Apple CFO says DVR, CableCARD not coming to Apple TV
By Nilay Patel 
posted Sep 8th 2009 1:08PM
posted Sep 8th 2009 1:08PM
[Via iLounge]
posted Sep 8th 2009 1:08PM
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OMG
What's an Apple TV?
Why is the CFO talking about product roadmap? Is this supposed to mean they sat down with Comcast and decided they were too greedy to work with?
iChat with grandma would be nice.
Who know? WH-I Know
Having an AppleTV with cablecards/dvr functionality is stupid. Having an AppleTV that can use the new HTTP streaming protocol essentially allowing for immediate access to live and prerecorded material...awesome. Throw in subscriptions for "channels" and I would readily ditch cable.
Owning an AppleTV is stupid. Windows 7 Media Center is lightyears ahead.
@mailbox01: Hell, getting a Zune HD or XBox 360 sounds like a much better option. Considering that both can do everything the Apple TV can, but better.
Lightyears ahead of what? Win 7 is still a month away. XBMC will run on an Apple TV or an HTPC so I don't really care which is best just which leaves the smallest footprint compared to an XBOX (hard to do, I know).
@shotgun
the fujitsu esprimo is win7 and small as palm and does have an even smaller footprint compared to XBOX http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/08/fujitsu-esprimo-q1500-flexes-blu-ray-muscle-on-video/
@xconan
I was looking at that earlier and it is impressive, though it is only shown with vista because win7 is not released yet. Though if I were to go the HTPC route I would build my own using an ITX board with NVIDIA's ION chipset with ubuntu and.. of course XBMC. I was being sarcastic when I said XBOX's footprint was hard to beat.. the thing is huge.
You can ditch cable now: Netflix streaming, Hulu, over-the-air + TIVO or DTV Pal DVR, just to name a few technologies that best cable at their own game.
Essentially agree. While adding support for the new streaming quicktime would be great, what I'd really like to see would be web browsing with support for Flash and Move codecs though. I want to watch Hulu, ABC.com, TV.com, etc on my Apple TV. I may be installing a little PC next to my TV some time this year to do just that, and it seems kinda unnecessary. Sure this might compete with Apple TV purchases in some cases, but this would be rare, and its not like I can't use my laptop to do this stuff already, I'd just rather do it with my Apple TV sometimes.
Screw DVR. I have a DVR. I want streaming media.
I don't think Zune HD/XBox 360 work as well as iPod/Apple TV for media.
Granted, with XBox you have a gaming system, which is cool, but Apple TV wins big for media and ease-of-use. Last time I used the XBox, it didn't directly support YouTube or Video Podcasts which are my two most-used features on the Apple TV for free on-demand news and entertainment content.
The movie/rentals store isn't as slick on XBox and, as I understand it, you still need to wait 2 hours for a movie to download to XBox 360 before you can even watch it! With Apple TV, I usually start watching in under a minute.
Additionally, I think Apple TV does a better job syncing, streaming and interacting with other Apple technology. For instance, a movie I download via Apple TV will automatically sync to my iTunes library on my computer, then I can easily use iTunes to indicate that I want said movie synced to my iPhone. I can watch part of the movie on my train commute to work, dock my iPhone upon returning, turn the Apple TV on and it will start playing where I left off!
Furthermore, I have Apple's "Remote" application for my iPhone that I use to navigate content, queue up music and movies on-demand (even using the Apple TV to wirelessly stream music to speakers in my kitchen via an Airport Express), and enter text via the virtual keyboard on the iPhone.
Zune is still playing catch up as far as a lot of the media capabilities (it's just now getting "rental" functionality), and the XBox 360 is designed more as a game system where media capabilities were an afterthought.
Apple TV is still winning for the time being.
@Fanfoot
I don't know if you've used a browser on a set top box before, but the experience is usually terrible! I dabbled with using the browser on my Wii/PS3 and everything from typing to rendering is just a nightmare.
What I'd rather see on Apple TV is an App Store where you can download, say, a Hulu app that lets you stream TV shows. I don't know if Apple would ever allow such an app, even if there were an Apple TV App Store, but I love the idea!
The "Hulu rather than cable" argument is slightly flawed, but can go both ways, I suppose. I still prefer cable. With Hulu, I have to wait over a week for many shows to be available, after the original air-date, and then I have a limited time to watch them. Cable with a DVR lets me record it the first time it is shown (eight days before Hulu), and watch it whenever I want after that.
Channel selection is still limited, though - no full episodes of Food Network, Discovery, etc. on Hulu. High-definition content is also very, very limited (five episodes total, last time I checked) on Hulu. I love it, but it's not a cable/satellite replacement - it's a supplement.
Having an AppleTV withOUT cable cards or DVR is stupid. Without this functionality, AppleTV is forever set at being a device that a consumer pays for only to have to pay for crappy quality content off of iTunes. If Apple is not going to do anything with AppleTV, they should kill it off now.
@Colin,
Yeah, I should have been more clear. I don't really want to do "web browsing" on the Apple TV. I just want to be able to do what I need to get to the point where you play the video you want on Hulu et al. Click on bookmarks, select Hulu, type in show name, hit search, click on the episode I want, etc. Since I assume Hulu will not be cooperating I suspect a Hulu application won't be forthcoming, but sure that would be a much better way to go with this.
And yes, the killer in ALL of these cases is the content. Hulu still sucks, even if its the best streaming source around. And the movie catalog on iTunes sucks too, if you compare with with the DVD rental store. Both need improvement.
That's OK. I'm not coming to Apple TV either.
@ctyrider - Take your crappy encodded and compressed files and watch them at your disadvantage. Anybody who knows anything about quality content knows you always go for the best you can get, which at this point in time is physical media - and definitely not anything purchased off of iTunes. You say you don't deal with physical media and that you bought none of that off iTunes, which that in turn means it's illegally downloaded. That's a lot of storage space, do you have backups? If not, that's quite stupid.
