“When Apple uncharacteristically showed an early preview of its tentatively named iTV set top box, analysts of all stripes jumped to share their take on what the box is, what it will be able to do, and how it might change the landscape of TV,” Daniel Eran writes for RoughlyDrafted. “Here’s part one of the more entertaining bits of rampant speculation, which asked: Where’s the DVR?”
“Despite the fact that nothing in Apple’s demonstration or the released specs even hinted at recording TV, all the analysts wanted to know just how Apple planned to shove a DVR into this tiny box. Inconceivable! The DVR mystery was quite a puzzle. For starters, there’s no tuner, no video inputs, and no Firewire on the iTV. Considering that Apple invented Firewire, and that US FCC regulations require cable boxes to supply Firewire, it would seem reasonable that if the iTV were intended for recording TV, the idea of putting a Firewire port on the box would have occurred to Apple,” Eran writes.
“Apple apparently realizes that the DVR market is already well represented, fairly mature, and entirely profitless. Users might love their Tivos, but the company that makes them lost nearly $50 million this year as it struggles to shore up Tivo sales with experimental new popup advertising tests,” Eran writes. “Much like its WMA platform, Microsoft’s stab into the DVR world offers too little integration and too much complexity. It’s also too expensive and demands too much commitment from users. Predictably, it’s also selling about as well as Microsoft’s WMA gear.”
Eran writes, “Of course, Apple doesn’t need to introduce DVR capabilities to the Mac. Elgato Systems already ships a highly regarded DVR software package, and …also already uses the name EyeTV.”
Full article here.
Related articles:
Intel’s Conroe-L the brains behind Apple’s iTV? – September 22, 2006
Cringely: Apple’s iTV strategy is iChat on steroids – September 22, 2006
The Motley Fool examines Apple’s iTV victims – September 22, 2006
Disney CEO Iger: Apple’s ‘iTV’ has ‘small hard drive on it’ – September 19, 2006
Disney sells 125,000 movie downloads via Apple’s iTunes Store in first week – September 19, 2006
The most exciting feature of Apple’s ‘iTV’ may be its USB port – September 15, 2006
Cringely: How Apple plans to own your living room – September 15, 2006
LA Times: With iTV+iTunes Movies, Steve Jobs stumbles over the last 100 feet – September 14, 2006
BusinessWeek: If anyone can make bridge the great divide, Apple can with ‘iTV’ – September 14, 2006
The Beeb asks: Would you buy the Apple iTV? – September 14, 2006
Three markets that are different today after Apple’s ‘It’s Showtime’ event – September 13, 2006
Cramer: Apple’s ‘iTV’ all about ease-of-use; Apple shares are going higher – September 13, 2006
Apple + Living Room = Logical Marriage + Boon for Stockholders – September 13, 2006
The Register: Apple event more like ‘No Show’ than ‘Showtime’ – September 13, 2006
The Telegraph: Steve Jobs’ genius making people desire gadgets for which they have absolutely no use – September 13, 2006
The Guardian: Steve Jobs needs ‘a charisma download, Apple risks being left behind’ – September 13, 2006
Mark Cuban: Things that are special about Apple’s announcements – September 13, 2006
Apple’s ‘iTV’ strategy – September 13, 2006
How will Apple’s ‘iTV’ work? – September 13, 2006
Apple eyes living room market with device codenamed ‘iTV’ – September 12, 2006
Analyst: Apple ‘s iTunes+iPod+iTV model ‘the gold standard for the digital home of the future’ – September 12, 2006
Analyst: Apple ‘s iTunes+iPod+iTV ‘will be hard for other players to match’ – September 12, 2006
Apple gives sneak peek of ‘iTV’ set-top box to debut Q1 2007 (with images) – September 12, 2006
Apple’s QuickTime stream of Steve Jobs special event now live – September 12, 2006
NFL and Apple team up to offer 2006 NFL game highlights via iTunes Store – September 12, 2006
Apple debuts iTunes 7 – September 12, 2006
“terestrial HDTV isnt very wide-spread – itunes has hundreds of TV shows.”
And once you’ve spent any time watching HDTV with surround sound, you will spit on SDTV.
Kinda like listening to CDs compared to iTunes lossy AAC files on any kind of decent system.
iTunes truly is the store for those with low standards.
To RC (Second Post),
Thank you for stating what everyone seems to miss – Glad i’m not the only one that can see this is completly obvious.
Apple are changing the way we watch TV, get our music and movies.
For those of you who cant see this: You heard it here first!
Z
RC, i agree! Apple has never been about giving the customers what they want, it’s been about getting the customers to want what you are intending to give them. And Apple wants us to pay for content so that’s the tech they’re selling us
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” /> (Not that i’d ever pay 2 bucks for a TVshow, 99 cents is more like it since it’s curently free!)
I think the way you all need to come at this is from a fresh perspective.
Forget about the way we currently watch media, forget about the fact that it is free, forget about cable companies, forget about advertising…
Just think about the ideal way to deliver creative content to every person on the planet. Easily and intuitively.
