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AppleTV Hits the Streets
Stories are starting to pop up all over the web about the AppleTV, which evidently means that Apple has set loose the hounds of marketing and the units are (or will be tomorrow) available in Apple stores. Still no word on whether or not it plays DivX files. That will be the key to me purchasing one.
Me too. I hate it when I buy hardware with too many features.
I still haven't bought a DVD player, because all the models I've seen include subtitles. WTF? I'm not deaf, why should I pay extra for subtitles!
I respond to your sigs
I'm a bit disappointed that it doesn't have some basic tivo functionality. You can't control a cable or satellite box, you can't tune in over-the-air broadcasts, analog or digital. All you can watch is iTunes content, most of which you have to *pay* for.
I would have snapped up an "HD iTivo" in a second but that's not what it is.
Or the many, many products (from a variety of companies) that do similar things but typically with more features (like DVD player, the mentioned AVI/DivX support, etc).
For example, the only thing that the Apple TV has that the D-link DSM-520 doesn't is the snazzy interface and the ability to play iTunes-protected media. On the other hand, the D-link gives you the ability to play a huge range of media formats (including DivX, WMV, MPEG-2/MPEG-1), has the S-video output, video up to 1080i, doesn't have that horrendous tiny remote and is $50 cheaper.
I'm sure the interface will be nice and the fact that it's the only system (outside of a cheap Mac Mini) that plays iTunes content will be a selling point for some, but I just don't see this taking off. I buy a lot of Apple gear and I've even bought my share of videos off of iTunes, but this just isn't on my list.
After all these years Apple finally manages to release a product that even Sony can almost compete with. The IPTV tech behind it might be cool as all get out but to the average consumer it is going to look a lot like a broken Tivo.
As a Mac user, fully agreed. My question is though: Why haven't other manufacturers clued into Apple's techniques?
Case in point: AppleTV vs. D-link DSM-520. Which sounds sexier? Why do manufacturers keep insisting on using freaking SKUs for product names? It does not work! Especially when your brand name has no style cachet in existence!
Second: Apple spent a lot of time on that UI, and it's slick as hell and looks easy enough to use for a grandma. Why can't other DVR, set-top box, or any other electronics manufacturer for that matter, clue into this and start designing beautiful and functional UI?/p>
I may be an Apple fan, but I know that if these other companies started spending some actual effort on their packaging, presentation, and UI, they would have Apple in a world of pain. SanDisk did pretty well with the Sansa in that regard, IMHO, and I recently played with a Sony Ericsson K790, which is a hella slick phone. Why aren't other manufacturers doing this?
"Still no word on whether or not it plays DivX files."
With an Apple product, "no word" definitely means it doesn't play them.
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
Before people get too attached to this notion, remember that the same was said about the iPod mini. And the iPod. And probably the original iMac.
"Sufferin' succotash."
How the hell did this get moderated "insightful" instead of "funny"? No, really. That's bad even for the kind of moderation you tend to get around here.
Tivo records any program I want, even pay-per-view movies that are cheaper than iTunes movies. If I opt for premium channels I can record all the movies I want from HBO, Showtime, etc for a low monthly fee.
My DVD player allows me to play DVDs I rent from a local video store that rents DVDs cheaper than iTunes sells downloadable movies. All I have to do is wait for a DVD release, and I have half-off membership to rent the DVD for $1.25 instead of $2.50 for a new movie because I am a loyal customer and get the discount as a result.
I don't need to have an Internet connection to use the Tivo or DVD players. In the case of Tivo most of the programming is due to a low cost monthly fee, and I get the Tivo player/recorder for free if I sign up for a year contract.
I don't really use iTunes, so I wouldn't benefit from an AppleTV box. I think that iTunes is ruining the market and locking down what we can and cannot play on our own equipment. We no longer can buy a movie, and we no longer have control over how we can play it and on what device we can play it on. For example my Linux box and third party MP3 player cannot play iTunes files, nor can my Amiga box. Ironically that my G3 iMac runs Mac OS9, and does not have the latest iTunes software for it to use with the AppleTV had I bought one.
AppleTV is a nice idea, I suppose if one buys a lot of iTunes files. I except Microsoft to have a MSNTV in a year or two to compete with AppleTV. I'd suspect they use some sort of Windows CE type device at the $299 or $199 price range, or maybe offer a discount on an XBox 360 if the buying agrees to a one year contract with media subscriptions and get $200 in rebates from the XBox 386 sale.
