DMA Devices

I looked at seven DMAs in total, with varying ranges of feature sets, capabilities, content types, and prices. The devices I analyzed were:

• Apple TV: $99 with remote
• Roku XD S: $99 with remote and composite cable
• Boxee Box: $199 with HDMI cable and QWERTY remote
• Western Digital TV Live Hub: $199 with 1TB hard drive
• Google TV by Logitech: $299 with full-sized keyboard with trackpad, HDMI cable, and IR blaster
• Xbox 360 “S”: $299 with 250GB hard drive, controller, composite video cable, and two games
• AMD Fusion Theater PC, aka AMD “FTPC”: $399 with 160GB hard drive, wireless keyboard with trackpad and remote

Top to bottom: Roku XD S - $99, Boxee Box - $199 and Apple TV - $99

DMA Content

I ran them through multiple usage models with different content while gauging simplicity from start to end on:

• Video: commercial and personal, web, remote, local device and local network.
• Music: commercial and personal, web, remote, local device and local network.
• Photos: personal, web, remote, local device, and local network.
• Games: local device, web, and app.
• Social Media: web, app, and overall integration.
• Web: Anything one can do with a browser and the web.

Western Digital TV Live Hub - $199

DMA Capabilities

To get to the major “capability clusters,” I have categorized the DMA’s capabilities and segmented them into 12 variables. This is way too complex but gets us on a path to segment into something simpler. Here are the main capabilities:

• Play from Cloud Service: DMA plays video, audio, or photos from a cloud service like Netflix, Flickr, Pandora, etc.
• Play from DMAs Main Storage: DMA plays video, audio, or photos from the DMA main storage. Content initially downloaded or synced from peripheral. DMA does not need broadband to playback content.
• Play from DMAs External Storage: DMA plays video, audio, or photos from storage connected externally. This is storage like a USB stick or USB hard drive. DMA does not need to be connected to broadband to playback content.
• Play from Network Device: DMA plays video, audio, or photos from a networked device. These devices could be iPads, PCs, NAS, other DMAs, etc.
• Play to Network Device: DMA plays video, audio or photos to a networked device via DLNA. The device could be a PC, another DMA, an iPad, iPhone, etc.
• Sync from Cloud Service: DMA syncs content from a cloud service and can operate without broadband. These can be services like Picasa Web, Amazon VOD, and MP3Tunes.
• Sync from External Device: DMA syncs content from an external device which can be networked. The DMA “imports” the content into its file system. DMA can operate without broadband. External devices could be a digital camera, smartphone, PC, USB stick, NAS, etc.
• Local Games: DMA plays games that have been stored on the DMAs primary mass storage. DMA does not need to be connected to broadband to play game. Examples include PC games and Xbox games.
• Full Browser: DMA has full browser and can play video, audio, and photos and play games and interact on social media.
• Video Chat: Users interact using video. Examples include Skype, Google Chat, Kinect Video, etc.
• Social Media: User can interact via Twitter, Facebook, or proprietary social network.
• Complexity: DMA’s difficulty to setup and use.
• HW Upgradability: Hardware can be upgraded to provide greater capabilities.

My customized AMD FTPC desktop

Here is how the different devices look side by side.

Browsing Videos on the Xbox 360

Four DMA Categories

As you can see, most of the variability in DMA capabilities has to do with storage, games, browsing and complexity. From this, four categories emerge:

1. Streamers: Apple TV and Roku XD S fit into this category. They are less expensive, have no storage, are simplest to setup and primarily stream content from the cloud. They cannot operate productively at any time without the cloud.

2. Surfers: Boxee Box and Google TV fall into this category. They are more expensive than streamers, offer full streamer capability and add full web and multiple “channel” capabilities. They are more aware of the household network and can share their content and offer full social media capabilities. They cannot operate productively at any time without the cloud.