Think about how to give them the highest level of convenience and choice on when and where they consume this content.
Think about how to make sure that the creators get paid. And equally make sure that no-one in between gets a penny.
Think about opening the system of distribution up so that the most creative content will always rise to the top, and the playing field is equal: from a big budget movie or TV series to a one-man-band podcast.
And after you see this model clearly and are 100% sure in your heart that this is the best way forward for mankind. Then you begin to make it a reality.
We have a lot of work to do to turn the world on its heels and let creativity fill the boots of business monopolies.
The strategy is unfolding, but what we really need is to support that which is good, and shun that which is greed.
For currently it may be free, but someone is paying somewhere and people with no creative input are the ones getting fat.
With the right model, a piece of music will cost a few pennies, or a movie a few more: a fair price which is enough for the artists and which we would happily pay for the entertainment they provide.
My 2 cents…
First Apple can make this box evolve into anything. If DVR looked interesting and feasible then they may go for it.
A valid point made above is that Apple will be selling content. Why allow users to record programs for free when Apple want them to buy them.
DVR is fantastic IMHO. My cable box DVR has saved time, increased my choices and most importantly allowed me to watch almost every single game in this summers World Cup.
I would love to have a Mac DVR that would work seamlessly with my cable box, but I doubt this will happen. Content is getting locked down and the distributors will jealously guard this in whatever way possible.
Finally, I DLed some of the free iTS TV episodes, hooked up my PB to the HDTV via HMDO/DVI and checked the video quality. V. impressive. Not HD of course but it looked pretty good.
I would simply like to see a Blu-Ray/DVD slot load drive capable of playing my currently owned video content via Front-Row and/or ripping that content to my Mac for later viewing. It would be nice if the drive had Read/Write capability for archiving video content as well.
re: Hmm, not sure anyone’s got it yet…
Brilliant way to put it!
Reinforced by the fact Jobs always ends his special announcements with special guests, he likes to ‘remind ourselves that technology is great, but its all about the music and the content’. (not exact words, but you get the idea).
Without content, its all for nothing. And he can only get that by getting the studios to agree to releasing their content into iTunes, and they’ll only agree to it with the promise that the content will not be pirated and released onto the bit-torrent wilderness.
Of course, the greed in us all wishes that we could record live Hi-Def programs and movies from terrestrial TV or cable for free, but in the real world, everything has a cost. Its just a shame that most people think that the cost should not be applied to them.
I cant’ wait for iTunes music and movie store to go international in 2007 and reach HK.
“Of course, the greed in us all wishes that we could record live Hi-Def programs and movies from terrestrial TV or cable for free, but in the real world, everything has a cost.”
Some of us don’t wish, We do it. That’s because we are not waiting for Apple to get there.
The “Cost” is that you have to watch advertisements. on cable the Cost is your cable subscription (and often more advertisments) Duh.
For broadcast TV, the DVR is the piece of technology that minimises that cost. That’s a major challenge for broadcast TV, how to make money in a world where everybody skips past the advertisements.
“Not that i’d ever pay 2 bucks for a TVshow, 99 cents is more like it since it’s curently free”
See I’d never pay $99 cents for a show. lets say you record couple of shows a night, that’s about $60 a month extra for what is free today.
“Think about how to make sure that the creators get paid. And equally make sure that no-one in between gets a penny.”
That in my book would include Apple and the iTunes store.
Now if shows and music truly did cost pennies off iTunes, I’d consider it despite the crappy quality, since that’s about what crappy quality music and videos would be worth to me.
Re: finally
You’re missing the boat; I think intentionally.
The poster you answered has it right; there IS a cost to everything, and what he meant is that YOU and everybody else that’s recording the broadcast stuff and not watching the commercials are skating for a free ride.
I’m not saying you are wrong. Under the current broadcast and cable system, that’s Fair Use, as far as I’m concerned, as long as you’re not selling it or distributing it for free to the world.
But his point is that that old model is changing.
My wife is a good example of how it will. She wants to watch what she wants, when she wants. She doesn’t want to have to pay for all the foriegn language channels, sports channels, shoppoing channels, etc., that she doesn’t watch. She IS willing to pay for those channels (or shows) that she DOES watch.
In other words what she wants is on demand content, and she’s willing to pay for it.
That, I think, is what Apple is starting to offer at the ITS.
Crappy quality? Give it time. Don’t forget, Apple has to plan for bandwidth. Selling that on demand content is going to demand a LOT of bandwidth. Buying that kind of bandwidth is not cheap, nor is it physically installed overnight.
They have a plan, and that plan undoubtedly includes having the bandwidth installed, bought & paid for before the higher quality goes onmline. But first, they need the set top box to get to your TV in the first place.
So they plan for first things first. Why sell high quality stuff you don’t have the bamdwidth for, and can’t get to your users’ TVs yet anyway?
It’ll get there, it just has to happen at the right time, in the right order. First, they need the content, and they need to get Hollywood and the major studios on board to do that.
