The parent wasn't talking about saving money, he was talking about voting with dollars. Well, if don't buy Linux or a Mac, you're not voting with your dollars.
You have to either buy Linux (over-the-counter box) or a Mac in order to not only lower the revenues of Microsoft, but also increase the cash-counted installed userbase, which seems to be the only things "serious/public" statistics check for. Browsers stats means absolutely nothing (so many variables that it's not even valid as a statistic).
Or about 3 minutes to change the mouse speed and the desktop wallpaper and then install TextWrangler and OneButton FTP on Mac OS X. It really makes you think.;-)
I redesigned the board and had it made on a 0.5mm laminate I'm sorry but that board is not a 0.5mm square. It's a 5mm square. Granted it's still extremely impressive especially for a hobbyist, but 0.5mm is half a millimeter, 0.0196850394 inch, a bit more than 1/64 inch.
Let's make a huge space mirror from all the old unused CDs on earth. Or maybe make that space elevator by stacking them. Or keep them as ammo to throw at alien flying saucers. You knew that you can only fight flying discs with other flying discs, right?
Actually the REAL PROBLEM is Apple TV can't play full-frame HD, regardless of format. It does not have the power to decode and display it. Nowhere on the specs page or anywhere else does Apple say that Apple TV can, or will ever, be able to play HD video. This is because it can't, it only has a general-purpose 1 GHz CPU, which is not enough to play HD video even when you have hardware support for decoding and motion compensation.
Video formats supported - H.264 and protected H.264 (from iTunes Store): Up to 5 Mbps, Progressive Main Profile (CAVLC) with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps (maximum resolution: 1280 by 720 pixels at 24 fps, 960 by 540 pixels at 30 fps) - iTunes Store purchased video: 320 by 240 pixels or 640 by 480 pixels - MPEG-4: Up to 3 Mbps, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps (maximum resolution: 720 by 432 pixels at 30 fps)
Apple never said the AppleTV could do 1080p, and 720p is one of the HD standards. It's also most of the TV sets sold today, and it's the only sane option for downloads as normal people won't wait 3 days for their 40GB movie to download. So yes, it CAN play 720p content, although only at 24fps. But since movies are usually shot at 24fps, it's not a problem. And 960x540 is still higher than a DVD, which is more than enough for TV shows IMHO. If you ask me, the bitrate matters more than the actual resolution. I've seen so many badly encoded and/or low-bitrate HD streams (both cable and satellite) that it's not even worth it to switch to HD in the first place.
Also, the AppleTV isn't limited in the fixed resolutions listed above (if anyone is wondering). I've played files encoded for my Nintendo Play-Yan micro (MPEG-4/AAC, 240x160) and files with anti-anamorphic aspect ratio (such as 720x224). Why 720x224 you ask? Because neither the AppleTV nor my TV have a letterboxing mode. They both suck.;-)
But you don't need an AppleTV to get iTunes Store content, that's what I'm saying. Just because the content on the iTunes Store is badly encoded doesn't mean the AppleTV is the POS everybody thinks it is. Windows is a POS, does that means nVidia and ATI make crappy GPUs? Windows can use the GPUs but judging the GPUs based on Windows is pointless at best.
You could buy a movie or TV show and watch it on your computer. Heck, most modern PCs probably have TV outputs on their video card anyway. You can display your own content (home-made movies, DVD rips, etc) on your AppleTV, it doesn't have to come from the iTunes Store.
Sure, you can use the AppleTV with iTunes Store content, but they don't require each other in order to work. You can use the AppleTV just like an iPod: with your own content. Heck I had an iPod almost 2 years before they started selling songs in Canada.
As for badly-encoded, 15$US movies on the iTunes Store, I'm sticking with DVD purchases. Not that it matters since they don't even sell movies and TV shows online in Canada.
Nice way to edit what I said in order to "prove your point".
The guy says the AppleTV sucks because the content available on the iTunes Store sucks. That's not true. The AppleTV does its job just fine, but the iTunes Store content sucks. Big difference. I wasn't defending Apple as a whole (they can do both good and bad like any company), I was defending the AppleTV because the arguments against it were flawed.
As for the "Microsoft shill" comment, read my original post above. I don't see how something louder and bigger can be better in a home theater setup. Even the author himself says that about the Xbox360.
And I also didn't say "iTunes Store content sucks, it's Microsoft's fault.", you have a weird way of reading posts.
Oups, my mistake, sorry. But since those services (on both the iTunes Store and the Xbox Live Marketplace) aren't available in Canada, I wasn't able to check either.
Man, the dumb anti-Apple troll zealots are busy spreading FUD today!
I'll say it one more time:
The AppleTV can play more than just content bought from the iTunes Store. In fact, why the hell would Apple be selling the AppleTV outside of the USA since it's the only place you can buy movies and TV shows online?
