[kman42]

Originally Posted by TETENAL

Really? What more buttons would you need for watching a DVD?

You are correct that you only need the six buttons to watch DVDs, but Steve's statement is a bit disingenuous, as those other remotes do much more. For instance, the Media PC acts as a PVR, so it has to be able to change channels, record, skip ahead 30 seconds, quick rewind 8 seconds, etc (I'm just listing buttons my TiVo has, assuming the media center has the same buttons, so don't jump down my throat if they aren't exactly the same). I wouldn't want to use apple's remote to quickly change to channel 602. You would have to bring up some sort of software interface on the TV and then scroll around to the numbers. That doesn't seem efficient at all.

kman

edit: removed picture from quote

[kman42]

Does Front Row work with Shared Music from your local network?

kman

[Appleman]

http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1321 would maybe give hope in near future?

[- - e r i k - -]

Vingle has got to be the stupidest name I have ever heard.

[Diggory Laycock]

From the people who bought you "Airport Extreme" and "Bonjour"....

The head of naming department at Apple must be related to Steve somehow... he'd have fired them otherwise.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by kman42

Does Front Row work with Shared Music from your local network?

kman

Well, since it appears to show everything that's in with the playlists, that ought to include shared music, I'd think.

[ryarber]

Apple isn't going to go all out right now and bring in a full media center. I think Steve's vision of the TV and computer being for different purposes is still Apple's philosophy. That part hasn't changed. But if you'll listen to what he said, he left it open for the mac to play a role as a digital hub. He said that people don't want to watch TV on their computer. People don't want to do word processing on their plasma TV. This makes a lot of sense, and is why I don't think you'll see a mini being converted to a set-top box as people here are saying. The iMac has been the digital hub device all along in Apple's eyes.

I think the airport extreme 2 idea is the way we'll see apple go with this innovation. But they won't rush into it too quickly. They'll give the market time to develop rather than rush into it too early as MS has done with their media center PC's. They have a lot of features there that people will not want, and thus as Steve has said, once they're there, you can't take the features out. MS is stuck with a collosal piece of hardware/software that people won't want to use because it is just too complicated. Apple goes into things and innovates by making it simple to use, and giving them the features that people want.

I believe that, when Apple can use the 802.11n standard, we'll see the next version of Airport with video out available. People have said on this forum that HD content won't be available for download then, and they're probably right. However, something else will be available that will make this standard useful, and that is HD DVD or Blue-Ray. These new players will be out in a few short months, and we'll likely be seeing Blue-Ray in macs very quickly as well. If they can devise a way to rip a few DVD's to a mac and stream them over Airport, well, that might just be useful. Even if they can't rip them to disk first, it might just be useful to have the ability to stream HD content to a TV from a Blue-Ray DVD.

I don't think Apple's vision of the mac being a digital hub involves sitting the thing in your multimedia room, but rather keeping the thing in your office where you go to think (as Steve has said) and streaming multimedia content all over the house. It all fits in with Apple's previous actions and also statements Steve has made when discussing the digital hub.

I don't think that you'll ever see a mac with a TV tuner built in. You'll never see a mac with the ability to record live TV out of the box. What you will see is iTunes store change its name to Vingle store or something like that, and sell content in any form. You'll see them get tie-ins with the networks and cable stations just like they have tie-ins with the record labels now. The vingle store will enable you to ditch your cable or satellite subscriptions and just pay for what you watch, not pay for a service you only use a fraction of. Best of all, it will all be totally commercial free. They will also continue to have their free content as podcasts and vodcasts. You'll be able to subscribe to TV shows, vodcasts, etc. just as you subscribe to podcasts now. The only thing they won't be able to compete with the cable companies on is offering live content. People will still want to hang on to cable to watch sporting events, news, concerts, etc.

One other proble that I can't envision a solution for is buying movies online. They will be too huge to download for a few years until internet infrastructure is in place to offer that type of bandwidth. You can't burn these videos to disk, and you'll probably never be able to rip the movies to disk from DVD legally. Perhaps they can come up with a multidisk Blue-Ray player that will be able to stream over airport.