Though technically possible that the movies you are talking about are not compressed, i'm doubting that is true. A bluray movie alone - no content - is 8-9GBs. Now multiply that by 50 and you're looking at about 450GB just for movies without content. Add in your music and photos and I'm putting it at around 1TB. Possible, yes. Likely, no. Backed up, even less likely.
My bad....
Apple CFO says "We don't wan't macserv's money." ;)
Actually, what I'd like even better would be for the AppleTV to become the next AT&T U-verse box. I love the service, but sometimes the WinCE UI drives me nuts, and feature-wise they're at Microsoft's mercy.
This has always been a little whore box for selling people itunes content.
It was, till XBMC came and turned that bitch out.
Yeah, but it's also very easy to populate AppleTV with your own content. I have over 10,000 music/movie/photo items in my AppleTV library, not a single one purchased from iTunes store.
Listen if you purchased an Apple tv over a PS3 your just not working with a full deck.
@thedankone - look, not everyone plays console games and needs to spend $400 on a power hungry, noisy, oversized box like Xbox 360 or PS3. Apple TV does everything I need as a media extender, and I am perfectly happy with it.
For the last time the PS3 is not noisy...I have never heard mine once. Plus it has bluetooh so you could put it anywhere really. Its not about console games...bro...its about the best entertainment package in existence.
Lets do the list: Bluray, CD up-conversion, SACD, Media server, DVD up-conversion, Web browser, Gaming, the list goes on.
What does your apple tv do o'ya just a media center extender.
I have tho agree with thedankone - I had an apple TV for a while, hacked the hell out of it, still wasn't quite right, so returned it. Now using a stock PS3 with its built in UPnP client, which works beautifully, as well as playing BD - win all round.
"It was, till XBMC came and turned that bitch out."
In your world maybe, but not at all for the public at large who have and spend money. I run XBMC, Boxee, and MCE at home, but when presented with the task of fulfilling my Dad's wishes of a Bluray player for Xmas, the best discless HD solution was AppleTV, and by a wide margin.
Nothing else works as well and has immediate access to as much legit content out-of-the-box as AppleTV. My dad was ecstatic when I explained he would never have to go to Blockbuster again.
I'm curious, though - can anyone can offer an equivalent alternative (it doesn't count if your mom can't use it)?
@wizzle: Yes: XBox 360. You just start it up, go to the video store tab and you have access to tons of movies. Plus, with XBox Live Gold you can stream netflix movies off of it. My fiancee and her little brother haven't had any problems using it either.
@thedankone - take your "CD/DVD upconversion" and stick it. I don't even deal with physical disks - all my movies are encoded and stored on my iTunes server (which is a Mini) for immediate access via multiple Apple TV's around the house. And yes, Apple TV will play Bluray encodes just fine, have over 50 HD movies in my iTunes library.
And no, I am not putting PS3 in my kitchen, bedroom, kids room, etc. You have fun doing that. Apple TV works perfect for me.
@ctyrider - Take your compressed, encodded files and watch them at your disadvantage. Anybody who knows anything about quality knows you go for the best you can get, not some crappy encoded file. You say you have them stored on your Mini as a server? You say you have over 50 HD movies? I laugh.
A bluray movie, no content, takes 8-9GB. Multiply that by 50 and you have 450GB. Add in music and photos andyou could easily have 1TB of data, depending on quality and resolution. And you're doing this on a Mini? Very unlikely. Is this data backed up? Also very unlikely. Again, try and claim that what you do with your AppleTV is great, but it's not.
Also, you say you don't deal with physical media and that none of this came from the iTunes store - well that in turn leads to it all being illegal.
They should lower the prices on their video rentals/sales and drive higher volumes. Couple it with the HTTP streaming and it would be killer.
Yet another fanboy dream, this was never going to happen. (This isn't hate, I own an ATV and love it)
What do All Terrain Vehicles have to do with this thread?
Everything
Still -- doesn't it seem like it's time for something to happen with the Apple TV?
Sure, nothing. Stop making it. A lot of alternatives are better.
It's no surprise they haven't done anything with it. How many people actually own an Apple TV anyway? I mean besides the one poster above.
I won one, but I am thinking seriously about selling it.
Why would they need to partner with anyone for cablecard support?
So long as Apple is charging for the same content on iTunes it is unlikely that it would make it available via a Cablecard/DVR. That's an option that is always available for them to explore should the time come that content providers and networks pull their material from iTunes en masse. As demonstrated by NBC's return to iTunes, that's not likely to occur in the near future.
That doesn't preclude Apple from adding different content to the AppleTV, particularly games. It may not make a killer console but it could improve the devices appeal. The Wii has also shown that not an enormous amount of computing power is necessary to make a successful video game platform. This is not to say that the device should primarily be a video game machine- It shouldn't. But it could broaden its appeal to those who don't want a dedicated gaming system. It's actually a niche market I happen to belong to and I would appreciate more focus given to consumers who only enjoy an occasional game and are more interested in hi-def content delivery.
Anything new about that Apple televisionscreen (read: not settop box) yet?
It would have to be one hell of a large manila envelope for SJ to pull it out of tomorrow... Can't see it for the moment, I want wireless HDMI/3D next anyway which will be far too niche for AAPL.
Apple really just need to add an HDMI output to the Mac Mini and make an interface that's usable from the couch. As it is, this is fairly useless to me.
Maybe tomorrow's even is "rock 'n roll" because they're gonna chuck AppleTV out of the window?
*event
An Apple iMac-like TV would be interesting..
whoa, they're selling Ratatouille on Apple TV? I just might have to get that
Apple TV? That thing still exists???