3. Storers: The Western Digital TV Live Hub fits into this category. It takes all the capability of the Streamers and adds local storage, providing the ability to buy, download, play, and store paid and personal content. The devices are more complex in than Streamers and Surfers in that the user has to choose where they want content stored or synched. They can play content without a cloud connection once it has been downloaded.

4. Sinks (as in kitchen): As in “everything but the kitchen sink,” the Xbox 360 “S” and the AMD FTPC fit into this category. The kitchen sink variety have every feature of the Streamers, Surfers, Storers and pile on even more features, including complex games, video chat, offer the most peripheral options and are even hardware upgradable in many cases. They are the most complex and the most expensive to fit with more features.

Xbox 360 "S" - $299

My Thoughts on the Future of the DMA

The future of the living room DMA is bright and there will be many changes along the way in form factors, capabilities, services, and prices. As I outline below, some of the capability will be sucked into Smart TVs and set top boxes. Some of it will be sucked into smartphones and tablets but many higher end features and usage models will keep them as a stand-alone category.

• Low-End DMAs Integrate into Smart TV: Lower capability, lower cost DMA’s will be integrated into HDTVs. This one is easy to call. Some call this “Smart TVs”. At the recent 2011 CES, every major TV manufacturer announced TV lines with integrated DMAs. Some were based on the Google TV platform, a few were Yahoo-based, and some were proprietary. Streamers will get sucked into Smart TVs as quickly as it takes to roll them out into medium range price points. Some Surfers will as well, but only when dual core designs are affordable and can deliver an enjoyable internet experience.
• More DMA Features in STB: Set top box vendors along with the service providers are busy integrating more and more DMA features into their set top boxes. This is part of the war between the OTT (Over The Top) ecosystem versus the cable and satellite ecosystem. The traditional STB and service providers wouldn’t “cross the streams” of personal content but will be forced to integrate this to not get squeezed out.
• Mobile Devices Don’t Kill DMA: I have been connecting mobile devices to my TV for about 10 years now and am very familiar with the plusses and minuses. Recently, I have watched movies and TV shows off of my iPad and videos off of an Atrix phone with the HD Multimedia Dock. They both provide really good quality experiences but have one major flaw unrelated to the technology: when you have them plugged into the TV, you don’t have access to the device. When a phone call or text comes in, what do you do? When that important email, Tweet or Facebook message or status update comes in, what do you do? Stop the movie, undock the device, take care of the alert, then re-dock and reinitiate what you were doing? I don’t think so.
• More Local Storage: I believe more local storage will find its way into devices. Home broadband is increasing at a much slower rate than the increase in data density. It was recently reported that Netflix consumed 20% of prime-time bandwidth in North America. Imagine what happens as Smart TV’s get connected. Higher levels of caching will be required to maintain QOS. More storage will drive some of the Storer capability away from the TV given the immense cost adder. Outside the U.S. it isn’t all about paid services, so Storers which allow for Torrent and DivX capabilities will just grow.
• Over The Air TV: Call me crazy, but I think you will see DMAs emerge with over the air HD tuners in North America. Why? Over time, consumers will get smart and realize that you can essentially “cut the cord” and go with a DMA plus OTA HD tuner and get the best of both worlds. You get pay as you go for the shows you love PLUS the live broadcasts of sports, news and reality shows.
• Prices Rise Short Term: With home broadband bandwidth becoming saturated, prices for streaming content will rise. Cable companies and telcos will start charging content distributors for priority bandwidth, who will in-turn charge users. This is the classic net-neutrality debate.
• New Business Models: The DMA wheel continues to turn due to content and advertising profits. The all you can eat content models will drive toward package deals, value menus and pay as you go. As Google and Microsoft fine-tune their video, music, and game service franchises, there will be many more opportunities to subsidize DMAs and make them even less expensive. It will be less about acquisition as services mature and more about consumption. Advertising will undergo the most changes and even enable 100% subsidized DMAs. Product placement overlays in the videos, finite targeting of standard advertising and fast ad-to-purchase techniques at much higher CPMs and CPCs will enable this subsidy.
• New Categories Created: Mashups will occur that either haven’t been productized yet or haven’t been successful up to this point. Intelligent routers with DMA capabilities will emerge, as well, DMA media servers that sync with the cloud will store the family’s content and distribute it out to the home. Home AV receivers will combine with DMA technologies to enhance their utility. Blu-ray players have adopted low-end Streamer functionality already and they will start adopting higher-order features like Surfers.
• Advanced Capabilities: Advanced capabilities desired by consumers will keep the entire category from getting sucked into Smart TVs. This is in addition to the new categories described above. The stereoscopic 3D (S3D) wave will permeate its way into DMAs. Content will go to S3D and DMAs will follow. Advanced HCI (Human Computer Interaction) and NUI (Natural User Interface) capabilities will permeate into DMAs and become differentiators between vendors. The physical remotes will be augmented with computer listening and computer vision to enable easier content research and management. Do a gesture and change the “channel”. Ask to see “The Bachelor” and it finds the Bachelor and can distinguish between dogs, cats, people stretching their arms and different people in the living room. This will enable easier search, and with the amount of DMA content becoming unmanageable with menus, will drive toward precise voice search and more sophisticated “suggestion engines”. It goes without saying that the thirst for realism in today’s game consoles won’t subside and will require some serious capabilities to take the levels of realism and gameplay to the next level.

