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Can Apple TV replace cable?

With the announcement of the new Apple TV comes a new wave of questions from the media asking if cable TV can be replaced by internet video. So I decided to do the math. I’m also in a certain time in life where I’m having to make this decision for myself, so it seems like a good time to discuss this issue.

I’m sure you don’t care about my personal life, so I’ll be vague: I need to cut my monthly budget back by a lot. I’ve been looking at where all of my money goes, and one easy way to cut spending is by canceling my cable service (which is approximately $49 per month with an HD DVR). Obviously this would mean I would have to cut my television entertainment back to what is available online. I’ve lived this way before, so I’m OK with that, but I still want to watch shows on my 50-inch TV. I’m already using my PS3 to stream Netflix video, but there are other shows I enjoy watching that aren’t available on Netflix.

Just for fun I wanted to find out how much I pay my cable provider for each show I watch. I was interested to see if paying for cable was a cost effective way to enjoy these programs. Results will vary, but I am paying about $0.53 for each program.

Would you pay $0.50 to stream a TV program online?

If you had to consciously consider how much each program actually costs, would you spend that money? Apple is betting on it with their new renting structure. Of course Apple is charging $0.99 for each program, (and now Amazon is charging that much as well).

Now, some of these shows are available free from Hulu, or the broadcasters’ website. Apple TV doesn’t allow streaming from those sources – unlike competing boxes such as Roku and Boxee. But even if I removed those free programs from my calculations, I’m still paying a comparable amount for renting TV programs.

Is streaming video cost effective?

Some of you use torrents, or other unofficial free websites to obtain video, and those certainly are cheaper (the Federal government picks up the tab), but for the rest of us, it really depends on how much TV you watch.

I might watch upwards of 90 TV programs every month, and if I had to pay for each one of those, I would certainly find cable to be cheaper. Cable also provides television like EPSN, Fox Sports, NBC Sports, ABC Sports, CBS Sports, American Idol, America’s Got Talent, news, and more. If I cancel my cable will I miss out on Project Runaway, Rubicon, The Walking Dead, and Breaking Bad?

I guess the coming years will have a lot of people asking themselves all of these questions, and we’ll have to consider every entertainment program as a consumer purchase. I’m sure in the future the cable companies might use their high-tech fiber optic lines to also provide every program on demand. And I hope they only charge $0.50 per program.

Apple still trailing competition with new Apple TV

Apple has a unique position in the marketplace. Because they are so popular for introducing game-changing products, when they don’t meet this goal it is seen as a failure. Steve Jobs is cursed with his success; he can never do anything mediocre.

And that’s exactly what the newly unveiled Apple TV is – mediocre.

The Apple TV wasn’t very popular compared to their other products. It was mainly ignored by popular culture, who swooned over the MacBooks, iPods, iPhones, and iPads. It was loved by those who did have it, but it was mostly the dedicated Apple users who actually looked that way.

This new Apple TV has shrunk in size, lost the hard drive (and the ability to purchase movies), and added a bunch of social media features – including Flickr and Mobile Me. Also new is the inclusion of Netflix and YouTube. This is interesting because Apple clearly understands the market dominance of those two services, and their product could not compete without them.

Apple decided to go another route with this box by removing the hard drive. Movies are not downloaded and stored anymore. It can stream movies on your computer through iTunes, but it won’t download to the box. The iTunes store will provide movies day-and-date with DVD (so they claim) for $4.99 – cheaper for library titles – and TV programs at $0.99 each. Everything will be available in HD where the original is in HD, and all movies will be in HD. (Apple claims 480p is HD, so we’ll keep an eye out on this.)

The best new feature is AirPlay, which streams from an iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch directly to the TV – a cool feature for those who have one of these devices.

The pre-sales are already available, and the product will begin shipping in 4 weeks. The best part is the Apple TV is now priced just $99, making it the most affordable Apple product that isn’t an accessory or the iPod Shuffle.

So why is it mediocre?

Well, because most people aren’t entirely sold on the whole-home Apple experience, so we don’t have Time Vaults, iMacs, AirPorts, etc as our entire home environment. While some people might like the ability to just enter their iTunes account information and get going, most of us don’t care if we get content from Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, or whatever else there is out there. There are many devices already available on the market that offer the same features for less money, and soon we’ll have some with even more features at comparable costs. Also, most new HDTVs include all of these features without requiring a separate box.

Roku has had their Roku HD player on the market for over a year, and it now sells for $69 (SD version is $59). It provides Amazon Video On Demand, Netflix, Facebook, and many other features. Unless you care about buying through iTunes, or streaming from an iPhone, the Apple TV doesn’t quite compare.

Most new Blu-ray Disc players and many new audio/video receivers include these features standard.

Soon there will be products with Boxee or Google TV which also include all of these features, plus other features (like Hulu, and searching live TV).

The fact that most new HDTVs come with these features is also another reason why a separate box will have to offer something even more compelling. TVs from Vizio, LG, Samsung, Panasonic, Sony, and many more all include Netflix, Amazon Video On Demand, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and much more.

Even more, many of these new products are controllable from an iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch.

This version of the Apple TV just seems like playing catch up for Apple. It doesn’t offer anything new (besides AirPlay), and it’s not innovative. I guess this is why Jobs called it “One more thing hobby.” It’s something an Apple fan would like to add to their home, but it’s not where Apple is focusing a lot of attention.

