Mike,

Speaking of Apple TV and iTunes did you hear the great news today yet? Not only did Apple update their complete iPod lineup with new iPod Touches, Classics, and new iPod Nano’s with the iTunes 8.0 release but NBC Universal is returning to the iTunes Store in the good old USA. That means television programming from NBC network, Sci Fi and USA network are returning after the fight by Apple and NBC last year which resulted in the past year of NBC removing its content from iTunes. Now their back and Apple has added a new feature for TV show downloads in HD. Standard Definition purchases of all TV programs (or programmes as their called in UK) will still sell for the fixed price of $1.99 but now companies can sell their older titles for less even, with some TV content likely to sell for 99 cents if the network desires. The HD versions will sell though for the increased price of $2.99.

A slight warning though: If you buy and download episodes in HD as an added treat — this is a good thing unless your concerned with your bandwidth and storage space on your computer (Mac or Windows PC’s) hard disk drive they’ll give you the SD version as an added bonus. If you don’t want to download the SD version also when it begins to download you can delete (and/or cancel the second download) they offer both so you can also get a version for your iPod. The HD downloaded video won’t work with video iPods so they offer you an added bonus of an HD and SD download.

Of course you have to have iTunes 8.0 for viewing the HD content. That was smart thinking by the way to create that smart playlist you mentioned you created on your video iPod for movies. Now on an Apple TV with a large hard drive if you want to download the HD TV programs it shouldn’t be a problem there but if your downloading HD content to a Mac or PC with iTunes or even an Apple TV with a small hard drive it could fill up really fast.

I think this is excellent news! The new iPods are not so exciting to me, but the return of NBC to iTunes is! HD is also great.

Although, I still would like to see Apple do 2 things. First, they need to make TV rentals available. To me, renting TV shows makes far more sense than renting movies (even though renting movies makes sense too). And second, they need to make it possible to make DVDs (and perhaps BluRay discs) of the content, the same as it’s possible to make audio CDs of purchased music and other audio tracks.

If they at least did #2, I would drop Netflix back to the minimum (or maybe altogether) and get almost all of my content from iTunes.

And if they did #1, I would probably drop DirecTV and get all of my TV from iTunes.

To me, these are the barriers to making iTunes just take off as a means for consumption of video.

-Mike

Yeah it is great news — I can understand your lack of interest in the new iPods if you already have an iPhone and a previous iPod that still work fine.

Yeah the TV rentals is a great idea — I think I originally mentioned it in one of your earlier threads about Apple TV, Making DVDs of downloaded programs through iTunes for viewing on a television with a DVD player would be a plus but the only issue there is the DRM in iTunes videos and the DRM for DVDs will they be compatible? The rights to burn the DVD for home viewing still need to be provided by Apple to iTunes Store users and Apple needs permission from the studios and TV networks to allow disc burning of their content. At the very least with an Apple TV you can get video purchased from iTunes and/or rented in the case of movies on to your television.

If they did the # 1 suggestion you mentioned I still couldn’t quite see giving up DirecTV or DishNetwork etc for iTunes exclusively — here’s the problem: You cannot watch live television anymore. Only purchase/rent programs and watch. Sometimes that’s fine but sometimes you want to see a live program.

What about when the news comes on CNN, Fox News or MSNBC etc and even if the video of each day’s news is added to iTunes you have to wait till after its added to download and watch it. Why not watch it live?

What would be even cooler now is if Apple teamed up with an outside company the way they did with AT&T for being the iPhone carrier here in the USA to offer an Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) service via Apple TV to their users. Then you can still get live television and the iTunes content. Personally, I wasn’t happy with their choice of AT&T to be the exclusive carrier for iPhone. In some countries like India they have signed agreements to allow two different carriers to provide service to iPhone owners, if they could have struck independent deals with more than one carrier and still had AT&T on board but also signed Verizon Wireless there would be more choice than just 1 carrier. You could buy an iPhone and legitimately set it up in US to work with either AT&T or Verizon for example. I hope should they make an IPTV service though they don’t go with AT&T again for that.

Dropping Netflix, and DirecTV in that case would be much better. For me as I mentioned i have Dish Network with the local channels and the Top 200 pack which includes The History Channel, ABC Family, USA Network, HallMark Channel (HLMRK), BBC America, Nickelodeon East, Nickelodeon West (i.e. the channels for both East and West Coast), Disney Channel (DISE) for East Coast, Disney Channel (DISW) for West Coast, Toon Disney, Cartoon Network, and a bunch of other channels I don’t know all the names of including the major news channels (CNN, FOX News, MSNBC, CNBC, even CSPAN 1 and CSPAN 2 I have) and in local channels I have NBC and ABC.

