up to form a video alliance. Google might provide streaming video content for Apple's upcoming iTV, which was revealed in last week's Apple event. The only thing that seemed to be missing in the iTV preview was streaming video, and with Google's Eric Schmidt on the Apple board of directors, this alliance might actually not be so far-fetched."

Comments

Poo Pooing ITV

[esconsult1]

Lots of people dismiss this product, but the kicker for me is that its priced so I can put one in each room with a TV, instead of a PC beside each TV.

Imagine watching Youtube on your bigscreen... (on the other hand, with that crappy video, perhaps not).

Re:Poo Pooing ITV

[MustardMan]

Youtube videos look like shit at their normal resolution - I never run them fullscreen because they are so blocky. I can only imagine a 42" SoaP fan video at threegrainy x toosucky resolution. At least google video supports varying resolutions, some of which don't utterly suck.

Re:Poo Pooing ITV

[Amouth]

the "only thing missing" in my mind.. is a god damn tunner.. if for that price it had a TV tunner card on it i would be first in line no doubt about it.. - that is why i havn't picked up a mini yet.. i can't seem to find a good tunner..

Re:Poo Pooing ITV

[Anonymous Coward]

What's a "tunner"? Is it some kind of retarded tunneling device?

Re:Poo Pooing ITV

[generic-man]

The iTV is $300. For that price you could get an entry-level PC or perhaps a secondhand Mac mini. The kicker is that the iTV was actually designed with a 10' interface in mind, whereas you'll have to hack up an interface with a PC solution.

And I agree, YouTube video would look even worse on a big screen than it does in that little Flash player.

Re:Poo Pooing ITV

[Mattintosh]

Here you go.

Even the original Mac Minis are fast enough to handle MPEG2 decoding required for the EyeTV 500 (in software, since the Minis don't have a good video card). Pair it with a projector for a "cheap" HDTV (only $2000 for as-big-as-your-wall vs. $2500 for a wussy little 42").

Re:Poo Pooing ITV

[MrAnnoyanceToYou]

That's the situation NOW, but give it ten years and we may have all the bandwidth necessary to stream hi-res. The technology's still in its infancy, really.

Re:Poo Pooing ITV

[Firehed]

Let's not forget a DVD player. Yeah, they're cheap, but the fewer devices I need hooked up to my TV, the better. And not only for space purposes - I don't want eight sets of cables and need two strip outlets just to hook everything up. As far as I could tell, it didn't have one - which I understand for space purposes, but I really think that it could end up as a fatal flaw (or at least not making it available on a slightly taller $349 model).

Seeing that it's not a DVR, there's really no purpose to have a tuner in there anyways, as you should be able to assume with reasonable certainty that your TV is going to have one... though it would be absolutely bitchin' if it could act as a wireless DVR device (that's to say, stream the TV signal input from the tuner to a computer that would then store that content). However, that's not going to happen - Apple wants you to buy the content from iTunes, not pseudo-TiVo it. I suppose the real question is whether it'll interface to the iTunes Store and let you download the content to your computer from your TV, then stream that content back to your TV (and doing so as it downloads, a double-streaming of sorts). Of course, it'd be borderline-hellish to navigate iTS with a six-button remote, but I think that's too big of an opportunity to be missed.

Re:Poo Pooing ITV

[stubear]

The iTV is nothing more than a Media CP extender. You still need to have the main system that captures the audio/video or handles the DVDs. The iTV lacks a tuner card and DVD player. While you can put one of these in every room of your house that has a TV, you wouldn't get the same functionality as a Media PC in every room of your house with a TV.

Re:Poo Pooing ITV

[mrchaotica]

First of all, that's a really horrible design considering how stiff coaxial cables are -- I can easily imagine that thing either pulling out or snapping off it's USB port, especially if you use it with a laptop (as pictured).

Second, what I'm surprised nobody has made is a TV tuner designed to stack under the Mini (like all those external hard drives, etc.).

Re:Poo Pooing ITV

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

First of all, that's a really horrible design considering how stiff coaxial cables are -- I can easily imagine that thing either pulling out or snapping off it's USB port, especially if you use it with a laptop (as pictured).

Does that happen? I've never, ever broken any of my USB ports, even though I routinely plug and unplug peripherals, especially for my laptop.

Second, what I'm surprised nobody has made is a TV tuner designed to stack under the Mini (like all those external hard drives, etc.).

If you go back to the Elgato Web site, you'll see they offer a half a dozen different PVRs, including several designed to stack under a mac mini. I bought one of these years ago and it has happily been storing my TV shows since, including easy archiving to DVD. It isn't perfect, but it is pretty darn good.

Re:Poo Pooing ITV

[Uthiroid]

I don't have to imagine-

I do it frequently with my Xbox running XBMC, using an XBMC youtube script. it also will also play nearly any audio/video format out there- I won't be jumping in with iTV, despite being a recent mac switcher (mini).

Re:Poo Pooing ITV

[Mattintosh]

Unfortunately, I looked at Elgato's site after I posted the link, and the "old style" breakout boxes are all gone in favor of that crappy USB dongle one.

It looks like another good vendor has decided to commit suicide by ridding themselves of a decent product line. I was just about to buy one of their EyeTV 200's (I already have the 500) so I could use analog sources into my Mac Mini. Oh well.

Re:Poo Pooing ITV

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Unfortunately, I looked at Elgato's site after I posted the link, and the "old style" breakout boxes are all gone in favor of that crappy USB dongle one.

