@lindsay.at

After seeing the appropriate portion of the Macworld Expo keynote presentation by Steve Jobs, I have some thoughts about the revamped AppleTV.

First off, I'm pretty happy about it. I'm very pleased that the "version 2" is just a software upgrade. It was pretty clear that the original hardware was over-specced for what it did at the beginning, so I bought early with a lot of confidence that the hardware would last. (Subsequent teardown reports that suggested tiny margins on the hardware increased that confidence.)

It's interesting to note that the UK prices haven't changed. At £199 and £269, Apple is treating the UK AppleTV as a niche product. If you know you want it, you've probably already gotten it. As soon as movies are available internationally, then I would expect the price to go down a bit. You gotta have the blades ready to go, if you want to sell cheaper razors...

Looking at the demos available online, it's unclear where the "source" menu has gone. We have a 40GB unit, and when Rosemary or I are feeling in an aimless mood, we'll mount our 500GB iTunes library and browse that for inspiration. I worry somewhat that streaming from arbitrary sources might be compromised in the new software.

The store integration is very impressive, and very inviting. It's what's needed to make rentals work: highly visual, presenting a multitude of choices, and accommodating to impulse buys (or rentals). It looks like a model that all others should follow.

However, the AppleTV now appears to be little more than a portal for the iTunes Store. The menu system puts an extraordinary amount of attention on the Store, and pushes one's own content to the bottom. It seems odd that streaming content over the internet is given such priority after the first version: Apple's view always seemed to be, "Don't trust the internet's quality of service, but you can stream over the LAN." LAN-based content, as far as I can tell, seems to be hidden.

I always viewed Podcasts as a back door for (free) content onto the AppleTV. They are the "other easy way" to get content pushed (automatically) into the living room. Before, entering arbitrary URLs into iTunes (perhaps via a clickable itpc: link) was about equivalent to subscription via Apple's iTunes Podcast directory. Now, via the AppleTV, the iTunes store solidifies its position as an orifice to podcasts. It looks inviting, instantly gratifying, and well done, but it makes Apple more of a gatekeeper to free content.

The fact that high definition finally makes its appearance is exciting to me. It's not how I originally imagined it would be, but everything I've read suggests that SVC scalable video encoding isn't ready for prime time yet. It may make an appearance, once hi-def moves to a purchase model/off the AppleTV exclusively.

There has been some speculation on why hi-def is AppleTV only. Some think it might be due to piracy concerns by the studios, but I think there are technology reasons as well. For 5.1 surround sound, there is no reliable, universal way for Mac or PC users to enjoy content encoded that way. High-Definition video cannot be played out on any of the iPhone/iPod family, either, so simply placing that content into iTunes creates a confusing situation ("this content is not compatible with your iPod") for those much-beloved users. In other words, hi-def is AppleTV-only because the technology isn't ready to accommodate the other devices in the ecosystem. I've outlined the ways it could happen, eventually, but for now, a closed, black box solution is sufficient for content that will not have a lifespan beyond thirty days.

I'm really eager to see the updated software myself, but I do worry that Apple may have made itself too much of a gatekeeper to content in the rush to give people the movie rentals they wanted.

We've had an AppleTV in our house for about nine months now, and it really has changed the way my entire family views television. I am convinced that Apple has the wherewithal to make it a compelling story for a mass market. Much though I want to believe, Apple's big steps in this direction at Macworld this week don't necessarily have to include high definition. What's most important is that people see that the AppleTV is the best-of-breed device for viewing digital content in the living room.

I've bought into the Apple picture whole-heartedly, so I get why things are the way they are (the MPEG-4 video codecs are good, the complexity is well-understood, and they are much more legitimately standards than other video formats found in the wild). Still, people want to be confident they can view content without bothering about the format. The potential consumers are right.

The iPod was helped immeasurably by MP3s that people had on their computer already and by CDs that people own. People expect, by drawing a parallel, that the AppleTV's play is for downloaded DiVX-video and DVDs that they own. Ultimately, the winner in this race will be the player who can make that back-door content work seamlessly for people.

I suspect Apple got into the AppleTV to help the MPEG-4-encoded content (read: iPod) ecosystem along. It's been a success already, in converting YouTube to H.264. However, it draws too much attention to its own store as being the odd man out. Even though the iTunes store's content is based on an international standard with a much more open pedigree than Windows Media, it appears to the outsider to be a closed ecosystem: the only convenient way to get video onto the AppleTV appears to be through the iTunes Store.

