What is Digg?126 Comments
- moisie, on 10/12/2007, -6/+97As long as it's fast enough to do what its supposed to.
- Terc, on 10/12/2007, -5/+49It's $300.
Did you expect a Core 2 Duo, Gig of RAM and the latest video card? - Ninjab3ar, on 10/12/2007, -2/+40Wow, the GPU is faster than the MacBook.
As much as I love Apple, they sometimes confuse me. - crazybrit, on 10/12/2007, -1/+22I know those words, but that sentence doesn't make any sense...
- NSResponder, on 10/12/2007, -2/+23Naturally, they'd use the minimum processor/GPU combination capable of running the H.264 decoder. That's why it's cheaper than a Mac Mini.
-jcr - repruhsent, on 10/12/2007, -4/+24Seconded. Who cares if it's based on technology that isn't cutting edge? For what the Apple TV does, a Pentium M is pretty decent.
- Charlotte_Web, on 10/12/2007, -5/+24For $300, I expect a coax input and some PVR functions.
- jer2eydevil88, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13Overpriced? Yes. A box that plays Quicktime protected files through HDMI at Hi Def resolutions? Yes. Is it worth it to me? No! Could it be worth $300 to someone else? Probably.
Welcome to the free market economy. If it doesn't sell it will go the way of the newton. - bombaclott, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13ummm......why would all those pentium specs of "yesteryear" matter when its not meant to be a computer?!
- fugazi, on 10/12/2007, -4/+16Anyone else wondering why this would cost 300 dollars. This is nowhere near worth 300 dollars for that hardware. I can get an Xbox 360 for 400 that plays games, streams video, plays dvds, plays hd-dvds (if I want to), and I can download hd movies online. This thing is way overpriced.
- se1zure, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14Realistically, this is pretty high specs for a consumer product like this.
It's not like my toaster has a core 2 quad or anything. - borninda818, on 10/12/2007, -8/+18And the price is right on for what your getting. I am looking forward to this more than the iPhone.
- undersky, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11wow u decoded his language into a paragraph! u must be a linguistic major!
- Terc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10The Apple TV does not encode anything.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Profit?
- groverblue, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8@MeltedUFO
Your comment makes absolutely no sense.
"because for $300 bucks for something that doesn't really do anything, it should at least have good hardware in it."
First off, if it doesn't "do anything," why does it need to "have good hardware"?
Second, if it does what it's designed to do, does it matter what hardware it has?
What it really comes down to is: would you pay $300 what it's designed to do. Personally, not me. The only advantage would be native 720p/1080p support so I didn't have to mess with SwtichResX on my MacMini. But, since I already have a MacMini (that does more than receive streams), it would be a waste of money. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -10/+18Boy, if this were any other company but Apple, the comments would NOT be "AS long as it is fast enough to do what it does."
- 4g3nt_Smith, on 10/12/2007, -4/+12You know, everyone makes statements like "If it doesn't support DiVX/XViD/OGG/FLAC/"other random format the average human knows nothing about" then it (any device) will fail or have no future." How many of these devices that cater to niche formats do you see on the top of the sales charts? Thats right, not a one; people want something that will play the music/media that have from CD or from the iTS. Ripping DVD's is almost within the realm of consumer simplicity with things like Handbrake, but it puts them out as MPEG4 or H.264, so the Apple TV plays that. I for one just look for mpeg4/h.264 files whenever I pirate, and then I don't have to worry about converting it from whatever obscure flavor of divx combined with VBR mp3 at a non-stnadard bit-rate some idiot thought was going to be the preset of the future.
- WildTang3nt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Of course it won't. Apple is hoping you'll buy an Airport Extreme base station.
- se1zure, on 10/12/2007, -6/+14Not very good logic there:
"streams video"
1. Add $100 for wireless addon"
"plays hd-dvds"
2. Add on another $200...
"and I can download hd movies online"
3. THe whole point of the iTV is to watch movies you downloaded online... so what is your point.
4. FOr the games, you more likely than not need XBL, so another $50+ per year...
Your talking $750 + $50 per year there... (or $550 + $50 per year w/o the hd-dvd). There is a difference between $300 and $550/$750.... - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11Your paying more for less compared to something like XBMC. It just really isn't worth it. 100, maybe. But hell no to 300.