Perhaps you're having difficulty with their odd Web site design? They seem to be selling 250, 310, 410, 610, as well as the USB dongles. The 250 is available directly from their store if that is what you're interested in. Here is a link.

Re:Poo Pooing ITV

[Mattintosh]

I was thinking of the larger ones (like the 200 and 500) with more connectors on them, as well as a Firewire interface.

Re:Poo Pooing ITV

[Paradise Pete]

Imagine watching Youtube on your bigscreen

Oh be still my beating heart.

Re:Poo Pooing ITV

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

was thinking of the larger ones (like the 200 and 500) with more connectors on them, as well as a Firewire interface.

Well, they have refurbished 500's for sale on their online store. New 500s are available from a number of resellers including macmall.com and www.dvd-rwmedia.com.

Re:Poo Pooing ITV

[mrchaotica]

Does that happen? I've never, ever broken any of my USB ports, even though I routinely plug and unplug peripherals, especially for my laptop.

Sorry, what I meant was snapping off the USB connector on the device itself, not the port on the computer. Sadly, my iPod Shuffle met that fate (it was plugged into the front port a desktop sitting on the floor, and my boss bumped it sideways with his leg).

Re:Poo Pooing ITV

[MustardMan]

Yet again, I was one of the first people to say this, and i was modded redundant. Whichever mod is following me and modding me redundant for no reason, suck my fucking cock.

Re:Poo Pooing ITV

[Golias]

If a dongle connected to a coax frightens you, just use the USB extention cable (which I believe they include in the package), and think of it as a REALLY small break-out box.

There. Problem fixed.

If *that* is not good enough for somebody, I'll gladly sell them my EyeTV 500 (which connects via firewire) for the price of one of the new hybrids. Not because I give a rip about analog signals, but because I tend to stuff my firewire connection to the gills with external drives and what-not, so shifting the TV input to USB2 would work out really well for me.

Re:Poo Pooing ITV

[JohnnySoftware]

The so-called iTV from Apple costs half to a third of the price of a so-called Media PC. It is an appliance. The media center PCs are a tricked-up, slightly extra expensive version of a regular PC running a regular version of MS Windows XP.

Apple has done a lot of stuff with wireless networking features that other companies have not matched.

Look at Airport Express "Air Tunes" integration with iTunes running on a Mac or Win 2000/XP PC, for example.

Apple might be pulling some cool, unexpected features out of its hat with this device too.

Apple pioneered wireless LANs years before other mainstream computer makers caught up. Apple was the first big computer company to decisively back 802.11g and commit to it with real products. Sounds like Apple will be supporting high-def TV, possibly by introducing even faster wireless LAN capability.

Plus, I think you have to watch what kind of operating systems you scatter around your house. The upkeep of a PC requires an IT department, an extremely savvy and well-equipped user/owner, or regular trips to the store for expensive "cleaning".

An appliance is probably not maintenance-free but it is probably far less hassle to maintain than an entire computer with an entire OS.\

Who wants to have to run Windows-or-whatever Update on their TV set every month, or worse - right as their favorite TV show is coming on? ("Honey, is the set turned on so we can watch 'Desperate Housewives'?" "Uh, yes and no. It is on but it is doing a 5 minute maintenance cycle so we don't have any problems with that new 'Code Burnt Sienna'. We will just have to miss the first 5 minutes of the show. I did not really want to see how the cliffhanger at the end of the episode last week resolved itself anyway.")

Sometimes a lot less for a lot less is much better.

Ahh, I see now

[eheldreth]

Apple and Google, world domination is only steps away.(LOL)

Re:Ahh, I see now

[Walt Dismal]

And of course some rocket scientist in marketing will name the joint effort Googapple, or maybe Appoogle. God, I hate marketers. They're pond scum on the sea of life, to mix a metaphor, and badly.

What exactly is an iTV?

[acb]

Does anybody know what exactly the iTV is based on? Is it based on a special edition of OSX (akin to Windows MCE), a new real-time OS based on Darwin/xnu, Quartz, Cocoa and QuickTime (though lacking large chunks of OSX which are irrelevant), the iPod RTOS, or something else?

Re:What exactly is an iTV?

[necro81]

My guess is that it is a stripped-down version of OS X. It uses some portions of the kernel, is heavy into Quartz, Cocoa, and Quicktime (as you said), but could not (out of the box) run OS X programs arbitrarily. You'll note that there hasn't yet been a mention of an internal hard drive or other mass media storage, nor an optical drive. From that I would argue that the internal software has a relatively small footprint (less than 1 GB) and isn't meant to be frequently upgraded. This would make it akin in complexity to a TiVo.

Re:What exactly is an iTV?

[enjar]

The iTV is based on equal parts marketing, product mock-ups, and Reality Distortion Field :)

Re:What exactly is an iTV?

[Fulkkari]

Mac OS X on the iTV? Don't be silly. The next thing you tell me is that there's a toaster that runs NetBSD...

Oh wait...

Re:What exactly is an iTV?

[Fulkkari]

Steve said iTV would use wireless streaming or Ethernet and it would have an USB port and a built-in power supply, which kind of points to AirPort Express (and AirPort Extreme), which has wireless (obviously), Ethernet, USB and AirTunes (analog+optical audio). Sounds to me something you could build iTV on.

Don't know what kind of software it runs, though. Probably something custom made with a couple of shared libraries with OS X.

Re:What exactly is an iTV?

[rubies]

There are already solutions out there based on Sigma chipsets and Syabas software (the old Neuston mc-500, pinnacle showcenter type boxes). From what I can tell, these are 90% of what the iTV is supposed to be i.e. a box next to the TV with a remote control that will stream music and video off your PC.