This will not all happen overnight. It will be a slow transition over the next few years. If they are able to do with video what they have done with music, they could be competing with Comcast, DirecTV, XM, etc. as a totally new form of delivery of entertainment. It is entertainment on demand and truly only paying for what you use.

It all makes sense, and it will completely transform Apple from being a computer company into something totally different. While people are thinking Apple is just up to selling video, I think they have their sights set higher into totally dominating the entertainment market.

[JLL]

Originally Posted by ryarber

It all makes sense, and it will completely transform Apple from being a computer company into something totally different. While people are thinking Apple is just up to selling video, I think they have their sights set higher into totally dominating the entertainment market.

[kman42]

Originally Posted by ryarber

Apple isn't going to go all out right now and bring in a full media center. I think Steve's vision of the TV and computer being for different purposes is still Apple's philosophy. That part hasn't changed. But if you'll listen to what he said, he left it open for the mac to play a role as a digital hub. He said that people don't want to watch TV on their computer. People don't want to do word processing on their plasma TV. This makes a lot of sense, and is why I don't think you'll see a mini being converted to a set-top box as people here are saying. The iMac has been the digital hub device all along in Apple's eyes.

I think the airport extreme 2 idea is the way we'll see apple go with this innovation. But they won't rush into it too quickly. They'll give the market time to develop rather than rush into it too early as MS has done with their media center PC's. They have a lot of features there that people will not want, and thus as Steve has said, once they're there, you can't take the features out. MS is stuck with a collosal piece of hardware/software that people won't want to use because it is just too complicated. Apple goes into things and innovates by making it simple to use, and giving them the features that people want.

I believe that, when Apple can use the 802.11n standard, we'll see the next version of Airport with video out available. People have said on this forum that HD content won't be available for download then, and they're probably right. However, something else will be available that will make this standard useful, and that is HD DVD or Blue-Ray. These new players will be out in a few short months, and we'll likely be seeing Blue-Ray in macs very quickly as well. If they can devise a way to rip a few DVD's to a mac and stream them over Airport, well, that might just be useful. Even if they can't rip them to disk first, it might just be useful to have the ability to stream HD content to a TV from a Blue-Ray DVD.

I don't think Apple's vision of the mac being a digital hub involves sitting the thing in your multimedia room, but rather keeping the thing in your office where you go to think (as Steve has said) and streaming multimedia content all over the house. It all fits in with Apple's previous actions and also statements Steve has made when discussing the digital hub.

I don't think that you'll ever see a mac with a TV tuner built in. You'll never see a mac with the ability to record live TV out of the box. What you will see is iTunes store change its name to Vingle store or something like that, and sell content in any form. You'll see them get tie-ins with the networks and cable stations just like they have tie-ins with the record labels now. The vingle store will enable you to ditch your cable or satellite subscriptions and just pay for what you watch, not pay for a service you only use a fraction of. Best of all, it will all be totally commercial free. They will also continue to have their free content as podcasts and vodcasts. You'll be able to subscribe to TV shows, vodcasts, etc. just as you subscribe to podcasts now. The only thing they won't be able to compete with the cable companies on is offering live content. People will still want to hang on to cable to watch sporting events, news, concerts, etc.

One other proble that I can't envision a solution for is buying movies online. They will be too huge to download for a few years until internet infrastructure is in place to offer that type of bandwidth. You can't burn these videos to disk, and you'll probably never be able to rip the movies to disk from DVD legally. Perhaps they can come up with a multidisk Blue-Ray player that will be able to stream over airport.

This will not all happen overnight. It will be a slow transition over the next few years. If they are able to do with video what they have done with music, they could be competing with Comcast, DirecTV, XM, etc. as a totally new form of delivery of entertainment. It is entertainment on demand and truly only paying for what you use.

It all makes sense, and it will completely transform Apple from being a computer company into something totally different. While people are thinking Apple is just up to selling video, I think they have their sights set higher into totally dominating the entertainment market.

