Apple's Moment — Consumers Want To Download To TV

ack154 writes, "With so much recent news surrounding Apple's upcoming iTV system, their timing may be nearly perfect. Ars Technica gives the rundown on a recent report, released from Accenture, stating that about half of users surveyed across the globe are now looking to get downloadable videos, movies and other content onto their TV. Based on the article, if Apple can get the right combination in features, price, and usability, many consumers may be ready to eat it up. Macworld has more speculation on Apple's potential living room dominance."

Comments

Re:It really does work.

[AKAImBatman]

And there's no way in hell I'd pay per ep if I'm limited to watching it in low res

Depends on what you mean by "low res". iTunes shows TV in standard television resolutions (H.264 - 640x480), which is only low res if you have an HDTV. I'm sure that an HDTV upgrade will be in iTunes' future, but you're correct that it isn't here yet. (Then again, neither is HDTV market penetration.)

in a shitty window

Is there something wrong with watching it in full screen? Especially if you have a large monitor or a TV-OUT.

have no control over what device I get to watch it on

Sorry? You can transfer your iTunes movies to other computers and iPods. With Bonjour, you can even watch it directly over your home network. The only catch is that you have to register the other computers with your credentials, a simple and easy process.

The one downside is that you can't burn them to a DVD through the iTunes interface. However, I actually had to check on this, because I've never considered doing that. In a day in age where massive amounts of digital storage can be ad for cheap, I don't see much reason for creating little plastic frisbees. Especially since more and more consumers are wiring up their computers to be part of their home entertainment system. DVDs won't be phased out for Bluray or HD-DVD. They'll be phased out for digital downloads.

XBMC had made a believer out of me

[hodet]

"..stating that about half of users surveyed across the globe are now looking to get downloadable videos, movies and other content onto their TV"

...and the other half want it when they see someone else do it. I have XBMC on my network and people can't believe that I stream video from my pc to the tv. First thing they say is ....."I want it!".

Re:This is why Apple "Gets It'

[Golias]

Jobs was quite emphatic during the Stevenote where this was presented that "iTV" was a code-word name they definitely will not use for the final product. IIRC, his exact words were, "we will come up with a better name for it." I'm sure it will be something people can live with.

Stupid code name, cool final product name. Sort of the opposite of what Nintendo just did this year. :P

Re:Apple's biggest challenge: wireless LAN

[Anonymous Coward]

Rumors suggest the iTV has a hard drive. That takes care of all your latency problems.

Re:Thank God

[Jeff DeMaagd]

The Daily Show can be bought either $1.99 an episode or $9.99 for the next 16 new episodes., that's about $0.63/ep.

I paid $9.99 to get Comedy Central for a year.

Re:It really does work.

[Thrudheim]

But now you are blaming Apple for failing to pressure Comedy Central without any evidence that they aren't. Ultimately, Apple can't force them to deliver the content. Apple needs the content more than Comedy Central needs the iTunes outlet.

Need a place to leave a complaint at Comedy Central? Not hard to find. Googled the Daily Show, hit two links, and got this:

http://www.comedycentral.com/help/questionsCC.jhtm l

I can understand that the unpredictability of the posting of the show is annoying. It just seems you are stretching as much as possible to place all the blame on Apple, without any evidence that they are not putting up the show as soon as they can get it. It just doesn't make sense that they would sit on these files when they have such strong incentives to get them up ASAP.

Re:It really does work.

[conigs]

Ah, the resolution conversation.

First of all, the actual resolution of a DVD image is 720x480 NTSC and 720x576 PAL. The displayed resolution, however, can vary depending on how you want to interpolate pixels. The common 640x480 is used because it contains all the vertical resolution of an NTSC signal, and squishes the horizontal resolution to display properly in square pixels. This is the equivalent of display a PAL image at 720x540. Oddly enough, if you display an NTSC signal by stretching out the vertical resolution instead of squishing the horizontal resolution, you also get 720x540, but with interpolated pixels. PAL would be 768x576.

The 1024 res you mention is for 16:9 anamorphic image. Do you know why the call it anamorphic? Because the actual signal is 720x576. The image needs to be stretched out to display properly. For NTSC this would be 853x480.

But I see after writing all this, that you did mention square pixel resolution. So I guess this post is rather useless. However, 640x480 isn't that low res if you have an NTSC DVD player, especially considering I'd have to either throw out or interpolate information to to display it properly on a square pixel display. But let's not get into a PAL vs NTSC flame-war. I personally hate them both for different reasons.

Re:It really does work.

[conigs]

I'm well aware that the ACTUAL resolution does not change on a 16:9 anamorphic DVD. I'm well aware that it is the displayed resolution that changes. I'm also aware of pixel aspect ratios (and how D1 is .9 and anamorphic is 1.2). . I'm not sure if you caught this part of my post:

Do you know why the call it anamorphic? Because the actual signal is 720x576.

I was refering to PAL, obviously.

I'm really not sure why you're ranting so much. I was pointing out that a 640x480 video file is not that much lower resolution than a DVD image (for NTSC), and how a DVD (or any non-square pixel source) is displayed on a computer monitor. So, if I watch an anamorphic DVD on a computer screen, the display resolution DOES factor in. It depends on how that signal is interpreted, if I didn't want to lose information at all, the displayed resolution of a 720x480 signal with a 1.2 pixel aspect ratio would be 853x480. Now if I wanted to instead not interpolate any pixels on my square pixel display, it would be 720x600. Yes, the original signal is still 720x480. However, when it's displayed, information is either thrown out (by scaling the vertical resolution) or created (by scaling up the horizontal resolution) when viewing on a computer monitor.

But thanks for using a lot of broadcast acronyms that are pretty meaningless to the conversation at hand. No offense, but (to me) your post came off as just trying to sound intelligent, which you may very well be. But I was responding to the original post discussing a 1024x576 square pix resolution for a PAL DVD, and how 640x480 is such a shitty resolution... and explaining that the acutal signal for a PAL DVD is 720x576 and that an anamorphic video signal needs to be stretched out on a square pixel display to show properly and that's where he got the 1024 number from and that the original signal is actually much closer to 640x480 than s/he thinks. (Yay run-on sentences!)

Sorry for being a little of an ass, but I didn't really see the relevence of your post to the conversation at hand. That and since I work in film/video post, I'm well aware of everything you said... Yes, I know NTSC actually has 486 scan lines. Damn, there I go being an ass again...