The limitations of the AppleTV is that it cannot get my satellite programming, cannot play my DVDs (do they expect me to rip them into some format and violate that MPAA agreement?), cannot work with my Linux and Amiga boxes, and limits how many times I can play a file or how long I can play a file due to DRM that isn't present on my Tivo or DVD players.
My Tivo and DVD players allow me to play any media any time I want for as long as I want for how many times I want to play it. AppleTV does not, so I don't need AppleTV.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
This whole article is an embarrassment to SlashDot. The OP starts off by "wondering" if Apple TV will support DivX when the information on supported formats has been posted on the Apple TV web site for months.
Most of the responders seem to know nothing about the product. Asking embarrassingly stupid questions like "does it have a keyboard?", "When are they going to have non-Disney movies?" and telling us that you can only play DRM'ed video on it???
There is hardly a question posed here that would not be answered by a ten second trip to the Apple TV website and anyone following the product even the slightest bit would know the answer to them. Most of the "opinions" on the product here are ill-informed nonsense at best. On top of that, there is a lot of bitter, mean-spirited, childish banter that one would expect on kids sites like Digg or Gizmodo, not SlashDot. I am truly embarrassed to see this kind of junk here.
For those who want to know:
- doesn't support DivX
- a keyboard would make it a computer, not a set-top streamer
- non-Disney movies already available (have been for a while)
- *does* play non DRM'ed music and video (just like iPod)
I am not going to bother trying to refute every point made here or talk up the device, but for a cool techie site populated by intelligent IT people who are supposed to be in the know on stuff like this... this article and most of the related comments are a joke.
With an Apple product, "no word" definitely means it doesn't play them.
Well, but there's not "no word". There's specific word that it doesn't play them direct from Apple itself. It syncs with iTunes; that's what it does. It supports h.264 and QuickTime, which is what iTunes supports. That's what it plays.
Maybe eventually somebody will figure out how to hack it to play divx, but out of the box, it definitely doesn't. A simple look at the AppleTV product page would tell you that. The submitter apparently doesn't know how to read.
You've just changed the way you watch digital media.
Yeah, I can no longer watch it, because most of it is encoded with xvid, divx and vcd.
-- http://thegirlorthecar.com funny dating game for guys
Compare the cost of your cable bill + netflix account + tivo service to that of just buying episodes of the shows and movies you watch. Maybe it doesn't work out well for you, but there are some people who would do very well with something like this.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
Apple already builds an Apple TV for standard def TV users - it's called the iPod video. Buy one - they're the same price as this rig, albeit with less storage at the same price point, but you get portability.
--
The Apple TV - It's the true video iPod everyone tittered about all through 2005.
Instead of a cable or dock, it uses 802.11g/n.
Instead of headphones, you attach your TV/Home Theatre.
Apple limited the device to widescreen because they understand the market for the device a whole lot better than you do. People with big glass 4:3 TVs are getting rid of them. People who already have 16:9 or high-def sets will have the scratch to pop for one of these devices. They're the "wavefront" consumers who embraced the iPod first, and Apple hopes they'll embrace this iPod for the living room.
I think the reason why it doesn't support Divx is obvious. Apple wants to try and kill Divx as a de facto standard, if they possibly can. They would much rather have people using H.264 inside .mp4 container files, than Divx video inside .avi or .divx containers.
.divx or .avi into an .mp4 file without decompressing and recompressing it, thus avoiding loss. I'm not aware of any software tools that do this, though, and I might be misunderstanding ways in which Divx diverges from the standards.
.mp4 win this one, I'm not sure that they're going to; the installed base of divx-playing equipment may just be too big, and they may be forced to release an update to add support for it later.
.divx or Divx-containing .avis, which are just as much of a closed, single-vendor, proprietary format as MS Word's .doc is, and everyone loves to just shit all over that. The .mp4 container format is the video equivalent of ODF, and although I'm not going to buy one, I hope that the Apple TV is popular enough to get the script kiddies and release groups that push TV shows and movies out on bittorrent using it (because, lets face it, the main driver of Divx is "unauthorized" content, to put it politely).
It's my understanding though that at least in recent versions, Divx is essentially ISO-compliant MPEG-4 Part 2 ASP video, albeit in a nonstandard container. So it seems like it ought to be possible to 'recontainerize' a Divx
Although I would really like to see Apple and
I find it odd that so many Slashdotters seem in love with
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
You do realise not everyone in the world is an IT nerd/geek/(insert knowledgeable stereotype here) so you will probably understand why Apple keeps things so simple.
