PDA

View Full Version : AppleTV as Sky+ Replacement


spikeh
2007-04-16, 18:34
My Dad is talking about not renewing his £800 p/a Sky HD subscription because of the amount of advertising he has to watch with shows. Given that he has a birthday coming up, I'm thinking about getting the family to club together and buy him:

1. Apple TV.
2. Airport Extreme Base Station.
3. Mac Mini (possibly)

My questions:

1. When do we think we'll have iTunes Store in the UK for TV Shows, movies, etc?
2. Will the Apple TV happily play things he downloads from UK Nova? DivX and the like. He uses this to get things like Time Team and so forth, which wouldn't be available on iTS.
3. Is there something like TVShows (http://tvshows.sourceforge.net/) for Windows, if we don't get the mini?
4. Is there a 'series link'-like option for shows in the iTunes store?
5. Do you guys see a subscription model for iTunes becoming more likely due to the video content?

Also, in general, do you think this is a good solution to not having Sky? Obviously he sacrifices some of the breadth and has to do a little preplanning, but do you think it makes sense? Is it future-proof?

Wyatt
2007-04-16, 19:30
If Apple sold TV shows in Europe, this would be a fine replacement for people who don't:

1) Watch live events, like sports.
2) Watch the news.
3) Watch a lot of different shows regularly

Most people, though, do one of these things, if not all three. Of course, if he's thinking of dropping his subscription, he has decided he wouldn't miss those things anyway. :p

Now, to answer your other questions:
1) I have no idea. :p
2) It takes a bit of a hack, but Apple TV is indeed capable of playing Divx.
3) I'm not sure, but I'd be shocked if there wasn't.
4) Yep. You can subscribe to shows for entire seasons (for a typical series) or in monthly chunks (for frequent programs, like the Daily Show)
5) I doubt it in the near future, but in a year or two, I think it's a strong possibility. I think it'll happen with music before TV, though.

spikeh
2007-04-18, 08:58
Brilliant, thanks dude.