I just added the local channels in the past month since Dish Network has started carrying local channels for the first time. Earlier you had to install an antenna if you have satellite television through a dish to get the local channels.

Well, I also don’t really care about how many colors iPods come in, but that seems to be a big deal with some.

As for burning DVDs, here’s the deal. iTunes currently allows us to purchase DRM’ed music tracks (and in some case tracks without DRM) from the ITMS and then burn audio CDs with them. Audio CDs have no DRM. There is a slight loss in quality from the transcoding.

So, why wouldn’t we be able to burn DRM-free (it is possible to have DVDs without DRM, I hope you know) DVDs of our purchased video content? And it could even be possible to license CSS and build it into iTunes so that burned DVDs will have CSS DRM. This won’t stop tech-savvy users from re-ripping the DVDs to DRM-free MP4s (or whatever), but it would stop casual users from bypassing CSS.

The difference is MPAA vs. RIAA. Obviously, what’s okay with one isn’t okay with the other. But still, Apple could (and I hope they are) fight for this functionality to future-proof our collections. To be certain, this is the one reason that I don’t purchase more video content from the ITMS.

As for live programming, I’ve mentioned before that there is a place for that. Whether streaming live over the internet or what-have-you, it would be each person’s decision to make. I’m not saying DirecTV should shut down or anything, just that I would suddenly have almost no use for it. I get my news from the internet (I don’t watch TV news programs as they’re usually so full of agenda and sensationalism) and my sports at the sports bar down the street.

To be sure, I am not suggesting that everyone should do what I do; just that Apple might be interested to know that there are probably many people just like me who would shift dollars from one media source over to iTunes, if they were to do the things I am praying they do.

I don’t like the idea of Apple partnering with anyone, certainly not any single partner, because then the content gets limited and the partner’s agenda becomes part of the mix. Apple doesn’t really have any agenda with this except to provide a service and make money. But think if they partnered with NBC. We might see them squeeze ABC and CBS and Fox content off of ITMS. And they may wish to impose even stricter controls over pricing and DRM. No, I think Apple making that sort of deal would be a bad thing for customer.

I agree that TV as it is right now probably wouldn’t go away, at least until live streaming over IP becomes a reality. But it does seem like anything that anyone would TiVo and watch later, if they could purchase all of it online and then stop paying their cable provider for it, I think a great many people would do that.

-Mike

Sorry for the double post but my point with live television — and yes it sometimes is annoying (in reply to when you said ugh about live television) but sometimes a good program may actually come on when television is live. I wouldn’t want to be a victim of the cable television programmers — watch programs at their scheduled times — I like on demand programming for times when nothing good is on television during live broadcasts but when something good does come on via live television I go for it. That’s why I think Apple should add an Internet Protocol Television service for Apple TV to compete with cable and satellite companies with their own television services.

Apple could either provide the IPTV service itself which would require much more work on their part, and building of the infrastructure themselves, or even better the way they did for iPhone recruit an existing carrier to do the job. For the remote the service provider can provide a remote of its own to Apple TV users or even better use the iPod Touch or iPhone as a remote –this is already possible with the Remote app for iPhones and iPod Touches that have the 2.0 software update or higher they can use their iPod Touches and iPhones as a second remote for Apple TV or their iTunes Library. Instead of using the smaller Apple Remote with less functionality.

A software update in the Remote app firmware and/or iPod Touch/iPhone and Apple TV firmware can allow iPod Touch and iPhone to also act as IPTV remotes. Unless a third remote which is less ideal were to be supplied by the IPTV service provider to Apple TV users. An interactive on screen program guide could be offered, in addition to a TV Guide channel customized for Apple TV owners, you can still use your DVR if you have one or get a new DVR to work with your IPTV service and enjoy the full HD experience with some channels broadcast even in HD. I would love to see an IPTV service for Apple TV. If they made one then maybe I’d give up Dish Network.

Yeah my point of them partnering with an outside company didn’t mean a partnership with NBC which would see ABC content leaving iTunes I don’t think Apple would ever make such an agreement anyways to limit content on iTunes Store they want the maximum amount of content possible for their platform. I don’t like single partner relationships that much either but multiple partner relationships is fine. The idea was partner with AT&T, Verizon, or such a company to provide an IPTV service. I understand you don’t watch much TV news because of sensationalism, and agenda and I agree. I personally prefer to read news online. Except in cases where lets say the Democratic or Republican National Conventions are occurring I want to see and hear what is said. Not just read it but hear the person speaking and get the video of them saying it.

An IPTV service though in addition to the existing offerings, and adding DVD burning as you suggested would both be great in my opinion. The fact is the more Apple improves the user experience it adds more value. New features can be a plus. The only bad side in new versions of iTunes are that as more and more complex features are added the program becomes bigger in size and takes longer to download updates. It can become a memory hog if you don’t have enough memory to support the latest version.