You can use an AppleTV and iTunes just like you can use an iPod and iTunes: without ever buying anything from the iTunes Store. Clear enough now, ignorant trolls?
If you want to crap on something, crap on the real problem: the quality of the content from the iTunes Store, which isn't even encoded by Apple themselves. Blame Apple for the maximum specs (no 1080p, no "real 5.1" AFAIK), blame the movie and TV studios for the crappy encodings.
If the only way to obtain new content for a particular system is complete crap, then the ENTIRE implementation is crap until they change that aspect of it. You might have a point if iTunes wasn't the only way to go for the AppleTV.
Look down buddy, you just shot yourself in the foot!
If the iTunes Store is the only way to get content for my AppleTV, then I better stop HandBrake right now since it's busy ripping one of my DVD in H.264/AAC.
If you think iTunes = iTunes Store, you're sadly mistaken. The fact that the content has to be IN iTunes as opposed to COME FROM the iTunes Store is very different.
You also need to keep the 5th generation iPod in mind. They did a firmware update to allow 640x480 H.264 playback (from 320x240 H.264), so I don't think they could push it into the HD realm. Unless they start to sell two "qualities" of movies and TV shows.... iPod and AppleTV.
After all, they're going to start doing exactly that with music (128kbps/DRM, 256kbps/DRM-free), so maybe they'll have different prices for different resolutions/bitrates. The iPod LCD is smaller and requires less pixels/can handle more compression/needs smaller files for the portable drive), the AppleTV connects to your HDTV and requires more pixels/less compression/can stream from your combined computers/network storage.
And anyone can understand a question as simple as "do you want to buy content for your iPod or your computer/AppleTV?", so no problem in that department.;-)
Being Canadian, I also bought the AppleTV for my own content (i.e. the iTunes Store only sells movies and TV shows in USA for now). I'm also ripping my own DVDs in H.264/AAC, the AppleTV will make a nice interface between my movies library and my TV.
The one thing that does suck about the AppleTV: it doesn't have a letterboxing setting. A simple update could probably add that, but forcing letterboxing would still make it "requires a widescreen TV", i.e. people couldn't complain about the "black bars". And no, my TV doesn't have a letterboxing mode either. If my DVD player can letterbox an anamorphic DVD, so should the AppleTV.
So, for now, I'm ripping my DVDs with a wrong aspect ratio so they end up displaying correctly on my TV. But I already knew I'd have to do that. It's a minor annoyance, but it means that even if Apple brings movies and TV shows in Canada, I won't be able to buy anything. Who wants to watch anamorphic content on a 4:3 TV?:p
From what I've read, it seems the Apple stores are using old iTunes Store content (for unknown reason), which is as you say in the old resolution of 320x240. The Apple TV itself is not to blame here. Blame old low-resolution content and Apple's marketing team. How that mistake got through the door is simply amazing.
"Hey, let's use old iPod-sized video content to promote our new HDTV set-top box on huge LCD HDTVs in all our stores!" doesn't sound like a smart idea to me. Someone messed up, big time.
Did you even RTFA? The guy compared the AppleTV to the Xbox360. He said the AppleTV was nice-looking, small and quiet. A perfect audio-video component. He then says the Xbox 360 is huge and noisy. But in the end he says he prefers the Xbox 360 over the AppleTV because of the content available? That has nothing to do with the hardware itself! That's like saying the iPod is crap because (let's take a fake example here) the iTunes store only sells 64kbps MP3 while the (insert-bad-MP3-player-with-crappy-NSR) is much better since its online store sells 256kbps songs.
So yes, for that reason the guy is a Microsoft shill.
And you saying "The fact remains that Apple TV is meant to do one thing: DISPLAY CONTENT. And it does so quite poorly. No one can deny that simple fact." doesn't make it a fact. Try the AppleTV with HD content, it does so quite perfectly, though limited to 720p. But that's already in the specs, on the website and everywhere.
Hey people, the sky is RED, no one can deny that simple fact!
Anti-Apple zealots are even worst than Microsoft shills.
But you do have to take these facts into account: - you need an Xbox Live! Gold account, which adds a monthly fee (hey, you gotta be a paying member to be able to purchase/rent stuff, another Microsoft innovation) - the Xbox 360 is HUGE, even more so with its huge power supply brick - the Xbox 360 is extremely more noisy than an AppleTV, DVD player, set-top digital decoder box and HDTV, together. - network aware only for Windows computers. Movies have to be in WMV. - clumsy interface
The only thing the whole Xbox360+Windows PC setup has over AppleTV+iTunes is the movie rental. But even so I'm not buying a Windows PC and paying a monthly fee to do that. I'll stick to renting DVDs, thank you.
