"One last thing" from Steve Jobs...
Well it looks like Apple is going to deliver on the rumors, but not until 2007. It's very unusual for them to preannounce a product so that makes me wonder if they're having some chip shortages or production problems? Or maybe Jobs figured they couldn't keep it under wraps that long?
But regardless, this sounds like a very cool product for $300, iTV (scroll down to the end of this story): http://www.macworld.com/news/2006/09...index.php?pf=1 Quote:
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Awesome! iTV sounds pretty interesting, as far as downloading content goes, I'd prefer something like that to just a regular Tivo-like setup. Maybe Bluray and HD-DVD aren't the way to go, at least for home video purposes, maybe they're destined for storage solutions, particularly Bluray.
If you can download movies, keep them, and be able to download them into other things, like Steve Jobs said, cars, iPods/portable players, and the set-top box next to the TV, then that sounds quite convenient compared to digging around in the DVD collection for one particular movie. However, I would first like to see a suitable solution for us filmmakers to get our films onto a service like that for distribution. I would hope there would be restrictions so something like "Dan's Rockin' Home Videos 2007" doesn't accidentally show up on there. ;) |
I watched the presentation and saw the demo of the new box. Very cool. Too bad they can't get it out in time for the holidays.
-gb- |
The only problem I see here is that Apple appears to have missed the trend toward widescreen displays as the new TV/computer standard. Steve says all Apple video will be 640x480, which is not what makes sense for the "big flat-screen TVs" he mentioned. Unless Apple is planning to use non-square pixels to deal with this discrepancy, but so far they seem to be stuck at 4:3.
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The itunes site says 640x480 depending on the aspect ratio of the movie so maybe they just through out that number for consumers who don't really know the difference. http://www.apple.com/itunes/store/ down near the bottom of the page.
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Any way, I downloaded Enemy of the State tonight and it's dimensions are 640x266 which is the prper 2.40 aspect ratio. What I always wondered, and now have the answer to, is whether or not the movies they would offer would be larger. I've learned how to encode my own 16x9-640x360 movies larger then the publicly stated 320x240 specs that Apple previously offered long before the speculation of the Movie Store rumors were rampant. You've always been able to play any size movie in iTunes 6, but another nice thing I learned about iTunes 7 tonight is that when you import a movie into iTunes that's not iPod compatible, converting it to an iPod compatible movie in iTunes now produces the largest dimensions possible for the aspect ration of the original. Not just a 320x240. This is nice because before, I was using a combination of custom settings in MPEGStreamclip or HandBrake to get hi res iPod movies onto my iPod. The way I see it now, Apple was just thrown down the gauntlet to microsoft in the arena of digital convergence in the family home theatre. All of the new Apple home AV stuff is Mac and windows compatible, plug and play, gorgeous, simple, and just works. |
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This Itv (I used to know people with a company by that name) is a media player. I have been waiting for home theatre Mac, preferably an 56inch 8Mp iMac based on a souped up version of the Playstation 3 (but then again we have to wait to see if Apple takes up the option of releasing Mac OSX for the PS3, so I am not stuck with linux).. Now, that is something that would kick a.. .
http://www.cmo.com.tw/cmo/english/pr...20051012111324 For it's smaller 30 inch 4MP desktop brother: http://www.cmo.com.tw/cmo/english/pr...td.jsp?size=30 This 24inch is similar to what apple has?: http://www.cmo.com.tw/cmo/english/pr...td.jsp?size=24 |
ITV has been Independant Television in the UK since I was a kid and dinosaurs roamed the earth.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en...UK%7CcountryGB |
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Dave, what were your encode settings? H264? MPEG4? Bitrate?
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640 x ??? and a HDMI connector... ... ookies...
- Mikko |
I looked at this and thought, this makes sense and looks pretty good. I might consider just spending the extra $300 and getting a Mac Mini for the living room. I wonder what are some of the drawbacks to this though. Does the Mac Mini output surround sound? If not could you hook up a USB processor? The Mac Mini dual core (which the $600 model is now) can handle 1080 H264 AFAIK from reports but we'll see if the iTV can uncrunch that kind of video. It has "Optical Digital" out, what does that mean? The DVI can output up to 1920x1200.
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Some thoughts from Jim Cramer:
http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/mark...&cm_ite=NA Quote:
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