“Ever since Apple got all video on us, we’ve been waiting around for the other proverbial shoe to drop. You don’t need to be a direct descendant of Nostradamus, or a rumor site for that matter, to make an educated guess that Apple may want in on the DVR market. It’s a bit like stating the almost-obvious. And if you have anonymous sources helping you do that, all the better,” Ken “Caesar” Fisher writes for Ars Technica.
“First, the background. Not only does the (video) iPod allow you to watch teeny videos while on the go, but you can also plug your iPod into your TV to watch modest quality output, or you can play videos through iTunes itself. Then there’s Front Row, Apple’s fledgling “10 foot interface” that’s currently only available (sans hacking) on the iMac. A ’10 foot interface’ is, simply put, an on-screen interface that’s useful from 10 feet away (or 20 feet, etc.). That is, it looks good and feels good from the buttocks-on-couch position,” Fisher writes. “As it stands, Front Row is nifty, but it’s nowhere near ready for DVR usage yet. While the DVD playback, photo, video, and music UI is clean and smooth, the heart of any DVR system is missing in action. And let’s be clear: in that round-up of features, adding DVR like functionality is like reinventing the application. It’s not something that can be done with 20% more code. But alas, we’re told, it’s coming in Front Row 2.0, which may debut alongside an Intel-powered Mac Mini DVR as early as January of next year.”
Fisher quotes Think Secret:
Apple’s Mac mini will be reborn as the digital hub centerpiece it was originally conceived to be, Think Secret sources have disclosed. The new Mac mini project, code-named Kaleidoscope, will feature an Intel processor and include both Front Row 2.0 and TiVo-like DVR functionality.
While the specific model and speed of the Intel processor in the new Mac mini is unknown, sources are confident the system will be ready for roll-out at Macworld Expo San Francisco, in line with other reports Think Secret has received that Intel-based Macs will be ready some six months sooner than originally expected.
Fisher writes, “The rumors go on to say that the device will have a built-in iPod dock, a larger hard drive, and it’s being hailed as a ‘TiVo-killer’ (although these days, what isn’t)? Frankly, I don’t see this happening.”
Full article here.
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As far as a DVR (digital video recorder) or PVR (personal video recorder) from Apple goes, the jury’s still out on that one. Some speculate that Apple will simply make any Mac and its hard drive the digital hub and offer an “802.11n Apple Video Express” to get the content to screens throughout the home. Fisher might be right about the rumored “Apple Mac mini as DVR” not happening. Why would Apple undercut the iTunes Music Store’s $1.99 videos with a recorder that could grab content for free? Or would the content even be free for such a device? No one outside of a certain group within Apple really knows what’s coming. However, most will agree that Apple is building towards something to do with video content and complete the digital hub.
Regarding Front Row, it’s not Front Row itself that will absorb a DVR application. Front Row is simply a front end for various applications. Our own SteveJack described the application back on October 28th this way:
The brilliance of Front Row is its simplicity. Front Row is basically an application launcher and interface control replacement for existing Macintosh media applications. Choose “DVD” in Front Row and your Mac uses DVD Player in the background. “Photos” uses iPhoto. “Music” uses iTunes. “Videos” uses iTunes and QuickTime. Front Row is basically a large display control center for your Mac’s media, so you can use a remote from across the room to control your Mac and still be able to see the controls. You step through screens to access and control media very much like you do with Apple’s iPod.
Right now, Front Row’s Music section lets you control iTunes music and playlists, Photos lets you view slideshows from your iPhoto library, complete with transitions and music, Videos lets you watch and control home movies, music videos, movie trailers, and more, and DVD lets you watch and control whatever DVD you pop into your Mac’s DVD drive.
Because Front Row is so simple and relies on existing applications to do the heavy lifting, it’s not hard to imagine how quickly its capacities can grow. If Apple decided to offer a TV Tuner application and/or a personal video recorder (PVR) TiVo-like application, for example, it could easily be integrated into Front Row’s controls. All of those extra buttons that are on Microsoft Media Center remote controls would be software based and controlled on-screen with Apple’s simple 6-button Apple Remote.
So, Apple could do pretty much anything with Front Row, it’s the applications that Front Row controls that Apple would have to create/add to in order to increase Front Row’s abilities. That’s where the work Fisher describes needs to be done or is already being done. Some thing or things are on the way to flesh out Apple’s move into the living room, that much most agree upon. What exactly is coming is anybody’s guess right now.
One more snippet from SteveJack’s October 28th article:
What I’m thinking of right now is a Mac with a large hard drive (and external drives) in one room that contains all of your media. Airport Video Express units would be near every screen upon which you control and play your Mac’s media. Front Row would display on each screen and an Apple Remote would be in each room with a screen. This seems to be the most efficient way to arrive at a true Mac digital hub. It beats an idea such as a more expensive Mac Front Row Tablet that you’d carry around to each room and use as the combo Apple Remote+Front Row display. It certainly beats buying an iMac G5 for each room with a screen in your house. What if Apple could do something like a Newton form factor that would be cheap enough to buy for each room? What if Apple simply made an iPod accessory that allowed you to use the iPod as the Front Row remote? See, there are some more questions already!
Front Row is an important piece in Apple’s future digital hub plans, but it raises many questions. What do you think Apple will or should do to complete the true digital hub?
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Apple’s brilliant, deceptively simple Front Row software has a bright future and raises questions – October 28, 2005
Apple is certainly up to something but it may be beyond a modified Mac Mini. Think iHDTV — an actual tv ala the iMac where all the other stuff is hidden behind the tv — the DVD slot, dish/cable receiver, and the DVR hard drive. No more components taking up shelf space next to the plasma.