An assortment of controllers I’ve used on this journey.

Conclusion

Four classes of living-room DMAs exist today to serve a very wide variety of capabilities, content, user sophistication levels with prices ranging from $99 to $399. DMAs fit into Streamers, Surfers, Storers, or Sink classes. Streamers stream content from the cloud, Storers can actually download and store content; Surfers add web capabilities and Sinks have all those features and many more, basically the “everything but the kitchen sink” class.

AMD Fusion Theater PC, aka AMD "FTPC" - $399

In the future, Smart TVs will gobble up today’s basic Streamer and some Surfer capabilities. With an intelligently programmed user interface, Smart TVs will also offer convenient Storer capabilities as many attempt to do already with USB storage device support… but the standalone DMA still has a future. Set top boxes will adopt today’s Streamer and Storer capabilities. Mobile devices won’t steal a lot of the DMA thunder given multi-use usability issues. The future is driven by new product categories, new business models, and advanced capabilities like advanced HCI, personal cloud sync, improved suggestion engines, and more realistic gaming.

So which DMA is the best today? Well, I will let you read my experiences and make your own choice.

Pat Moorhead is Corporate Vice President and Corporate Marketing Fellow and a Member of the Office of Strategy at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

See Pat’s bio here or past blogs here.

Follow @PatrickMoorhead on Twitter.

So far I have looked at the Apple TV, Google TV, Boxee Box, WD TV Live Hub, Roku XD S and now I will look at the Xbox 360. The original Xbox was introduced in 2001 and the Xbox 360 in 2005. For this analysis, I used what is known as the Xbox 360 S for “slimline”, which became available in 2010. The Xbox 360 uses “Xenos” graphics from AMD, optimized for the game console. Many see the Xbox 360 as the best console out there, but the question is, how does it do as an entertainment DMA?

Video Content

The Xbox 360 can view video in many different ways, including buying and renting movies, TV shows and music videos. Those can be streamed or downloaded using the Video Marketplace and I could choose from 480p SD or 1080p HD resolutions, so there isn’t any question of what you are actually buying. When you buy movies from Zune, you get the rights to stream and download to the PC, Zune Player, and Windows Phone 7.

Zune TV and movies looked great. I was very impressed with the compelling backgrounds even while browsing for movies… a really immersive experience. This is very distinguished versus the other DMAs I used.

With an Xbox Live Gold account at $59.99 per year, I got ESPN and Netflix. My cable company, Time Warner, doesn’t support pass through ESPN3, so I don’t get access to live sports. ESPN clips looked really good and the experience with avatars and multiple “windows” was, again, immersive. Netflix looked the best I had seen on any of the DMAs I have tested so far.