They cram 45 minutes of BSG into a 450MB-500MB download. A BSG DVD has what... 3 to 4 episodes on it? You could fit the entirety of Season 1 of BSG from the iTMS onto two DVDs, when the full set of Season one comes with 5 DVDs.
iTunes Store content = H.264, DVDs = MPEG-2. Please get out and give back your nerd card at the door.
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The parent wasn't talking about saving money, he was talking about voting with dollars. Well, if don't buy Linux or a Mac, you're not voting with your dollars.
You have to either buy Linux (over-the-counter box) or a Mac in order to not only lower the revenues of Microsoft, but also increase the cash-counted installed userbase, which seems to be the only things "serious/public" statistics check for. Browsers stats means absolutely nothing (so many variables that it's not even valid as a statistic).
Or about 3 minutes to change the mouse speed and the desktop wallpaper and then install TextWrangler and OneButton FTP on Mac OS X. It really makes you think. ;-)
I've sent wave after wave of men at the killbots until they reached their pre-programmed kill limit. - Zap Brannigan
+12, -4, +10, +7, -7, +15
May I suggest the tag?
I see. I guess I wasn't completely awake when I read that.
Especially youtubes.com
Let's make a huge space mirror from all the old unused CDs on earth. Or maybe make that space elevator by stacking them. Or keep them as ammo to throw at alien flying saucers. You knew that you can only fight flying discs with other flying discs, right?
To further increase R&D of this new 3D chip technology, IBM will be launching a new company called Cyberdyne Systems Corporation.
(always preview before posting.... always preview before posting...)
I meant Pentium MMX, not Pentium MMM.
I guess I'll have to remodulate the shields.
Would that thing work well on an old ThinkPad 760XL? That thing only has a Pentium MMM 166MHz, 64MB RAM and 4GB of storage...
From the http://www.apple.com/appletv/specs.html page
Video formats supported
- H.264 and protected H.264 (from iTunes Store): Up to 5 Mbps, Progressive Main Profile (CAVLC) with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps (maximum resolution: 1280 by 720 pixels at 24 fps, 960 by 540 pixels at 30 fps)
- iTunes Store purchased video: 320 by 240 pixels or 640 by 480 pixels
- MPEG-4: Up to 3 Mbps, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps (maximum resolution: 720 by 432 pixels at 30 fps)
Apple never said the AppleTV could do 1080p, and 720p is one of the HD standards. It's also most of the TV sets sold today, and it's the only sane option for downloads as normal people won't wait 3 days for their 40GB movie to download. So yes, it CAN play 720p content, although only at 24fps. But since movies are usually shot at 24fps, it's not a problem. And 960x540 is still higher than a DVD, which is more than enough for TV shows IMHO. If you ask me, the bitrate matters more than the actual resolution. I've seen so many badly encoded and/or low-bitrate HD streams (both cable and satellite) that it's not even worth it to switch to HD in the first place.
Also, the AppleTV isn't limited in the fixed resolutions listed above (if anyone is wondering). I've played files encoded for my Nintendo Play-Yan micro (MPEG-4/AAC, 240x160) and files with anti-anamorphic aspect ratio (such as 720x224). Why 720x224 you ask? Because neither the AppleTV nor my TV have a letterboxing mode. They both suck.
But you don't need an AppleTV to get iTunes Store content, that's what I'm saying. Just because the content on the iTunes Store is badly encoded doesn't mean the AppleTV is the POS everybody thinks it is. Windows is a POS, does that means nVidia and ATI make crappy GPUs? Windows can use the GPUs but judging the GPUs based on Windows is pointless at best.
You could buy a movie or TV show and watch it on your computer. Heck, most modern PCs probably have TV outputs on their video card anyway.
You can display your own content (home-made movies, DVD rips, etc) on your AppleTV, it doesn't have to come from the iTunes Store.
Sure, you can use the AppleTV with iTunes Store content, but they don't require each other in order to work. You can use the AppleTV just like an iPod: with your own content. Heck I had an iPod almost 2 years before they started selling songs in Canada.
As for badly-encoded, 15$US movies on the iTunes Store, I'm sticking with DVD purchases. Not that it matters since they don't even sell movies and TV shows online in Canada.
Nice way to edit what I said in order to "prove your point".
The guy says the AppleTV sucks because the content available on the iTunes Store sucks. That's not true. The AppleTV does its job just fine, but the iTunes Store content sucks. Big difference. I wasn't defending Apple as a whole (they can do both good and bad like any company), I was defending the AppleTV because the arguments against it were flawed.
As for the "Microsoft shill" comment, read my original post above. I don't see how something louder and bigger can be better in a home theater setup. Even the author himself says that about the Xbox360.
And I also didn't say "iTunes Store content sucks, it's Microsoft's fault.", you have a weird way of reading posts.
Oups, my mistake, sorry. But since those services (on both the iTunes Store and the Xbox Live Marketplace) aren't available in Canada, I wasn't able to check either.
