Could Apple really carve out a space in the TV market? - Page 5

Yes, but I meant that only with affection Otto.

Ok. But I am a cheapskate so ya got that right. However I still don't believe pay-tv is a good ROI

It's interesting. Including sports packages, we are in for >$1500 a year for pay TV. It's "way too much" except for the fact that I've contemplated alternative forms of entertainment and given what we pay per hour of TV viewing, it seems like a bargain... I totally get your point, however.

Yeah. Fortunately, I have a choice. A lot of folks don't because of their location etc to receive OTA so there's no real option for them which I find very sad. Years ago (maybe 30+) we had Gil Cable for about a year at $8/mo for basic. We put up a PirateTV dish and snagged HBO off of the local transmitting tower. We then moved to our present house about 2 miles away. Gil increased their rates to $12/mo for basic (outrageous! ), PirateTV was eventually put out of business, so we canceled, put up the old Winegard on the roof, and never looked back. I would totally do some sort of a la carte if the cost was reasonable (I'd prefer the History Channel, SciFi, Discovery, rather that HBO, Showtime, etc). I love sports but when you add-on all the packages........

You can get Dish or Directv with a DVR, which will change your TV viewing life, for a relative bargain AFAIC when you consider the DVR. If Apple throws a DVR in it's 4K TV then they'll have something.

True. But then you're paying $80 - $200 per month for the privilege. I don't think the first gen of the Apple HDTV will have a built-in DVR. If it meets or beats initial expectations and there is a gen 2 in the works, I could see it then. There's still too much network negotiating left to do. As I've said before, I'm not a big fan of smart tvs (so far), but that could change.

No way do you need to pay that much. $40 is more like it, giving you a DVR and lots more channels than just OTA.

$80 - $200 is about the range that our extended family and friends pay, depending on the add-on packages they get and whether it's U-Verse, Comcrap, or satellite (Dish/DirecTV). Yes, there are $40/month subscriptions available with a lot more channels (of crap) than I care to watch. I don't believe in paying for something that I won't ever use. But with a solid, sustained, 20Mbps DSL line, I can stream whatever I want to the tv to "supplement" what OTA doesn't offer (and we get lots of channels in our area). So, in a sense, I'm saving anywhere from about $500 per year to $2500 per year, for just television. And I don't have to worry about escalating costs or cable companies arguing about re-transmission fees which ultimately screw the consumer. However, like I said, if you can't get decent OTA then you don't have any options but to get pay tv. And, there are folks who feel that the costs for pay tv are justifiable for their life style which is fine. No situation is ideal for everyone. Again, the new Apple HDTV will probably have some sort of subscription or pay system for the entertainment that will be offered via iTunes, so we'll have to wait and see how that model is presented.

It's all a matter of choice and I respect that. I have a friend in Phoenix that streams only the channels he wants to see. If there is a special he missed on a channel he can't otherwise find, he has other means to purchase just that show he missed.

In my opinion, it takes special people with special discipline. Wish we had more like y'all. I have OTA, however I only use it in an emergency, whenever we have trouble receiving U-Verse, which is quite infrequent.

My wife couldn't live without her CNN. However, let me say that we had to learn to live without English T V and radio during my USAF career that took us to live in such places as Iceland, Turkey, Philippines, Spain, in the 60's through 70's...

There's one big catch to streaming- no closed captioning.

Although I need close captioning on most heavy dialog programming, not everyone does. That type of show/movies usually put me to sleep, close captioning or not, anyway:p

Yes, it is all a matter of personal choice as hughh mentioned and I didn't mean to suggest otherwise. I think it will be interesting to see how the tv landscape will be changed in the next few years with the introduction of the Apple HDTV. Could be game changing, or "eh".

While not universal most more recent programming on Netflix does have available captions.

A Taiwan company is supposedly making a revolutionary AR for the coming iMac. Watch this space

Now that the new Mac OS 10.8 is out, it will be interesting to see how Airplay figures into all of this. In theory, what ever you can view on your Mac you can stream wirelessly, via ATV, to your tv just like you can now with iTunes and iPhoto. For folks who have movies ripped in various formats that *should* eliminate the issues of player compatibility. We'll see. However, I'm not an early adopter so I'll wait a while to see what issues arise before I make the jump. My guess is that Airplay is going to be Apple's test to see how well wireless media works before their HDTV is introduced in Q1 of next year.

