“As usual, Apple doesn’t comment much on Apple TV but I see things looking up for Apple’s stepchild hobby,” Tera Thomas O’Brien writes for Tera Talks.
“AT&T’s new DirecTV Now streaming television service is available on Apple TV as an application, and there’s a deal that gets you a free Apple TV is you pay a few months in advance,” O’Brien writes. “Apps now number a few thousand, and other than local news, there’s not much you get on cable TV that you won’t find something similar on Apple TV.”
“What’s new?” O’Brien writes. “Remember Turner Classic Movies? Yeah, it’s the black and white channel somewhat buried in your cable TV guide. TCM just launched FilmStruck, a new movie subscription service, available on Apple TV… How much? $6.99 a month. What you get is a library of movies you probably won’t find anywhere else, including hundreds of arthouse, foreign, indie, and cult movies.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The more content the better, but we’re spending more time using our 4K TV’s native apps for Netflix and Amazon Video lately as they stream content in 4K UltraHD.
DirecTV Now requires Microsoft Silverlight to run on a Mac.
Deal killer for me.
FilmStruck has launched kind of bumpy as it has been on iOS and desktop for over a month. Also, there are two levels of service, basic and basic plus Criterion Collection. Also over it’s head is the AT&T / Time-Warner merger. As new owners, AT&T might axe it and throw the content on other platforms.
The sports addicted might want to note that Sling TV includes ESPN 3 where you can watch any of the games they are showing on your TV. The other services offer ESPN, but do not allow you to watch all ESPN 3 content on the big screen.
I had SlingTV, and it was fine, until I found Sony’s Playstation Vue. I like to watch sports, and SlingTV has a big advantage with ESPN3, as you note. However, you can only watch one ESPN stream at a time.
While PSVue only has ESPN1 & 2, no 3, you can at least watch 5 streams simultaneously. Plus, if you like to watch soccer, like I do, you get FS1 and 2, for Bundesliga games, NBCSN for EPL games, and BeinSports for La Liga and Serie A. SlingTV has FS1 and 2 and NBCSN, but not BeinSports unless you pay extra. Also, you can use your PSVue credentials as if they were a cable TV provider and log into standalone apps for those channels, which may allow replay viewing.
Each service has its pros/cons, but I think the PSVue app is the closest so far to what Steve envisioned for the AppleTV, in regards to a cord-cutting service.
4K is a joke for most people, not everyone, but most. My TV sits 10 feet away from the couch. In order to even perceive the difference between 1080P and 4K the TV would need to be 75 inches. To see the complete benefit, according to arstechnica, the TV would need to be over 140 inches! I too wish Apple had it’s old negotiating mojo like in the fledgling iTunes days so they could secure better content partners but for now I’m very happy with my gen 4 AppleTV. http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/06/4k-tvs-are-coming-but-they-face-an-uphill-battle-in-the-home/
‘according to arstechnica’
Don’t let others do your thinking for you. And if you can’t see the difference yourself, that’s fine. Others can see it.
I used to demo a sound system with a single song playing on a music CD, a DMM (direct metal master) vinyl record and a “dbx” encoded type II metal cassette tape. I am not exaggerating when I say that after switching the input several times and then asking which one was which, probably 98% of the people could not tell the difference.
I know that some people who “see” the improvement of 4K at distance can. The others are victim to environment or salespeople or a friend, etc. They “want” it to be better, so they think it is.
Up close, no contest, 4K is impressive. The greater the distance between your sofa/chair/recliner or whatever to the TV, the less benefit there is to a 4K display.
I have a 75″ Sony that I sit about 9 feet from….the 4K picture quality is simply awesome! Watching even the Screen saver on the ATV4 is simply stunning….especially nighttime views of large cities…you can see miles into the picture!
So..I gave Amazon a shot..and I’m not impressed at all. No realistic 4K content..and movies sputter and have spotty streaming. This does not happen on my Apple TV. I’m using my Samsung TVs built in app..so that may be it..but after searching, this appears to be common on other platforms. Enough about the 4K content already, lol.
I thought Microsoft themselves were recommending people not use Silverlight anymore.
TCM is one of the things I miss most since I dropped DirecTV.
From what I read last week, FilmStruck does not contain the same library of films that TCM, the channel, draws from. Does anyone know differently?
Amazon has some of the best shows on TV. Huge cap on Apple TV. I cannot recommend Apple TV as a result.
Woopidy doo!
As a UK user of the AppleTV I’m very disappointed as the only TV catchup service currently available is BBC iPlayer. Amazon has all the terrestrial catchup service Apps available and you can have Amazon Prime and Netflix on the same device in the UK which is a huge plus for us.
So we’re ditching the AppleTV and getting the Amazon box and will use Plex for music/video streaming.