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Google and Apple Finally Teaming Up?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the peanut-butter-in-the-chocolate dept.

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."

11 of 126 comments (clear)

  1. Poo Pooing ITV by esconsult1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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).

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    1. Re:Poo Pooing ITV by MrAnnoyanceToYou · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

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    2. Re:Poo Pooing ITV by stubear · · Score: 3, Informative

      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.

    3. Re:Poo Pooing ITV by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 3, Informative

      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.

  2. What exactly is an iTV? by acb · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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?

  3. Bandwidth? by cca93014 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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...

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    1. Re:Bandwidth? by Siberwulf · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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"

  4. So is this... by Morrigu · · Score: 4, Funny

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

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  5. Dumb, dumb, dumb rumor... by donnacha · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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?

  6. Re:no streaming content? by thefinite · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

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  7. Re:ITV by n2art2 · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

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