I also streamed video from other sources, including networked Windows PCs via DLNA, Windows PC via Media Center, and external USB storage. The Xbox 360 handled UPnP and DLNA quite well and very fast, too. I had some CODEC issues streaming without Media Center; like a lack of audio playing back iPhone 4 video. When I pulled the same content from Media Center, the video would playback. I can only assume that my Media Center PC was recoding the video into a format the Xbox recognized.

The Xbox also comes with an integrated DVD player to play standard DVD movies.

Audio Content

The Xbox provided music in a few different ways. First, I could stream music via Last.fm and it looked absolutely fantastic on the display. Cover art was blended with iconography that redefined the music experience and turned it into a video show.

Users can also purchase a Zune Pass for one year at $149. This gets you one year of unlimited music downloads to PC, Xbox, and Windows Phone 7, and 10 songs per month to keep forever, even if you cancel. Like Last.fm, Zune Pass music also had these beautiful and artistic backgrounds.

Like video, Xbox 360 played audio from networked Windows PCs via DLNA, Windows PC via Media Center, and local USB storage. I recommend doing it over Media Center as the Xbox 360 interface is attractive, fast, and pulls over all of the cover art.

Photo Content

Unfortunately, there is no service to pull in pictures from Flickr or Picasa like all of the other DMAs. BUT, it DID provide iPhone and digital camera connectivity via one of its five USB ports.

The other way to see your pictures is similar to music and videos, via networked PC, Media Center or USB storage. I recommend doing it through Media Center because it is fast and looks great.

Game Content

As you would expect in gaming, the Xbox 360 rules infinitely over all the other DMAs I’ve tested. There are 2,732 games as of January 23, 2011. This includes some of the most popular game titles ever, including titles like Call of Duty: Black Ops, which Activision announced had grossed over $1B in less than two months.

Games can be purchased and demoed through the Games Marketplace.

Also, gamers can chat through audio or text while playing each other by purchasing one of numerous accessories.

Communications and Social Media

The Xbox 360 has many different ways to communicate with each other. Users can use text-chat using the optional Chatpad on Facebook and Twitter.

Users can also voice chat over Xbox Live using an optional wireless or wired headset.

Video chat (Video Kinect) is enabled with the optional Kinect peripheral and an Xbox Live subscription.

Networking

Like the other DMAs, the Xbox 360 S provides hard-line Ethernet and built-in WiFi “n”.

Home Connectivity

The Xbox 360 fit into my home environment better than anything I have tested so far. The UPnP and DLNA capabilities gave access to all my networked PCs and very reliably and consistently. I didn’t try to max out external content storage, but there are 5 USB ports, more than some PCs. As I outlined above, I could even “play” pictures off of my iPhone 4 and certain digital cameras.

Out of the box, my Xbox 360 S comes standard with composite video support and HDMI-out with the purchase of a standard HDMI cable. Component connections are an optional cable purchase.

Simplicity

The Xbox 360 provides a lot of different usage models spanning from hard core games to videos to music. It isn’t nearly as simple as the Apple TV but I find it much easier than the Google TV. The start page could be intimidating at first, but once you get used to the horizontal user interface, the easier it gets. The Xbox 360 controller gets some getting used to as it’s unlike any other living room controller around.

Using the Kinect controller, I could actually control my media using voice commands and hand gestures. This IS the way of the future for all consoles and TVs and I am amazed how usable Microsoft made this feature.

The Xbox 360 is by far the largest DMA I had ever tested, but then again it does a whole lot more than others. It was also the loudest, but given its spinning DVD drive and hard drive, it makes sense. It wasn’t distracting however. I have owned two previous Xbox units and the noise suppression work on the Xbox 360 S was nothing short of amazing.