I'm sure it'll be something similar to that (if not based on that). The Neuston/showcenter is actually a nifty little box that was priced way too high when first released. I bought one on sale ($100AUD) and it now gets used more than just about anything else attached to the home theatre i.e. all music, divx downloads, it can upscale DVD's to 1080i for the projector etc. Slap an apple badge and some DRM garbage for iTunes and you're already there.

Re:One more

[gEvil (beta)]

Should they merge what would the new company be called? Gootenple? Goopledo? Ningoople?

Google - Please fire Eric Schmidt!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the same turd that took down Novell and he'll eventually do the same to Google. Plus, with him on Apple's board, he has a conflict of interest when it comes to being CEO. But the reason Google should fire him is because Eric Schmidt such a dumbass, he isn't even qualified to be a cashier at Walmart.

Re:Google - Please fire Eric Schmidt!

[mporcheron]

Eric Schmit is Google's second CEO, previously it was Larry or Sergey. It's thanks to Eric Schmit that Google is as great as it is today. Larry or Sergey wern't very keen on the whole buisness aspect and wern't interested in making money out of there search engine (they mainly wanted to sell it but failed). Eric helped make Google it's billions with AdWords and AdSense.

Re:Good to see google slowing down

[Anonymous Coward]

Any apple project is 15 years from conception to delivery.

I guess that means any Microsoft project takes 30 years from theft to aborted delivery.

Thank you, I'll be here all week.

OTOH

[Anonymous Coward]

You could have Microsoft, Sony and Dell coming up it instead (I couldn't figure out where SCO would fit in and the RIAA/MPAA don't actually produce anything either)

Bandwidth?

[cca93014]

Back of napkin maths...

My MythTV box in the UK consumes about 1.4 GB of data per hour of programme. That equates to about a 400kbit/second bandwidth requirement to be able to stream broadcast quality standard definition video (I think? Can anyone confirm that?). So basically I'd need at least a 4Mbit ADSL/Cable connection to stream video in real time and that's without enough of an overhead to ensure a 99.9% free picture.

What resolution did they say the iTV was running at? If I download a film from iTunes, what resolution is it? 640x480? That's a fair bit less than PAL. Maybe they could use a different codec to squeeze some more performance out of it, but it seems that the bandwidth requirements are pretty high right now...

The problem is that my dad, for example, expects the TV to work, when he turns it on, all the time. If he turns on his TV and gets some "buffering" messages up, he's going to take the thing back to the shop and tell the guy that sold it to him that "it doesn't work properly"...

Anyone else think that streaming TV is just not ready yet? I'd say we need another couple of years at least...

Re:Bandwidth?

[jonnythan]

To hell with "Streaming TV." If the iTV does a good job of getting DVDs, music videos, and maybe some tunes with visualization on my plasma TV from my Windows or Ubuntu boxes, I'm going to be first in line to buy one.

Re:Bandwidth?

[Siberwulf]

Anyone else think that streaming TV is just not ready yet? I'd say we need another couple of years at least...

Honestly, I think _quality_ streaming TV is just a pipe dream. As we introduce new TV standards, such as HD, we increase the size and standard of "Normal". With Normal going higher and higher, is it feasible to think that the web will catch up? Will Normal even plateau? I'm not sure, but I venture to say "No"

Re:Bandwidth?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know the technical details, but the actual picture takes up 544x576 on a PAL broadcast: the rest is all wasted on scan-in/out stuff required for old TVs (and maybe even new CRTs?).

Re:Bandwidth?

[generic-man]

Once people actually get high-speed Internet access at home (fibre, not cable/DSL) it could work. As it stands, Comcast serves HDTV movies on demand to its cable boxes. The quality is good and it takes 20-30 seconds from the time you hit "play" to where it's buffered up enough to play reliably. That can only improve but it's a great start.

When you consider that most home Internet connections became fast enough for streaming good quality music just a few years ago, I'd say that we have a ways to go before video is going to be fast enough. (Insert doom-and-gloom prediction about Net Neutrality ruining it for all the little guys out there)

Re:Bandwidth?

[MBCook]

Well that would be easy to fix. Just require a Macintosh. You schedule what you want to see and the Mac downloads it. Then when you go to watch it off your iTV it gets streamed from the Mac in your house. Or a little hard drive in the iTV would work too.

It's a reasonable solution, and they can let you watch it directly over the net as soon as your connection is fast enough.

Re:Bandwidth?

[lolocaust]

It'll be streamed from a PC/Mac with iTunes (bought from the store, hopefully it'll support ripped DVDs and other videos) over LAN to the box. Plenty of bandwidth there.

Re:Bandwidth?

[johnnyringo]

not sure what MYthTV uses, but MCE has about the same data requirements because it encodes in mpeg2- so it doesn't have to convert before burning to DVD- mpeg2 is the DVD compression of choice.

Other codecs offer much better compression and can even keep close in quality- divx, wmv, .h264
they offer much better size and bandwidth issues than the outdated mpeg2

Youtube is flash driven- isn't it motion jpeg for video and mp3 for audio?

Re:Bandwidth?

[kherr]

A friend was marveling over the weekend about how unbelievably fast the downloads from the iTunes Store were. He said he was getting TV shows at a much higher rate than data (not just video) from most other servers. And you can start watching while the download is taking place (streaming). So Apple's already got a lot of the pieces in place, at both the server and the client. I wonder if they're using the Google shipping containers Cringely talked about...

