'Apple TV'

Apple have, for quite a while, had a product called 'Apple TV'. It's a little set top box you connect to your TV and the basic premise is that it allows you to rent or purchase movies or TV shows from iTunes and watch them on your TV.

It also syncs with any PC or Mac you own either by cable or wirelessly, and so you can watch any videos you have downloaded, play your music or watch a DVD.

The device does have a few shortcomings; there's no tuner built in so it can't be used as a PVR - and as a device solely intended to purchase iTunes movies it's ridiculously expensive.

However, it does have an application to watch Youtube videos, and I think it would really come into its own if they teamed up with the BBC and ITV to offer programmes on demand. BT Vision is doing a similar thing with 'on demand via broadband' but I don't want to subscribe to BT to get these services.

I've used the Apple TV at a friend's house and it's easy to use and the interface is very elegant. People are crying out for on-demand content, and with a simple gadget like this, ITV and the BBC could get it into any home that had a broadband connection.

Apple are very in-favour with the general public at the moment with their iPods and iPhones. Am I missing something obvious here? Are the big broadcasters like ITV and the BBC already working on something like this? What's stopping the BBC making an iPlayer application for Apple TV, when it already has one for the iPhone?

Because it's Apple. The reason iPlayer is on iPhone/iPod Touch is the web browser. It's not done through iTunes because BBC want some control over it, and not want to just hand over the content to be stuffed in whatever way Apple wants to: and they won't sublicense the DRM.

It's highly unlikely the Beeb will budge on the importance of control, and also having it under BBC iPlayer branding and operation, so then you're looking to Apple to relax it's restrictions. Unlikely.

I'm not talking about putting BBC and ITV shows on iTunes to be downloaded at a fee. Instead I meant them developing an application for the device that lets users browse iPlayer or ITV Catch UP through the Apple TV box - in the same way that there's an iPhone application which is just a posher way of accessing the streaming content.

Youtube can be accessed through Apple TV, and Apple don't own any of the rights to the Youtube videos; it's just an application which retrieves the video streams.

It'd be win-win for Apple and ITV; ITV would get on-demand shows into more homes, whilst Apple would sell more units and also see an increase in the number of people renting movies - a service neither BBC or ITV offer and so there wouldn't be a conflict of interest there.

Over here the Apple TV is next to near useless, thanks to iTunes unwillingness/inabillity to offer any video content (other than music videos) to Irish users. Not surprisingly, the device is not selling very well - I know nobody who has one, even Mac users - you get much the same result with an AV cable for your iPod, if it is fully synced with your iTunes library.

I have one - It's a nice bit of kit.
I occassionally download a TV show, but mainly use it for listening to my podcasts / music in my bedroom.

BBC iPlayer or other ondemand service, would be a killer application.

I can get the iPlayer on my iPhone now, so maybe it could be a possibility?

Well this is my thinking. It would really come into its own if it had 4OD, iPlayer, etc on it.

Would be nice if Channel 4 supported people with a mac accessing 4OD in the first place.

boxee! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxee

it is very east to add boxxee to apple tv, just download the app to a usb stich, pop it in the usb port on apple tv and reboot.

lovely interface and iplayer - in fact any flash/on2/ mpeg + non drm wmv

web tv and on demand on your TV.

Heard of Virgin Media? That has On Demand from 4, ITV, the BBC and others.

Or BT Vision, that has TV Replay for the five main terrestrials.

...it also requires a subscription, and for you to live in a cabled street, and Virgin currently have no plans to expand their footprint.



Likewise, requires a subscription even when 'catch up' is available free online.

Which is why Apple TV would be awesome with iPlayer et al on it. No subscription required, and nothing but a broadband connection.

Apple TV would be good if it supported more than Apple's own proprietary codecs by default, and didn't require a HD TV

A far better and cheaper option is to hook up an XBox360 to the TV, and stream video content to it via your router from
your PC using the standalone Windows Media Connect software running on Windows XP with Media Player 10.