- joshuaok, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10Then buy an XBox.
- etjazz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5A 1ghz pentium-m could possibly do 1080i if it also utilize nvidia purevideo. It will be interesting to see what the linux guys can do with this device once it's released.
Just for reference - the old xbox had a 733 mhz celeron based cpu. xmbc does not use the gpu to decode video, but it still churns away hr hdtv and 720p mpeg2 without a hitch. - M1ndless, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Actually HDTV broadcasts are encoded with Mpeg2, so the do need to be decoded by the TV.
- yabos, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Why the hell would you want to have something hooked up to your tv that's a wireless router? There's other products to do that, this is for TV.
- Reek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5The original xbox never cost 400 dollars we can probably get one for around 100-150. I dont know the price of the original xbox wireless adapter.
- crazybrit, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Sure they would be. I don't really give a ***** what's inside my DVR, as long as it works (which it does). Now, the price, on the other hand, is just ridiculous...
- TheWorm, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Who needs a 2.33 ghz core 2 duo for something with that simple of a task???? If anything, 500 mhz would have sufficed.
- cuervoman914, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6yeah, youre right. its not ludicrus, its preposterous. but of course its apple, so ***** me.
- Ninjab3ar, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6@Terc
If you were responding to me, I said my last comment because the MacBooks come with 64mb of integrated graphics memory. I just found it confusing that Apple decides to actually put dedicated video memory in a peripheral, but not in a laptop. - turpenine, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4do you want 720p streaming on you wireless b/g?
yeah.
me too. - CCB0x45, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5why do you still choose to do this same post over and over even when its completely not in context? even will it blend would have been more relative!
- jevaun, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4yeah. it all works for me. it's not bleeding-edge tech, but if it streams smoothly and does what it's supposed to do, I can't say i'd complain.
- hungarianhc, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7Yah who cares what's inside as long as it runs silky smooth...
- SharinganBob, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3The sad thing is that it's actually better than my PC...
- t3hX, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6>Boy, if this were any other company but Apple, the comments would NOT be "AS long as it is fast enough to do what it does."
Because if it wasn't Apple, the thing would likely run Windows, and therefore probably never be fast enough. - michaelb1, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5what do you want, a supercomputer?
It only has to store and display video. - omaryak, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4The Pentium M is a more efficient processor than its predecessors, so 1.0 GHz is probably enough. Not to mention, neither the iTunes videos it will be streaming nor its output will be 1080p. It could be in the future, but the technology needs to catch up in terms of storage space, affordability, and network speed to download and stream HD content. What you're forgetting is that unlike the X-Box, Apple TV does its thing wirelessly.
- Trapped, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3It could have two hamsters spinning a turbine to make it work, as long as it does what it needs to do, I don't care. I have no idea what processor my TiVo is using, and it doesn't matter to me, it still does the job it needs to do. I am not buying the Apple TV as a computer, but rather what it is intended as, a piece of hardware to extend my iTunes functionality to my TV wirelessly.
- stoppedcode12, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@ilyag
The Pentium M is a very efficient processor, and has a rather short pipeline compared to the Pentium 4 or amd64 architecture. So unless you were using a Pentium M as your desktop processor, the 1.0 ghz Pentium M in the apple tv is much more powerful than your 1.3 Ghz PC.
Benchmarks of dothan: (pentium M vs. other): http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/05/25/dothan_over_netburst/page11.html
In fact, I'd not be surprised if people manage to overclock their apple TVs, either by socket modification, or by installing linux or windows.
Speaking of which... if people manage to hack it and run linux on it. (for crist sake, the device isn't even released yet!) This will be an awesome device to have, because it will essentially be your media center (usb tv tuners may or may not work, because it will require hardware acceleration from the video card (purevideo), the processor is just not powerful enough) with intergrated wireless, HDMI, component output, and remote! This would be XBMC all over again. - ubadojw1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I don't know... There is a difference between supports and outputs. They say supports 720p & 1080i, but output has only been mentioned as 720p. No mention of a scaler either. So like the PS3 it may be that if your TV only supports 1080i & 480p, then the video will be downscaled and the max you'll ever see is 480p. Which if that's the case why wouldn't I just connect a video iPod and use Griffin's cradle for viewing content from iTunes. No internet required, larger HD, and able to be controlled by remote. I sure hope I'm wrong and there is a scaler, but again no mention of it.
