Apple Inc., the supplier of barely popular Macintosh computers and massively popular iPod digital media players, on Monday announced that it would delay the release of its set-top-box that would help the company’s clients to watch movies and TV-shows acquired from the firm’s iTunes music stores on their TV-sets.
“Wrapping up Apple TV is taking a few weeks longer than we projected, and we now expect to begin shipments mid-March,” Apple spokeswoman Lynn Fox said Monday, according to an Associated Press report.
The reasons behind the delay are unclear, just like unclear whether Ms. Fox wanted to say that Apple has issues with packing/packaging the Apple TV products, or is finalizing it from technical perspective, e.g., improving some of the capabilities.
Apple TV has a 40GB hard drive to store content, including movies, videos or photos locally and is compatible with Wi-Fi 802.11 b, g and draft-n standards. The set-top-box comes with HDMI, component video, analog and optical audio ports, but despite of the fact that HDMI supports up to 1080p (1920x1080 progressive scan) resolutions, Apple declares only up to 720p (1280x720 progressive scan) resolution for its Apple TV device.
Apple TV, which includes the Apple Remote, will be shipping in February through the Apple Store, Apple’s retail stores and Apple authorized resellers for a suggested retail price of $299. Apple TV requires iTunes 7 as well as wireless network.
Videos purchased from the iTunes 7 Store are downloaded in below-DVD quality (720x480 [NTSC] or 720x576 [PAL] resolution with Dolby Digital audio) at a resolution of 640x480 (up to 480, depending on the aspect ratio) and currently can be played on computers and iPods. With the Apple TV device consumers will be able to watch the movies on their TV-sets as well. The question is whether 640x480 resolution in the age of HDTV can actually be in demand.
Microsoft’s Xbox Marketplace store offers a variety of standard definition (SD, about $4 per movie) and high definition (HD, about $6 per movie) movies as well as SD (about $2 per episode) and HD (about $3 per episode) TV shows, whereas Apple’s iTunes offers below-DVD quality movies for $9.99 – $14.99 and similar quality TV-shows for $1.99. Consumer electronics companies, such as Sony, Panasonic or Toshiba, are now pushing high definition videos with crisp 1920x1080 pixels resolution and DTS or Dolby Digital Plus audio very hard and unless Apple increases resolution of movies sold through iTunes, the destiny of the Apple TV seems uncertain.
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Discussion started: 02/27/07 06:17:34 AM
Latest comment: 02/27/07 06:24:54 PM
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1.
Your lack enthusiasm for Apple is transparent so please don't try to seem unbiased. You are clearly trying to seem like you are even handed but the lame comments about movies and TV shows for X-Box 360 v. TV & Movies for iPod and Apple TV are untrue in any case.
Suggest you actually get the tech facts straight regarding quality. Read :
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q1.07/D1925D1E -7479-4F44-B3B7-472113B366D8.html
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Posted by: Menk
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Date: 02/27/07 06:17:34 AM]
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Menk you are spot on! This site should be called 2-Bit Labs cause they write like they are in third grade and basically lie about technology to support Microsoft. (Who with their poor products needs all the help they can get)
BTW: X-Box 360 is a money loser and hasn't sold enough units to even be fractionally relevant in the market for online content.
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Posted by: Frank Hicks
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Date: 02/27/07 06:20:16 AM]
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geez this review/reviewer sure comes off a bit anti-apple from the get go!
re: "barely popular"
yes apple's market share is lower than windoze but hey its at about 5-6% and stats show that it is increasing. so what! that's a nice chunk of a massive market and growing. where would we all be without apple? i'd take BMWs market share any day! Where on earth would Windows be without Mac (take a look at Vista).
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Posted by: realityCheck
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Date: 02/27/07 08:38:46 AM]
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I don't see where this news report is biased. X-bit is simply comparing Apple's Video Download Service (specifically the quality of the videos) compared to Microsoft's. You guys just seem a bit angry at the one comment about "barely popular Macintosh" while it sounds a bit mean... ignoring that single comment and looking at the rest of the article.... nothing seems biased.
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Posted by: MonkRX
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Date: 02/27/07 06:24:54 PM]
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