“Cisco Systems Inc. is getting ready to give the Apple Inc. iTV a run for its money,” Phil Harvey reports for Light Reading. “At CES this week the company was selectively, somewhat secretly, demonstrating a ‘home media adapter’ that serves up all photos, videos, and music from all the PCs, phones, MP3 players, and other storage devices connected to the home network.”
Harvey reports, “Cisco’s upcoming media adapter is in trials with some consumers. But the hardware design is being perfected by industrial designers, and we weren’t allowed to take pictures of the device, which was demo’ed from behind a black curtain in a suite at the Bellagio on Wednesday.”
“This device, sure to be the workhorse in Cisco’s connected home strategy, will aggregate and serve any media from any device in the home. It will also allow for purchasing video, audio, and other entertainment without requiring a set-top box,” Harvey reports. “In the Bellagio demo, Cisco’s content included movies from CinemaNow , a firm in which Cisco has invested.”
Harvey reports, “The Cisco media adapter will be available before the end of 2007. As with other Linksys gear, Cisco will sell it through service providers that want to offer it, in addition to having it available from major consumer electronics retailers.”
“In the meantime, however, the company is about to debut a new generation of its networked DVD player, called the KiSS DP-1600, in Europe,” Harvey reports. “The device will allow users access to walled-garden content in addition to allowing them to view content on their TVs from any networked device in the home. Oh, and the thing plays DVDs, too.”
Harvey reports, “On the back are connections for composite video, S-Video, component video, HDMI, optical audio, and Ethernet. The box also sports two 802.11 b/g wireless antennas. While it’s not clear when the device will come to the U.S., Sohl says the DP-1600 will be available in Europe this Spring.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “sj” for the heads up.]
Okay, who called Jim Cramer nuts? See: Jim Cramer: Why Cisco really sued Apple – January 11, 2007.
Related articles:
Analysts: Cisco ‘iPhone’ trademark suit likely to have little impact on Apple, to be quickly settled – January 12, 2007
iPhone more than a trademark for Apple CEO Steve Jobs – January 11, 2007
Jim Cramer: Why Cisco really sued Apple – January 11, 2007
Cisco General Counsel explains ‘iPhone’ lawsuit; Cicso wanted interoperability
with Apple iPhone – January 11, 2007
Apple calls Cisco’s ‘iPhone’ trademark lawsuit ‘silly,’ says ‘very confident we’ll prevail’ – January 11, 2007
Cisco sues Apple for ‘iPhone’ trademark infringement – January 10, 2007
The only thing really wrong with Apple’s iPhone is its name – January 09, 2007
Briefly: Apple changes corporate name; Cisco expects agreement on ‘iPhone’ trademark today – January 09, 2007
Apple debuts iPhone: touchscreen mobile phone + widescreen iPod + Internet communicator – January 09, 2007
‘Cicso’ in headline, wondered who that was (for a second).
I wish Apple TV played ripped DVDs.
“Okay, who called Jim Cramer nuts?” Not me! Boolyah!
It was probably developed by Scientific Atlanta.
Let me guess…the name of their device is iTV.
ok, so someone tell me why ATV isnt going to play DVD rips. Not that I have any Im just wondering…
The Apple TV will play ripped DVDs just fine. It plays anything you can play within iTunes. People have been ripping DVDs to iPod specs for ages. While it may not be endorsed by the MPAA, hence no mention of it by Apple, it doesn’t preclude it from being done. Rip away!
I wonder if it will need a confusing 20 page manual to get set up and ready to troubleshoot…
These guys still don’t get it. They’re only offering a piece of the pie. apple is offering the whole pie with Ala Mode to top. Apple has the stores, the software, the complete hardware package, the intergated applications and now the iPhone (oops). You can one stop shop at the Apple Store and buy stuff that all works together. It’s vertical integration at it’s best – a B school’s case study dream. These guys are just not positioned with the right tools.
Apple is smokin’ baby.
“ok, so someone tell me why ATV isnt going to play DVD rips.”
YOU MUST BE KIDDING! Ripping any commercial DVD is, by the terms of the MPAA licensing agreement, illegal! ILLEGAL! Get it?
And you want SJ and company to publicly endorse, aid, and abet the playing of these criminal wares? For the love of Mike, macromancer, there are ENOUGH questions about illegalities going around at Apple. Do they need MORE just to satisfy YOU?
Who cares? Has anyone in Europe even heard of Cisco? iThink not…
Apple can offer an end-to-end solution, store-computer-transfer:to:tv&portable;:media:player.
Cisco doesn’t have store+whole-lot-a-content, nor do they have HW/OS-combination and same goes for the high profiled media player.
