Apple TV - Part 2: Apple Enters the Digital Home
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 26, 2007 1:22 AM EST- Posted in
- Mac
Gather 'round, let's watch movie trailers
The Apple TV is a purely passive machine; you can view all the content you want on it, but you cannot under any circumstances acquire new content. Sure you can sync to other computers, but you cannot purchase new content from the iTunes Store from the comfort of your couch. While this is great for preventing impulse buys, it also weakens the experience.
In the early days, the point of a digital media extender was to simply get content off of your PC and access it in some other room. These days, the requirements are far greater. We don't just want a device that can stream (or in this case, copy) data from your computer, we want a device that can extend some of the functionality of your PC as well.
The Apple TV does a great job giving you access to all of the movie trailers available on its website, but where's the integration with Rotten Tomatoes or Google Movie Listings? Apple TV lets you gather all of your friends around and get excited about an upcoming movie, but then you still have to go back to your Mac or PC to do the obvious next step in your quest for entertainment. We're not asking for a full fledged web browser as that's counterproductive, but what we are asking is for something a little more capable than what we've been given.
The analogy extends far beyond just watching movie trailers; if the Apple TV is designed for the user who has a lot of content purchased from the iTunes Store, it sure does a terrible job of encouraging its users to purchase from the store. The Apple TV interface allows you to get previews of the top 10 movies, music, and TV shows currently available on the iTunes Store but if you decide you want any of them you have to head back to your computer to actually buy them.
We understand that it's far easier from a security standpoint to only allow a transaction at one point on the network, but we can't help but list the inability to purchase content on the Apple TV as a flaw.
For what it's worth, the actual inclusion of the top 10 most popular content on the iTunes Store is a nice addition. It does give you a great way to preview things you may like, even if it requires a trip back to the desk to purchase/pirate it.
Easy access to movie trailers is something Apple has always done well and the Apple TV handles it no differently. It's far easier getting access to the latest movie trailers on the Apple TV than on the Xbox 360 for example; the very fast and simple interface is mostly to thank for that. Content streams incredibly fast from Apple's servers to the Apple TV, so quickly in fact that we believe the actual trailers are 480p and simply upscaled if you have a higher resolution display.
Despite having a quicker interface than the Xbox 360, Microsoft did do one thing better than Apple with regards to getting access to previews of content. On the Apple TV, you have no way of knowing what's new. You can get a list of all of the movie trailers you can download, but there's currently no support for showing you what's been added since the last time you checked. It's probably a trivial thing to add later on through an update, but it's the type of functionality that you'd honestly expect out of the box.
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Awax - Monday, March 26, 2007 - link
AppleTV is almost standalone : you only need iTunes (free) on you Mac or PC. You can play files from the inner HD or stream from computers.XBOX 360 : same price as AppleTV, but you need a full Windows MCE, much more expensive (and not Mac compatible). You can only stream content from the WinMCE computer which needs to be swicthed on. And AppleTV frontRow is said to be simpler.
yyrkoon - Monday, March 26, 2007 - link
I dont know about any one else, but if I'm buying an XBOX-360, the last thing in the world I would be concerned about, is if it is 'apple compliant'. Matter of a fact, the last thing in the world I want, is ANYTHING 'apple compliant'. But hey. thats me, just call me a MAC biggot, if you must . . .
Awax - Monday, March 26, 2007 - link
As staded on 1st page, the iPod success came from the MP3 capacity of being at the same time 100% legitimate and 100% pirated. It is the main format for pirated music but you can legally rip all your CDs to MP3.For AppleTV, the trouble is that there are no legitimate way of getting unDRMed version of videos. 99% of digital version of movies are stuck in DRM (DVD, HD/DVD/BlueRay, VoD, ...) and converting them to another format hits the DMCA (or equivalent local legislation).
Currently, 99% of ripped video content are distributed as AVI or MKV files, encoded mainly in DivX/XviD. More recent pirated movies are released in H264.
The solution for the AppleTV can only come from the pirates themselves. As MP4/H264 can be read on nearly every PC (Mac or Win), pirates just have to switch from MKV container to MP4 (almost same features) and keep their H264/AAC encoding process. For this last part, they just have to check that their content is compatible with AppleTV H264 limitation : currently, pirates are using the full H264 specification, even the latest options, which are not supported by QuickTime nor iTunes. And QuickTime/iTunes/AppleTV can only support stereo AAC, not 2.1 or 5.1 AAC.
