On June 8th at the Apple World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC), CEO Tim Cook will reportedly introduce a new and improved Apple TV. For those who live under rocks this doesn’t mean a television made by Apple but rather a new version of the Apple TV set top box that 25 million people have bought to download and stream video from the Internet. But this new Apple TV — the first Apple TV hardware update in three years — will not, we’re told, support 3840-by-2160 UHD (popularly called 4K) video and will be limited to plain old 1920-by-1080 HD. Can this be true? Well, yes and no. The new Apple TV will be 4K capable, but not 4K enabled. This distinction is critical to understanding what’s really happening with Apple and television.
First we need to understand Apple’s big number problem. This is a problem faced by many segment-leading companies as they become enormous and rich. The bigger these companies get the harder it is to find new business categories worth entering. Most companies, as they enter new market segments with new products, hope those products come to represent at least five percent of their company’s gross revenue over time. The iPhone, for example, now drives more than 60 percent of Apple’s revenue. Well the Apple TV has been around now for a decade and has yet to approach that five percent threshold, which is why they’ve referred to the Apple TV since its beginning as a hobby.
Let’s say Apple sells five million Apple TVs per year at $79 wholesale for gross hardware revenue of just under $400 million annually. While $400 million sounds like a lot, for a company with Apple’s fiscal 2014 sales of $182 billion, it’s at best a rounding error, if that — just over two tenths of a percent of total sales. So in an MBA textbook sense the Apple TV wasn’t (and isn’t) worth doing. The business simply isn’t big enough to bother.
But this is Apple, a company that loves to redefine product categories. And by definition every new product category starts at zero. So if Apple wants to start anything truly new it will have to start small, which it did with the Apple II, Macintosh, iPod, iTunes, iPhone, iPad, and the Apple TV.
Everybody knows a new Apple TV is coming but the press reports to date have had very few details other than the fact that the box won’t support 4K. You know Apple had to deliberately leak that one detail for some strategic reason. So why introduce a new Apple TV at all if the performance being asked of it (decoding H.264 1080p video) hasn’t changed? There are only two reasons to do a new Apple TV under these circumstances: 1) to take cost out of the product, making it cheaper or increasing profit margins, or; 2) the technical requirements for the box actually have changed quite a bit but for some reason Apple won’t be immediately asking the new box to do much more than the old box already does. Apple is likely motivated for both reasons because competitive products like Google’s ChromeCast ($35) and Amazon’s Fire TV Stick ($39) have created something of a set top box (or stick) price war and it’s in Apple’s strategic interest for the Apple TV to support 4K video ASAP no matter what the company says about 4K at the WWDC.
For Apple to do what it has always done, the company must change the game. They can’t go head-to-head on price so that means dramatically increasing quality of service for close to the old (higher) price. Add to this Apple’s need for new product categories and new hits — especially really, really big hits that will make meaningful revenue for the world’s most valuable public company.
What I think will happen at the WWDC is Apple will announce a spectacular new Apple TV — the most powerful streaming box the world has ever seen — wow developers with its potential and beautiful user interface, but will for the moment limit the features to not much more than the old Apple TV could provide, though with the addition of true streaming. Apple has a difficult path to follow here, you see, because they need to inspire developers to support and extend the new box while, at the same time, creating a video content ecosystem that gets shows from video producers, broadcast and cable networks, and movie studios that have come to inherently distrust Apple as a destroyer of record companies.
If Apple were to throw a completely un-throttled Gen-4 Apple TV on the market, it could cost Cupertino its chance to tie-up long-term content deals to feed those boxes, limiting their total success. Apple needs this new Apple TV to do much more than run Netflix and Hulu, because Apple needs billions and billions in new revenue.
Put simply, Apple wants to own television. We’re not talking about broadcast TV or cable TV or even Over-the-Top streaming TV. With the new Apple TV, Apple wants to own it all.
So at WWDC they’ll show the new box doing anything that Chromecast or Roku can do with the addition of iTunes and two new streaming services — music and live TV. Apple won’t at first have every TV network and local station on its service (neither does Hulu, remember, which lacks CBS), nor every cable network, but they’ll have a credible solution aimed at cord cutters with superior performance and a price that’s higher than Netflix, Roku or Amazon Prime, but the same or slightly lower than basic cable. They’ll create an ecosystem that works and works reliably and over time will sell millions more Apple TVs and sign-on many more networks and studios.
Then, in 2016, will come a surprise software upgrade with the switch to H.265 and 4K. Apple has to beat to 4K the cable companies and broadcast networks if they have a hope of displacing those industries, which — along with day-and-date streaming of 4K movies — are Apple’s ultimate goals.
In the U.S. alone these three video entertainment channels add up to about $90 billion in revenue annually. Add the rest of the world to that and we’re talking about $200+ billion. THAT’S Apple’s target and it’s Cupertino’s goal to get a majority of that action as well as selling ultimately 50 million Apple TVs per year.
Apple won’t be alone in this effort. By deciding not to sell its own 4K TV and by creating a service that will drive 4K TV sales, Apple has bought the friendship of every big screen TV maker.
Industries are most ripe for disruption during period of technical transition, remember, so this switch from HD to 4K may be Apple’s only chance to snatch and grab.