Aren´t there any 3rd party solutions/ideas to this – DVR on a computer?
Personally, i would be quite surprised if Steve didn’t announce a Media Center Mac Mini in January, it seems to fit in perfectly with the whole ‘Digital Hub’ concept. Based on that we can also probably expect a new remote control, such as the one for the iMac, but with more buttons.
“You have just killed TV and Blockbuster!”
And how is that a bad thing?
Blockbuster stopped getting my money 6 years ago when they charged me 4 bucks for being late 10 minutes. Never again.
Question: “Is Apple working on a DVR or not?”
Answer: Is
Reason: They $ell video content via the iTunes Store.
I think my statement makes more sence, dont you?
Another facet to this conversation is the recent FCC “retraction”, whereby they now say it’s feasible for cable companies to offer ala carte channel pricing.
Previously, FCC held the industry line on bundling, and officially stamped it as being the only economically rational way of selling paid TV. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that once Apple, and Universal, and who all else got serious about selling individual shows over broadband – which is nothing more than ala carte at a more granular level – that cable companies began to realize that they had to be able offer something similar. Calling up the FCC to redact their earlier study was a necessary formality.
Anyway, with all this going on, Apple’s plans of doing to video distribution what they did in music starts to become an untenable position. Figures I’ve seen say that whole channels can be had monthly for less than a buck (for the less popular ones), up to $10 or so for the really good ones at present pricing arrangements with Comcast, et al. Assuming an average of a few bucks a channel – with say 10 shows a day, 7 days a week, 4 weeks a month being available – that’s an awful lot of content. And its only a little less ‘on demand’ than downloading individual shows from ITMS for about the same amount of money just ONCE.
Maybe if Apple had been getting some cooperation from the content providers in adding more shows to iTMS they would have been willing to stick with the it as the best model for video sales, but that hasn’t been forthcoming. Once the possibility of ala carte pricing via cable reared it’s ugly head, as well as the fact that – believe it or not – you can still get TV for FREE in this country (HiDef included) … Well, selling a DVR enabled, FrontRow enhanced, Airport connected, dualcore Macintel Mini (which will probably also incorporate some form of ATI’s recent – and speedy – GPU video encoding technology) had to seem like the softest fallback position ever for Apple. That’s where all the profit is anyway.
I may be off on the particulars regarding specs, but this IS what’s coming at Macworld Expo. Not only does it make sense from a business perspective, it would also be the perfect product to announce with the Macintel rollout. Everybody knows laptops are coming; no big whoop there. But announcing something like a media center device too (“just one more thing”) would be a real shake-the-rafters-and-hold-on-to-the-stock-price kind of occasion Jobs lives for.
Besides, there was no other legitimate reason to switch to Intel in the first place if Apple WASN’T going to do this. Intel’s CPUs – even the dual core models – don’t perform as well when compared to their direct competitor (AMD), let alone the PPC based stuff. Intel’s power consumption advantages are shrinking with each new announcement from other CPU manufacturers as well. So I just don’t see that lasting long.
However, when it came to hardware DRM, Intel was/is the biggest player out there. Plus, as the link above shows, Intel’s ViiV is a much bigger deal than most people realize. We’re talking about Intel negotiating for content from all over the world for this thing. Here’s the link again:
http://news.com.com/Intel+links+with+movie,+music+powers+for+ViiV+PCs/2100-1041_3-5975890.html?tag=nefd.top
Here’s a quote:
“The ViiV technology is Intel’s attempt to expand the upscale segment of the home PC market. ViiV computers will sport Intel’s top-of-the-line processors, the Windows XP Media Center Edition operating system and a host of technologies designed to take some of the pain out of trying to use a home computer as a digital video recorder or a stereo. Simplification will become one of ViiV’s big selling points.”
I don’t see how Apple could possibly let a challenge like this pass. Would Jobs seriously let Gate’s Media Center PCs be the only player in a market like this, especially since he can get the exact same hardware from Intel? No way. If Apple has access to Intel’s content efforts too, and I’m sure they would’ve made sure of that before making any sort of massive switch to them, then it would seem that some steroidal induced DVR has to be in the offing from Apple. Announcing it in January will steal some of M$’s thunder to boot, since the article says the ViiV PC will debut in the first quarter of next year.
Jobs surely foresaw more success with a video iTMS model than he’s currently getting, and maybe a DVR/Media Mac will free up the logjam. But regardless of whether it does or doesn’t, he’s got to use the only advantages Intel offers – and sooner rather than later. Otherwise the Macintel transition will be the biggest non-starters in the industry’s history.
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I’m waiting for the Videoport Express device to stream HD movies from my Mac.
As for ElGato and Apple’s hiring. It doesn’t help to hire the President of ElGato, they shoulda hired the engineers if they are creating a DVR.
If you go to Apple HD Quicktime page, and look at the Kingdom of Heaven trailer in 480p, you’ll see that it’s a 2.7Mbps stream, for an ultrawide clip. If you reformat it to 16:9, you’d shrink that stream to about 2.0Mbps. I’ve looked at this clip and it’s excellent, far better than the DVD that I have. 2Mbps is doable for most broadband users. It’s not 1080i quality, but it’s better than DVD, and I think if Steve prices this properly, it could do an endrun around alot of similar initiatives.
Here’s a tidbit of how the recent Broadband Tuner update ties in. My “receive buffer limit” went from 63 KB to 350KB, allowing for a far higher download speed limit. It’s now 64Mbps, instead of 11.5Mbps. At least that’s what the National Science Foundation net diagnostic tool tells me.