Price

The range of price really depends on how you want to use your Xbox. If media streaming is your primary usage model, I recommend the $199 for a 4GB model. If your main usage model is media purchase and download, I would recommend the 250GB model at $299. The more storage, the more music and movies you can buy and download. This makes you less reliant on immediate network speed. There are bundles of the 4GB and 250GB models with Kinect, a savings of about $50. Services on the Xbox are pricey, particularly if you want to get Netflix and streaming audio over Last.fm. Those require an Xbox LIVE Gold membership for an additional $5 per month. A Gold membership also gets you unlimited downloads of game demos.

Conclusion

Using the Xbox 360 S as a living room media device was like watching a big-budget Hollywood movie, while many of the other DMAs were Indie films. Every transition and visual, whether it was for video, music, or games, felt produced and exciting which really separated it from other devices. At $199 for the entry model plus $5 per month for a Gold membership, I could strongly recommend the Xbox 360 S to anyone I knew except perhaps for the complete CE newbie and users wedded to Google Picasa and Pandora in their living room.

Have any comments or questions? Let me know below.

Next up, I will look at the multi-purpose Windows 7 PC and see how it stacks up as a living room device.

Pat Moorhead is Corporate Vice President and Corporate Marketing Fellow and a Member of the Office of Strategy at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

See all Pat’s bio here or past blogs here.

Follow @PatrickMoorhead on Twitter.

Western Digital has had a lot of experience in the digital media adapter (DMA) space and it’s apparent it has invested that know how into the Live Hub. The Live Hub is very interesting in that it is the first one I have looked at with onboard storage and legacy video out ports. In fact, it has a ton of storage, one terabyte! I guess I should have expected that from Western Digital. The storage enables movie purchases from Blockbuster, downloadable rentals, and the ability to have local personal content, so less worrying about home network OR broadband issues.

Storage

As I said above, the Live Hub comes with a 1 TB drive and therefore can load a ton of videos, photos, and music on the drive which must be copied over a network. It does not act like a standard USB drive, a slight drawback, but comes with an easy program to automatically mount a Windows drive. I could even set it to synch with another network drive. The system would also let me synch external USB storage and even network drives with the unit’s internal hard drive. Very cool, although the kind of functionality expected from WD.

Video

WD’s Live Hub offers a lot of video options. Not as many as the Boxee Box, the Swiss army knife of video, but close. The Live Hub offers video services from AccuWeather, BlockBuster, MediaFly video RSS, Netflix, and YouTube. Video RSS allows you to access virtually any video feed that publishes RSS, which is most.

The Live Hub played most local video I threw at it with some exceptions, some major ones. I had some audio synchronization issues with some 1080p files from a camcorder, MTS, and movie trailers downloaded off web sites. These were in standard formats, not exotic ones. Looking through the WD forums, I am not the only one with the issue. I cannot imagine this issue not being fixed with a future firmware patch.

I wanted better quality of on-line video. It seemed regardless of which on-line service I used, the quality wasn’t where I wanted it to be. Netflix, Blockbuster, YouTube, it didn’t matter. On YouTube, it was like I was using the SD feed, not the HD feed. It could possibly have been my cable operator and bandwidth switching, I don’t know, but I tried it at all times of the day with the same result. The exception was BlockBuster which is a download and play service. Its video looked really good.

Blockbuster video was a very unique experience. Most services are streaming. Blockbuster is download and play. That, in a sense, helps buffer network congestion at peak times. Most interestingly is that it let me pick where I wanted to download content. I added an external USB hard drive and it was going to let me save it there… that really got my propeller whirring about the possibilities here of portable, DRM-encrypted content. The video looked great, too.

One thing I really appreciated was the proper handling of VOB menus. When I do pay to have horse shows videotaped, I get a DVD in this file format.

The Live Hub had the most complete array of video outputs of any DMA I have used. It had HDMI, component, and composite. You might say every TV has HDMI, which is close to the truth, but how many are there and are they filled?  Many TVs I have seen sold in the previous few years have 2 HDMI ports, one filled with a set top box and one with a Blu-ray player. That’s why component video is important. Also in a media room where you have a projector with just ONE HDMI cable input.