Wow, a comprehensive well-reasoned post. You sir, are banned!

I think you are correct on most points. It will be very hard to compete with live TV for a long time. They have HD 5.1 broadcasting right now and it will be quite a while before broadband can handle downloads like that in a reasonable time. But that is clearly what Apple wants to provide in the long run. I don't think Apple is interested in controlling live TV, ala PVR, but interested in providing content in a packaged format that you can get at any time and keep forever. Some will argue that pay-per-view cable has the advantage here, but I think there is a parallel with owning your own music through iTMS or renting through Napster. Apple wants to sell you the movie and let you keep it. Pay-per-view on cable wants to rent it to you. Now, I happen to think the rental model works much better for movies than for music, but there are certainly cases where you would want to buy the movie and pay-per-view can't compete with that.

Apple will likely let the cable companies have the PVR market for a long time to come. However, it might be in Apple's interest to partner with them and sell an Apple/Cable company co-branded Mac mini/PVR that uses Front Room as the interface with a PVR plug-in. This would give the cable companies a very slick PVR interface that could also have access to all of your other media in the house. Apple would get a product in a slew of houses and the iTMS on your TV.

kman

[ryarber]

Originally Posted by kman42

Apple will likely let the cable companies have the PVR market for a long time to come. However, it might be in Apple's interest to partner with them and sell an Apple/Cable company co-branded Mac mini/PVR that uses Front Room as the interface with a PVR plug-in. This would give the cable companies a very slick PVR interface that could also have access to all of your other media in the house. Apple would get a product in a slew of houses and the iTMS on your TV.

kman

While that would be an OK move, I don't see that as being Apple's style. They will likely leave it up to 3rd party developers to do this. The won't go into partnership with cable companies because they won't have complete control over the whole thing, hardware and software. Without them having this complete control, it won't work out. Apple can't stand to have ugly hardware with their logo on it.

The other thing that would help Apple to do this would be to open Front Row up for 3rd party plugins. This is more their style and would allow companies like Elgato to put a great PVR solution together for the mini. This could make the mini a great set top box. But they would have to let the mini have Front Row and give it one of those IR remotes as well. It remains to be seen if they will do this.

[kman42]

Originally Posted by ryarber

While that would be an OK move, I don't see that as being Apple's style. They will likely leave it up to 3rd party developers to do this. The won't go into partnership with cable companies because they won't have complete control over the whole thing, hardware and software. Without them having this complete control, it won't work out. Apple can't stand to have ugly hardware with their logo on it.

The other thing that would help Apple to do this would be to open Front Row up for 3rd party plugins. This is more their style and would allow companies like Elgato to put a great PVR solution together for the mini. This could make the mini a great set top box. But they would have to let the mini have Front Row and give it one of those IR remotes as well. It remains to be seen if they will do this.

I agree with that assessment. I think a plugin architecture for FR is a great idea and they wouldn't even have to add an IR remote to the mini as I am sure that FR is scriptable and if it had a plugin architecture they could leave it to Elgato to provide whatever remote they want (and a USB IR receiver, of course).

[thunderous_funker]

Anyone notice that DirecTV has dropped TiVo for their own generic DVR? Comcast has their own DVR. Dish Network. Start writing the obituaries now for TiVo.

Even as I've said I'd love to see Apple do the whole Media PC thing "the right way", I fully recognize its a totally FUBAR market and I don't expect them to really get into it.

Apple is also not really going to get into the content delivery business either. Anyone who thinks that Apple could compete with the likes of Comcast or TV networks is smoking crack. That's suicide.

Apple's little forrays into content delivery are completely and totally centered on iPod. They provide the means of putting content on iPods that people want on iPods. It used to be about QT. The whole movie trailer thing was just a way of pushing QT as a internet media standard.

