Comments on: About those AppleTV rumors…..

By: Garth Bishop

Garth Bishop — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 01:21:48 +0000

Derek, seriously, how many people out there who are going to be tech-savvy enough to want an ATV are going to still have a standard TV in their living room? Get real…

By: Derek Veilleux

Derek Veilleux — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 18:10:07 +0000

Thanks Steve, but like I said- they need to make it supported to connect to a standard TV. While your tip is a work around, it’s not officially supported.

By: Barry

Barry — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 12:38:55 +0000

I own a 5Gen ipod video and an iphone. I have a 40″ Sony Bravia HD tv set. I am a perfect demographic for the apple Tv. And yet I will not buy one.

I have software I use to rip my DVDs (NOT ILLEGAL) so I can watch them on my ipod / iphone. These mp4s are of rubbish quality on the 40″ screen – I would have to re-rip them into a different MP4 format in order to see on the TV.

How many versions of MP4 does Apple think I’ll make? Think I’ll stick to AVIs through my 500Gb media player.

And I live in Ireland where there are no Movies or TV shows available through iTunes.

Apple TV is sold in Ireland – if it’s sold more than 50 I’d be very surprised.

By: Steve

Steve — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 22:21:08 +0000

Derek, you can use the AppleTV with a standard tv set. I use mine on a crappy old tube tv.

You’ll need the component cables. You connect the green where the yellow would go. When you see it, it will appear in black and white. It fix it, you’ll need a hdmi > dvi wire.

When the AppleTV is on and you see it in black and white, you plug in the hdmi cable, the screen will go black, then unplug it. The picture will return in full color. I’ve tried it with all the updates on many tv’s it works 100%. One thing to keep in mind, you need to have a connection at the end of that DVI cable. So either plug it into another screen or do what I do and just plug on one of those dvi-vga adapters. It needs to detect a connection to make the switch, otherwise it will just sit there and do nothing.

By: Steve

Steve — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 17:38:47 +0000

An update is due soon. I need to buy another but I’m waiting for Take 3. Even if its just a bigger HD. I doubt the update would come now though, seems like something they would announce near the beginning of Macworld. I agree with you about the DVR features though. It would cut into iTunes sales big time, but it also would be the only method of Apple really gaining ground in the living room as most people don’t want o sacrifice live tv for digital downloads only. Not to mention Apple’s TV Show selection is quite dull, at least in Canada. it would be nice if they added a guide and a tv tuner to at least watch tv through it, although having all those features without the ability to record would seem pointless. A blu ray drive would be nice, but that would have a colossal effect on the price.

By: Derek Veilleux

Derek Veilleux — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 17:18:26 +0000

IMHO the biggest blunder with the Apple TV was not allowing it to be used with standard aspect ratio, standard resolution TV’s. I, for one, refuse to buy a new high def, large, flatscreen TV but I would love to have Apple TV or at least the capacity to play media on my TV without an ipod or without plugging in my Macbook. With Time Capsule and computer hard drive capacities getting higher, Apple should allow all of this media to be streamed to the TV instead. I don’t need to be having three copies of everything I own on various hard drives that I upgrade every few years.

By: freediverx

freediverx — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 16:48:21 +0000

“Many people jump straight to â€œDVRâ€ featuresâ€ or something like that (which seems to work directly AGAINST the idea of buying TV Shows off the deviceâ€¦so donâ€™t hold your breath)”

I’d like to go ahead and disagree with you on that sentiment. Right now, Apple TV is seeing limited adoption by the market. From my perspective, at least, I find little appeal in the product because its function is too narrowly defined. I can ONLY play video purchased through iTunes. Well let me give you a news flash… I buy very little video content on iTunes, but I have a lot of content that I either produce myself or download. By making it difficult for me to access this content, AppleTV simply doesn’t offer any benefit to justify its cost or even the effort to install it and the space it takes up on my shelf.

Imagine if the iPod had had similar limitations… Nobody would have bought them. But in spite of all the piracy out there, the iPod and iTunes combined make Apple a good deal of money.

If AppleTV were enhanced (or more accurately, de-crippled) to allow effortless use with the widest possible variety of video content (and perhaps rich DVR functionality to replace TiVo), THAT would drive people to purchase it in droves, and in time, would generate substantial video sales and rental revenues for iTunes.