

Steve Jobs: We Still Haven't Figured Out The Living Room - echair
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/10/steve-jobs-we-still-haven-t-figured-out-the-living-room-aapl-

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thedob
It's clear what people want: Any movie or TV show ever made, at the press of a
button, in high quality.

Now realistically forget the 'ever made' part, and focus on classics + all
recent content, there's no reason why cable companies shouldn't be able to
deliver this soon. Merge the on demand libraries with streaming video sites
like Hulu, and we're almost there already.

~~~
biohacker42
Ah yes, but you see the telcos don't own the content, and content owners don't
own the pipes.

And yet both hate to share profits, additionally the content owner are still
trying to find out what price the markets will bare.

To do that they start high and slowly work their way down. And that slows down
adoption.

~~~
netcan
And both are big asset oligopoly industries. Content owners specifically don't
have any reason to believe that better distribution channels will improve
their bottom line.

Actually I think with record producers, video content owners & to an extent,
publishing giants are all in a similar (leaky) boat. They are in a situation
where life has been good, they are on top of the world. Only way to go is
down.

Any move in the directions that technology is pushing towards like better,
wider distribution, reduced production costs & power to the consumer is
troubling. For one thing, they have a better hold on the here & now then the
long tail. Sure they own most of it, but better distribution opens the doors
to a groundswell of small producers. Expensive special effects, 1000 actor
scenes, are no longer as big a differentiator. Now you want to give these
$100k budget jokers access to living rooms?

Will better distribution make people watch more TV? probably not. Why take a
chance?

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cconstantine
The only way I can imagine getting an Apple TV (or similar device) is if it
replaces my current cable subscription. I can't justify canceling cable until
they offer live-tv for things like the news, and sports.

I'm ok with paying for TV shows ala-cart with no monthly subscription. With
how little I watch it would probably be cheaper anyway. The only reason we
have cable is for football and a handful tv series.

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chaostheory
microsoft and sony are the closest with their game consoles, though they have
stuff holding them back:

Microsoft is unwilling to give the 360 killer features (such as internet
browsing, being a media center without Media Center) at the risk of
canibalizing Windows Media Center and Windows sales

Sony just doesn't have the software development expertise that Microsoft has.
This is compounded by the dificulty in programming for their Cell architecture
which has resulted in delays in many products.

~~~
wayne
Do you really know that many people who hook a Windows Media Center to their
main TV? I can count the number I know of on one hand.

The Xbox is already pretty good for watching paid movies/TV shows, and will be
pretty cool for watching Netflix stuff in a month or so. I'm guessing it's
more that no one wants to surf the web on their TV.

~~~
chaostheory
I'm not defending MS's decision. In fact I think it's stupid and short sighted
(I did say it was holding them back). All I'm doing is stating what I'm seeing
in the market.

For me 360 is still too expensive to watch TV shows and movies; and I'm not
really excited about the Netflix deal considering you still need to be some
premium Netflix subscriber for it to work.

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bigthboy
I think Steve Jobs is right in saying that it will likely remain a hobby for
this upcoming year, but in the same sense I believe thats because nobody is
really taking a truly proactive, innovative, or scalable approach to it, Apple
(and Boxee) included.

The industry has before been isolated because of the lack of content. However,
more recently there has been an explosion of content availability. But further
adding to the problem has been the usability of that content.

I, personally, own a Media Center PC which I built myself for the purpose of
exploring the idea of accessing my TV over the internet. I must say that I've
gone away from that route because everything was bulky and much more
complicated than using my Satellite receiver that I already had. This is a
problem that could be overcome if the effort was put forth to actually
overcome it.

What needs to be done is someone needs to create a single simple box that
includes the DVD player, USB ports, infarred, Ethernet port, various A/V
input, and S-Video, Composite, and HDMI outputs. On this device load a very
simplistic, efficient software base which can do the following... Load DVD,
Load External Signal, Load "Full Internet", Watch "NET TV"... I quoted NET TV
because it is something that would need to be treated different than the
Internet. NET TV we could think of it as going to certain content website
(like Hulu, YouTube, or even iTune's music store, NetFlix, etc.) and browing
them through a simplified interface (rather than their traditional interface)
and navigating through them to find the shows you want. This would be done, in
a way, like tailoring sites to mobile phone users, only this would be to TV
users. Included could be a new service which is truly "Live Stream" from the
various news sources.

Just a concept btw...

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tsuraan
I have a Roku Netflix Player, which is a $100 device with no moving parts;
plug in power, HDMI, and put it on your wifi network, and away you go. The
netflix selection is rapidly growing (they just got the Starz network, which
really helped their selection), and the device will hopefully support hulu.com
in the next few months. Between Netflix instant play, hulu, and a great little
device like that, I'm not sure what else is needed for TV over the internet.

~~~
LogicHoleFlaw
Netflix is moving strongly in this segment. This November their player for the
Xbox 360 is coming out, which I'm greatly looking forward to.

~~~
tsuraan
Yeah, I was considering holding out for that, but my 360 is just loud; I don't
mind it for video games, but I don't need that thing humming along while I'm
watching movies. The Roku's really nice that way.

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inovica
I have a MacMini which I use EyeTV on and FrontRow. Its not perfect but its
still impressive and beats an Apple TV in terms of functionality. If the Apple
TV was a bit more powerful and allowed for watching/recording of TV then it
would be a winner. I use mine with a projector and love it. It is a shame but
Apple have a tendancy (such as with the ipod/iphone) to try to lock people
into their way of doing things

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modoc
Give me an AppleTV that will output 1080p HDMI, do high quality upscaling, and
will play not only my iTMS content, but also stream a wide range of other
codecs and containers (divx, mkv, etc..) from any source on my LAN, and has a
DVD drive built in, and I'll put one in every room! Double points if it hooks
into the NetFlix streaming option and/or Amazon Unbox.

I generally love Apple stuff, however I'm already using my Xbox 360 to stream
DLed video content from my desktop, so it's hard to justify getting another
device that just does that. If I could replace my DVD player or another
device, that'd be something to consider.

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GHFigs
You're asking for an AppleTV with everything that was intentionally omitted.

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mapleoin
the title sounded more fun than the article was.

While the page was loading I imagined a discussion on the current paradigm of
entertainment focused on individualism (think mp3-players and computer games
where you basically lock yourself out of the world). Traditionally, the living
room has been about socialising, spending time with the family etc. Here is
where a lot of improvement is just waiting to be done. I was hoping he wasn't
going to talk about TVs and movies though. The real question is: What will
kill the TV in the living room?