I certainly would give up Dish Network if an IPTV service for Apple TV were added to the mix of existing options. An IPTV service via Apple TV would be independent of the content on iTunes Store. It’s like paying your monthly cable or satellite television bill — instead of Time Warner Cable, Comcast, Cox Digital Cable or DirecTV or even Dish Network you can have IPTV by Apple TV on the side. That is my idea. You have 2 options both by Apple: 1) buy/rent from iTunes Store and download or 2) watch live television streamed to your TV via Apple TV. So think of IPTV being broadcasted to your TV via an Apple TV.

You don’t have to use it if you don’t want to. You can just use iTunes and cancel DirecTV if you like, use both and/or just use Apple TV’s IPTV service or use iTunes and an Apple TV IPTV service exclusively.

Apple is probably not the right entity to start up a streaming IPTV service. It’s not really their core competency.

I like Apple for the downloaded content because that means I can put it on my AppleTV and my iPhone/iPod. Since I can’t stream live media on those (at least not the media we’re talking about here), it doesn’t need to be Apple for this.

AT&T and Verizon, as well as other cell carriers, have some live media streaming to some of their cellphone models. It would be a piece of cake to take that more widespread. There could be an iPhone app to take care of it.

I do agree that it would definitely be nice to have this streaming media on my TV, so a breakout box (which the AppleTV could be used for, I guess, with some modifications, but that would only take Apple’s agreement and update of the AppleTVs’ firmware, not that Apple itself stream the media) would be required.

There are currently several startups in the works trying to install IPTV as a standard in our homes. Indeed, even Netflix, with the Roku, is trying to stream media to us, albeit not live events). If they could partner with Apple to allow AppleTVs to stream their content, that would be a boon to both them and Apple. But that partnership wouldn’t be 100% necessary. Many TVs these days are becoming media aware (a friend of mine that works for Intel is very much a part of that thrust) as well as internet aware. And a small breakout box (like the Roku) could be used to bridge the gap between the Internet and the Television. Mac Minis could also become a big entertainment hub, or other similar small-form-factor computers (Dell has one out now, Shuttle is big on small PCs, etc.). The only trouble there is price, but it would definitely be a great thing if all these pieces of software could be tied together to be manipulated from the couch via a simple remote… like SageTV or myHTPC or even MythTv. That’s the big barrier, I think, keeping PCs/Macs from becoming true media hubs: the fact that there are disparate modes of getting content, and they aren’t all adhering to a single interface standard.

The biggest issue is that the US’ internet backbone is old and not up to the task of streaming quality video to our homes yet. Apparently, in Korea and Japan, the average broadband is somewhere north of 30Mbps, whereas in the US, it’s like 1.5-3Mbps. That’s sad and, in my opinion, is the main reason that things like IPTV haven’t taken hold here.

You wouldn’t need a firmware update for iPhones for this… don’t forget, there’s a whole App Store out there now.

-Mike

To me, the issue is cost. And I think that is the big factor for most people.

For instance, I pay around $60 a month for my DirecTV. I don’t have movie channels because I have Netflix, which is another $15-18 (it seems to fluctuate). And I occasionally rent some movies from iTunes, for about $10 a month, and I pay $12.95 per month for TiVo. All in all, I pay around $100 a month for my video pleasure.

Whatever the number for anyone, most people probably won’t like paying more than what they are paying now unless they either get a better experience, or else get more. For instance, it is well established that some people will pay higher cable bills to get more channels. That’s more content. Or they’ll pay more to get high-def, which is much better quality.

We could make the excuse that people are willing to pay more for commercial-free content, but I don’t think they’re willing to pay very much for that. Here’s how I look at it. I watch, say, 10 TV shows with regularity. Assume 25 episodes per year, $2 (rounded from $1.99 for easy math), and we’re looking at $500 per year (25 x 10 x $2), just so that I don’t have to watch commercials. I pretty much have all of that now, since TiVo lets me skip commercials pretty easily.

So, I could dump TiVo, for a savings of $155.40 per year. But it’s still not worth it for me. $345 extra per year to go commercial-free instead of just skipping them?

Now, if I could get ALL of my desired content on iTunes, then I could dump DirecTV, for an additional savings of $720 per year. Now we’re talking about a good reason to make that switch.

Of course, someone that can’t dump DirecTV because they watch the news or sporting events live, or because there are programs they like that they can’t get from iTunes, well then it suddenly makes sense to keep DirecTV and TiVo and purchase NOTHING from iTunes.

See, what I’m getting at is there has to be a really good reason to spend the extra money, or else there has to be a way to make up the dollar difference elsewhere, or else people won’t switch.