Re:Bandwidth?

[xoyoyo]

I think you've fallen for the bit/byte conversion there.

1.4Gb of data equals 400kbytes a second, or 3200kbits a second. Your calculations are right though. The 3-4Mbits speed is the sweet spot for MPEGII: judging by the crap on the screen I'd say Sky runs some of its channels way below that, but yes you'll need a fast connection to make broadcast streaming work, for very low values of broadcast.

As to iTunes movies being 640x480 - Apple has only rolled the service out in the US so far and 640x480 is NTSC. I expect we'd get something more appropriate in communist Europe. This is below HD, but then again 128kbps AAC is way below SACD and guess which format people buy. Availability beats quality over and over again in consumable media.

What excites me about iTV (and I will buy one) is that *anything* on my Mac ends up on the screen. Not just YouTube or porn. No need to burn stuff to DVD before watching it.

Re:Bandwidth?

[raalynthslair]

Anyone else think that streaming TV is just not ready yet? I'd say we need another couple of years at least... Not really. Let's face it, digital cable is basically streamed to your home. It's just the manner in how it's handled. What hurts most streaming video (aside from the quality of image and all that discussion - irrelevant as Digital cable quality CAN be done easily) is that bandwidth for it is not dedicated. You hook up your digital cable to your DVR from the Cable company and that entire system and wire is for their one signal of all that digital video. Unlike with internet streaming media where you are using an internet connection that has a shared line... Cable modems have to contend with line noise from the TV data on the wire in addition to other regional carriers - it does not monopolize the line. DSL - it uses your phone lines. Guess what, think that "Ma Bell" rewired everything coast-to-coast to have the DSL system switch and route it's data around? Think again, your packets are switched and routed like all the phone data being sent all over the place. Again, no monopolization of the resource. But Digital Cable TV gets a HUGE chunk of its resource pool dedicated to it. It IS what they make more money off from, it IS their selling point... Internet is a huge selling point for Telco's but their other services have long been their cash cow and until there's a reasonably overwhelming demand for them to change they won't. Let's face, why spend billions to give your cable modem users so much more speed and streaming ability so they can get from other sources digital-like cable when you can keep things as they are and let them enjoy faster-than-dialup speeds AND keep them unrealistically able to obtain quality streaming video outside of your digital cable package? There's no reason to change it, and every green dollar bill's worth of reasons NOT to.

Re:Bandwidth?

[stunt_penguin]

Honestly, I think _quality_ streaming TV is just a pipe dream.

Exactly, exactly, exactly! TV over t'internet needs to learn to crawl first- technology writers talk about IPTV and TV over the web as though it's something that can be deployed in the next few years, or as if it's something that isn't going to cost trillions of dollars to roll out. We don't have the means to deploy that kind of network yet, nor do we need to.

We currently have a way of deploying streaming video to hundreds of millions of TV sets across the globe at the same time; it's called satellite and cable TV, and although it costs a bundle to put up there, one satellite can serve (hundreds of?) millions of homes with the same content all at once, and it doesn't mean putting lines in the ground to every home. Oh, and if 6 differnet people want to watch 6 different programmes, well then that's okay, since all you need is 6 different receivers, not 6x as much bandwidth on your cable connection.

Can you imagine what it would take to stream live video to the 1 billion people who watch the World Cup? Or the hundreds of millions of people who watch the superbowl? That kind of information infrastructure is as far beyond the capabilities of our current series of tubes as I care to imagine.

In the meantime, a much better solution is video recording that has a satellite/cable/terrestrial connection for watching and recording TV that's on right now, plus an internet connection (for downloading video that you missed, scheduling and interactive services) . It's a lot more practical than everything-over-IP, and gives enough bandwidth for HD programming, which is somethign we're supposed to be working towards, right?

Re:Bandwidth?

[cca93014]

Bah. I meant 4000 kbit/second.

Re:Bandwidth?

[nine-times]

What do you think digital cable is? It's streaming a digital feed over a network. Now, I don't know exactly what protocols and compression they use, and I'm sure they must be doing some QoS stuff behind the scenes so my neighbor's bittorrent doesn't keep me from ordering a movie, but it demonstrates the capability of high-quality streaming. I can get OnDemand HDTV movies over the same line that I could order a theoretical 30Mbps downstream-- don't tell me that video streaming isn't possible.

Plus, HDTV is just now being adopted by normal people (i.e. not "early adopters"). I'm sure it'll be at least 20 years before we see a new standard. Most people haven't even been on the internet for 10 years.

Re:Bandwidth?

[Pollardito]

The problem is that my dad, for example, expects the TV to work, when he turns it on, all the time. If he turns on his TV and gets some "buffering" messages up, he's going to take the thing back to the shop and tell the guy that sold it to him that "it doesn't work properly"...

i don't think this is going to replace TV, your dad will still have that to watch if he doesn't have things queued up on iTV. besides, devices like TiVo are acclimating people to watching previously arranged things at a later date. if this device has things to watch now that you asked for earlier (or that it expected you might like), i think you'd get over the fact that you can't watch something brand new "right now". at the very worst, it will play new things as fast as you'd get them in your web browser without sitting at your desk to do it.

Re:Bandwidth?

[mrchaotica]

Oh, and if 6 differnet people want to watch 6 different programmes, well then that's okay, since all you need is 6 different receivers, not 6x as much bandwidth on your cable connection.

