2 posts tagged “hd”

This week Macworld saw the launch of the Apple TV (formerly iTV), on the surface it's a pretty good device allowing wireless transfer of video, music, podcasts and photos from up to five Macs or PCs to your swanky HDMI compliant TV set all for a relatively reasonable $299.  Many people might immediately realise that this is not a new idea, in fact I had a device that performed a similar task about 3 years ago (albeit using SCART) and at the time both wired and wireless versions were available.  Actually I don't see this as a problem, there were MP3 players before the iPod and that didn't stop Apple becoming the market leader, Apple have a knack of doing things better than the competition and have got a great reputation when it comes to usability and reliability. 

Despite all this, I'm not really impressed with the Apple TV and as it stands I doubt it will have the impact that everyone expected.  The single biggest drawback of the Apple TV is that it doesn't play all of the popular video formats, it will play anything that iTunes plays but nothing more.  This means that any video you already have in other formats, be it snaffled from bittorrent, downloaded from the web, ripped from DVD or captured from camcorders will not work without going through the laborious process of re-encoding.  This is more than most people want to do and the kind of people who really need a device like this probably use multiple formats and probably have stacks of DivX and Xvid movies that they'd love to watch on their TV and Apple aren't going to be much help at all. 

The secondary factor is that due to Apple's late arrival in this space there are already some pretty good devices out there, though the biggest threat probably comes from their classic rival in the shape of the Xbox 360.  For $399 you get a device that can stream video, music and photos from your PC (though you're stuck with just WMV for video), allows you to directly purchase and download TV shows and HD Movie rentals without even touching a computer, comes with a free headset allowing free phone calls to other Xbox 360 users, also supports video calls with the webcam accessory, and on top of all that is to date the best selling High-Definition games console on the market with over a hundred titles available. 

So the Apple TV has a big hill to climb but if anyone can push it up that hill then surely Apple can.  One light at the end of the tunnel which might generate some additional sales is the already mooted prospect of installing Linux on the Apple TV and using a Linux media player distro to do the rest - now that might just make me buy one.

I know it's cheesy but I thought I'd do a little roundup of 2006 and then later on a series of predictions for 2007.  The lists are all Top Fives and are based on techie stuff unless otherwise stated. 

1. Podcasting
   I had a look in 2005 and there really wasn't any great content out there, I came back in 2006 and it was like the whole 'industry' had exploded with some well established shows as well as some new favourites, this was really the year the podcasting became established. 
   
   
2. Video Gaming
   With the Xbox 360 released in December 2005 (but generally available March 2006) and the December launch of the Wii and the PS3 (US only) this really has been the year for gaming.  More than that Nintendo have performed an amazing feat by pulling games out of Geekdom and into popular culture, not only with the Wii but with this year's release of the DS Lite and the wonderful Brain Training. 
   
   
3. Beta Releases
   I'm not sure what's happened but in 2006 nobody wants to release a product without having a public Beta, this has been true for games (Phantasy Star Universe + Final Fantasy XI on the Xbox 360), PC software (Office 2007, Windows Vista) and everything regarded as Web 2.0. 
   
   
4. Video & Broadcasting
   This year has seen a fundamental change in the way people watch and interact with video, of course nobody missed the popularity of YouTube and its acquisition by Google for $1.65bn but the I find the complementary changes in the broadcast industry to be even more interesting.  Many major players have been trying to get into the User Generated Content (UGC) market ranging from pointless attempts by people who just don't get it (MTV Flux) to well-done but still distinctly old-media (BBC's Your News). 
   
   
5. High Definition
   In 2006 we saw the launch of both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, heralding a new era of home cinema - let's just hope that one of the two competing formats wins sooner rather than later so consumers can buy with confidence.  2006 also saw the introduction of Sky's High Definition Satellite service, sadly it was over-priced, delivered late and has limited quantities of genuine HD content.  This year also seems to be the year that people started to buy HD TVs in great quantities, at the end of 2005 I didn't know anybody with an HD TV, now over half of my friends either own or are seriously considering an HD TV and the prices still keep on tumbling. 
   

Well, I'm convinced I've missed something but that'll have to do, I think I'll go to bed now and hopefully dream of 2007, if I do then you'll have my predictions tomorrow!