The Boxee box or Google TV?

You should be familiar with both Boxee Box and Google TV by now. If you are not, click both links and inform yourself.

Basically, they both offer a single graphical user interface (GUI) to search the internet for streaming video content. They both have additional features, and some that do not overlap, but that is the driving feature for both. They are both priced under $200.

The Boxee Box is built by D-Link, and comes with the Boxee freeware installed. It was supposed to be available now, but the release has been moved back to November. Boxee is unique as it also integrates social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google Buzz.




Google TV doesn’t have a whole lot of information available yet, but there will be both set-top boxes and integrated TVs. Logitech will have the first Google TV box, and they will announce its availability this fall. It is built on an Android platform, so it also includes Android apps – though I wouldn’t necessarily blame certain manufacturers from disabling this feature. The killer feature Google TV provides is the ability to connect a cable or satellite DVR so the GUI will also index television programs. The first partner is Dish Network; this would connect to the DVR and allow Google searches for live programs, and programs stored on the DVR.




There are, of course, competing boxes on the market – and one could also convert any PC into a Boxee Box at will – but these two seem to be the most promising solutions coming down the pipe.

It seems at $200, the Boxee could conceivably replace your existing cable DVR, and you would be saving money on cable service in under 2 months. On the other hand, there is still live programming and certain television serials unavailable on the internet still, so the Google TV would be a great compliment to Dish Network.

My question for you is, which box would you like in your home entertainment system?

How to use THX Optimizer video tests

Without a doubt, the first thing you want to do when you bring your new HDTV home from the store is setup the picture for optimal viewing. But the majority of people do not ever adjust the picture, and many don’t even know you can.

Fact: The default picture setting on HDTVs are set by the TV manufacturers to draw the consumer’s eye on the showroom floor. This means the picture is incredibly bright, and tinted blue. The reason they do this is because showrooms have bright overhead florescent lighting. But when you get the TV home, this setting is just too bright, and the colors are too blown out.



Fortunately, this is correctable through careful adjustments. Some manufacturers are now offering picture settings which are incredibly close to accurate. These are usually called something like “cinema,” “movie,” or “THX.” Start with one of these settings, and then use THX Optimizer to make picture adjustments.

For a list of movies which include the THX Optimizer, click this link. To view a video demonstration of THX video optimization, view the embedded video below.

Microsoft’s Xbox 360 is confused about 480p & HD

Hot on the heels of our post on Apple iTunes Movie Trailers claim 480p is “HD”, we’ve found another infractor in the collection of companies who aren’t labeling resolutions properly.

This time, the company-that-should-know-better is Microsoft. A friend of ours sent in a screenshot from the Xbox 360 game console, where 480p resolution is labeled as “HD”. Screenshots below.

Again, we’ll point out that 480p resolution does not qualify as high definition. 480p is the resolution utilized by DVD’s and is classified as “enhanced definition”, while anything 720p and up can be labeled as HD.

To give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt, perhaps they are only referring to the component cables as an HD capable transport method, but either way, their resolution selection screens could definitely be labeled a bit better, as they’ve caused some users to question whether 480p is indeed high definition, or not.

Have you seen 480p incorrectly labeled as HD or high definition? If so, we’d love to hear about it, so please let us know.

Thanks to Oliver for sending this in.

Netflix thinks you’re a pirate if you cancel

A friend of mine recently canceled his Netflix subscription because he didn’t use it much. While going through the motions to cancel his account, he was prompted with a customer exit survey, which is no surprise as Netflix is known for doing lots of surveys.

The most interesting part of the survey was the question on what the customer would now use as their primary source for TV episodes and Movies, after canceling Netflix. The top option presented to the survey participants is peer-to-peer and Bit Torrent sites! Screenshot below (red box outline added by me for highlighting).

With Bit Torrent being the number 1 option in their survey question, this leads me to wonder: Does Netflix suspect that the people canceling their subscriptions are pirates? It’s possible, or I could just be scrutinizing the survey question & answers a bit too much.

Either way, it’s nice to see that Netflix is not scared to ask the tough questions and evaluate their business properly. On the other hand, if people really are canceling their Netflix subscriptions in favor of obtaining content through piracy, I wonder if they’d answer the survey question truthfully anyway…

Thanks to Ben for sending this in.

The hot cell phones these days are smartphones, devices that are more akin to computers rather than traditional “telephones”. In fact, more and more consumers are spending the majority of time using their phones for other uses other than talking. They surf the web, they use apps, they social network with Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and many other services.

So what’s the next hot thing in cell phones smartphones? 4G service. The majority of the newer phones on the market currently support 3G (3rd Generation) data speeds, but 4G is coming to the masses in the near future. Sprint launched the first ever 4G phone with the HTC EVO smartphone running Google Android, but the 4G service is limited to a select number of cities (and my hometown of Phoenix is not on that list, or even in the plans for future Sprint 4G rollouts).

Personally, I’m highly looking forward to Verizon’s roll-out of LTE 4G services, which are rumored to be launching nationwide in 2011. Until then, I’ll continue salivating over the lightning fast data speeds promised by 4G technology. Compare Cell Phones.

Disclosure: This article is a sponsored post commissioned through PayPerPost.