Filed under: Hardware, iTS, Wireless
Disney CEO confirms iTV has a hard drive under the hood
Mr. J is either going to be ticked that Disney's new CEO Rober Iger leaked a much-speculated feature of the upcoming iTV, or it's a clever piece of marketing to which he gave a thumbs up in the first place. Regardless, thanks to the iPod Observer, we now know the iTV, Apple's upcoming AirPort-Express-for-your-TV device they previewed at the recent September 12th It's Showtime event, will sport a hard drive so users "can download what you put on the device on your computer, on your iTunes, through the television set" (perhaps he could used more rehearsing when leaking big stuff like this).Now don't get ahead of yourselves - for a second there I too thought that "download what you put on the device on your computer" bit meant he was hinting the iTV might do DVR, but that wouldn't make any sense as it would cannibalize the TV shows and movies they sell in the iTS. Either way, stay tuned for more (hopefully less awkward) iTV detail leaks.
[via MacMinute]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
arkowi said 11:11AM on 9-20-2006
Could also be beneficial when trying to play back something with a high bit-rate such as high definition movie trailer. You could transfer that to the hard drive and then play it back.
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Shane said 11:13AM on 9-20-2006
Make's sense... but what kind of drive do they got under there. Forget about your traditional 3.5in drive. Perhaps a 2.5in Laptop drive, or drive like they got in the 80GB iPods. Thats my bet. Less heat, less moving parts, less upgrade paths :-(
USB for external drive for more storage?
Shane
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Adam said 11:21AM on 9-20-2006
I won't buy an iTV because it's not a DVR. Sure it would cannibalize iTunes Store sales, but it would surely mean way more iTV sales.
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Ash said 11:22AM on 9-20-2006
With the disk in there I hope they add to Front Row the ability to display dashboard widgets so I can check my weather and get my fill of RSS feeds on my TV with my morning cup of tea.
Ash
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Jooby said 11:29AM on 9-20-2006
I wonder what kind of specs this box has. Surely it has a CPU and a graphics card. So basically it's just a micro-mac. Makes you wonder what kind of apps could run on it.
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Travis Bell said 11:39AM on 9-20-2006
I was wondering how it would cache the stream as it played back videos.... now we know ;)
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superjeff said 11:41AM on 9-20-2006
Wow... no mention that Iger said in the linked article "DVD quality, not HD quality at this point." That's a pretty big deal isn't it? Was this already known?
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latrine said 11:42AM on 9-20-2006
UMPC architecture sans screen?
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Ken said 11:43AM on 9-20-2006
From what we've seen, iTV needs another computer to stream media from, can't play CDs or DVDs and can't dock an iPod.
I hope this thing will be able to record TV in order to justify its price, otherwise it would be an Airport Express for video.
Anyway, I wish Apple added more features to the Mac mini, than releasing this iTV thing. Mac mini is a full-featured computer, can play/burn CDs and DVDs, and can also work as a DVR with some hardware/software help.
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Ford said 11:54AM on 9-20-2006
What would be cool is if you could download movies directly from the box through iTunes like you can with MovieBeam or with OnDemand. That would be more convenient than having to download it first on your computer and then streaming it but would probably mean it would have to have a pretty hefty hard drive. It would be much more practical with a rental or subscription based service so that files would erase after a day or two, leaving hard drive space for more rentals.
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fowler said 11:57AM on 9-20-2006
I don't get what the difference between this and a modded xbox, sans the ability to purchase/play music from the iTunes store.
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Roberto Felgueiras said 12:07PM on 9-20-2006
Ash - for that get the Nintendo Wii, it has international weather and customizable news feeds. I dig this iTV thing and I'll get it when it's released. I sure the hard drive is so yo u can DL shows and movies from the iTS without having to got back to the computer. it would suck if you dL a movie on the computer from iTS, go to the living room to watch it, then have to get up and leave the room if you want to buy something else. Downloading strait to the iTV would push impulse buys.
Adam- Apple would make more money by making it a DVR, but would definitely loose content when the providers (disney and such) no longer get paid because videos aren't selling. Unless apple partners with a cable or satellite provider, which makes iTS's video portion counter productive, Apple has no need to make a DVR because it would lose content.
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yap said 12:11PM on 9-20-2006
I don't see what this quote has to do with a hard drive.
People who aren't computer nerds misuse the word download all the time. You should see how my parents use the word download.
"Hey can you download some pictures to me of your new dog?"
I'm sure they meant e-mail and not download. This quote just looks like utter gibberish to me.
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Alex said 12:21PM on 9-20-2006
The other question about iTV is: assuming you have just a laptop, or a desktop that you don't leave ON all the time, you sit down in front of your tv, get ur little remote, and then realize that your computer is not ON and consequently you can't connect your iTV to ANY Content. So now you have to get up, go turn your computer on (and what if it's a laptop, still sitting in your bag since the time you walked in the house after work).
I guess iTV could automatically attempt to wake your computer, AND launch iTunes for you. Of course if iTV had its own HD all these problems would be avoided.
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superjeff said 12:38PM on 9-20-2006
Yap, read the article. He didn't quote the section where Iger actually used HD.
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SubGenius said 12:53PM on 9-20-2006
Steve Jobs totally glossed over the USB port on the back of the iTV!
Can you plug an iPod into it?
Or an iPod dock?
Or an Elgato EyeTV?
Or a 200 GB Extrenal hard drive?
Don't discount the potential of this device.
We clearly are not getting the complete picture.
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Mark Porter said 1:16PM on 9-20-2006
It might canibalise iTunes store sales if it were to record from TV, but it looked like part of the speech rather assumed that you had a TiVO (however you capitalise it) or something anyway, and just used the store for when that didn't work.
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richb65 said 1:46PM on 9-20-2006
Is there a possibility that iTV will use flash memory instead of a hard drive? If the purpose is to buffer streaming video (admittedly a big "if"), then 1 GB of flash memory makes much more sense that a hard drive.
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Ash said 1:53PM on 9-20-2006
Roberto,
You are absolutely correct about the Wii ... I can't wait to get it.
I have been thinking about getting Widgets into front row for a while. When I saw it on the Wii it was an aha moment. Being a a fanboy I wanted fronrow to give me the same sort of "channel" function. It would also open up a huge market for the open developer community. I think apple needs give front row some capability to harness user generated apps / widgets.
IMHO this would make airport express a killer app.
On the other hand I am hoping that the Wii folks open up their channel platform to all developers and not just the ones who build games on their platform.
Ash
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ljbad4life said 1:55PM on 9-20-2006
I doubt it would record tv out of the box, maybe through a hack or something (software).... if it does record tv that would be stepping on tivo toes (patent) and that would surely be a lawsuit, and with tivo's track record... they'd win butt loads of money from apple....
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