Apple can do it, too, with luck and technology and the willingness to spend a LOT of money to make even more money. But it all depends on this upcoming WWDC and introducing the Apple TV in a way that’s exciting yet not intimidating to potential partners.
Now let’s end with some pure speculation (as if what I’ve written above isn’t speculation enough). If I were running Apple here’s how I would accomplish this delicate task. I’d skip 4K completely and go to 5K. Remember Apple has been selling 5K iMacs for months now. Then I’d go (remember I’m channeling Tim Cook) to every TV network and movie studio and license from them the exclusive 5K rights for their content. This would be a bit like when Mark Cuban started HD-Net before many people had HDTVs or cable channels were even offering HD signals. The networks would all sign-on because they’d see it as money for nothing since there are no 5K TVs. Maybe Apple will introduce one after all, but that’s still a very small niche play, especially since Apple would probably have to build its own super-resolution conversion system just to take available content that high (35mm film, for example, is at best 4K).
“That Tim Cook, what a maroon!” the networks would say, counting their loot. And the cable company execs, who are already finding it hard enough just to do 4K, would roll their eyes.
And then, having tied-up the 5K rights, Apple would reveal that the 5K Apple TV can down-convert to 4K for “degraded” displays, the whole point having been tying-up the rights, not really streaming 5K.
If this comes to pass, remember you read it here first.
Wouldn’t the average broadband download rates in the U.S. (heck, do they even meet the FCCs new definition of broadband – 25Mbs down) keep this from happening? I just looked at a site that says UMAX in Korea uses 32 Mbs to get 4k at 60 fps and that at present technology any more compression degrades image quality.
http://blog.streamingmedia.com/2015/01/4k-streaming-bandwidth-problem.html
It will be very interesting to see how the 4K streaming bandwidth requirements actually play out, but a lot can be learned, I think, from the current streaming experience with HD. The only 4K service generally available today is from Netflix and they recommend at least 20 megabits-per-second (their service actually runs at 15.6 megabits). Netflix 4K is currently encoded as an H.264 stream. One mystery here is Netflix recommends three megabits for their 1080p HD content, UHD has four times the pixels of HD, so shouldn’t the bandwidth requirement really be 3*4=12 megabits? I suspect that Netflix is asking for more bandwidth to guarantee viewers the best possible experience and maybe slow adoption rates since the service probably loses money at this point. But streaming 4K, when it is broadly available, is unlikely to use H.264. It will use H.265, which the IEEE showed in 2012 uses half the bandwidth for comparable signal-to-noise-ratio. So, just as HD broadcast uses MPEG-2 at 20 mbps compared to Netflix’s H.264 HD at 3 mbps, H.265 UHD will probably end up requiring half the 15.6 megabits Netflix is using today or about 7.8 megabits-per-second. Even if you raise this to 10 mbps, that fits well with the average U.S. home broadband speed of 9.8 mbps measured by Akamai in January, 2014. Okay, okay, you say, but H.265 is so computationally intensive, what set top box can decode it? Why the new Apple TV, of course! It’s rumored to be based on the iPhone6 minus screen, radios, batteries, etc, and the iPhone6 already does hardware H.265 decoding. Looking forward a year or so I think all of this will fall nicely into place.
Re: “average U.S. home broadband speed”. When it comes to internet streaming, using the current, non-recordable, model of individual, simultaneous, parallel streams to each and every receiving device, at the time the content is viewed, the average bandwidth is much less important than the minimum bandwidth available to each device. The standard Cable TV and OTA (non-internet) models solve this problem by having all devices tap in to the same single stream, so all devices are guaranteed the same available bandwidth. Even if we assume all programming is cached at the cable head-end, it is unrealistic to expect the current internet delivery model to make sense. What needs to be done at least is to allow on-premises local caching to reduce the amount of stream competition among devices on the cable system.
This is all very silly. Apple innovation died with Steve Jobs. Tim Cook and the rest of apple management are just bean counters with no ideas. The proof is the watch never would have seen the light of day under Jobs.
–
Apple will make incremental changes to the phone/tablet until those products run out of steam. Then they will become IBM/Microsoft/Yahoo — huge companies that stifle innovation and just survive by maintaining their status quo or buying/marketing other people’s inventions.
–
Cringely should just bite the bullet and become a fiction writer. He no longer has sources within the industry and is reduced to making up these tall tales.
“””Apple innovation died with Steve Jobs. Tim Cook and the rest of apple management are just bean counters with no ideas.”””
2012 called, it wants its argument back. Or rather, 2009, as people have been saying even FOR Jobs.
Apple doesn’t do “innovation”. The create good products for the upscale market, that usually become market leaders for their categories. The iPod wasn’t the first mp3 player, the iPhone wasn’t the first smartphone and the iPad wasn’t the first tablet. But they were the best comprehensive offerings compared to what was around.
“””The proof is the watch never would have seen the light of day under Jobs”””
I call BS.
@Mark “The proof is the watch never would have seen the light of day under Jobs.”
the proof ???
and the proof is ???? do you have some secret document that Steve Jobs said (after reviewing the 2015 Apple Watch in 2008!!!) that this watch will never see the light of day as long as I am CEO?
Mark, you don’t seem to realize that being a troll, and making up the totally bizarre and ridiculous statements you have made, no one is taking you seriously…
… In fact, we are getting a good chuckle, at your denial of reality.