So they walk before they try to run.
“That in my book would include Apple and the iTunes store.”
Just as in the current model, providing that content costs money. If you want someone to provide it to you, expect the model to cost something. At least, Apple is providing some value besides just ripping off the artists.
“Crappy quality? Give it time. Don’t forget, Apple has to plan for bandwidth. “
Apple has a plan for bandwidth?
Given that one 1080i channel requires 19 megabits per second, I’m really glad that Apple has a plan to deliver that 40 megabits/sec to my home that a twin tuner HDTV setup would require.
I’m even happier to know that they’ll be able to download an entire 1080p movie to me in some sort of reasonable time (Like quicker than it takes to drive to the video store, or to get it in the mail from Netflix).
Furthermore, once they rule the world and have 100 million subscribers concurrently downloading different demand content, I guess they’ll need about 19 x 100 million megabits per second of bandwidth into their systems.
So it appears that they’ll need 790,000 OC48 links into the facilities serving this data and be hooking up a T3 connection to every-body’s home.
God damn, you’re right. That’s some plan for bandwidth. Can’t wait to get an iTV if it comes with that free T3.
Right now I and everybody else with a DVR can watch shows any time we like. The only difference between that and a full on demand model is that we have to schedule what we want to suck down off the air ahead of time. Frankly that difference is not worth $2/show and a big step back in terms of sound and picture quality.
Now if you told me that for $14.95/mo I could download as much HDTV content as I wanted to watch (Over the free, Apple provided T3 of course) Then I’d be in.
P.S I’m glad you don’t think viewers are thieves when they go to the bathroom, or to fix a snack during commercials.
P.P.S In this brave new world, why would a network or content creator want to give Apple money? Apple’s just another middle man. The real trick would be to come up with an open standard for publishing and subscribing to, and paying for all this stuff.
@finally:
The foundation is being layed today for high-bandwidth communication in the near future. I’m willing to stake that within 10 years, you won’t have discrete phone lines, cable lines, DSL Internet connections feeding your home. Everything is going to be piped in through one single massively large and speedy pipe. Maybe fiber, maybe something faster, but it’s just over the horizon.
Internet? Check. Videophone? Check. On-demand video and audio content? Check. News? Shopping? VR games and entertainment? Check. Along with other content we can’t even imagine yet because we don’t have the bandwidth to make it practical. All coming in through this one big pipe.
So… who do you want controlling the pipe? The TV networks? The RIAA? The movie industry? Microsoft “Plays For Sure?” LOL.
How about Apple, the only company on the face of the planet who seems to have a big-picture vision and a firm grasp of how to take an emerging technology and make it usable, appealing, fun, not too restrictive, affordable, even irresistable?
Whoever establishes themselves in the digital living room over the next 12-18 months will control the pipe. That’s a bi-i-i-ig bi-i-ig carrot, folks. (sorry about the mixed metaphors)
Now do you see why Microsoft is willing to take a loss of several hundred million just to try and get a foot in the door with Zune?
MW “except” — Except that Apple already has it sewed up with iPod. How appropriate.
“Internet? Check. Videophone? Check. On-demand video and audio content? Check. News? Shopping? VR games and entertainment? Check. Along with other content we can’t even imagine yet because we don’t have the bandwidth to make it practical. All coming in through this one big pipe.”
I agree with you in theory, but most of the services you mention require much less bandwidth than true HDTV.
The people with the fastest pipe are the cable companies, not Apple. And they’re not heavily incentivised to kill their current business in favor of Apple. Apple has no pipes anywhere, nor are they likely to start laying fiber any time soon.
And what cable companies currently offer in terms of bandwidth for internet services pales in comparison to what all TV stations in a market can push out over the air today (or what they push out over the cable for video programming).
To keep with the perspective: For true, unique on demand services, the required pipe our end is bigger than all but the largest businesses deploy today. And the required pipe Apple’s end(s)is almost beyond comprehension, 790,000 of the fastest links in general commercial usage today or 24,700 of the fastest links even theoretically under discussion, and a server farms which can serve up 190 million megabytes per second. (You guessed it, that’s a stack of at least a couple of million xserves)
There’s a lot to be said for the efficiency of broadcast or multicast transmission vs true on demand.
So I do truly look forward to that fast pipe into my home, but I’m not holding my breath waiting for it, nor am I expecting (given the numbers above) that any practical implementation in the next 10 years that could actually take on the world will be truly on demand vs broadcast/multicast.
“big-picture vision and a firm grasp of how to take an emerging technology and make it usable”
They’ve done this with only one product, the iPod. Currently they’re nowhere in the living room.
The iTV is nothing more than Apple’s version of Microsoft’s Media Center Extender. People are getting overly excited as to what Apple might be able to achieve, given that they’re talking about releasing next year a product which has existed in the PC world for 3 or more years.
P.S Personally I don’t want anyone controlling the pipe, last of all any one software or hardware company.