Not really; the only reason cable doesn't need "extra" bandwidth is that you're already sending all the possible data. The better comparison would be that you'd be sending all those 6 different programs all the time, and if 6 people didn't want to watch then the bits would just be piped to /dev/null.

Re:Bandwidth?

[Orange Crush]

My MythTV box in the UK consumes about 1.4 GB of data per hour of programme.

Using an MPEG4 variant can easily halve that bandwidth requirement at nearly the same quality. You can get quality comparable to VHS much much lower--300-500kbits is not unreasonable, but might look crummy on a larger screen (then again, so would VHS).

Re:Bandwidth?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you imagine what it would take to stream live video to the 1 billion people who watch the World Cup? Or the hundreds of millions of people who watch the superbowl? That kind of information infrastructure is as far beyond the capabilities of our current series of tubes as I care to imagine.

I watched the last world cup using sopcast. The way I understand the technology, it is similar to BitTorrent in nature, but works for streaming video. It works *right now* and in my experience the quality is better when more viewers that are connected.

Re:Bandwidth?

[diesel66]

you are assuming that television and internet video streaming are growing at the same pace, or with the web growing slower. given that it has taken television to get 60 years to where it is now, and internet streaming just 10 years to get (admittedly only) half decent, my money is on internet video streaming being able to catch up in five years.

anybody got numbers on the bandwidth needed for one or two HD streams in H.264?

Re:Bandwidth?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://developers.videolan.org/x264.html

Re:Bandwidth?

[Anonymous Coward]

is it feasible to think that the web will catch up?

Only when you stop clogging up the tubes!

Re:Bandwidth?

[Sentry21]

You say you need 'at least 4 Mbit' - but is that hard to find? I suppose it might be in some locations, but here in Montreal, I have 10 megabit internet from my cable provider, I could have chosen 20, and a local DSL ISP is about to roll out 24 Mbit ADSL2+ for only about $40/mo.

This might not be instant-on accessible to everyone, but if it's instant-on to some people and buffer-on to other people, then I'm fine with that.

Your father might not understand why his TV shows have to 'buffer', but then again, is your father going to buy his television shows online? The whole affair is more complex than just a normal television, and chances are that someone who doesn't want part of that complexity isn't going to want any of the complexity. The market here isn't the old fogies who lived through World War II, it's the young, hip trendsters with disposable income. The tech-heads, the movie buffs, and the hardcore geeks.

Re:Bandwidth?

[The One and Only]

"Normal" will eventually plateau at the point where either quality is indistinguishable from real life or where quality is high enough that no one cares anymore. The normal quality of recorded music plateau'd (peaked, actually) in the 1980's, so it's plausible that TV and movies will peak as well. That said, streaming is a download-once-watch-once solution, and is only really suitable for things like live news and sporting events. (Since HDTV is, in fact, a digital stream, it is possible to stream such events via digital cable at "normal" or even "really high" quality over existing services, as another poster pointed out..) iTunes/iTV doesn't work on the streaming paradigm though, it works on a "download once, watch many" paradigm. So streaming TV will only be used for sporting events, live news, and hyped-up premieres, whilst DVDs and normal television watching will both be supplanted by an iTunes-like system. (Additionally, as bandwidth increases, iTunes and systems like it will simply deliver higher resolutions. Blu-Ray and HD-DVD will both lose, but so will DVD's.)

Re:Bandwidth?

[GeffDE]

So basically I'd need at least a 4Mbit ADSL/Cable connection

Or, I mean, maybe you could use it as its intended, i.e. on a network, streaming video from a computer/device on the network. I don't think this is 1985 anymore. 10BaseT ethernet has gone the way of the horsed carriage to make room for the horseless carriage that is 11 or 54 Mbps wireless technology. You have plenty of bandwidth, if you use the iTV as it is intended to be used.

And perhaps you have never experienced, but with the digital cable I have watched (Comcast and Adelphia), there is a definite (on the order of 1 second) pause before a station starts to play. No "buffering" message pops up, but what do you think the cable box is doing? Would your dad return the cable box because his tv station takes any extra second to tune?

Re:Bandwidth?

[Tiro]

Yet they are able to broadcast HDTV over the airwaves.

Re:Bandwidth?

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess you guys haven't heard about ACTLab TV's new streaming protocols, using the Alluvium software. We have a new system that streams video exactly how bit torrent spreads out file transfers over countless users. Basically, it's going to allow us (and anyone else that wants to look inside our open source software) to stream full-screen, extremely high quality TV from a cable modem upload. Imagine what can be done on a real server!!

read about it here:

http://www.actlab.tv/technology.htm

so to sum it up, you're wrong. internet streaming video is about to take huge leaps and bounds in the next few years, most of them thanks to p2p protocols for streaming. Get ready. YouTube x 10 !!!!!

Re:Bandwidth?

[GWBasic]

My cable company allows me to stream movies in high definition using their cable box. To support streaming high definition movies over IP, all they need to do is re-allocate their bandwidth.

Besides, I think we'll initially see a DVR-style service for high-bitrate media. You'll subscribe to shows, and they'll be downloaded and ready to play when you sit down. (This is how iTunes works for television series.)

Apple iTV

[aalobode]

I am glad that two innovative companies would link up to give a positive impetus to streamed TV. But Apple will have to change its product's name: ITV is a British news channel that is internationally known and trademarked.

Re:Apple iTV

[Minigun_Fiend]

I was about to say the exact same thing - especially when Apple kick up a fuss over anyone naming anything *pod.

Re:Apple iTV

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

But Apple will have to change its product's name: ITV...