(͡° ͜ʖ°)
I can’t argue one way or the other on the merits of this and while the 4k+ images are spectacular, I suspect that by the time that they are cheap enough for mass marketing then we’ll all be looking for something better – look what happened to the plasma display market – it’s dead now, with the stores dumping the products at less than a tenth of the original prices. We’ll see the same thing with 4k displays too.
But what is more interesting is the statement that a product with a profit of 400 million dollars just isn’t big enough. I see that as one of the issues with American capitalism nowadays, everyone’s so busy chasing the idea of a billion dollar company that “small business” companies with an immediate market of even as much as 10 million are abandoned. The plain fact is that companies like Apple or Hewlett Packard would never have gotten out of the garage today.
I’m not sure I understand your first comment about 4K. Yes, those TVs will get cheaper quickly (last Christmas I bought a 55-inch Vizio 4K TV from WalMart for $694!) but doesn’t that argue FOR quicker adoption, not against? And your argument about big companies and innovation could have applied to any era of American history. That’s why companies and industries have life cycles and why America this year will spawn 70,000 startups.
The reason plasma was abandoned was that OLED screens offered comparable specs (although plasma black levels are still superior) for less money. Also, the power used to run a plasma meant they had to be down tuned to meet Californian (and other places) energy requirements and were no longer able to beat cheaper sets that used less energy.
And like Bob said, cheaper UHD sets will increase consumer uptake like it did with 1080 FHD (did you buy a $15K 42″ FHD plasma when they first came out? Or did you wait till they were under $2K like most other consumers?).
The biggest issue here is that Apple will run into bandwidth issues from cable/telcos. Right now, the cost of ISPs –and the (lack of) bandwidth for such a price– would have an impact on 4k streaming, much less multiple 1080 HD streaming in homes.
.
In my own house, we can only afford 10:1 from our ISP, and we’re constantly bumping up against bandwidth issues with multiple people in the house doing homework/streaming/playing games/general usage at the same time. Asking my household to amp up its bandwidth just to get 4K streaming from (potentially) multiple sources isn’t practical. Nor is the fact that my ISP “options” are Time Warner and the local telco, who both don’t have a good reputation for service (or reliable bandwidth).
.
If Apple is serious about streaming, they’ll need to prod the ISPs into improving the infrastructure and the cost of their services. Ironically enough, Apple would need Google to enter into more markets with Google Fiber to effect real change in the US.
.
Or maybe, just maybe, the Apple TV isn’t aimed at the US market at all, but at markets that can afford massive amounts of streaming. Such as most other countries.
Look 1-2 years from now like Apple is doing. What will average home bandwidth be then? Look back 1-2 years to get an idea. Bulk bandwidth prices have been dropping 50 percent per year for more than a decade. Why should that change now? Retail prices haven’t kept track which is why broadband ISPs make so much money and why they are fighting the new Net Neutrality rules. But the trend is clear — 4K is coming fast.
Perhaps bulk bandwidth is dropping, but unless the ISPs are forced into lowering prices, they won’t do it. The only way to have that happen is for competition (from Google or from the community itself, such as Chattanooga) to suddenly appear at their doorstep.
.
Given how devious the ISPs are, I’m not exactly expecting a sudden surge in bandwidth from the ISPs for the same price.
Can only afford 10:1? Cut the $100 (or more) in cable programming and spend that on your internet connection instead. We cut the cord 3 years ago, bought 1 AppleTV and 1 Roku, and haven’t looked back. We currently have 30 down, burstable to 48, and 4 up, and can have 5 simultaneous 1080 video streams going without killing gaming performance on the network. Plus, we have the added advantage of not being inundated with political ads, at least on TV. Google and Yahoo news both make sure we get far more of those than we need, but at least they don’t clutter up our nightly entertainment. Or a lost weekend spent binge-watching Caprica.
The article is so out of touch with reality it might as well have been written by John Dvorak.
Consumer 4K is not going to be any big in the US for at least for the next 5 years. Few people have TVs that can play it, and even fewer have the bandwith to stream it. Not to mention that apart from newer films, most content people watch is not 4K.
None of this will change any time soon, especially US internet infrastructure.
If $400 million per year selling Apple TVs is small (and it is) the earning from people that are able to use a 4K Apple TV would be miniscule even compared to that. What Apple TV needs is more content, better UI / control, etc. Not 4K, except to put a tick on a spec check box.
“Consumer 4K is not going to be any big in the US for at least for the next 5 years. ” Really, that just means that Bob’s timetable is a little off, instead of 2016, they launch 5K in 2020…
Vizio is making affordable 4k televisions, and I expect that we’ll see a flood of them by next year.
Walmart has stated that by Thanksgiving 2015 any TV over 32″ sold at one of their stores will be 4K and not 1080P.
I saw that. I can say that I’m skeptical, however, since you really need to go fairly large (55″ or larger) to see an appreciable difference between 1080p and 4k.
From my perspective, I’m fine with just 1080, since I know that I’m not going to hang a 70″ monster on my wall anytime soon.
I bought a 55-inch Vizio 4K TV at WalMart last Christmas for $694, so prices are definitely coming down. But why did I buy 4K when there’s very little 4K content? I felt that paying an extra $100 or so was worth it to EXTEND THE LIFETIME OF THE TV. I’m not the only person who thinks this way about major purchases, am I? This will accelerate the 4K trend.