- SVPirate, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2That's really cool. It just goes to show how versatile Intel's new generation chips are. It's an impressive setup that will make playing iTunes media a pleasure. I just need a 36" widescreen TV now...
Also, I smell a Mac mini upgrade somewhere soon, they can't possibly justify selling a set-top box with better video than one of their desktop computers, can they? - LycoLoco, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2You think that DivX and XviD are obscure? Obviously, you haven't used bittorrent to download a TV show or a movie. DivX and XviD support ARE what is going to keep this thing from hitting the mainstream. Yes, it'll work for someone who buys all of their video from the iTMS, but it'll flop with the people who encode their own stuff (geeks) or download TV shows (geeks and mainstream public alike). Why not let it do both iTMS shows as well as DivX/XviD and actually sell to the entire possible marketshare?
- Stopher, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This thing needed an optical drive. For a 10 dollar commodity part they would have sold a hundred million more if people could justify the purchase as buying a cool DVD player as well.
- undersky, on 10/12/2007, -6/+8will it blend?
- jerkychew, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Hardware-wise, it's a pretty good deal. You could build your own HTPC with the same specs, but there's no way it would be silent for $299. A silent, comparable HTPC would cost you in the neighborhood of $400-$600, and you'd still have to configure the OS and software yourself.
And to those that called the hardware 'aging' or 'out of date', the 1GHZ Pentium M is far different than the P3 or P4 Pentium Ms. My laptop is a 1.7GHZ Pentium M and it trounces my P4 3GHZ desktop. This is pretty powerful for a machine with one dedicated, optimized purpose.
My question, and it's the same one I posted to Mythtv-users is, what steps is Apple going to take to prevent hackers from installing another OS on the machine? The fact that it's lacking MPEG-2 support is pretty lame - Transcoding the gigs of MPEG-2 data I have to H.264 would probably take months, so this device is a bit on the worthless side to me. However, if I could get a good, silent MythTV frontend for $299 that could stream all my MPEG-4 media as well as watch live TV, then sign me up. - paulstringer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Xbox is subsidised for it to be sold at $400. There are no $60 games to subsidize the Apple TV and selling a product at a loss only seems to makes sense in the games console business. Why wouldn't I want an XBox because I'm not interested in gaming so why would I buy for the functionality of an Apple TV a product who's primary purpose is gaming. I'd get all the downsides of an external power brick, a 20G hard drive and clumsy Joystick controls plus a smaller choice of legally downloadable content. Clearly this is not an elegant solution like the Apple TV, more a nice add on feature for existing XBox owners, recognise the difference.
- ascian, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2A quick thought, although most likely never to happen as the Apple website says USB for "service and diagnostics" we could have hoped for services instead of service. Given the wonderful stackable nature of the design, is it too far fetched that Apple didn't want to bet on who'd win the Disc wars or even to just leave it wide open? 3rd Party or Apple release stackable modules for HD-DVD or BluRay, pick the drive or drives of your fancy.
To appease eyeTV added functionality of a stackable DVR with encoder and larger harddrive, all pushing the interface down through USB.
Oh to dream. Well I'm waiting for Apple to exhaust the supply of Pentium M chips, redesign for at least a Core Solo 2GHz capable of 1080p, I've been waiting for an affordable all 1080p setup for ever, the panels finally are starting to hit that at full native resolution and Apple had to go and blow it by only releasing 720p.
One last rant, Apple TV is effectively useless up here in Canada, no TV or Movie content. Canada is too small a market for Apple to bother even worrying about. - omaryak, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3So much hating on the Apple TV. And so much forgetting how much easier it will be to use than a computer, and the fact that most people don't want their computer in their living room.
- wilhoitm, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5Dream on! I bet you can't wait for Vista to come out can you? Oh wait, Vista is not compatible with the Zune!
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