Finally, unlike all the DMAs I have explored so far, because I had a local hard drive, I didn’t need the Internet or a PC to access video, albeit needing the PC to get the content on the device.

Music and Audio

The device handled my favorite streaming site, Pandora, so I was very happy. Live Hub also comes with Live365 Radio and of course with MediaFly RSS, it can pick audio as well.

Local music and audio off a networked PC was handled like Google TV and Boxee, via UPnP. Just authorize your music folder to be shared, have your PC on, and Live Hub automatically detects it. Unlike the Apple TV, I didn’t have to have my media player open as I was streaming from the PC.

As with video, with my audio on the local hard drive I didn’t need access to network bandwidth or a PC to get to music.

Photo

Live Hub supports Flickr photo online services. Given that I use Picasa by Google, this didn’t help me a whole lot but to those who use Flickr it does.

Photos on a networked PC were handled like local music, via UPnP. Local photos on the Live TV Hub didn’t require a PC or bandwidth.

Games

Games are not available on the WD Live TV Hub.

Web

There is no “browser” and therefore no support for the “web”. Why does this matter?  It depends on each person’s preferred content. For me, it meant no Picasa photos, no Amazon VOD, no games, no CNN, and no ESPN scores.

Social Media

The Live TV Hub supports Facebook, but not very efficiently. I got to see two entries on my 60″ TV. If anyone out there knows how to increase this, let me know. Also, because there isn’t a QWERTY keyboard, “commenting” is harder than texting on a cellphone in the 90s. Links to websites cannot be displayed, either….

Communications

Chat, instant messaging or video chat is not available.

Networking

Like the Apple TV, Google TV, and Boxee, the WD TV Live Hub supports 100 Mbps hard wired Ethernet and WiFi N.

Simplicity

Setting up the WD TV Live Hub was relatively straightforward for the online services. To enable the hard drive sharing capability from the PC, I had to run a program which mounted the drive without having to go through Windows networking. It worked and was simple. Getting content on the Hub was a very different story. While I like the ability to just copy files over the network, I would have also liked to do a first time copy via USB at 480 Mbps. I have gigabit routers but unfortunately my home cabling is CAT 5e, maxed at 100 Mbps. It took me almost a day to fill up the drive from my PC.

Things got easier when I did get the content on the drive. WD has built a very attractive user interface (UI) called Mochi, very straightforward and upscale. The only issue I had was with the speed of drilling into folders. It crawled when I would click into a local or networked folder. Much slower than the other devices.

One UI feature I’d like to see added is a smartphone controller app. Every device has had this so far. It would make logging in, adding RSS feeds, finding the right YouTube feeds, etc. all the easier.

Home Connectivity

With HDMI, component, and composite video out, the Live Hub was very connectable to virtually any TV. Also, USB, network, and networked PC storage was very connectable and synchronized in an incredible variety of ways.

Most impressive is that the Live Hub is officially DLNA certified to the latest 1.5 level. That’s nice to know given it should stream content to other DLNA devices.

Price

The Western Digital Live TV Hub can be purchased for $199 which, remember, includes a 1TB hard drive, which is worth around $100.

Conclusion

The WD Live TV Hub is the box for sophisticated users who see value in the on-board storage of their content. The Live TV Hub has some incredible features like 1TB of on-board storage for content which eliminates the multiple failure points that could bring down other DMAs, namely the cable network, cable modem, router, and network. The storage capability with mounted network drives and synchronization and indexing of all other storage was awesome as well. It’s flat out the only device that allows for saving DRM-encrypted onto other storage devices, in this case via Blockbuster. It’s the only device I have tested so far that is DLNA certified as well.