I think it depends on whether you view a television as something you’ll upgrade every several years, or whether you view a television as a multi-decade purchase.
.
I’m the latter –my Vizio 50″ television replaced a 25″ RCA that was 20 years old– but I’m also aware that my eyes aren’t exactly getting better as the years go on, so there was no need for me to get that 4k television.
Now, it seems we’re on the subject of timing, or the right time to buy a 4K TV. Scott Wilkinson regularly makes an appearance on Tech Guy radio show, which also has a podcast version. On May 23 of this year, he made the point that if you really need a new HD TV now, you could get a 4K, but keep in mind it won’t be capable of displaying high dynamic range content. The Blu-Ray spec has just been finalized and disks should be available this year or next. He says 4K-HDR is a huge improvement over 4K, so if at all possible, wait 1-2 more years. The final 4K spec will be much more complicated than just quadrupling the number of pixels, and will include HDR. He says that 4K is a noticeable improvement over HD if you move close to the TV, but HDR is noticeable from across the room.
Hey, I resent that!
sent from my Palm Treo
Thanks for the chuckle. But really, a Palm Treo?
A Palm Treo???? What, are you still living in the past? You REALLY should upgrade to something more modern like the Blackberry Curve like I’m using!
Sent from The White House, U.S.A.
Apple has basically said the reason they released the 5K display is for editing 4K content. You need a higher resolution display so you can view the program window in its native resolution.
All these streaming boxes are nice, but still not as universal as a PC with an HDMI output. After running a 50′ HDMI cable through the crawlspace from the computer room to the home theater receiver (total cost: $25 using a free remote control app on my iPad), I’m able to watch just about any online content at great resolution. Even streaming from tablets is often restricted when the app checks for an HDMI cable, and no need to hope there’s an app for your favorite show.
I really think that Steve’s death bed “cracked it” comment was more about making it easy for people to create content, and distribute it in a way that lets producers get paid for their effort. All the pieces are in place, but seem to be floundering: Final Cut Pro, Logic and Garage Band… All that was really needed is a good voiceover product and perhaps an animation package. It’s already drop dead simple to upload content from FCP to YouTube, but not so much for getting to the iTunes store.
What resolution is “great resolution?” And how many consumes will pull 50 feet of cable?
Interesting view on where Apple may go with 4K. The movie studios and TV manufacturers want to see 4K succeed since 3D failed. UltraFlix is 4K streaming service that can stream to many of the new 4K smart TVs (e..g, Sony, Samsung, Vizio, etc.). In addition, they offer a streaming 4K box similar to Roku. The products were developed and are supported by San Jose based NanoTech Entertainment. They stream 4K content around the globe with a bandwidth minimum of 6mbps. Here is an analysis of Internet speeds in the US and countries that have customers with their product: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6ZyYIIZHb0
What about the Apple search engine?
Yes, please, Bob, when might we see the Steve Jobs search engine?
moron…. not maroon
I take it that your childhood was not spent in the U.S., or at least, not in front of a television in the U.S.
Check this for the “maroon” reference, and enjoy.
https://youtu.be/hxGgnI6kCrs
@ VSM
“moron…. not maroon”
he meant “maroon”
Obviously you never watched Bug Bunny cartoons.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_Kh7nLplWo
Metal man (above) brings up a good point re: bandwidth. I read recently where the average U.S. household used about 50 GBs/month in 4Q13. But 2-hour 4K movie can be anywhere from 20-50 GBs. That means a huge crush of data is going to hit the pipes very quickly.
Anyone have thoughts on whether we have the capacity to ensure that there’s no degradation? Hate to say it, but I’m actually pretty sympathetic to the ISPs as this swell of GBs on their pipes looks like it has a pretty serious potential for problems.
Anyone?
Or you could look at it as Time Warner and Comcast do: get those pesky Net Neutrality rules thrown out in court, and then you can jack up the prices for anyone streaming 4k content.
Sorry, but have to disagree on that point. Those NN rules the FCC approved back in February were written by Congress in 1934 — when it took 2 hands to hold your rotary phone. The idea of having federal officials apply rules from that era to today’s IP, 4G LTE, etc. technology seems like a sure-fire way to bottleneck the Net’s growth.
Not when those rules are designed to keep localized monopolies from extracting extra money to get the services that you paid for.
.
Laws written over 200 years ago are still viable –such as the Constitution– so the age argument doesn’t work. Allowing companies free rein to charge higher fees would be fine, if there were truly competition at the local level. But in most municipalities there isn’t competition, so those rules need to be enforced.
.
It would have been much nicer if the telcos and cable companies hadn’t abused their monopolies so badly that these rules wouldn’t have been needed, but that wasn’t the case.
I’ve seen this again and again … the reference to the Communications Act of 1934 and the intellectually-lazy presumption that anything thought of eighty years ago is by necessity wrong. I expect that — as a person of consistency — you’ll abandon your car, electricity, and house, since they are all much older than that, even. Positively prehistoric!
Hell, why use wheels? They’ve been around since time began!!
Some people see problems, Time Warner & Comcast see $$$’s.