How easy is their device to use? If they started slappin that thing together, when Apple introduced their solution… 🙁
Who wants to bet that the “interopperability” that Cisco was wanting in exchange for use of the iPhone name was in fact an attempt to have Apple license FairPlay. This makes sense now that this device was featured and that most home mp3 players are iPods. This would allow them to directly compete with the Apple TV and iTunes ecosystem — and therefore be a direct competator against Apple.
Apple was smart to reject such a notion.
Ripping a DVD taht you own is NOT illegal and is NOT stealing.
“… will aggregate and serve any media from any device in the home.”
All media? That means I can serve my iTMS purchased songs and TV shows. They must have hired DVD jon or purchased his Fairplay crack.
Either that, or it doesn’t and I won’t.
Requires Windows Vista to set up!
OS-X..?…..um, no
typhoon,
Ripping a DVD that you own surely is allowed per the VHS legislation by Congress back in the 1980’s.
But the DMCA prohibits bypassing content DRM as a means to making that legal backup. So as long as your DVDs don’t have CSS, then you are correct. But all of the DVDs I get from Netflix or have purchased have CSS and so are, I suspect, most or all of yours. So if you are copying them you are in violation of Federal Law.
Just sayin’
Cisco a shining star of corporate integrity. It all about ‘soul’. Yeah sure.
Legal or not, Apple TV, iTunes and video iPods will all play your ripped DVDs just fine.
It plays DVD rips that have been TRANSCODED, i.e. you take one compressed video (MPEG-2), decompress it (so it has artefacts), and then compress the decompressed video in new codec (H.264). Result takes an age to process and results do not look as good as the original.
I would like to rip entire DVD (i.e. VOB files) to a folder without transcoding (taking an age, losing picture quality), either that or create a virtual disc image of DVD. That way, similar to all my CDs, I could keep one network drive to access and store all the phyiscal media out the way; and never have to worry about getting up and swapping discs, or kids scratching them.
It’s been possible to do this in the Windows world for a while, even in the network player market (you rip DVDs to a network storage device), but interestingly the Vista Media Center Edition can no longer player ripped DVDs … Microsoft have removed the feature and you now need third-party software to do it.
MacMan: bet you are right, “interoperability” with Apple DRM in exchange for use of iPhone trademark. Hrm…
“The Apple TV will play ripped DVDs just fine. It plays anything you can play within iTunes. People have been ripping DVDs to iPod specs for ages. While it may not be endorsed by the MPAA, hence no mention of it by Apple, it doesn’t preclude it from being done. Rip away!”
Unfortunately, this is not true. It will play anything the *iPod* will play. So video files encoded with codecs QT doesn’t do out of the box won’t play. The reason you can play them in iTunes now is that it basically just calls QT, which is easily embellished with plugins (Flip4Mac etc.)
AppleTV will not get those same plugins when you install them from QT. It’s a box with its own OS and its own QT engine, I imagine. It will get updated when QT officially does, but it remains to be seen how easy it will be to get additional codecs etc. on it.
This is the only reason I haven’t already pre-ordered my AppleTV. I really, really want it in my living room, but I have a huge library of home movies and such that have been encoded with codecs I need a QT plugin for.
Is there a simple and fast solution for converting these to an “iPod-friendly” format? iSquint takes foreeeeever…
And what software will Cisco’s media machine use to make purchases? Only Apple can make products that utilize the iTunes service.
If it ain’t iTunes, it ain’t shit.
unfettered: yeah well, you’re only worried about “federal law” if you’re in the USA, if you’re in one of the other 192 countries in the world then it means nothing.
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“Do they need MORE just to satisfy YOU?”
Send me your address, ill mail you a coupon for some muscle relaxers.
just kiddin. i knows it was sarcasm.
unfettered, you make good sense. The law must be changed. I mean really are people really going to rebuy all their movies thru iTMS just to play them through ATV. No, didnt think so. Personally i think this should be protected under fair use laws. Stupid DMCA.
Neven: the Apple TV *is* an iPod
Essentially the Apple TV is simply an iPod with a television output rather than a built in display, and a network connector (wireless or ethernet) instead of USB/Firewire for syncing.
just rip your “owned” dvd’s to your drive via handbrake or handbrake lite, then load into itunes and stream to appletv. easypeasy.
handbrake: fine for watching on tiny iPod screen or laptop. Rubbish for watching on big screen tv.
Transcoding isn’t good, want to play the original VOBs.
Wonder how good the 720p H.264 movie downloads will be, by all accounts the 720p VC-1 movie downloads on Xbox Live Marketplace are excellent.