Apple announced the iTV device as a preview of things to come. iTV is a product code name, not what it will be shipped/marketed as. This was practically the first thing they said about it.

Re:Apple iTV

[Anonymous Coward]

I am glad that two innovative companies would link up to give a positive impetus to streamed TV. But Apple will have to change its product's name: ITV is a British news channel that is internationally known and trademarked.

Here let me fix that for you:

I am not glad that one innovative company (Google of course as Apple is crap) would link up to gave a dumb-ass
apple version of streamed TV. But Apple will have to change it's product name (to Inferior): ITV is a British news channel that is internationally known and trademarked.

And as we all know Apple is about as good as Microsoft. (Praise Linux PCs!!)

Well, your original post is fixed now. Have a nice day! :-)

Re:Apple iTV

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep up with the articles, iTV is a temporary codename for this new product/device.

Speculation of course

[robinf1]

While this item is pure speculation it is at least interesting. I'm unclear why Apple needs Google to stream video though. I don't see the win-win scenario for either. A more interesting idea is presented by Bob Cringley (http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20060914 .html). And yes an Apple TV with iTV built in is a great idea and will happen.

Re:Speculation of course

[ubrgeek]

What if they use Google as the portal to search for videos to download and watch?

Huh?

[diesel66]

From TFA:
"It's not hard to imagine a Gapple iTV that that would not only allow you to consume media files on your home theater system, but also stream television content and display relevant advertisements from Google..."

Let's see, iTV plays movies, TV shows and music I buy from the iTunes music store, why do I need Google? To show me targeted ads? No thanks.

"...especially since this device requires a network to do anything useful."

Yeeeaaahhh.... I have broadband just like all the other people the iTV will be made for. What the hell is he talking about? My computer needs a network to do anything useful. My cell phone needs a network to anything useful.

Another crappy blog to ignore.

Re:Huh?

[kfg]

Let's see, iTV plays movies, TV shows and music I buy from the iTunes music store, why do I need Google?

So you can search the web trying figure out exactly how one goes about "consuming" a media file?

KFG

no streaming content?

[Anonymous Coward]

jobs showed the iTV streaming HD movie trailers from the apple site

Re:no streaming content?

[jellomizer]

He didn't say anything about it being HDTV. It was DVD Quality but DVDs are not HD. That is why there is the big Fuss about BluRay and HD-DVD.

Re:no streaming content?

[thefinite]

The iTunes movies are DVD quality. The trailer Jobs showed *was* HD streaming, apparently, from their trailers website. I doubt many normal broadband connections will get the same speed as Jobs' demo setup, however.

So is this...

[Morrigu]

meaningful or YAGAAR (Yet Another Google-Apple Alliance Rumor)?

Re:So is this...

[dubbreak]

In response to a YAGAAR you just need to ask yourself WWSJD? (What would Steve Jobs do?) I think you get a free bracelet with the purchase of an ipod now.

Re:One more

[jellomizer]

Apoodo

Re:Good to see google slowing down

[gb506]

I guess that means they started the Newton Message Pad project in 1978, then, only two years after the company was founded... Or the iPod project in 1986, 5 years before the mp3 standard was adopted. Helluva chrystal ball they have over there in Cupertino, huh??? Turd.

Al Gore is on the Board too... But you don't see

[SirStanley]

Apple isn't teaming up with Phillip MOrris or US Tobacco to make iSmoke or anything like that. And Karl Rove still loves his Apple Powerbook. Just saying that's all.

Apple-Google links map

[O_at_TT]

Those trying to figure out the relations between Google and Apple, apart from the obvious ones, may be interested in reading this post from Guy Kawasaki, and check out the "Apple and Google" report he shows as an example.

benefit

[orateam]

I don't see why the cable companies would allow this. It just would be too easy for them to give inconsistent access to this. This would allow the telcos to finally strike back at the cable companies. I could see Bellsouth packaging thier DSL extreme with ITV.

Re:benefit

[Edoko]

Teaming up with telecos that have been hurt by VoIP telephone services offered by cable, and that are investing heavily to provide fiber to the home or fiber to the curb would be a good strategy, since they do not generally have the expertise to deliver video services, and many appear to be attempting to "copy" the cable TV model (box, fixed channels, etc). Unfortunately, Verizon is working on MPEG-2 technology using Microsofts standard. This is poor quality, poor compression. Also, my understanding is that Verizon has contracted Microsoft to write its interface for users to the television channels. A better strategy might be for Verizon and all telcos to work with Google and Apple ["Gapple"] to deliver the bandwidth for these services. There are plenty of business models that could be used to collect revenue from movie rentals and so on. [home alarm services, health monitors for elderly, air conditioning maintenance?]

In contrast, outside of the US, the penetration of cable is very low and the bulk of the IPTV services will be provided by the telcos [who do not face such competition by cable as an alternative carrier]. Finally, in some countries, Korea, Japan, the bandwidth being delivered is so great that these debates are academic.

Not quite

[Hanners1979]

ITN is an internationally known British news organisation. You're right however that ITV does already exist, as a number of commercial British channels, and main rival to the BBC here in the UK.

yay

[theStorminMormon]

Another slashdot story about a team-up that is not beyond the realm of feasible possibility.

Hooray.

-stormin

Dumb, dumb, dumb rumor...

[donnacha]

This is a particularly dumb example of classic "slap-2-big-names-together" rumor production. All Apple really has going for it in it's negotiations with the studios is that they, Apple, are the experts when it comes to online distribution. Why in the name of God would they blow that by being seen to defer to Google?