I don’t think this is going to happen. I DO think that Apple needs to hit 4K right up front — reason? Photography — hoards and hoards of people use AppleTV to view their photos which are all much higher resolution than 4K. I, for one, want to view my pics on AppleTV at 4K. This is essential! The video content can follow later and it is naive to think that we are not just going to crack open to look at an AppleTV to see what the chipset supports. If Apple is stupidly waiting on 4K it will be a later hardware upgrade, just like the jump from 720p to 1080p.
Not with Bob on this one or Tim Cook is asleep at the wheel.
I was just in Best Buy last night, UHD/4K is everywhere and the prices aren’t bad. It will become a no brainier soon.
But that isn’t the point. If Apple releases a spiffy new Apple TV without 4K support, I will get little buzz. Most of the new TVs have 4K Netflix and YouTube built-in. Why would I add an Apple Box in front of that?
Bandwidth is improving rapidly in the Twin Cities where I live. CenturyLink is dropping 1 GB Fiber, MediaComm offers 150MB, and Comcast will soon offer 250MB.
Maybe Apple gets deals together and becomes the next DirectTV. But whatever they do, it will need to be better than what is out there already.
I say this as someone who owns Apple gear for everything but is still scratching my head about the iWatch.
@ Dave
“I say this as someone who owns Apple gear for everything but is still scratching my head about the iWatch.”
don’t scratch your head any more, there is no iWatch.
The point of AppleTV isn’t the hardware… it’s the subscription services and the integration with iPhone and iTunes. Yes, AppleTV’s hardware revenue is a blip on Apple’s radar, but it drives revenue (and profits!) of sales of content. Considering Apple gets a percentage of every subscription or movie or TV show downloaded for use with AppleTV, it’s probably very lucrative for them.
iTunes is a $2 billion business. That’s big but not Apple-big.
I agree with David. On average I rent 3-4 movies a month, and buy another one. That’s easily $30 a month on average.. Of course, not all of it goes to Apple. But I wouldn’t spend any of it if not for Apple TV (at least not through Apple).
Saw Bob’s response as I was typing. True, that iTunes’ $2B is not big enough by Apple standards. But it is those movies that I bought that keep me buying more iPhones and iPads. Music is now DRM free, but movies are not. And since by now I have invested a lot into my movie collection, I am stuck with Apple. (Since the kids want to see those movies on their iPads too, not just on my AppleTV).
I agree with David too: AppleTV doesn’t have to make that much money on its own if it cements the loyalty of many high-margin users. That’s not only for iTunes revenue, but also as a “feature” of iOS and Mac devices (e.g., our kids use AppleTV all the time to show off the videos they create on their iPhones and presentations they prepare on the MacBook).
I actually suspect the Apple Watch will have a similar “accessory” role to the higher-revenue products. (“If you want the most attractive smart watch, you’ll need an iPhone.”)
I expect a new iteration of AppleTV to further make that case, both for iTunes content and for hardware appeal (in part, hopefully, by enabling broad access from app store apps).
HDMI doesn’t do 5k.
You need to buy hdmi Monster Cables.
Japanese TV broadcasters are going right to 8K. The sets are going to be there for the Asian markets at least. If Apple is going to make a near-term play for higher-res rights, grabbing 8K might make more sense, and would be easy to scale down to 4k and 1k, and if they can do scaling, then it won’t matter of many people won’t have a 4k or 8k TV for awhile.
8k? My eyes don’t even do 4k! Seriously I find the extra detail on 4k disconcerting. Perhaps good for watching sport, but movies? I’m quite happy with 1080 …
Apple TV 4K is a moot point since we have so little 4K content from anyone worth watching. Apple didn’t release iPhone 3G until all cell companies had a large coverage. So why make a big deal about 4K TV when barely anyone is broadcasting it. Apple doesn’t release something before its time.
Given Apple’s amazing success with the iPod, iTunes, and the iPhone one would think they would totally dominate the TV market right now. To be honest I’ve been surprise Apple hasn’t been more aggressive in this market. Then I realized maybe this wasn’t Apple’s decision. To have a good TV service you need to have a full portfolio of programming and the TV networks are simply not cooperating. Apple, and Amazon, and Google, and whoever can’t do much if the programming isn’t available.
–
I got a good example of the TV networks obsessive control of their content last week. We missed one of the last David Letterman shows and wanted to watch it from CBS’s web site. Early last week there were several programs you could watch. By the end of the week there was only one, the last episode. CBS removed all of the programming. It was all removed from my Cable TV’s “On Demand” selection too. Thanks CBS.
–
CBS probably expects me to start paying them money for the honor of watching their reruns. Lets think about this whole concept. In general I watch about 30 of the 100+ channels on my service. I pay on average about $2.50 a month for each channel. Now if CBS wants me to pay more than $2.50 a month for their service, it is not a good deal. If I would start paying CBS money, I would expect to be able to watch ALL of their shows, ALL episodes, back for a few years. If they are going to play with availability — maybe you can watch a show, maybe you can’t — I would probably cancel my subscription.
–
When shopping first hit the Internet, firms quickly discovered they had to have very good web sites and services. If it was inconvenient to use one’s website, their customers would bolt in seconds to a competitors website. A tiny annoyance could cost a firm a lot of business. The TV networks are about to discover this. If a network like CBS makes it annoying to watch their programming, there will be other choices. I’ll just stop watching their shows.