I’d like to better understand why basic video streaming didn’t look as good as the other units I tested. I hope it was just my unit and not others. I’d also like to see a fix for the issue where some 1080p content had audio synch issues. The Mochi interface was simple and sexy, but at times was very laggy for me. I don’t know if this was inherent to the UI or content indexing, but it definitely had lag when clicking into folders. Finally, I would really like to see a smartphone-based controller to specifically help with text entry.

Next up, I will take a look at the Roku XD S.

Pat Moorhead is Corporate Vice President and Corporate Marketing Fellow and a Member of the Office of Strategy at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

See all Pat’s bio here or past blogs here.

Follow @PatrickMoorhead on Twitter.

The Apple TV was announced on September 1, 2010 and is actually the second generation of Apple TV devices.  I am one of the few and the proud who actually bought the first version Apple TV.  The 2^nd generation Apple TV is a tiny device at less than 1” high and less than 4” wide and deep, almost portable. So let’s drill down…

Video Content

The Apple TV’s primary use case is to rent movies from iTunes and stream them to your HDTV, which it does pretty well. Apple also offers those with Netflix accounts the ability to stream movies. The Netflix interface is the latest generation meaning you don’t have to choose the movies on a PC, you can actually do it from the Apple TV.  That’s nice.

I could also stream movies from my PC that I bought from iTunes as long as I had “Home Sharing” enabled on the PC’s iTunes, the PC was up and running, and on the same network.  I also could stream home movies I took on digital video cameras as long as they complied with Apple TV’s narrow video specifications.  In many cases I needed to recode video using a package like Cyberlink MediaEspresso.

One of the biggest issues I experienced with Apple TV was video lags.  I had it connected over 100 Mbit wired network to my cable modem but during prime-time, I had my rental stop numerous times because of network congestion.  This was a deal breaker for my family.

Apple TV will also play YouTube content.  Even with the remote without a keypad, it was easy to type.  I will get to iPod/iPhone remotes later.  Videos looked great as they use the HD stream if possible, BUT I couldn’t get to my own videos without searching on myself.  Very, very annoying.

One final note on video… the Apple TV video peaks at 720p on H.264 and 640×480 for MP4 video.  I noticed the lack of video quality, but I am very picky on video.  The MP4 video resolution is even below DVD resolution (720×480) which is disappointing.  Many wasted pixels on my 1920×1080 HDTV.

Music content

I played music from my “home-shared” PC running iTunes.  My playlists were there just as they were in iTunes on my PC.  The album art showed up consistently and was very responsive. I am not much of an audiophile, so I won’t comment on the quality.  It sounded just fine to me.

Of note, a user MUST have a PC available to play any music.  This was disappointing, given the number of robust streaming services available from Pandora to Slacker to Last.FM. As we will see in other DMA’s the Apple TV is the ONLY device that didn’t offer the capability.

Photo Content

Apple TV connects to photos on the PC the same way it streams music from the home PC.  Choose first on the PC which photos you want shared on iTunes.  Responsiveness was very, very fast and looked very professional with the built-in transitions and optional music.

One thing I’d like to see changed is the ability to choose folders.  I was looking at 10s of thousands of photos at a time and it was very hard to find the pictures and albums I wanted.  If anyone out there knows how to change this, please let me know.

The Apple TV also supports online photos with Apple’s own MobileMe service and Flickr.  Unfortunately for me, a Google Picasa user, I didn’t have that choice.

Game content

There are no games available on the Apple TV.  It would be cool if I could run the iPad games……

Web

As there isn’t an integrated browser, the web is not available on the Apple TV.  For me that means no Picasa and no Pandora, my preferred web photo and web music services.

Social Media

There is no integration of Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Bebo, etc., on the Apple TV.  I personally don’t need to do that now on a 60” HDTV but I am sure some users do.

Networking

The Apple TV supports up to 100 Mbps hard-line network connection and 802.11n Wi-Fi.  That’s more than enough bandwidth as long as your cable or DSL service isn’t throttling you which I illustrated before in renting videos.