If pirates are targeting a specific device (with rather broad and open standards), this can break AppleTV's major limitation.
yyrkoon - Tuesday, March 27, 2007 - link
Here is something, for at least 'food for thought"http://www.tgdaily.com/index.php?option=com_conten...">AnyDVD now rips HD DVD/Blueray
JarredWalton - Monday, March 26, 2007 - link
The other major problem is that a high quality encode of a DivX file can be accomplished in about 2-3 hours on a reasonably fast Core 2 Duo setup (say, E6600). If you drop quality a bit, you can get it done in half that time - and I'm talking about typically full length movies for that time frame.H.264 encoding easily takes twice as long in my experience and it's not nearly as flexible if you need to target the specific Apple TV standards (i.e. only 5 Mbps and 720p - I can see 720p being fine, but quality at 5Mbps is debatable for some). Then you have a lot of devices that support DivX/Xvid... but not Apple TV's H.264. Decoding of H.264 is also a LOT more complex than DivX HD - a 1280x720 DivX file easily runs on a midrange Pentium M or similar CPU; H.264 requires dual cores or GPU acceleration.
I personally don't see this device as catering to the necessary market to get lots of illegal content. I think that decision has already come and gone, so without something substantially better (and Apple TV's content requirements are not going to qualify), people will stick with what they already have.
Awax - Monday, March 26, 2007 - link
For transcoding, you can use other tools than Quicktime : x264 is a better/faster encoder for H264 and it supports more than 2 CPUs. So on a Quad MacPro, you'll use all power available. You just need to have the proper H264 profile/level for the AppleTV.Encoding/transcoding is not really a problem because it needs to be done only once : you might see new "AppleTV compliant" pirate release appear on your favorite "multimedia content provider".
Finally, AppleTV is not the only device playing H264 encoded content. The iPod does. And my Archos 604 does. Actually, I'm trying to find the ultimate encoding format to ripp my DVDs (I know, this is bad) so I can play them on my Archos and on the AppleTV I might buy if I can find such a format.
Spoelie - Monday, March 26, 2007 - link
you want to have movies that display on your typical 50" HDTV in the same format as the ones displaying on your 1" IpOD?Good luck finding a good compromise.
Awax - Monday, March 26, 2007 - link
I don't have a video iPod, I have an http://www.archos.com/products/video/archos_604wif...">Archos 604 (4.3" wide screen, plays video up to DVD resolution in MPEG4 ASP (DivX), MPEG4 AVC (H264), MPEG2 and WMV with AAC and AC3).So, if I encode my DVD in their native resolution, I'll be able to play them on both my 604 and my 42" HDReady TV.
artifex - Monday, March 26, 2007 - link
1) I've heard that skipping around in a movie can cause a problem, especially while streaming. Did you find it was always smooth?2)I've heard that if you create a slideshow with synced sound, the slideshow will work, but the AppleTV will ignore the music you synced and pick some other music. Did you try this feature and can you confirm whether this is the case?
giantpandaman2 - Monday, March 26, 2007 - link
Poor resolution is a huge problem. Also, given your discussion of video bitrates and their effect on video resolution you make no comment about audio decoding, or even if there is any besides stereo. I assume it can pass through digitally encoded audio through the HDMI or Optical, but how high does iTunes actually go?What about the price factor? $299 is a decent price for computer hardware, but compare that to $299/399 for an Xbox360 and I have to ask, what's the better deal? I'm not trying to toot the 360's horn--I don't even own one--but I'm genuinely curious as to which makes a better media extender. Off hand I'd guess the 360 due to resolution (especially once the HDMI version hits), horsepower, and the ability to buy content directly from the box, but that's only a guess. Where's your commentary on that?
Looking at the price and specs of the Apple TV I really expected a harsher verdict. To me the Apple TV looks quite weak, fine for hardcore Apple die hards, but for everyone else wait a few more iterations/generations. I also gotta ask-is a hacked old Xbox a better extender than the Apple TV? Maybe not for mainstream--but Anandtech readers are hardly that.