Once upon a time the internet was the "killer app" that drove PC sales. The whole digital hub strategy was really floundering until iPod came along. Apple is gonna ride that as long as it can and hopefully in the meantime come up with another "killer app" or "killer gadget" that continues to make a PC an integral home appliance. Replacing the TV isn't gonna be it. Never. Gonna. Happen.

What you might see, however, are apps and gadgets that a let you "take it with you" either by packaging content onto devices like iPod and phones (there is still LOTS of room for Apple to provide software/integration features with phones). Notice that the ABC/Disney deal clearly stops very well short of making your iTMS purchased content compete in any significant way with TV or even DVD.

[Gee4orce]

Originally Posted by JLL

What happened to AE2?

Wasn't there an update to Airport Express at some point, that added another port onto it ? Well, if there was, that's what I was thinking of. If not, well, that's just me then !

[jhogarty]

Originally Posted by fetopher

I'd pay upwards of $49.95 for Front Row. I have a Mac mini and 50" plasma. I currently use bit torrent to download TV shows. I'd love to have a sleek interface to run all of my TV shows, movies, music, etc... Yeah, $50 would be easy to justify for this software. I can't imagine that Apple would limit it only to the iMac.

Just to clarify for myself - you are running a 50" plasma off your Mac Mini? If so, how does it look? What specs on the Mini?

Been thinking about using a Mini for a media center. If no Frontrow, then maybe MythTV Frontend.

J.

[fetopher]

Originally Posted by jhogarty

Just to clarify for myself - you are running a 50" plasma off your Mac Mini? If so, how does it look? What specs on the Mini?

Been thinking about using a Mini for a media center. If no Frontrow, then maybe MythTV Frontend.

J.

Yes, that is correct. The Mac mini is the first gen ones (I guess newer ones are shipping now). It's 1.42 GHz, 1MB RAM and an upgraded 7200rpm HD. But, I think the stock one would work just fine. I have it hooked up to my plasma with a DVI cable. It is crystal clear. I've had friends comment that I could work on the thing (I'm in the graphic design business). I use Azureus with an RSS feed plug-in to automatically download all of the shows I'm interested in. Then I use VLC to play 'em. Of course, the compressed AVI and MPEGs aren't near as sharp as an HD signal, but it works.

[jhogarty]

Awesome. May give that a try after I convert my server to a Mini. I hope you meant 1GB of RAM. :-)

I need to read up more on elgato. Might work well with a Mini and nice LCD/Plasma.

J.

[fetopher]

Yes I did mean 1GB of RAM. And I have the older Elgato EyeTv hooked up to it. It records standard definition. I actually stopped using it because the cable signal strength is too weak to be split between the cable box and the EyeTV. It's a shame really. Maybe I'll call Comcast and have them fix it.

[mpancha]

Originally Posted by kman42

You are correct that you only need the six buttons to watch DVDs, but Steve's statement is a bit disingenuous, as those other remotes do much more. For instance, the Media PC acts as a PVR, so it has to be able to change channels, record, skip ahead 30 seconds, quick rewind 8 seconds, etc (I'm just listing buttons my TiVo has, assuming the media center has the same buttons, so don't jump down my throat if they aren't exactly the same). I wouldn't want to use apple's remote to quickly change to channel 602. You would have to bring up some sort of software interface on the TV and then scroll around to the numbers. That doesn't seem efficient at all.

kman

edit: removed picture from quote

Agreed.

True you only need six buttons for watching a DVD, however my DVD controller gives me the 30 second skip ahead, and the 10 second rewind buttons as well with one click. I'm used to having those, amongst other buttons like subtitle (I watch a lot of Bollywood movies, but dont speak the languages, so I need the subtitles), and I'm sure everyone has attempted at least 1 multi-angle movie, whatever genre it may be.

I aagree that Steve's statement wasn't the best.... you can't compare apples and oranges, but in that statement/slide, that's what was done.

[Judge_Fire]

Well, once the mouse team finishes perfecting the Mighty Mouse, they should work on adding hidden buttons to the remote control. Add any symbols dynamically under the surface with OLED, as in the Walkman and there you have it

J