“General” Jobs continues to march further and further into consumers lives, releasing details of a new television streaming device at todays Macworld 2007 in San Francisco.
Apple finally produced some more detailed information regarding its much anticipated Apple TV, or iTV as it was referred to.
The Apple TV device will allow users to stream downloaded movies and TV programming to up to 5 computers, PC or MAC, in ones house. The content will no doubt be limited to that purchased via iTunes, the fact that it will be limited to 5 computers bearing the hallmark of current purchased music playback restrictions.
Steve Jobs noted:
It’s really, really easy to use,” Jobs told the crowd at San Francisco’s Moscone Center before demonstrating the system with a video clip of “The Good Shepherd.” It’s got the processing horsepower to do the kinds of things we like to do.
Let’s examine this in a little more detail. Just like in iTunes you can setup your Apple TV — take my 10 most recent unwatched movies and it’ll automatically stream in the background to Apple TV and be stored on the hard drive. So whenever I got to watch something, they’re there. I can stream wirelessly from five computers. I can watch it from other computers in the house but it’s not stored on the hard drive. PCs or Macs, I just choose the computer of my life.
It retails for around $299 USD and is already available. Apple said it will begin taking orders immediately, and will being shipping them to customers in February.
The unit will also have a 40GB HDD, about 50 hours worth of video, to store content so that it can be retrieved without bogging down any one computer linked to the network.
Hardware will include:
- USB 2, Ethernet, WiFi, HDMI, component, audio, and optical out.
- 20p high def video
- 40GB hard drive
- 802.11b/g/n
- Intel processor
Now why somebody would want to shell out 300 bucks for a glorified storage and router device is beyond me but, it will surely find eager and open arms amongst the droves of iPod fanatics out there.
The one detail that does make it pretty cool though is the fact that it will also allow users the ability to stream content to HDTVs. Users will be able to use AppleTV to buy and download movies and TV shows from iTunes and then view them on their living room HDTV.
Apple has already collaborated with Disney for several months, offering about 100 movies and a number of TV shows for download on iTunes.
It also recently announced a new partnership with Paramount to being offering another 150 movie titles for purchase on iTunes as well, brining to 250 the number of titles that will be available.
News of this new AppleTV and its ability to stream content from the internet to ones living room HDTV seems to be the new shared goal these days. Yesterday both Netgear and Sony announced devices to allow users to do this very same thing.
In the case of Netgear, it has come with up a new device called the Digital Entertainer HD (EVA8000) that will stream digital media from PCs, network storage, and USB media devices.
It also has an ongoing “collaboration and agreement” with BitTorent Inc. to promote video download streaming, which could make it serve as a big competitor to iTunes content wise considering it has agreed to a larger number of movie content distribution deals with movie studios than has Apple.
Also, the type of content Netgear allows you to stream to your HDTV could also be a big threat to AppleTV.
Video content purchased from Apple’s iTunes will certainly be filled with the standard assortment of DRM headaches. Backup copies will be a pain, and so will be interoperability with portable media devices.
Interoperability may be the biggest weakness in choosing content from iTunes instead of other places like BitTorrent Inc., whose online marketplace will begin to offer movies and TV programming this Spring.
Sony has also announced a device for streaming video content from the interent to HDTVs.
Called the BRAVIA Internet Video Link, it will allow its new line of “Internet video-ready” TVs to stream internet video content, including HD, from sources to include AOL, Yahoo!, Grouper, Sony Pictures Entertainment, and also Sony’s BMG Music.
Again, it may come down to a matter of content selection and interoperability.
Will Sony only allow streaming from preapproved sites or of a preapproved content?
What kind of protection will Sony introduce to its video content downloads?
BitTorrent Inc. will also have some sort of DRM protection methods, as will Sony I’m sure but, one knows they will probably never be as restrictive as Apple is with content acquired from iTunes.
Either way, it will be quite interesting and exciting to see more options available to users wishing to purchase and stream video content to their living room HDTV.
Now, if only I had an HDTV.
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um ok how big is that tv that looks like a big and delicous variety of apple and any stopping of useing other streaming sources also does it include that nasty DRM in terms of the data transmitted during streaming and can you copy the streamed media.