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The name of the software should be a clue by now..
Who needs to be in the Front Row to look at their own photos? or play music...Front Row is about MOVIES....it always was...(though to be honest...nobody sits in the front row of a movie theater!)...Maybe it should have been called
Middle 10 Rows Back....

It's definitely a novel idea. Imagine paying just $9.99 per month to be able to stream a predetermined amount of movies per month. It's the ultimate on-demand system. Apple just needs to make sure that the streaming/caching of the movie will not cause choppy playback because the last thing a service like that would need would be consumer backlash.

All I know is this, that new iMac looks real good in any living room and being able to patch out HD video content to a HDTV from the iMac (Mac Mini or otherwise) would be paradigm shifting.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Gotta stop reading rumors the week before MWSF!

I know that Apple likes to be a decade ahead of everybody else, but what about people like me who are still on dial-up? Obviously this setup isn't going to work.

Just a quick-n-dirty poll: Who here still has a dial-up connection?

Patience, my young padawan.

The day come it will.

I think a perfect demonstration of streaming is the Apple Keynotes, the quality of them is perfectly watchable for longer periods. TV Shows would be perfect and we know they've already got something going on with them.

The Dark Side of the Moon--
Just a quick-n-dirty poll: Who here still has a dial-up connection?

I'm sorry, dialwhat?

MW: Word.

My Granny manages on a dial-up connection.

TDSOTM said "I know that Apple likes to be a decade ahead of everybody else, but what about people like me who are still on dial-up?"

My friend, it is not Apple who are ahead, but you that are behind.

How can it stream movies when it can't even handle trailers?
I have 1meg broadband and it still keeps telling me 'Movie trailer server not responding'.
Lot of work still to be done on FR

I just posted a link to the Contact form:

http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=105456

That's a press release that Apple has sued Burst. A little company with some key patents on streaming media tech. This means that what Cringely said was true, if Apple wants to open a streaming movie store, it needs to license from Burst, and apparently it has been in negotiation.

As for streaming movie trailers, FR doesn't show what bitrate they're using but it's clear that they are below DVD quality. If you go to their movie trailer website:

http://www.apple.com/trailers/

You'll see they have about 30 HD trailers. This is a much better indication of whether Apple can stream movies. I've looked and 480p movies will need a streaming rate of 2Mbps. This is doable on a stable moderately quick cable modem. Add some buffering time, perhaps 15mins, while you pop the popcorn, and you should have no trouble with a 480p movie stream.

Oh, you can get rid of the FR server messages if you go to your QT prefs, and movie your buffer all the way to the right to your largest setting.

Dave H,
Many people in this country don't have a choice of their internet connection. People who live in large cities or towns to not realize that many people living in the country have no access to high speed internet because no cable company will run cable out that far! It may not be his fault.

front row movie trailers use some form of peer-to-peer technology... when i watch a number of trailers in a row i get a threatning message from my university administrator to stop using peer to peer... it seems we might be streaming from a collection of servers the same time to get the speeds we do...

I usuallly like to sit in the front row of a movie theatre...

subscribe to movies.. YES.. you don't need to watch them 5 times .. most movies are worth 2.5 hrs of my time, if not less.

Could this explain Apple's recent bandwith increase?

HAPPY 6th BIRTHDAY, OS X!!

Once Wimax hits, all this bandwidth stuff will be history. As will the 'i can't get broadband in my neighborhood' thing. It will be a great day for everyone.

jb

I'm sure people back in 1882 didn't think Edison should wire up the entire USA before turning on the lights in New York. Apple is doing the same thing here, only with video.

People outside of towns and cities will get this when their infrastructure supports it. In the meantime, they have bigger houses and less pollution to worry about.

Call it a trade off.

Apple will need to both stream and set up a subscription or pay-and-play type model for movies. The average movie watcher doesn't have the same need to own the product as do music listeners. A good song can be listened to a 1000 times, but even a good movie has its watching limits.

Mike: Isn't it the fifth birthday?

(Or the sixth since Steve announced it as vaporware)

Well, a small note of dissent! Those keynote addresses end up being choppy, starting and stopping in a herky-jerky fashion, losing connections, etc.--even on cable modem hook ups!