Yep. Little is more blown out of proportion than what people SHOULD/can pay for solid cable/satellite service.

The "price is not the price".

Paying the advertised rates is akin to paying sticker for a car.

Me: DirecTV: 2 rooms, both HD, both DVR, all but the premium channels. $65 a month.

If many (not all) of the "cut the cord" (dam do I despise that term, btw ) crowd spent half the energy securing better cable/sat rates as they do looking for magic devices where they still lose 95% of their local sports and cable-only programming they'd prolly be a lot better off.


James
Edited by mastermaybe - 7/31/12 at 7:36am

This discussion is getting off topic but I'm tired of playing the haggle game with my cable co, they should just have one price that isn't inflated when the introductory period(6 mo) ends. If all cable/sat companies did this they would have less turnover.

Me: "Hi, I want to cancel service"
Them: "I'm sorry to hear that, if we lower the regular price would you stay?"
Me: "If it was a reduced price all the time I wouldn't be calling you, why do you play these games?"
Them: "Because we can"

Read something today, can't find link, that quoted supplier sources in Asia saying apple will roll out it's new apple tv later this year.

We've had rumors like this before but hopefully this is more solid than lg's oled release dates.

I ran across something yesterday as well so I might have to amend my thinking on this. I always felt that Apple would do a little more tweaking with their AppleTV before going to a panel. That would buy them more "development" time for content and the provider issues that they have been experiencing but maybe agreements are closer to being worked out than thought. My LG still looks as good as the day I took it out of the box so I'm not ready for a new tv, but maybe when the 2G Apple HDTVs come out.......

I assume it will be 4K.

^^^ I wouldn't make that assumption. Quality 4k panels are still expensive, and if the rumored price point of $1500 - $2500 is accurate for a 50"-60" panel, I doubt if that would include 4k. Apple has always been expensive and if they want to make a dent in the television market the last thing they need to do is price themselves out before they even start. There will always be people who will pay whatever Apple charges for their latest product but I think Apple would be better off to start with an LCD/LED/plasma to see what sales are like and then move to state of the art panels. But, i'm not a marketing specialist so who really knows?

If Apple is going to make TVs by the millions, you can be assured they'll get a great price on 4K displays. Then they'll be able to offer 4K content from their store. The time is definitely ripe. All movies ever made, shot on 35mm or better film, can be redone at 4K. With no distribution in place, Apple would again be first to market. Apple has a caché no one else has and people trust Apple to do it right/better. Also plays to their high Resolution IPad.
Edited by Bill - 4/7/13 at 10:34pm

I believe you are right. It makes no sense to come with a commodity display like any led that can currently be found on the market.
The apple experience is to give you something new that people don't yet have. Such as a combo phone and laptop, a computer on a tablet and a univerase that sews them all together with seamless ease, and also let's you buy the media you and instantly makes it available on your cnosen device.

It has to be 4k display (it could have been an oled sets but i hear some companies are hacing problems making them) People will pay a premium for something new and cool in tech, and 4k will be touted as the best sisplays ever, especially with an apple badge, and unlike most other display retailers, apple will have plenty of 4k content at the I store,

The 4ks are about to start flowing out of china and apple wants to be on the vanguard of that surge.

And to ice off the whole package, the I system running the displays and the other related
Electronics will let you do more to manage these multiple devises and give you more things to do on your media devises with far greater ease.

I hope both of you are correct, mr. wally and Bill, because I would be very happy to be proven wrong . We are an Apple family to that would make integration unbelievably easy. If they do go with 4k initially, I hope that they include a very complete set of user accessible control features for calibration like my LG. Now, if I could convince my wife that our 3 year old LG needs to be replaced next year.......

It had better be 3D also. A projector would be the best. Make the screen size whatever you want. Barely anyone has projectors. It's the 4K display device I'll probably be buying.
Edited by Bill - 4/8/13 at 6:36pm

... which is why Apple won't be making one.

Don't care about 3D and I think a lot of consumers can take it or leave it.

I never use my 3-D. We have glasses though and will try it out with Life of Pi soon.

Huge potential market! Seems a 4K projector could be made for a lot less than a large 4K TV. I was really surprised that Mitsubishi didn't upgrade their DLP TVs to 4K.
Edited by Bill - 4/9/13 at 11:44pm