Most TV viewers don’t keep their shows after they watch them. Even TiVo users delete most programs after viewing them. So, that is why I think that a cheaper TV rental from iTunes would get people switching. If I could get all my shows from iTunes for a dollar an episode, or around $250 a year for 10 complete seasons, then I might be inclined to dump TiVo and buy my content from iTunes, and then keep DirecTV for only live events. At $250 per year, dumping TiVo would make that only an additional $95 per year to go commercial-free. To me, that’s worth the switch.

All in all, what I’m saying is that the current model for iTunes TV shows is not going to have too many people switching wholesale to iTunes. And if they have to keep their current setup (cable, satellite, TiVo, whatever) for some of their content, then they will just shrug and say, “why buy the rest of it from iTunes when I get it with what I’m already paying for?” People hate to pay for the same thing twice.

So whereas I love having downloaded content, because I can be more assured of the quality, I start to think why buy it a la carte when I can just record it off satellite, get a lesser-quality product, but pay nothing extra for it?

Oh, and what’s the deal with Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles? The new half-season has started but it’s not on iTunes. I bought the first half-season from iTunes because I wanted the higher quality (mainly to see Summer Glau better, rowr!), but now I am stuck with what I record off DirecTV for the rest? Come on, Apple… get with it!

-Mike

Agreed — for Apple to start and operate their own IPTV service might not be a great idea that’s why I had suggested they could partner with a company that is strong in this area to provide such service. I also like the downloaded content to my 5th generation video iPod including music and video I have bought from iTunes. I also understand now that there are some problems with IPTV in general with average broadband in the U.S. being 1.5-3Mbps while in Korea and Japan itslike 30Mbps. I wonder why they made it so low here? Hopefully this can be addressed asap and increased. Don’t think its too likely though in the short term.

It would be great if they could get another company maybe to provide the IPTV service though via Apple TV for the streaming part. Just as you mentioned Netflix streams through the Roku box. Even if their not live events but re-runs of some television shows. I’m also a big Walker Texas Ranger fans but don’t have any of the DVDs or episodes online via iTunes and such sites I watch episodes of the show on HallMark Channel (HLMRK) its channel 185 on Echo Star’s Dish Network that I have. So I only watch Walker when its airing. I have not purchased or rented episodes of this show.

Part of what I meant about live television is not live as in the event is happening right now or that its a new episode of a show airing for the first time, but live as in being broadcasted at the current time. I’ve watched episodes of Walker Texas Ranger from 1999 live on my TV when it airs on HLMRK channel. It’s not the same thing as a new episode just airing — not live in that sense but its currently on and sometimes you want to be able to watch what is currently playing if it is good. When it is not good you want to free yourself from the restrictions of cable programmers schedules and watch what you want when you want to on demand. Time shifting and place shifting are both becoming important. Apple iTunes Store, iPods, iPhones and Apple TVs help with that.

As I understand it, the issue is that the US was “wired” very early, so the infrastructure just isn’t there; it was set up for the way things were, but those times have canged. Other countries like Sweden and Japan and Korea were wired later, so their infrastructure was set up to handle much greater bandwidth (those countries are also physically smaller than the US). As it is, the ISPs in the US don’t want to pay the billions of dollars to upgrade all of their cabling if they’re not going to be able to charge us more to make it all back. Surely, we pay today because it’s the best we can get, but if suddenly everyone went up in speed, we, as a nation, wouldn’t want to pay appreciably more, particularly when other nations are paying less.

Startups like Verizon FIOS are wonderful, but they’re only in certain areas of certain cities. Unfortunately, not mine.

What would be the difference in watching an old episode of Walker Texas Ranger on the network’s schedule or downloading the same show and watching it? I guess there is something to be said for just flipping on the TV and watching whatever is on at the moment, but I find that if what I want to see is available, then that is what I will want to watch. This is also why I said in an earlier post that the old TV should eventually be free or super-cheap. Downloading an old episode of a TV show, particularly when it brings Apple 50 cents or a buck, or allows them to sell advertising with the episode, I think that is something they would love to see.

I guess part of the trick is making the advertising current. I mean, if you watch an episode from 5 years ago, the ads aren’t from 5 years ago, right? So they would need a way to give new advertising. Perhaps they could change the ads on-the-fly as you download. Or better, perhaps they could make it where we have to watch the ads, streaming, as (or before) we download the content. That would certainly keep the ads fresh. And we could always mute the speakers if we don’t want to deal with the ads fully.

All in all, I think there are some great alternatives to TV as we see it today. ITMS has started the ball rolling, but to really get all of the content we want to be available, there’s obviously going to have to be some revenue stream built up. I am no genius about this, but I think I have come up with some viable things that can be done with today’s technology that just might make everyone happy. I know I would be.

-Mike