Apple TV |OT|

going to the store on Friday I guess. My PayPal issue never resolved. PayPal said they resolved it, but apple apparently never tried re-authorizing it. So frustrating. Hoping my apple store doesn't sell out right away or something.. otherwise next Wednesday I guess it will be.

PSA - don't pre-order shit on Apple Store with PayPal.. or ever use PayPal... ugh.

giga said:
What would they really review on the App Store? Third party apps like plex don't need to be in it.
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While I get what you're saying... minus the app store it would still essentially be an "incomplete" review. Whether apps that aren't on the system out of the box, or apps that quickly become must have, or even just the store experience on the device.

It seems minimal... but still.. I wouldn't do much beyond impressions without the store.
 
Juice said:
Well if my shipment doesn't come Friday I'll just swing by the store I guess and return the shipped one later
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Thinking of doing the same. When I found out they were going to be in stores on Friday, I went to the Apple page to cancel my order, but since it is getting ready to ship, I can't do that. Mine isn't set to arrive until next week, so now I'm deciding whether or not I pick one up on Friday, or just hold off for a few extra days. I can probably wait, but I am excited for the new device.
 
borghe said:
going to the store on Friday I guess. My PayPal issue never resolved. PayPal said they resolved it, but apple apparently never tried re-authorizing it. So frustrating. Hoping my apple store doesn't sell out right away or something.. otherwise next Wednesday I guess it will be.

PSA - don't pre-order shit on Apple Store with PayPal.. or ever use PayPal... ugh.



While I get what you're saying... minus the app store it would still essentially be an "incomplete" review. Whether apps that aren't on the system out of the box, or apps that quickly become must have, or even just the store experience on the device.

It seems minimal... but still.. I wouldn't do much beyond impressions without the store.
Click to expand...
Did the Apple Watch review units have third party apps preloaded or were they on the store? They might do the latter for this. And who knows, maybe reviewers have the App Store, like it hints at the bottom of this page: https://developer.apple.com/app-store/submit/tvos/
 
Shared Apple TVs will be an interesting thing. I dunno whether I feel comfortable logging into social media on it if there's no passcode protection, for example.

Also all of the cocks and asses in my iCloud Photos.
 
glow said:
What is it about VUDU that makes you think it will have more longevity than services like iTunes or Amazon Instant Video? Ultraviolet? I buy almost all of my digital movies and TV from Amazon because I don't see them going away anytime soon. Of course I redeem all of my UV codes on VUDU but that's only because there aren't really any better options.
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Well obviously there's no guarantee of longevity for anyone really. For VUDU specifically though, they actually have one of the longest legacies. It was in development basically at the same time is iTunes video, but was targeted to a far higher A/V quality. It launched in 2007.

Since then they've continued to be at the bleeding edge of tech and features, and given WalMart bought them up ... it seems unlikely they're going anywhere. Numerous video services have come and gone since they started, they've kept chugging along.



I haven't seen marketshare numbers in a while, but I know at least a few years ago VUDU was doing quite well. While of course iTunes and now Amazon have a big chunk of the purchase / rental market, VUDU has historically had a nice profitable share unlike the numerous offerings that have either come and gone or are in their infancy (BlockBuster, Red Box, several offerings from Microsoft and Sony, M-Go). It's the Energizer Bunny of video. Basically the marketshare graphs would typically show iTunes, Amazon, Vudu, and then 'other' lol.




Zeyphersan said:
tbh it doesn't matter what site you redeem your UV movie on, it will stream from any of them. That's the point of UV
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While true, where you redeem and view very much does matter in terms of audio / video quality. You are utilizing their servers and their encodes, which is precisely why all my UV and DisneyAnywhere viewing is done via VUDU (and why any non UV purchases are made through them).
 
Honest question about Apple TV, what exactly can you watch on there? Does it have a way to watch live sports if you don't have cable?
 
Shit - so if the site is listing my local stores as unavailable for pickup, am I screwed? I wanted to pick it up and not have it shipped.
 
Dalek said:
Shit - so if the site is listing my local stores as unavailable for pickup, am I screwed? I wanted to pick it up and not have it shipped.
Click to expand...

Chances are you won't be able to place a pick up order until the stores are actually going to put them on sale which is supposed to be Friday.
 
Got the Shakes said:
Chances are you won't be able to place a pick up order until the stores are actually going to put them on sale which is supposed to be Friday.
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Is there a list yet of what will be available im the app store (non gaming). I would like to see what they have that differs from the already available apps on current Apple TVs.
 
giga said:
So I've been looking at different nas boxes and it seems like unless you want to spend 400-500, you're not gonna get one powerful enough to do plex transcoding. Unless someone can point me to something cheaper?

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...-Ac4oOLPRtCkgUxU0jdj3tmMPc/edit#gid=314388488
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Unfortunately this is true. I bought and QNAP NAS like 6 months ago specifically to be able to transcode Plex stuff and my wallet is still stinging.

