01-09-2007, 03:58 PM
My original post.:
http://forums.macresource.com/read/1/165...msg-165483
This post is about clarification, and forum edification. Also to make some hardware points much clearer.
First things first, I misspoke about iTunes downloadable movies, they do have chapters! It seems you can't skip directly to the chapter, but you can skip forward or back to find a chapter, much better than the flat file where you have to fast forward. All my other complaints still stand though.:
No Physical Media.
No Extras ( with chapters this might not stand ).
Low resolution, 640X480 is a lower resolution than what I rip my DVD's with HandBrake. Also, will Apple preserve the aspect ratio?
Too expensive, $14.99, $12.99 on first release. For a few bucks more (or less), I get physical media, and extras. NetFlix is even a better deal, I don't "Rent and Rip", but many folks do.
1. Does the iTV have an Internal Hard Drive?
http://www.ipodobserver.com/story/28489
No, I am 99.9999% sure that CEO Bob Iger misspoke and there is no built-in HD, reasons are the iTV is very small, smaller than the mini, a CF drive wouldn't hold enough data, and if they had managed to stuff a notebook sized drive inside the box, the price would be higher then SJ quoted, which is $249. Also, the only way to get data into the iTV is the network connection, or the USB2 port, why would you keep data in the iTV box if you are hooked to a server? The USB2 port will most likely be used to mount an iPod though. Don't know why Apple's crack design team put the port on the back though. As I said before, it should be on the front, or at least on the side. Most likely you would purchase an accessory dock for the iPod that would stay plugged in. I hope this is a standard USB2 port that will read a mounted volume, if it does then you could mount your USB HD, thumb drive, digital camera memory (with a card reader) or any digital camera that mounts as a volume, and view the data on the TV.
802.11x, or "Why didn't Apple list what type of wireless it will be using?" Is it going to be 802.11n? That would be nice, but the "n" standard won't be ratified till 2008, the wireless chip that Apple is using inside its new laptops and iMacs is a "n" type, and is firmware upgradeable.
Here is the big issue, type of data it will stream, and video output. Output first, it will output 1080i, and it will look beautiful on you HDTV. It will also put out lesser resolutions for folks that don't have HDTV.
Okay, the big one, what will it stream?
I don't think it will do HD, that is a lot of data, about 10GB per hour.
How about H.264?
That would be very sweet, but two problems, compressing the data, and decompressing the data. H.264 is processor intensive on both ends. It would be real nice if Apple had a PCI coprocessor card with hardware H.264 compression to speed up the process. But they have done that in the past and it has been a failure.
The decompression side, it would nice if the iTV had H.264 decompression hardware.
Two things will make iTV a winner.:
Streams Apple DRMed files, this is a given.
Plays EyeTV files, I hope it does.
The interface is already a winner.
BGnR
These are only educated guesses, if I missed, oh well! I just hope I shot low!
http://forums.macresource.com/read/1/165...msg-165483
This post is about clarification, and forum edification. Also to make some hardware points much clearer.
First things first, I misspoke about iTunes downloadable movies, they do have chapters! It seems you can't skip directly to the chapter, but you can skip forward or back to find a chapter, much better than the flat file where you have to fast forward. All my other complaints still stand though.:
No Physical Media.
No Extras ( with chapters this might not stand ).
Low resolution, 640X480 is a lower resolution than what I rip my DVD's with HandBrake. Also, will Apple preserve the aspect ratio?
Too expensive, $14.99, $12.99 on first release. For a few bucks more (or less), I get physical media, and extras. NetFlix is even a better deal, I don't "Rent and Rip", but many folks do.
1. Does the iTV have an Internal Hard Drive?
http://www.ipodobserver.com/story/28489
No, I am 99.9999% sure that CEO Bob Iger misspoke and there is no built-in HD, reasons are the iTV is very small, smaller than the mini, a CF drive wouldn't hold enough data, and if they had managed to stuff a notebook sized drive inside the box, the price would be higher then SJ quoted, which is $249. Also, the only way to get data into the iTV is the network connection, or the USB2 port, why would you keep data in the iTV box if you are hooked to a server? The USB2 port will most likely be used to mount an iPod though. Don't know why Apple's crack design team put the port on the back though. As I said before, it should be on the front, or at least on the side. Most likely you would purchase an accessory dock for the iPod that would stay plugged in. I hope this is a standard USB2 port that will read a mounted volume, if it does then you could mount your USB HD, thumb drive, digital camera memory (with a card reader) or any digital camera that mounts as a volume, and view the data on the TV.
802.11x, or "Why didn't Apple list what type of wireless it will be using?" Is it going to be 802.11n? That would be nice, but the "n" standard won't be ratified till 2008, the wireless chip that Apple is using inside its new laptops and iMacs is a "n" type, and is firmware upgradeable.
Here is the big issue, type of data it will stream, and video output. Output first, it will output 1080i, and it will look beautiful on you HDTV. It will also put out lesser resolutions for folks that don't have HDTV.
Okay, the big one, what will it stream?
I don't think it will do HD, that is a lot of data, about 10GB per hour.
How about H.264?
That would be very sweet, but two problems, compressing the data, and decompressing the data. H.264 is processor intensive on both ends. It would be real nice if Apple had a PCI coprocessor card with hardware H.264 compression to speed up the process. But they have done that in the past and it has been a failure.
The decompression side, it would nice if the iTV had H.264 decompression hardware.
Two things will make iTV a winner.:
Streams Apple DRMed files, this is a given.
Plays EyeTV files, I hope it does.
The interface is already a winner.
BGnR
These are only educated guesses, if I missed, oh well! I just hope I shot low!