Let's hope that's not the model of how movie streaming would work!

Dark side of the moon,

I'm in the middle of the northern woods in the Canadian oil patch downloading from a geo-stationary satellite parked over the equator. I get my HDTV from a second satellite a little to the left of the internet satellite. I send encrypted phone messages over a satellite phone that uses 20 some odd satellites in low earth, polar orbits.

Man, get out of the dark ages and find a better way to get information. Next you'll tell me you have newspapers delivered in hardcopy.

And you wonder why gasoline costs so much.

MacJack,

I know I've been using OS X exclusively since November of 1999 so it has been at least 6 years.

So I not only have to subscribe to get the video stream, I have to sign up & pay for a .Mac membership too just to play it? And what exactly do I get for spending my money (literally hundreds of dollars a year can be expected) that I actually own? I can buy a 'DVD quality' movie for less than $10 a pop these days, and it's mine forever. Why is it that, according to Jobs, owning your own music is a huge advantage over subscription-based services (I agree), but subscribing is the better - or at least equally viable - way to go for video?

Could this be Indicator #1 that the hollywood studios' DRM talons are in Apple as deep as for any other company?

If this is they way Apple's going, I'd hope they allow the option of a download service of some type, with videos of equal quality, to go along with it. Call me old school, but I still believe in the benefits of ownership - real ownership - over a lifetime of renting, no matter what the product.

If there is any choppiness due to the CPU trying to do many things, well, then, that's exactly what Viiv is for.

Back on topic of Burst, on the one hand, the Burst lawsuit certainly could confirm something bigger coming next Tuesday. But it could also just be Apple misdirection, since Burst has claims on the Quicktime Streaming that's been with us for awhile.

haha Yes, now I see how ancient I am. Like, lunar ancient.

Truth is, I live in the woods (sorta) and dial-up is all we got right now. We could spring for satellite, but here in mid-Alberta (that's Canada, for you foreigners) it's pretty expensive. Like $100 a month, and in my mind, it ain't worth it.

The town we live by promised that the "wood-people" would get a wireless internet service like 2 years ago. Jack-shit has happened since, and here I am, slaving away to the 56K.

Hmm... "slavin' away to the 56K"... sounds like a good folk song to me!

I don't blame Apple, either. I'd rather they be ahead of the game myself.

Apple should release a new even smaller Mac mini for around 199$, destined to the living-room , it would have no HD, just flash memory. It would be able to run the iTunes music store, so you can buy tunes and videos, or download podcasts, and put them on your iPod.

It would feature built-in Wifi so you could use your main computer to store your music and video collection. Obviously Front Row and its remote would be included, and you'd be able to access not only the music/videos/photos stored in its internal Flash memory, but also stream them from your collection on your main Mac via Wifi.

Apple would also start to sell/rent streamed full-length movies, that wouldn't need permanent storage (hence fit with the Flash memory model), so that you could make a good use of the box, even without linking it to a computer.

The movies wouldn't be in HD and the first version of the box wouldn't support HDTV, because bandwidth issues will make mass streaming of good quality HD movies almost impossible for the next few years and the majority of people don't have HDTV's, especially if you think about the whole world market, not just the US. It would support 480p resolution, and would be able to play DVD's at full resolution, which is enough for most people anyway.

Now, some games on this new Apple box could be interesting... how about Nintendo's complete NES/SNES/N64 back catalog available for download on the iTMS for this new box? Apple would need to add a game section, and DRM to prevent copying. A retro wireless controller would be sold as an add-on, and the box may include GameCube controller ports, since this controller would work with all those older games.

To bring new games to casual gamers, Apple would need to update its Front-Row remote, so that people don't have to buy or add a new controller to play games. Apple could add 3d position and rotation detection feature to the Front-Row remote, and add 2 or 3 buttons. So people would be able to play fun puzzle games and other mini action games by waving or pointing the remote.

How should Apple name this box? I suggest they name it the Revolution!

Makes sense?

Lakitu:

"Makes sense?"

No.

It does make sense in my own parallel universe

Oh ok then, that's perfectly alright