–
I’d like to remind the TV networks for 50 years watch TV was FREE. The first cable TV systems were simply a service to improve reception and access to distant TV stations. It was in the TV stations best interests to allow the cable systems to rebroadcast their signals. Then the TV stations decided the cable TV and satellite services should be a revenue source. They charge them and me for the honor of delivering into my home programming that should be FREE to me. Now if you think I am going to pay a lot more for a service that should be FREE, be careful. Be very careful. I now have choices.
–
This TV nonsense is what is holding back Apple TV and the other services. They know what is fair and reasonable for consumers. They’re not letting the TV networks dictate the price or make a windfall from a new way of distributing content that should be FREE. When Apple come out with their new product, I really don’t care if its 4K or not. The important part of the story will be the fact Apple may have finally broken the TV network log jam.
–
Or maybe Apple, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft should use their huge cash reserves and each buy a major TV network.
CBS owns very few of the older shows that were broadcast on them. I suspect their rights to broadcast from World Wide Pants was terminated at the conclusion of Dave’s last show.
I would have no idea on the feasibility of an Apple TV but to think they would wholesale for $79 is a bit off, I would say. I doubt even Samsung sells their $3-4,000 TVs so cheaply to retailers.
It’s not a television, it is a streaming decoder — a set-top box that competes with Roku.
Perhaps I’m getting old and my eyesight prevents me from seeing the value in 4K. As we get higher and higher resolution, 4K, 5K, 8K, …, there is minimal added value. Do the additional costs justify seeing blackheads on the teen starlet’s face?
.
I am not good at predicting the market, but with bandwidth currently an issue, and my claim that the added resolution provides little additional value, I see this market slowing significantly in this or the next upgrade in resolution. Bang for the buck isn’t there.
You could be correct. I made the first-ever HDTV program broadcast by PBS back in 1998 and thought the same things back then. But now I think differently because that was broadcast television and this is home video, which is to say movies. And movies — big, bold action films especially — looked better in HD and better still in 4K. This will probably hurt most the theatrical movie business. Even now, with three young children, we watch movies mainly at home, not in a theater. That might be different if technology didn’t make it so easy. Five people going to the movies here in Santa Rosa complete with big drinks and barrels of popcorn is a $100+ investment. How many 4K TV sets is that? Mine cost $694. I think there’s definitely a value proposition here, but nobody will really know for sure for another year whrther the dogs will eat the dog food.
Bandwidth cost/availability has to be the key issue here as noted in many comments above. Hard to see how high bandwidth consumption devices will flourish while the pipes that feed them are restricted and expensive. Bob, you’ve commented on the country-by-country disparity in previous columns so how about a column on the future for low cost, high speed bandwidth? Are there any big step changes likely? Or are we all forever enslaved to whatever the current ISP/CableCo s decide to offer?
I’m not interested in TV or any paid streaming service that has commercials…Also, I have Cox internet at home at their cheapest !0:1 ($53) plan. That price for internet alone, which seems rather high to me, includes a 100gb/month limit. That limit hasn’t increased in the last few years. Companies like Cox and Comcast with their download caps will strangle HD steaming TV because they’ll force customers to upgrade to the much more expensive internet plans ($100+) to get the required bandwidth and download cap. Apple’s approach in the past has been to get consumers excited about spending more and more money to buy products that are very similar to cheaper and sometimes better alternatives sold by “legacy” competitors. (Today I’m thinking of the iPad vs the kindle for media consumption or vs the Surface for productivity. Also compare their laptops with competitors). Apple’s products are pretty, but also pretty pricey. I just wonder haw much longer they’ll have the halo effect around their brand now that you see their logo pretty much everywhere you look. I think their brand cache is starting to wear thin in the US and probably Europe, but in Asia it’s just getting started.
Cringely, if Apple wants to make the next $200 billion, they don’t even need to enter a new business; they just need to keep making headway in Asian markets like China and India. Those two markets could be worth $1 trillion with their current product line.
How old are you, James? I’m 62. I’ll bet you are within 10 years of me in age, which is to say Apple doesn’t give a damn about your media consumption preferences or mine. I have a 13 year-old who, left un-throttled, uses a gigabyte per day of WIRELESS data. Yes, I keep on top of his consumption and limit him to WiFi as much as possible but the generational trend is clear: you and I will be dead and our kids will be sucking bandwidth like crazy.
If the next generation sucks bandwidth like crazy, they’ll either impoverish themselves paying obnoxious bills or run out of available bandwidth to use. (Probably both.)
.
And to be honest, I’m sure that the telcos and ISPs will love them for it.
Bill Gates said 640k was enough for anyone. So all this talk about 4k or 5k or 8k is just way too pinched. I think 1M will be the starting gate. Think big! Think Steve Jobs big!
What apple really needs to do is become an ISP. They’ll own a big pipe, and tweak it for Apple Tv. I’d buy the bundle in a heartbeat. No more comcast, time warner, at&t, etc.
I think people underestimate the bandwidth problem. Especially TV series do not need to be realtime streaming, you can download the episode in advance overnight for subscribers, save it locally, and then send the decryption key when the episode is “released”. I think the same will work for movies (e.g. using a list of movies you wo8uld like to watch next a la netflix original model, etc). This will allow you do do 4K over “any” internet connection.
I remember when I saw 720p video for the first time in the 1990s. I was stunned at the realism.