Although I use the iTunes store a lot, I get video from a lot of other sources, from downloading .flv's and .avi's, to DVDs that I own, to content from my digital camera or mobile phone. VisualHub worked well for many months, but I eagerly embraced the Turbo.264 when it was released (and now that it reliably works on all content I throw at it, the workflow is easier). I do recognise that I've drunk the Kool-Aid: I mention "workflow" when talking about the AppleTV. That's a sign that getting video onto the AppleTV isn't good enough yet. The perception that the iTunes Store is the only convenient way of obtaining video isn't that far from reality.

Apple is sure to introduce a new way or ways to get iTunes Store content onto your AppleTV within fewer than 24 hours of me writing this. I'm a staunch AppleTV defender, but thinking about it, the critics are right: there have to be more and easier ways of getting your content onto the AppleTV.

While the "easiest" way would be to get Perian's Windows-centric codec support onto the AppleTV (and allow iTunes to understand and sync that content as well), I don't think we're going to see that so soon. It's an aphorism that broader choice of content will win over devices that restrict that choice. However, I think that because (1) no one else provides the same compelling device interface, (2) going with bastardised standards (like Xvid) is too distasteful to Apple, (3) it steps outside of the iPhone/iPod ecosystem, which is more important than the AppleTV on its own, and (4) it has to toe the line on piracy with Hollywood, Apple will not make a play for expanded codecs until there is serious competition.

Apple is almost sure to make it easier to buy content directly onto the AppleTV. Is it time to tap the other source of freely available content and enable PVR capabilities on the AppleTV? That has the possibility of working, because there's the possibility of getting reliable metadata into the mix.

Back in 2002, I gave some lectures to students on multimedia metadata, and waved my first generation iPod. "I don't know if you've heard of this device yet," I said, "but it runs on metadata. All of the menus, scanning through by artist, album, or genre, depend on metadata to find your music." The same can be said of the AppleTV, as well. Electronic Programme Guides provide the link between broadcast content and getting content metadata covered. If you want to evaluate the strength of possible methods for adding video to the AppleTV, look to the metadata.

So, what does that mean to me in a couple hours? Rental content, content direct to the AppleTV, and the option of an interface to digital television? Likely. High Definition content amongst the content available on the store? WANT. But it's not as likely as I once thought, sadly.

I, like Blackfriars, am holding on to my hope that next week's iPod announcement will offer the beginnings of Apple's high-definition strategy. Blackfriars asks, "High-definition video putting the special in next week's Apple Special Event?":

Speaking of the Internet bringing the end of TV as we know it, everyone seems to be expecting new music and iPod offerings at the Apple Special Event in Moscone Center on September 5. But what has gone more or less unnoticed is the fact that Akamai, Apple's long-time Internet content partner, has announced that it is adding high-definition video to its Internet distribution offerings.

A coincidence? Perhaps. But add the fact that Apple TV, a product whose revenue is being recognized as a 24-month subscription model like the iPhone, sports high-definition outputs, yet has no high-definition iTunes content yet, and you've got a high-definition shoe ready to drop sometime; the only question is when.

Well, I've been wondering the same thing. Back in April, I outlined that it's certainly technically feasible: There's a new extension to H.264 that allows an additional video stream to enhance the basic stream that's there. iPods and iPhones would only need to sync with the basic 640×360 pixel stream that the iTunes store already delivers. An AppleTV, Intel-based Mac, or G5 Mac would be able to read both video streams at once, combine them, and show 720p high definition.

I could once again be blinded by the possible and the (personally) desirable over "likely." Apple could well excite people enough with the new iPods. The movie studios may well be holding out for rentals (though Blackfriars has some thoughts on that, as well) before handing Apple the keys to the HD castle as well. The combination of the Beatles, new iPods, and Hi-Def may well be too much for such an event: Hi-Def may not materialise this year.

But I'm hoping.

(Via The Macalope.)

I was distinctly unimpressed by the WWDC keynote as I "saw" it in realtime, taking advantage of the live updates by various websites. Now that I've seen some of the online demo videos, it triggers some further thoughts.

Seeing Finder being made over to look like iTunes triggered strongly mixed emotions. On one hand, it feels very much like Windows' misadventure with making over Windows Explorer to look and work like Internet Explorer. Microsoft did that for some different reasons, but it did share the reason that it wanted to tie in with a familiar, popular interface that people dealt with every day. Hey! iTunes is familiar! People like iTunes! Let's leverage that!

On the other, I'm cautiously optimistic about the new finder features. I spent about fifteen minutes with a recent Leopard seed, and found myself missing the Quick Look feature for the rest of the day and during the next day. That's a seriously powerful feature. Expanding that to the CoverFlow view seems like it will have a lot of potential for browsing certain types of documents, but I'm not sure. I'd also have serious concerns about performance on my PowerBook.

