Archive for the ‘AppleTV’ Category

iTunes selling HD movies now. How about BD-R next?

Friday, March 20th, 2009

So, now that you can buy and rent HD video content from your computer using iTunes, is it not a logical step to want to view your HD content on your HDTV?  Given, one can do that if you’ve got a Mac mini home theater system or an AppleTV, but what if you just have a good ol’ BluRay player?  I think that the best thing Apple could do to introduce BluRay to the Mac is to allow burning HD video to BD-R discs in iTunes.

When iTunes music was still DRMd, you could burn it to an unencrypted audio CD and still play it on your stereo.  With the plummeting costs of BD-R drives, and relatively low cost of BD-R media, I think that now would be a fantastic opportunity to allow the conversion of the video into a (maybe even still DRMd) more usable format! Given, most of us would prefer a non-restricted format, but most folks are just looking to play their content in a format they have easy access to. Audio CD is one format. BluRay is another.

I know that licensing these things is a pain in the anus, but I believe Apple could own the market in downloadable-to-BluRay video, and it should not be underestimated.

Posted in Apple, AppleTV, Geek TV, iTunes, Rants, Technology | No Comments »

Western Digital loves the AppleTV

Wednesday, February 25th, 2009

Just last week, I noticed on XLR8YourMac.com that OWC was advertising 320GB Western Digital 2.5″ EIDE hard disks.  I thought it was a typo, since nobody makes an EIDE drive bigger than 160GB except for WD, and I thought it pretty unlikely they’d push R&D dollars into a dying connection standard.  To my pleasant surprise, a day later, the WD3200BEVE was listed on their corporate site.

This is good news for anyone who, for whatever reason, needs to keep their older PowerPC Mac portables alive a bit longer, and even better news for those who wish to hack their AppleTV with a 320GB hard disk!  Going from 40GB to 160GB is decent, which is why Apple chose to offer it as an option.  But why only go to 250GB, which was for a long time the previous largest disk option available?  The new drive allows hardware hackers to get a bit more utility out of the AppleTV, which is becoming something of a surprise hit.

Considering that the AppleTV has not been updated in the 2 years since its launch, it’s amazing that the little thing is selling as well as it is.  I hope that Apple sees fit to officially offer a 320GB drive option on the AppleTV should they continue to stick with EIDE.  But, seriously, is there a good reason why the next AppleTV wouldn’t have Serial ATA?  Then I could toss the (amazing) Western Digital WD5000BEVT in it.  Or, even better, hack it to get one of those sweet new 2TB Caviar Green drives running it.

And, for the record, I am not being paid by Western Digital for all of the gushing I give them.  I consider not losing my data to be payment enough.

Posted in Apple, AppleTV, Ramblings, Technology | No Comments »