Re:Dumb, dumb, dumb rumor...

[smithbp]

The possibility of Google and Apple is not something that should be easily discounted. Think of the markets that Apple reaches right now. Google reaches EVERYONE, which is what Apple is trying to do in the form of the iPod, video iPod, Mac mini, etc. People who think Apple is the worst product on the face of the Earth as a computer manufacturer or that its OS isn't up to par may consider buying an iPod or video iPod. I have friends that hate Apple with a passion who have broken down and bought an iPod simply because of their love for carrying their music with them. A teaming up of the two companies could produce some serious results.

Re:One more

[Anonymous Coward]

How about Nipple? (le is from google btw)

Coming up the Stretch.. (Microsoft... *GASP*

[BlahSnarto]

From what i hear and see in Job Postings,
M$ is working on something similar..

http://www.microsoft.com/tv/IPTVImpact.html

Just my 2 cents.

Yeah!

[Mateo_LeFou]

I couldn't finish TFA because that verbiage is so awful: "not only allow you to consume media files on your home theater system, but also stream television content and display relevant advertisements from Google". For a more cluetrain-ish idea of what can be done with media, see getdemocracy. I am so sick of the "content industry" treating users like hamsters that run around the wheel and occasionally suck on the bottle of content they lovingly provide... Sorry, I'm in a bad mood now.

Possible TV content?

[ubrgeek]

I wonder if they'd be able to leverage the partnership Google has with Current TV. I find myself actually watching Current a suprising amount. Some of the stuff is quite interesting and it could definately stand wider distribution/attention.

Re:Al Gore is on the Board too... But you don't se

[Anonymous Coward]

The only reason Rove likes his powerbook is because it has "power" in its name. That fat suck represents everything wrong with the American political process today. He should just have a heart attack, or maybe get caught with a Haitian hooker sitting on his face - anything to blast him out of politics. What a disgusting pirg.

Re:One more

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure about that name. However, given that we'll be getting the ability to play with a Wii in a few months, you may not be that far off.

Thank you, I told you I was gonna be here all week.

ITV

[celardore]

I'm not sure if the name ITV is already trademarked, as there's a long established TV station in the UK called ITV, which stands for Independent TeleVision.

Re:ITV

[Tony Hoyle]

Yeah they can't use that name probably (definately not in the UK). Although ITV isn't a single entity (it's a group of regional companies providing the commercial side of terrestrial TV) they do trade in that name when selling programmes to places like the US - so it's an internationally known name... and being video related is close enough to cause confusion.

Re:ITV

[n2art2]

In the Keynote, Jobs stated that iTV was just the code name, and that before distribution, another name would take it's place. It's a code name. It's a name that will generate buzz, and that is, afterall, why they showed the box at the media event to begin with.

Gapple?

[Naomi_the_butterfly]

or maybe Goople?

The math gets worse for HD

[jmichaelg]

An obvious response to your post is to say "download instead of stream." So say you try to download a HD stream on a 5 Mbit link (cable speed)...25 GBytes at 5 Mbit/sec works out to a 136 hour download - almost a full week day and night. 680 hours if you're on DSL.

Run fiber instead of copper and you get 100 Mbit/sec or a tad under 7 hour downloads. So for those lucky folks who have fiber, downloading HD is feasible today if you're willing to download overnight or while you're at work. The rest of us will have to wait.

The interesting thing is that there's the killer ap for fiber. If the telcos get there first, they save their telephony business. If they keep farting around with DSL, they're toast because you'll be able to talk and download huge files simultaneously over fiber. That's one thing that's driving them to kill net neutrality. They have to invest in infrastructure or go out of business and they don't want to do either. Hence the bribes to Congress.

Another benefit of an iTV-like device that supported HD would be that the whole Blu Ray/HD-DVD issue goes away. You don't care how the bits are written on your hard drive as long as they show up on your HDTV in full 1080p goodness.

Re:The math gets worse for HD

[JohnsonWax]

25GB = 200Gb = 40k sec @ 5Mb = 11 hours - not 136. At 100Mbit, it's only half an hour. You need to shove data around more to at least get a ballpark sense of timing.

Apple's 1080p trailers are about 10Mbit. Streaming 1080p is out of almost all consumers reach but 720p comes right in around 5-6Mbps. Streaming isn't realistic, but the delay to start a program would be tolerable.

My 3Mbit connection (with a bit of traffic on it) gives me a delay of about 50% for 720p content. A 26 minute program would require me to wait 13 minutes to start watching. 480p downloads at 2x realtime on my connection - so even with two people in the house doing different programs you could barely pull it off.

OK, it's probably about entertainment...

[frostilicus2]

...But who cares? The thing I want to know most about this alliance is Steve Ballmer's response.

Now that would be entertaining.

Maybe, but doubtfull

[Jahz]

This might be true, but it sounds like more fake Apple rumors. Keeping in mind the fact that 90% of Apple rumors are completely unbased, look at the holes in this rumor.

First, Google Video is great, but its video quality is nothing special. The video is very highly compressed and encoded in to a Macromedia Flash container. The result is a very very lossy conversion prosses. Herein lies the problem. Google video's quality is perfect for free PC content, but for TV?? The trend lately is heavily towards HDTV and better, not worse. I for one would NEVER play anything on my television that was below antenae quality (if that).

The second hole here is, if not for Google Video software, what is Google providing here?? The servers and bandwidth? That does not make any sense because Google is not an ISP. So maybe its the content? Nope. Apple has MUCH more mature ties with the media conglomerates than Google does. This is due to their past relations relating to the iTunes store and especially close ties with Disney (recently) and Pixar. Apple.