The one option you'd have if you wanted to go cheaper is to convert your media to something that Apple TV could play natively so it wouldn't have to transcode.
 
The A8 is plenty powerful enough to transcode most 1080p videos in software in my experience. I'm sure apps like VLC will hit this thing and play other file formats with no transcoding necessary.
 
Kabuki Quantum Lover said:
I don't think Apple TV will attract a tenth of the attention a new phone or tablet normally do.
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Which means they might send a tenth of the stock, thus bringing us back to where we started.

yyzjohn said:
Honest question about Apple TV, what exactly can you watch on there? Does it have a way to watch live sports if you don't have cable?
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It has the online league subscription services, but those will only serve same-day games if they are out-of-market (read: they aren't available to watch on a local affiliate TV station). If you want to watch a local team or one that broadcasts games in your area on game night instead of the night after, the internet in general will almost never be a solution for that, with the possible exception of Sling TV and its ESPN packages.

Juice said:
Well if my shipment doesn't come Friday I'll just swing by the store I guess and return the shipped one later
Click to expand...

I knew buying online was a mistake.
The launch of this product really has been Apple's worst in recent memory. At least in Canada, there wasn't even an option for in-store pickup when I ordered, and it says it's going by standard shipping, which means it could arrive 2 weeks from now. Meanwhile, the stores will probably have them on Friday, but it's not like anyone knew that.

Not even the previous Apple TV releases were this slapdash.
 
Guess Who said:
The A8 is plenty powerful enough to transcode most 1080p videos in software in my experience. I'm sure apps like VLC will hit this thing and play other file formats with no transcoding necessary.
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I'm talking about running the Plex Media Server on a nas specifically.
 
Guess Who said:
Right, but I'm saying having the server transcode for playback on the Apple TV may not be necessary if there's an Apple TV client that can do the decoding.
Click to expand...

giga said:
I'm not sure that's how Plex clients work on iOS though. VLC probably does.
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I've been using Plex for years, and I've never seen a client that can actually transcode. It's always handled by the server and the only thing clients have to do with it is that the box you're running the Plex client determines what needs to be transcoded based on the file formats that the particular box can play natively. Safe to say that at the very least any DTS track will need to be transcoded to DD (I'm assuming that the new Apple TV doesn't support DTS) and also any thing in a .mkv container will need to have the format transcoded to something else.
 
giga said:
I'm not sure that's how Plex clients work on iOS though. VLC probably does.
Click to expand...

On iOS they don't, that's true. On current iOS devices though, there's a very good reason for that (two, actually). One is that many iOS devices (like A5 devices) don't have the horsepower to do software decoding in many cases, and two is that it's a significant battery drain. That's why transcoding is even a thing, after all - to convert the video into a format that's got a hardware decoder on the client.

If I'm the Plex devs and I'm making an Apple TV app, though, I know that I've got an A8 processor and I don't have to worry about power consumption, so it shouldn't be a problem to include some codecs on the client side so that transcoding isn't as necessary. Of course, it's very possible they just port their iOS app and don't bother doing this.
 
giga said:
I'm not sure that's how Plex clients work on iOS though. VLC probably does.
Click to expand...
None have previously to my knowledge, and it runs counter to their original concept and rationale for forking XBMC. Of course that concept was a response to the environment of the time. So as client devices continue to become more and more capable, it's quite possible they may change with the environment. But at this time, I haven't read anything that points to such a change hitting in the short term.


A point to consider though is that newer harder may mean more of your content can actually be played directly or muxed, making transcoding unnecessary or at least rare.
 
Got the Shakes said:
I've been using Plex for years, and I've never seen a client that can actually transcode. It's always handled by the server and the only thing clients have to do with it is that the box you're running the Plex client determines what needs to be transcoded based on the file formats that the particular box can play natively. Safe to say that at the very least any DTS track will need to be transcoded to DD (I'm assuming that the new Apple TV doesn't support DTS) and also any thing in a .mkv container will need to have the format transcoded to something else.
Click to expand...
Yeah I'll be curious to see whether this can pass DTS bitstreans or not.

It should be noted that neither of the cases you outlined require beefy hardware though, as neither will transcode video. Any relatively modern NAS should be fine transcoding DTS to DD. And as for MKV ... that's a container not a codec. As long as the underlying video codec is playable on the Apple TV, the container will simply need to be remuxed, not transcoded, which is computationally inexpensive.
 
Raistlin said:
Yeah I'll be curious to see whether this can pass DTS bitstreans or not.

It should be noted that neither of the cases you outlined require beefy hardware though, as neither will transcode video. Any relatively modern NAS should be fine transcoding DTS to DD. And as for MKV ... that's a container not a codec. As long as the underlying video codec is playable on the Apple TV, the container will simply need to be remuxed, not transcoded, which is computationally inexpensive.
Click to expand...

I only saw DD 5.1 and 7.1 listed under the tech specs for digital surround formats.
 
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