Overall, I'm not sure if the new Finder features are glossy demo-ware that I seldom (spotlight) or never use (dashboard), or that it will make for a helpful step forward. The only things that will ultimately matter with the new Finder is performance, stability, and ease-of-use. We shall see...

When Apple's iTunes Music Store introduced video at 320×240 resolution back in October 2005, it raised a number of questions: how would it scale up? How could they manage movies at that paltry resolution? The iPod's video hardware is so limited, how could it even scale up to 640×480? All of the anxiety about complex solutions were laid to rest after Apple introduced the movies and a firmware upgrade that got a lot more performance out of existing hardware. I argue that similar things will happen in the transition to High-Def video for the Apple TV.

In answer to the above questions, a lot of theories were thrown around in the buildup to the much-rumoured and much-anticipated introduction of movies to the iTunes Store. Theories included having to deliver video at two different sizes and/or bitrates at once, or supporting preferences favouring mobile or high quality. All of them added unnecessary complexity to the simplicity of the iTunes store experience, and felt like a "kludge."

Apple's solution was simple: all videos would be delivered at a high-quality 640×480 maximum resolution, encoded with the H.264 video codec. The firmware on the fifth generation iPod was updated, and impressively so (from 900 macroblocks in MPEG-4 to 1200 with H.264 encoding), so no dual delivery formats were needed. Simplicity is maintained.

With the introduction of the Apple TV, and the accompanying hand-wringing about the relatively poor quality of 640×360 pixel movies shown on HDTVs, attention is turning to how Apple plans to deliver High Definition content to the Apple TV. I don't think the current iPods can be made to understand a high definition stream. While some may imagine a multiple format delivery scenario as predicted before the introduction of movies, I think Apple has another potential trick up its sleeve.

The technology is an extension to H.264, Scalable Video Coding (SVC), and it was scheduled to reach the Final Draft Amendment stage last week. Normally¹, that stage means that the standard is all but finalised; nothing but editorial changes are allowed. An aggressive company often can feel confident in releasing a product based on it if, say, they controlled the whole ecosystem around the product....

The idea around SVC is that you have a normal H.264 base layer, and you can add enhancement layers on top of it, whether they be spatial, temporal, or SNR enhancements. That means that you can improve the resolution, frame rate, and/or picture quality by adding additional streams to the base layer. Consider that the 640×360 standard 16:9 videos have half the pixels in each dimension from 720p videos with 1280×720. This is perhaps the most basic application of spatial scalability, but it's also very relevant. I find it very easy to imagine an additional "track" in QuickTime that fills in three additional pixels out of every four. If a computer (say, my G4 PowerBook) is incapable of handling the full high-def combined stream, it can conveniently fall back to the base layer.

So, in the context of the iTunes ecosystem, these multiple streams and the increased file size need not be delivered to the iPod: with iTunes as the designated hub, the enhancement stream could quite feasibly be stripped when syncing with the iPod. One download, both standard and high definition are there for the appropriate device.

The only thing I'm not sure of is how the audio scenario is going to play out. Encoding and delivering the AC3 (Dolby Digital) stream (as an alternative soundtrack) that most home theatres expect seems very inefficient. AC3 and AAC are kissing cousins, so one could hypothesize a bitstream-to-bitstream transcoding from 5.1 AAC to 5.1 Dolby digital to pump through the optical out, but it also seems unnecessarily computationally expensive.

So the how of High Def seems to have a fair shape. It's the "when" that isn't yet clear. In the punditry vacuum where product development is instant and QA is not a factor, it's feasible to push out updates right away. Strategically, it seems like "as soon as possible" is the answer, as well: a lot of people feel that the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray format wars aren't close to a resolution, and there's a window of opportunity for HD video downloads to become the preferred delivery medium.

On the other hand, Apple will want to do it right the first time. It's a radical enough change to necessitate a new version (perhaps version 8.0) of QuickTime, and a new version of iTunes as well. Would it accompany an announcement of movie downloads in Europe? Would it accompany the "true" widescreen Video iPod? Would it wait for the end-of-year Christmas cycle, when the Apple TV suddenly becomes the must-have accessory that is even more important than the iPod?

I don't know, but I'm keen to find out. I hope for "soon," but I suspect it'll closer to the end of the year.

[disclaimer: This blog entry is merely informed speculation. Although I have some old ties to MPEG, none of this is gleaned from privileged information. The only research I did of this was on public sites. If you follow this blog and past predictions I have made about Apple's products, you will already know not to lend me too much credence.]

[1] My experience with MPEG standards can attest to the fact that this isn't always true: I'll only say that things got complicated in the final stage of standardisation of the MPEG-7 Systems standard, and I personally pissed off a lot of people during one late Friday night's plenary.