Filed under: iTS, Video, Airport, iTunes, One More Thing
Will iTV be ready for Macworld?
Steve promised us iTV at Showtime. Now AppleInsider suggests that the Apple wireless media hub might not be ready for January's Macworld, possibly shipping in February or later. iTV, by whatever name it will get rebranded, promises to offer a wireless living room link to your iTunes library. If, as our Victor Agreda predicted, Apple begins to offer high-def titles at the iTunes store, the draft 802.11n wireless connection speculated upon as the core of iTV by many rumor sites may be pushed to its technical limits.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Kris said 6:13PM on 1-02-2007
I'm excited by the idea of iTV, but I want a better media storage solution. I'm looking at building my own NAS server with mirrored drives and a boatload of diskspace. My problem is getting it to hook seamlessly with whatever system iTV is running. Do I need itunes for it to find all my videos and music over the network? If so, am I stuck running Windows on my NAS rather than linux? I'm certainly not buying a Mac Pro to get the tower and drive space that I'd need.
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Dan said 4:51PM on 1-02-2007
I bought a new router N router specifically to handle iTV needs. Sure hope it works. As for waiting, I trust Apple to do it right - so I don't mind waiting if it means I will have fewer if any problems. I am really looking forward to seeing the final product. I hope they have more to say about it next week!
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tickmo said 5:44PM on 1-02-2007
could they have found an uglier ethernet cable ?? i've seen this pic show up everywhere and the whole image is ruined by the nasty cable.
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Eric said 5:37PM on 1-02-2007
I've been holding off on other solutions in hopes of the iTV. Some are speculating that it will run a lite version of OS X. I think this will be an amazing product, or at least for the price it better be. lots of competitors in this area.
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Jim Hillhouse said 5:50PM on 1-03-2007
If I was paid a nickle for everytime AppleInsider and ThinkSecret were wrong, I'd be rich. One thing I've learned is take what they write with a very healthy dose of salt. I'm still waiting for my full-screen video, phone, tablet, etc.
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Nathan said 6:15PM on 1-02-2007
if it is shipping in feb. there is no reason why it wont be announced at macworld
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WillGonz said 6:51PM on 1-02-2007
I haven't purchased a HDTV yet. My TV has a S-Video in. I wish the iTV would have at least a s-video output. Then I would get one.
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Dan Riley said 10:54PM on 1-02-2007
If it only moves iTunes content, it will not be successful.
This means we will all be tied to the iTunes store. This is not
a good strategy. It makes Apple look more and more like Microsoft.
Let's hope it moves anything that can playback in Quicktime
to where ever in your house you have a TV.
Dan
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Anthony said 3:46AM on 1-10-2007
Yeah, I agree with you Dan. There's no way I'd buy one if it was restricted to iTunes. More likely it'll play whatever Front Row can play.
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NKHK said 5:08AM on 1-03-2007
Agree completely with Dan Riley (#7). If it's tied to ITS movies in iTunes then not only will they be going the M$ way, but they'll effectively be making zero sales in non-ITS countries.
That said, I suspect it wouldn't be long for a 3rd party developer to find a way around it - much like Rogue Amoeba enabled users to send any sound to Airports using Airfoil.
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Joe said 10:06AM on 1-03-2007
I understand where Dan Riley's coming from, but I feel I have to point out that you can very easily include all of your video files in iTunes - not just the movies or shows from ITS.
Granted, just like with music, many people seem to think that you have to buy your content from ITS in order to play it in iTunes, so I expect many other people would have the same reaction. I wouldn't be surprised if such an announcement was met with significant complaining.
But wouldn't it be nice if Apple introduced a new part of iLife dedicated to video? Pop in a DVD, and it's in your library a H.264 just a few hours later? I'm not holding my breath for a solution like that from Apple (thanks to the DMCA), but it sure would be nice.
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Jerome said 10:47AM on 1-03-2007
#6, it's pretty easy to wire the component output down to s-video.
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David said 11:04AM on 1-03-2007
I don't know what all this "Pushing 802.11n to it's limits" nonsense is. I stream 720p video over 802.11g every day with no drops whatsoever. Ideally, one would not max out their wireless network for a single stream of compressed 720p, so 802.11n will ease the burden quite a bit, but HD video will certainly not "push it to it's limits" atleast in a compressed format.
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Gordy said 1:29PM on 1-03-2007
Front Row doesn't rely on iTunes for video, so, why assume that iTV will?
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samfish said 1:46AM on 1-04-2007
I'm very, very interested in this thing. I just hope it's what I'm looking for. I'd like to have it mostly to watch movies and TV shows I have on my HDD...but a lot of those have multiple audio channels (thanks, Handbrake!)...and the standard version of Quicktime can't play them properly. I get the same problem in iTunes. So I use VLC to watch all my movies and TV shows.
So, yeah. I really hope this thing at least supports multiple audio channels...
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