.
But, 1080p didn’t seem like that much of difference. All 5 of my current TVs are 1080p because they all cost less than $1,000.
.
Yesterday I saw a 55 inch Vizio 4k Ultra HD LCD TV for $949 at Costco. So, yes, I imagine I’ll eventually end up with 4k TVs at my home.
.
But, again… I’m not seeing much of a difference when comparing 4k TV to 1080p TV. 720p videos from iTunes is sufficient for my needs.
.
Now, what really gets me motivated is when someone takes an old print of an old movie and is able to clean it up so that it is of a quality I have never seen it before. But, 4k does nothing for that situation. 1080p exceeds the requirements for that endeavor.
.
As far as I’m concerned, NBC Nightly News in 720p is all I need. I’d love to see professional football games in high-definition – but, AT&T U-verse transmits them in some horribly low resolution. I have seen professional football games in HDTV in over-the-air-HD from local stations in Houston and that experience is unbelievable. Football is a difficult sport to view on a TV because you have 22 athletes scrambling around at high speed. I think this might be the only area where 4k TV might have a purpose – professional sports. If Apple can provide that then they will be providing something that is very rare and unique.
.
But, cable TV networks have purchased the rights for all of the important sports events and we can expect only low definition viewing. Apple has no possible way to get that content unless they buy cable TV networks.
AT&T U-verse does offer channels (including those that air football and other sports) in HD, although maybe you were watching an SD channel. That said, over the years I’ve had Comcast, Dish, U-verse, DirecTV and now OTA TV and U-verse hands-down has the worst HD picture quality of them all. OTA is the best, followed slightly by satellite.
Geronimo,
.
Cable TV has extremely poor quality “HD” video.
.
Wow… sorry to break the news to you. Cable-TV providers transmit super-poor-quality video. Maybe you have never seen a Blu-ray movie?
.
Blu-ray takes about 50 megabits per second to transmit (using mpeg-4 compression).
.
Cable TV transmits a professional football game at about 10 mb/s and they use obsolete compression tech. Their tech can’t handle high-quality mpeg-4.
Laws written over 200 years ago are still viable –such as the Constitution– so the age argument doesn’t work.
Don’t you wish the Glass-Stegal Act hadn’t been repealed ?
Given that typical home viewing distances make it difficult to perceive 4K’s added resolution, perhaps pushing 10-bit capability is a wiser move. The U.S. is a ways off from having infrastructure to support 4K – even the current 8-bit HD suffers from visible artefacts.
The matter of 4K TVs being available & affordable was decided literally years ago in Korea. There is no margin left in making 1080p HDTVs. 3D HDTV was an attempt to wring more revenue from the existing production lines. It flopped abysmally. 4K is the only way to sustain the business of making LCD/OLED displays. You will have 4K displays everywhere…like it or not.
In 2 years we’ll look upon a 1080P HDTV in much the same way that we now look at 525i TV sets. Quaint relic of a bygone era.
What you put on that 4K TV may be another matter. It may be upscaled 1080p..or native UHD.
I’ll file this under crazy Bob predictions about Apple, along with the IPod replacing the DVD at Blockbuster.
With under $10 of flash memory, Apple TVs could store a multitude of apps. With A7 processors or above, Apple TVs would support iOS Metal graphics. With support for a reference design of wireless controller, developers would take it from there, and Apple’s 30% haul of app revenue might offer some solace for the more spendy bill of materials. You don’t necessarily need an Xbox One, PlayStation 4 or touchscreen to play Clash of Clans, Minecraft, Mortal Combat X, Madden, Grand Theft Auto, Candy Crush, Boom Beach…
.
HomeKit devices are controlled via apps, and Apple TVs with app support might give HomeKit more legitimacy in what would otherwise be Windows/Android/Kindle households.
.
Moreover, future-proofing is hard. Apple might flip a switch to support 4K+ in the future, but they might just as likely ask everyone to buy shiny new improved Apple TVs again two or three years hence. Some relatives come to mind who are still happy with a “cutting-edge” Sony 1080p CRT TV that predated HDMI — just DVI and composite video connections, no HDCP, no digital audio inputs. They’ve never shelled out that extra $10 month for Kabletown’s HD box, but at least the TV upscales SD to arguably 720-esque sharpness. Point being that today, cable and copy protection standards for 4K+ don’t necessarily feel 100% coalesced. How many HDCP 2.2 inputs do TVs on store shelves have at the moment, and will the industry be happy enough to stick with HDCP 2.2? Ironically, early adopters can end up behind the curve.
.
My video setup consists of a sub-$750 1080p projector throwing a 160-inch diagonal image on off-white drywall. HD remains pleasantly sharp at that scale, even as I can imagine how a future 4K+ projector will look sharper and more “window-like” still. Meantime though, it tends to underscore how the quality of content in ^today’s^ HD ecosystem remains all over the map.
.
Netflix HD is generally softer-focus than Vimeo HD streaming, or Blu-ray HD. Teen vloggers on YouTube routinely post sharper videos than some studio-produced network TV shows. This year’s 50th anniversary transfer of 1965’s “The Sound of Music” is sharper than many current HD transfers of studio movies from 10 years ago. (Some edited digitally!) Red Bull-emblazoned short films and GoPro clips are often more pin-sharp than soft transfers I’ve seen of “18K” IMAX films downsampled on Blu-ray. Retro TV shows shot on film like “Columbo” and “The Rockford Files” have been remastered in HD for broadcast, but not for purchase; other shows like “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” have not. In the iTunes Store, back catalog movies proffered in HD often have preview clips taken from old television commercials or other SD sources, offering no hint to the sharpness of the full film’s transfer.
