Apple TV Take 2

"Take 2" is what Apple is calling the forthcoming updates to their Apple TV product. I consider this an acknowledgment that take 1 didn't cut it, and I think they have gone a long way towards overcoming the problems of Apple TV (and also have made it a more promising distribution format for Link TV while they were at it.)

There are 3 big updates to Apple TV: 1) Movie rentals (before you could only buy movies or load your own through a cumbersome encoding process) 2) HD movie rentals (finally real HD content for a device that was effectively designed only for HD displays) 3) you can add content without using a computer at all. As for one and two, these make the Apple TV a compelling product--movie rentals starting at $3 without leaving your home, or even the couch. Luckily for Apple, the consumer electronics corporations (including Microsoft) have basically wasted the last year with a battle between Blu-ray and HD DVD. It now seems Blu-ray is the winner, but meanwhile Apple has added HD movies to the Apple TV with support from all the movies studios. Currently, Universal and Paramount do not support Blu-ray and are HD DVD exclusive. On the other hand, movies are available on Apple TV 30 days after the discs are released (it's also not clear to me that every movie will be available on Apple TV.) Starting at $239 for a 40GB Apple TV, it is cheaper than any of the Blu-ray players.

In summary, I think Apple TV is now a compelling device for a significant amount of consumers. As I wrote when it first was announced last year in this post, Apple TV gets podcasts, like Mosaic, directly to the TV set. Now with the new update to Apple TV, podcasts can be browsed and watched from the sofa. In the first generation of Apple TV, podcasts had to be downloaded on a computer then synced to the Apple TV. Now we can search and browse through all of the podcasts on the iTunes Store directly on the Apple TV--then start playing a podcast immediately once you find something interesting. I think this will really help bring podcasts to the TV screen.

Visit this page for a simple demonstration on how you can browse and watch podcasts through the Apple TV.

"iTunes and Apple TV rentals and purchases: what you can (and can't) do"
One drawback with the Apple TV is that it's confusing about what kind of content you can watch where--the article gives you the lowdown on what's doable with the new rental and HD content on Apple TV

Apple TV Guided Tour Have no idea what I'm talking about? Watch this movie by Apple to understand what it does.

"The Big Picture: Apple's methodical moves show it takes time to change the world." Apple not only has to negotiate with the studios, face off competition from the consumer electronics companies and Microsoft, but could run into some trouble with the broadband providers and Google. Bob Cringely expresses concerns about Apple's approaches in this article.

P.S., I also think this means no Blu-ray support on Mac's for the foreseeable future, including Blu-ray authoring in DVD Studio Pro. That sucks.

P.P.S. Movie rentals are available in iTunes without Apple TV.

P.P.P.S. However, don't install the new QuickTime, which is required for rentals, on a system with After Effects. QuickTime 7.4 screws up AE rendering. "Thanks Again Apple"

Apple Updates the Mac Pro

Apple has refreshed the Mac Pro--the first full turnover of the Mac Pro since it was first announced in August of 2006. The line has switched from being dominated by Quad-core Xeon's to being dominated by Octo-core Xeon's. There was an uptick in price for the recommended system from $2500 to $2800 for an 8-core 2.8 GHz Xeon Mac Pro.

There are some other improvements in the system architecture and early results show good improvements in system performance. While adding 4 more cores doesn't double the speed, these systems look signficantly faster than older Mac Pro's, especiallly in encoding video. Check out this benchmark test from MacWorld for more info:
"From the Lab: Internal changes bolster latest Mac Pro"
I was surprised at what low marks they gave the internal hard drive that ships with the new Mac. I've always assumed that those had decent performance, but MacWorld found a significant speed bump on their multi-app test by putting a hard drive from an older Mac Pro into the current 8-core 2.8 GHz Xeon. For some good specs on hard drive performance, check out Bare Feats. Apple also has some performance comparisons with other Mac towers here, including rendering & encoding with FCP and After Effects.

There had been rumors that Apple was ready to add a Blu-ray drive for playing back high-def movies to the Mac Pro's. For PC's, adding an HD DVD or Blu-ray drive, or both, is now a common option. Nothing from Apple about Blu-ray for these new computers, but an announcement could come at the MacWorld Conference. I'm anxious to see Apple add Blu-ray disc authoring to DVD Studio Pro, as well as decent support for the HD DVD standard. Adobe's Encore already does this. Commentator Bob Cringely suggests that Jobs will ignore high-def discs because he sees them as a threat to iTunes ruling the media world in his latest column (he also thinks Apple will buy Adobe, which seems a bit far-fetched to me.)

Subtitling with DVD Studio Pro

This short article covers the basics of adding subtitles to a DVD using DVD SP. Workflow is based around using a professional closed-captioning service to transcribe and caption the program. Then they provide you a .STL file that DVD SP can work with.