Part of the reason I own a Mac is because it's built for novice users to learn quickly, but it also has some real power under the hood.
AppleTV has the latter but not the former.
The AppleTV was designed by the makers of ElGato's EyeTV. Apple literally walked into ElGato and took their entire development team for it (it involved duct tape and tasers, from what I understand). The EyeTV had the ability to play tons of different formats including divx and VIDEO_TS. You could also browse the web (the real web, not special-formatted pages) and it was less than $200.
So all this really is is just a crippled version of a product Apple bought and killed. Don't tell me this was in an effort to make it easier to use. The video lock-in of this was specifically to point people towards Apple and keep people locked into Quicktime and iTunes.
The "hard apple" I'm sleeping on was the fact that I own an EyeTV and this immediately became unsupported when Apple "bought" the ElGato developers. I've been looking for a replacement ever since, and this AppleTV just doesn't measure up, even though it costs way more.
Latewire
With QuickTime Pro you can "Export to Apple TV" any content. It's slow, but it works. EyeTV also has the posibility of exporting to apple TV the shows that you record. I think that in short time we'll see a lot of software exporting things to this device.
... for half the cost you get a crazy additional amount of functionality.
Let's see. For "half the cost", I can buy a used device, take the time to modify it myself, and come up with a box that doesn't include a remote, support, or warranty; doesn't sync with or stream from iTunes; doesn't sync my photo library; doesn't have wireless; is about five hundred times larger; has 1/5th the capacity; and doesn't actually support playing back HD video .
Awesome.
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
The AppleTV was designed by the makers of ElGato's EyeTV. Apple literally walked into ElGato and took their entire development team for it
Um. No.
So all this really is is just a crippled version of a product Apple bought and killed.
This turns out not to be the case.
The "hard apple" I'm sleeping on was the fact that I own an EyeTV and this immediately became unsupported when Apple "bought" the ElGato developers.
I dunno, Stimpy. I think maybe someone pushed the History Eraser button, because in my universe ElGato seems to be in business and providing support.
Funny story: I have this shiny new ElGato EyeTV Hybrid here, recording Lost from the local HD broadcast, and set to transcode it to H.264 and add it to iTunes. Once it hits iTunes, it also will be synced to the shiny little box upstairs. ElGato seems to be supporting their product.
I won't say you're wrong about the missed-the-boat notion, but I think you might be misunderstanding the role of this product. At the very least we don't see it doing the same things.
a mvp.html
From my persepctive, there are other similar solutions, but the Hauppauge MediaMVP is not one of them for a number of reasons. Just read the product page: http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_medi
For one thing, it's composite and s-video only. I know some people are whining that the AppleTV doesn't support those formats, but those of use with newer, high-def equipment are sick of componsite video signals.
For another, it only decodes MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 video. It plays DivX, but only by using your host system to decode them -- it doesn't have the on-board power to decode anything in software, and doesn't have DivX hardware.
And as far as "works with MythTV" I assume you mean "can be re-flashed and the hardware used to run mvpmc", since the factory software only support Windows as a host system and doesn't know anything about MythTV. mvpmc is a great bit of software -- I've used their code to provide non-Java interfaces for my ReplayTV -- but it's hardly a feature of the MediaMVP itself.
The Windows Media Center Extender is a much better comparison to the AppleTV -- supports wired and/or wireless in the same box, requires a host system for content origination but can play with or without live streaming, outputs to HD, has enough processor to decode in software (i.e. without being limited to an MPEG hardware decoder).
As someone who's had both commerical and home-built media systems, I've been waiting for more people to get into the market that AppleTV plays in. Like I said, the Windows Media Center Extender is a comparable product, but it wants Windows Media Center, which I don't (and likely won't) have. SlingBox claims they'll put out something in the near future, but they haven't announced a release date or specs yet, just some hype to counter the AppleTV. There are a couple of other players like Pixel Magic Systems, but so far there aren't in clear leaders.
I'm not sure yet that I want an AppleTV, but I'm glad to see another big-name player through its hat in the ring, with the hope that either AppleTV will become the product I want, or will help define the high-def computer-based-but-not-computer-in-living-room media playback market and eventually will help bring about some more refined, mature products in that market.
