Try http://www.apple.com/movies ... you get a 403, not a 404.

Telling, I would think.

(Lileks noticed this; I can't take credit for it.)

So?

Movies are becoming just like TV/cable/sat - 96 channels and nothing worth watching.

Read a book.

Why wouldn't a modern G4 have enough horsepower to pump out DVD-quality output (which is what I assume is meant by "high res but not HD")?

I'm not actually quite sure what you're suggesting the product would be, on reflection. To show video on a TV, you'd still need some sort of set-top box; that'd be new hardware anyway, and probably be a G4, maybe with an MPEG decoder chip. That seems to make a lot more sense than having the central machine decode and stream raw video, which seems to be what you're implying.

(Or did you mean the airport-like device would take a raw stream and output SVideo? That would be... interesting. And kinda weird. But I still think a modern G4 could push enough data to feed that at DVD resolutions. I'm thinking the bottleneck would be the wireless, not the CPU.)

Here's what I think.

MPEG-4 (actually H.264) files are downloaded to a computer. They're then streamed wirelessly to the Airport Express widget, which has an S-video and/or HDMI output, and from there connected to the TV.

Whether the MPEG decoding is done by the computer or at the Airport widget, I don't know (on further reflection, it'd make more sense to just build an H.264 encoder into the widget instead of using the computer CPU, so maybe even a G3 could handle the streaming load), but the "set-top" box (the current Airport Express is tiny, same size as an iBook power supply) would be a very minimal unit, just enough to accept the wireless stream and get the video to the TV set.

All the archiving and downloading would be handled at the computer, which actually wouldn't even need to be a Mac, especially if you decode the MPEGs at the Airport box.

I suspect they aren't ready for HD yet due to (a) file sizes, (b) wireless bandwidth (you're quite right about the bottleneck there) and (c) processor power required for decoding. They could probably do "half-definition," which looks pretty darn good, about as good or better than a DVD. That'll be along in the future, though. I suspect HD is the fundamental reason behind Apple's switch to Intel processors.

Note that H.264 at HD resolutions is what requires a G5; only if they're planning to deliver content like that will this qualify as a G5-pumping stunt. Otherwise even a G3 works fine.

maybe it'll be a motor-scooter that's impossible to tip over that costs $5000

And gets 1,000 mpg ;) -Spin

Aren't y'all forgetting the switch to Intel processors next summer, which will extend to the entire Mac line by 2007?

Seems kinda silly to base a new service on a soon-to-be-discontinued technology...

There's no reason to think a new video service wouldn't run on the Intel chips as well as G4/5s. Quicktime is fairly platform-independent as it is.

TO: WIll Collier
RE: By 5

Well...

...for this Apple Evangalist, there's not going to be any hardware purchases until the dust of the move to Intell processers has settled.

Regards,

Chuck(le)

Most observers are predicting a "video iPod" that will play back video on a hand-sized device.

Wanna see something neat? Grab an .mpg, and drop it in the iTunes window while you have the Library selected (not a playlist).

Interesting.

Will: fair enough. I thought you and Stephen were basing your comments on a G5-specific approach, which is not unreasonable, considering the vector-based features unique to the G5, which allow that chip to occasionally cream the best of the Intel crop, depending on the application.

Hmm... One wonders if an Intel/IBM agreement would be possible, wherein Intel might acquire the aforementioned vector-based technology... Heh...

My philosophy is to offload non-critical tasks to dedicated processors. Hence I prefer to dump all graphics calls to a dedicated video GPU, storage calls to a high-performance hard drive, and so on.

But then, these days, even a 1Gz PentiumIII processor with a 133Mz FSB can kick ass, as long as the motherboard has a 4x AGP slot and a n ATA-100 bus available...

Ok. Kick relative ass, as compared to an Intel Pentium D or Extreme cpu, or an AMD 64 cpu.

Or a dual G5... :)

Hmm. "Universal expects to be able to offer movies online by the end of the year or early next year, company chairman and CEO Bob Wright said Tuesday."

Hm. The MacWorld San Francisco tradeshow is in early January... it has traditionally been one of the events where Apple rolls out new products, and since nothing significant happened at Macworld Paris, I'm inclined to think something big is on the schedule for MWSF.... but it's more likely to be hardware than being able to buy movies via iTunes.

One doesn't need G5 horsepower to decode H.264, not by a long shot, nor even HD-bitrate mpeg4 or mpeg2.

Aside from the fact that Apple would have to be absolutely retarded not to go with a chip based decoder for such an animal, you just don't need huge amounts of processing power to manage 6-8mbit of video, which is what 264 runs HD at.

The real magic will be in the transport, and making it robust enough to minimize data stream interruptions. Nobody wants the movie to stop when they nuke a bag of popcorn, and I'm not entirely certain 802.11g is up to the task.

So, if they do it, expect a new (probably 100mbit) airport standard.

Casey: AltiVec (the vector instruction set) was not a G5 innovation. It was on every G4 chip Motorola made, which is why they blew Intel away back in the P2/P3 (and even early P4) days when it came to vector processing tasks.

Hence, the (in)famous Photoshop benchmarks.

Netflix also has long-term plans to offer movie downloads over the net. As their CEO said earlier this year, paraphrasing, their name is "Netflix," not "DVDs by Mail."

Regarding using Wireless Ethernet to transfer video.

802.11g is in theory fast enough already to HD resolution but as mentioned above could in many circumstances be adversely affected (e.g. Microwave oven being turned on, someone download latest XP security update, etc.).

However there is a new forthcoming standard called 802.11n which can offer nearly double the speed of 802.11g (i.e. 108Mbps vs 55Mbps). There is already equipment on the market (called 'Pre-N') which uses this same approach (but will be incompatible with the official standard when it finally ships).

Therefore one possibility is that Apple ships either Pre-N based equipment or maybe they become the first company to ship official 802.11n equipment.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/03/07/review_belkin_pre-n/