;-)
My other negative points still stand, though.
Man, the dumb anti-Apple troll zealots are busy spreading FUD today!
I'll say it one more time:
The AppleTV can play more than just content bought from the iTunes Store. In fact, why the hell would Apple be selling the AppleTV outside of the USA since it's the only place you can buy movies and TV shows online?
You can use an AppleTV and iTunes just like you can use an iPod and iTunes: without ever buying anything from the iTunes Store. Clear enough now, ignorant trolls?
If you want to crap on something, crap on the real problem: the quality of the content from the iTunes Store, which isn't even encoded by Apple themselves. Blame Apple for the maximum specs (no 1080p, no "real 5.1" AFAIK), blame the movie and TV studios for the crappy encodings.
If the iTunes Store is the only way to get content for my AppleTV, then I better stop HandBrake right now since it's busy ripping one of my DVD in H.264/AAC.
If you think iTunes = iTunes Store, you're sadly mistaken. The fact that the content has to be IN iTunes as opposed to COME FROM the iTunes Store is very different.
You also need to keep the 5th generation iPod in mind. They did a firmware update to allow 640x480 H.264 playback (from 320x240 H.264), so I don't think they could push it into the HD realm. Unless they start to sell two "qualities" of movies and TV shows.... iPod and AppleTV.
;-)
After all, they're going to start doing exactly that with music (128kbps/DRM, 256kbps/DRM-free), so maybe they'll have different prices for different resolutions/bitrates. The iPod LCD is smaller and requires less pixels/can handle more compression/needs smaller files for the portable drive), the AppleTV connects to your HDTV and requires more pixels/less compression/can stream from your combined computers/network storage.
And anyone can understand a question as simple as "do you want to buy content for your iPod or your computer/AppleTV?", so no problem in that department.
Being Canadian, I also bought the AppleTV for my own content (i.e. the iTunes Store only sells movies and TV shows in USA for now). I'm also ripping my own DVDs in H.264/AAC, the AppleTV will make a nice interface between my movies library and my TV.
:p
The one thing that does suck about the AppleTV: it doesn't have a letterboxing setting. A simple update could probably add that, but forcing letterboxing would still make it "requires a widescreen TV", i.e. people couldn't complain about the "black bars". And no, my TV doesn't have a letterboxing mode either. If my DVD player can letterbox an anamorphic DVD, so should the AppleTV.
So, for now, I'm ripping my DVDs with a wrong aspect ratio so they end up displaying correctly on my TV. But I already knew I'd have to do that. It's a minor annoyance, but it means that even if Apple brings movies and TV shows in Canada, I won't be able to buy anything. Who wants to watch anamorphic content on a 4:3 TV?
From what I've read, it seems the Apple stores are using old iTunes Store content (for unknown reason), which is as you say in the old resolution of 320x240. The Apple TV itself is not to blame here. Blame old low-resolution content and Apple's marketing team. How that mistake got through the door is simply amazing.
"Hey, let's use old iPod-sized video content to promote our new HDTV set-top box on huge LCD HDTVs in all our stores!" doesn't sound like a smart idea to me. Someone messed up, big time.
Did you even RTFA? The guy compared the AppleTV to the Xbox360. He said the AppleTV was nice-looking, small and quiet. A perfect audio-video component. He then says the Xbox 360 is huge and noisy. But in the end he says he prefers the Xbox 360 over the AppleTV because of the content available? That has nothing to do with the hardware itself! That's like saying the iPod is crap because (let's take a fake example here) the iTunes store only sells 64kbps MP3 while the (insert-bad-MP3-player-with-crappy-NSR) is much better since its online store sells 256kbps songs.
So yes, for that reason the guy is a Microsoft shill.
And you saying "The fact remains that Apple TV is meant to do one thing: DISPLAY CONTENT. And it does so quite poorly. No one can deny that simple fact." doesn't make it a fact. Try the AppleTV with HD content, it does so quite perfectly, though limited to 720p. But that's already in the specs, on the website and everywhere.
Hey people, the sky is RED, no one can deny that simple fact!
Anti-Apple zealots are even worst than Microsoft shills.
But you do have to take these facts into account:
- you need an Xbox Live! Gold account, which adds a monthly fee (hey, you gotta be a paying member to be able to purchase/rent stuff, another Microsoft innovation)
- the Xbox 360 is HUGE, even more so with its huge power supply brick
- the Xbox 360 is extremely more noisy than an AppleTV, DVD player, set-top digital decoder box and HDTV, together.
- network aware only for Windows computers. Movies have to be in WMV.
- clumsy interface
The only thing the whole Xbox360+Windows PC setup has over AppleTV+iTunes is the movie rental. But even so I'm not buying a Windows PC and paying a monthly fee to do that. I'll stick to renting DVDs, thank you.