The AppleTV was designed by the makers of ElGato's EyeTV
Whoa, where did you get that from? I know that Apple bought another German computer/video company that did DVD authoring software but I've heard nothing about Munich based ElGato making a similar move to Cupertino. In fact I'm pretty sure they didn't. In any case the EyeTV line of products is mainly about tuners which AppleTV quite prominently does not have. There was a disappointing little product that ElGato sold, called EyeHome, that was like an NTSC version of the AppleTV but it appeared to be just a repackaged box also sold by Hauppauge called MediaMVP. The interface software was bush league and the performance was not quite good enough even for NTSC.
Don't misunderstand, I think the EyeTV tuner products and software are fantastic. All those pining for PVR capability for the Mac should get an EyeTV product (they have tuners made for several markets besides the US) instead of or in addition to AppleTV. In my opinion AppleTV would be worthwhile if it included tight integration with EyeTV (e.g. no conversion process at all) but I can see Apple is playing the format lock out game like everyone else.
You know a product is weak when you need to break the law to get good value out of it.
Apple TV only supports EDTV and HDTV. Are there (m)any 4:3 TV's like that around?
It might be that the interface simply requires higher resolution than standard definition TVs. But if that is the case, the fonts are probably too small anyway.
The real reason is probably that the people that are likely to splash out $299 for this product are very unlikely to have an old 4:3 TV and Apple probably want this product associated with 'high end'.
As long as you don't buy anything from the iTMS, there's no DRM involved. Rip your own DVDs using handbrake, or download tv shows/movies from teh intarwebs for free.
The only DRM is in the iTMS stuff, and you don't need to buy it to use the AppleTV.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
Well, they had "no word" about if Front Row plays DivX - and it does flawlessly after installing the codec.
Perhaps they just don't want to have the hassle of supporting other people's technology (and the subsequent lawsuits over IP even though they might use open variations, etc.)?
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
If you transcode the audio to AAC, you can mux it with H.264 video into an MPEG-4/QuickTime container. If you do that, though, you won't be able to pass it through to your receiver over S/PDIF.
I only transcode audio for mono & stereo sources. For multichannel audio, I leave it in AC3 and mux it with H.264 video into a Matroska container.
Creating an .mp4 file with H.264 & AAC looks something like this:
#!/bin/shd irect_pred=auto -oac copy -o /dev/null "${1}" && \d irect_pred=auto -oac copy -of rawvideo -o "${2}.264" "${1}" && \
nice -n 18 mencoder -vf harddup -ovc copy -oac faac -faacopts br=128:mpeg=4 -of rawaudio -o "${2}.aac" "${1}" && \
nice -n 18 mencoder -vf pullup,softskip,${3},harddup -ofps 24000/1001 -ovc x264 -x264encopts bitrate=1400:pass=1:turbo=2:keyint=240:bframes=3:
nice -n 18 mencoder -vf pullup,softskip,${3},harddup -ofps 24000/1001 -ovc x264 -x264encopts bitrate=1400:pass=2:turbo=2:keyint=240:bframes=3:
nice -n 18 MP4Box "${2}.mp4" -fps 23.976 -add "${2}.264" -add "${2}.aac" && \
rm "${2}.264" "${2}.aac"
Creating an .mkv file with H.264 & AC3 looks something like this:
#!/bin/shd irect_pred=auto -oac copy -o /dev/null "${1}" && \d irect_pred=auto -oac copy -of rawvideo -o "${2}.264" "${1}" && \
nice -n 18 mencoder -vf harddup -ovc copy -oac copy -of rawaudio -o "${2}.ac3" "${1}" && \
nice -n 18 mencoder -vf pullup,softskip,${3},harddup -ofps 24000/1001 -ovc x264 -x264encopts bitrate=1400:pass=1:turbo=2:keyint=240:bframes=3:
nice -n 18 mencoder -vf pullup,softskip,${3},harddup -ofps 24000/1001 -ovc x264 -x264encopts bitrate=1400:pass=2:turbo=2:keyint=240:bframes=3:
nice -n 18 MP4Box "${2}.mp4" -fps 23.976 -add "${2}.264" && \
nice -n 18 mkvmerge -o "${2}.mkv" "${2}.mp4" "${2}.ac3" && \
rm "${2}.264" "${2}.ac3" "${2}.mp4"
Both assume that the input is NTSC video that can be inverse-telecined to produce film-rate progressive-scan video. ${1} is the source file, ${2} is the destination file (without extension), and ${3} is a "crop=w:h:x:y" parameter to get rid of any black bars around the video. On a Gentoo box, you'll want to emerge mplayer gpac mkvtoolnix to get the necessary software.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.