So, sorry to burst the all of your bubbles, but the only thing Google has to offer Apple that we know of is: Advertisements and Phd's. How streaming TV with advertisements can generate enough revenue to work, I don't know... but maybe thats what Google's Phd's have figured out. Lets just wait and see...

Re:Maybe, but doubtfull

[blootooth]

> I for one would NEVER play anything on my television that was below antenae quality (if that).

If you, like millions of others, pay for digital cable television then you're wrong. You would pay for something far less than antennae quality video. All cable networks compress (with old poor quality codecs) all "Digital Cable" video. Commonly it's MPEG2 compressed with hardware. These systems are expensive, never upgraded, and produce some of the worst compression artifacting available. Try playing any high-key or low-key scenes back frame by frame on any digital cable network. It doesn't look so much like it's built from legos as duplo.

Now, go start a class action so I can join and sue for the 70% of the signal that I havent' been receiving for the last 30 months. Digital quality my arse.

Timing's off

[necro81]

I'll safely call this rumor until further notice. The addition of Eric Schmidt to the Apple board is strategic, but not necessarily linked to iTV. After all, iTV has probably been in development for a year or more, Schmidt's only been on the board a few weeks. Perhaps his appointment was quid pro quo for an ongoing (and heretofore secret) development alliance between the two companies, but I don't think so.

I'll believe it when...

[Nom du Keyboard]

I'll believe it when...

I read about it on the Fake Steve Jobs Blog.

A Small Spat

[Nom du Keyboard]

But will it be iTV or gTV at that point?

Or just split the difference and call it hTV

The Future

[kasgoku]

I am from the future Google is not supposed to ally with either Apple or microsoft. Google will be a standalone thing in the future making its own OS and becoming sooo successful that it will buy apple n microsoft to establish a monopoly!! Google CEOs will have enough money to buy several contries. Dont worry guys... alliance is impossible... unless google is like stalin, allying with competitors and then getting rid of them... it'll be kool to see google do that.

No they aren't.

[pavon]

The iTunes movies are DVD quality.

DVD is 720x480 for both fullscreen and widescreen. The iTunes movies are 640x480 for fullscreen, and for widescreen the number of vertical pixels is decreased to keep the same pixel shape (around 640x270 depending on the aspect ratio of the movie). The end result is that widescreen movies have half as many pixels as DVD.

You may or may not notice the difference on an interlaced fullscreen display, but you will definatly notice the difference on a progressive-scan widescreen display.

Re:No they aren't.

[rahrens]

And Steve SAID they were using 640x480 downloads for the demo.. At least twice, cause that's what they're selling.

Net Neutrality

[ModernGeek]

With net neutrality, cable companies pretty much HAVE to allow it. The reason they don't want net neutrality is so that they can tax the providers using their services (i.e: Bell South can tax Vonage, Comcast can tax Apple, etc). It is a threat, and the threat is real. Vote YES to net neutrality.

No fact?

[Anonymous Coward]

A blogger says that the rumors about Apple and Google have died down, but asks the question about Google and Apple cooperating. Someone reports that a blogger has asked the question, thereby starting a rumor. And this makes it onto Slashdot.

Did anyone see the Daily Show piece about the use of question marks?

Are these the end times?

Is George Bush the best President ever?

iTV

[Anonymous Coward]

They might have a few problems calling it iTV

Re:#irc.trooltalk.com

[Anonymous Coward]

Man goat.cx is so tired and unoriginal. Find something else for worthless shock value will ya?

Oh the Humanity

[Borland]

The true question is if the Earth is a large enough mass to contain the resulting Fanboy pride. Two perfect entities, merging together into something better than perfection? The mind cannot retain its sanity in the fact of such truth, anymore than it can gaze upon the face of God.

Whole religions were started for less my mortal brethren.

matchmaking in the 21st century

[varmint jerky]

Dear Apple and Google,

Everyone loves you and thinks you'd be a good match for each other. So please get together, if for no other reason than quelling these "will-they-or-won't-they" rumors that keep cropping up.

Stay safe,
VJ

Re:matchmaking in the 21st century

[sdsichero]

Or else we will start to see a lot of bad Apple & Google fanfic popping up. Lurid.

Re:matchmaking in the 21st century

[vilms]

That, for some reason, put me in mind of "Lady Chatterley's Lover".

Re:Al Gore is on the Board too... But you don't se

[rahrens]

Uh, (carefully asking) what's a "pirg"?

Logical Step

[mdavids]

If Google is happy to team up with the Chinese government, than the least they could do is get in bed with the big DRM pushers.

"We aim to organise the world's information... and then ruthlessly suppress it."

Trademarked?

[aj50]

I think ITV might have some reason to complain about that product name

What happened to Akamai?

[HenryHudson]

I thought Apple had dumped unpteen jillion dollars in akamai back in 1999, and akamai was going to be doing all the back end for Apple.

What does Google got that Akamai ain't got, other than courage?

HH

What makes the hottentot hot?

Re:AirporTV

[Anonymous Coward]

Allow me to say it here first:

Apple AirporTV

Streaming TV

[ephix]

In Hong Kong, we already have streaming broadband pay TV provided over a standard 6-8Mbit DSL connection. Apparently they will be upgrading to HD in the near future. I am not sure if this will coincide with a network upgrade to ADSL2 or something. This has nothing to do with the iTV, but it shows that streaming tv over broadband networks does work. -------- www.ephix.net