.
Perhaps all this variation in quality isn’t as evident on typical flat screen LCD TVs, but it reduces my eagerness for 4K to some extent, knowing content producers (professional or amateur) only just now seem to be getting the hang of 1080 resolution, 15+ years after its debut.
Re: “Ironically, early adopters can end up behind the curve.” Isn’t that the definition of an early adopter?
Early adopters are willing to pay a lot of money to enjoy the benefits of a new technology before anyone else can afford it. If the new technology catches on, the early adopters can always get the newer version at the same low price as everyone else. If the new technology does not catch on, the early adopters will still have had the benefits while the new technology existed.
.
Of course the business firms that promote and sell the new technology sometimes get burnt. That’s the risk of being in business.
When we talk about “benefits of a new technology” we should keep in mind that tech evolves, rapidly at first, and then slowly after that. The early adopters get in too early to benefit from the first round of improvements, and pay a high price to boot.
I’m not convinced H.265 will be the preferred codec when all is said & done.
I bet there are more bandwidth-friendly streaming codecs to come.
Which is why I probably won’t be replacing my 50″ 1080p Panasonic plasma HDTV with a 4K set before 2020…
Bill in NC,
Sorry to break the news to you… but, you will never see Blu-ray quality video streamed by a cable TV network.
.
When Bob talks about streaming 4k video, he is talking about some type of extremely crappy quality video that’s called 4k video.
.
No one is ever going to stream Blu-ray quality 1080p video… much less 4k video.
One important point that I guess needs to be made…
.
Usually if someone sees ultra high quality video they usually say they don’t like it because it “seems too real”.
.
Oddly, most movies are purposely created in low quality because that is what people are familiar with.
.
An exception is professional sports. In that situation every viewer wants all the quality and realism they can get.
Re: “purposely created in low quality because that is what people are familiar with”. Like any hardware or software construction project, the purpose is to make money. They no doubt perceive that the increase in revenue isn’t justified by the increased cost. It’s about what people consider acceptable, not what they are familiar with, although the two are closely related.
Video compression is evil…
Sorry, Apple. As much as I like my iMac, Amazon Fire Tv is where my money goes. 4k, 8k, who cares? It’s only TV, FFS!
There is a flaw in some comments about how 4k, won’t catch. 4k is a “commodity” and one that panel TV manufacturers needed to keep selling TVs. If as Bob says you pay little more for new 4k TV then for an HD, its crazy not to get a 4k version. Apple would be crazy not to capitalize on this.
Also there is something that Bob never mentioned and thats all the consumer 4k video cameras that are rushing to market at prices ranging from $499-$3,499. Being able to use your Apple stuff to stream that (via your Apple TV) to your 4k display will make REALLY GOOD FRIENDS of the people who make the cameras and the TVs. So there is a huge wave of 4k content ranging from Netflix to GoPro camera’s and more all waiting for a good 4k ecosystem. Oh yea and anyone who does not think the iPhone and iPad cameras will not go 4k isn’t paying attention either…. because as I said 4k is a commodity and one that Apple needs to own and get out in front of or they’ll be in trouble.
Apple has all the technical talent they need embedded in their Final Cut ProX division and iTunes to help business partners overcome issues in compression.
Just sayin ………….
Re: “Apple wants to own television. We’re not talking about broadcast TV or cable TV or even Over-the-Top streaming TV. With the new Apple TV, Apple wants to own it all.” There’s another way to interpret their improving the Apple TV by adding limited streaming to iTunes, which is to keep iTunes relevant. People don’t want even more set top boxes to clutter the living room, so instead of buying a Roku, they would simply upgrade their Apple TV to combine iTunes with the most popular Roku content. Those who never joined the iTunes ecosystem, are already lost to Apple. If they were really serious about taking over TV, they should just go head-to-head with TiVo, but that’s unlikely, unless they can produce a better TiVo to justify the Apple tax.
“Put simply, Apple wants to own television. We’re not talking about broadcast TV or cable TV or even Over-the-Top streaming TV. With the new Apple TV, Apple wants to own it all.”
Except for the screen? They are going to punt on that _essential_ part ? /skeptical The screen IS the TV.
Hmmm, controlling the entire stack seems like an important ingredient to their successful recipe for kicking the hell out of … entire industries?
There was no (big) money in phones in 2006.
I truly respect you Mr X and I’m sure you have great contacts and your insights, to me at least, are always either interesting or right on.
But on matters of the TV Apple has to do the full Monte. Maybe it is just not the time. Yet.
[…] Site I, Cringely reports: […]
nice article about 4K tv and feature thank you for post….
Thank you
Do you need a De Nature Indonesian herbal medicine can please contact our customer service directly via SMS or phone. We always online 24 hours to serve the purchase of medicinal herbs de Nature.
Nice article
Do you need a De Nature Indonesian herbal medicine can please contact our customer service directly via SMS or phone. We always online 24 hours to serve the purchase of medicinal herbs de Nature.