Simplicity

Hands down the Apple TV is the simplest streaming device I have used.  I entered my Apple ID, downloaded a software patch and I was renting movies. I opened up iTunes on my PC and I was immediately accessing my music.  Apple TV even detected the max resolution and frequency and preset that for me, albeit only 720p.  Not all DMAs do that.

One HDMI cable is all you need and all the choice you get for connectivity.  That’s limiting for legacy TVs but as simple as it gets.

The remote is very simple given it only has a few directional buttons. It’s also very sleek and looks like it belongs in the living room.

Connectivity to Other Devices

Apple got a lot of attention when they announced the AirPlay for video feature.  If you have an iPhone, iPod, or iPad with iOS 4.2, you can stream the video almost instantaneously to your Apple TV.  It worked for me on iTunes purchased or rented movies and YouTube videos.  Unfortunately, videos I took with my iPhone do not stream.  That’s a real disappointment given it would save me so much time and hassle to watch my videos if AirPlay streamed my locally captured videos.  I am hoping this gets fixed soon.

One really awesome feature is the iOS remotes.  If you have an iPod, iPhone or iPad, you can basically control the Apple TV.  It comes in handy when entering text as you just uses your iOS mobile device to enter text.  Additionally, when looking for content to play off a PC, you can see the art on the iOS mobile device itself which makes it infinitely easier.  I love this feature.  Just download the free “Remote” app from the App Store and you are good to go.

Price

At $99 the Apple TV is one of the least expensive digital media adapters on the market.  That is, of course, if you don’t count TVs and Blu-ray players that are integrated with services like Netflix, Pandora, and Picassa.

Conclusion

The second generation Apple TV is one of the simplest, least expensive digital media adapters on the market today. It is optimized for the Apple world of iTunes movies, iTunes music, and iTunes and MobileMe pictures.  My only challenge, a major one, was hiccups in streaming movies off of iTunes and Netflix.  I don’t know if that’s my cable company’s issues,  that Apple TV has limited on-board storage, or a combination of both.  I didn’t have hiccups on the first generation Apple TV that had a hard drive. I don’t have hiccups renting from Time Warner Cable on my set-top box with a hard drive.

If you have chosen the Google world of Picasa photos, Amazon VOD, and Amazon music, or even the Microsoft world of Zune and Windows Media Player, the device isn’t optimized for you and I wouldn’t recommend it.

At $99, Apple TV does make a difference to the industry, particularly rental video. Renting a movie on my cable box is a frustrating and time consuming experience, particularly looking for the right movie.  Apple TV simplifies that.  Can you make a bad decision at $99?  Probably not.

I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.  Next, I will take a look at Google TV from Logitech.

Pat Moorhead is Corporate Vice President and Corporate Marketing Fellow and a Member of the Office of Strategy at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

See all Pat’s bio here or past blogs here.

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Back in June, I wrote a brief blog on some interesting developments from Microsoft, Hulu and YouTube.  I covered how each of these vendors had released news and/or applications to bring more content to the HTPC in new and exciting ways.  At that point in time, Microsoft’s announcement of Netflix integration into Media Center was strictly limited to Windows Vista®.  However, I had suggested that they would include this integration into Windows® 7 by launch time.  Well, I am happy to say that Microsoft released an update for Windows 7 in the past couple of days that now adds Netflix.  However, Microsoft did not stop with just the Netflix integration; the update includes support for the Adobe Flash player and even more mainstream content from content providers like CBS, NBC, PBS and others, offering both current  shows like ‘How I Met Your Mother’, ‘Dateline’ and ’60 Minutes’ to  classic shows like ‘Star Trek’, ‘Twilight Zone’, ‘MacGyver’ and more. 

If you have not seen this yet, Hack 7MC has a nice overview on the new features added to Windows 7.

You can also find a discussion on these new changes at The Green Button

While some may raise concerns regarding viewing quality of the content, I think this change should be viewed from a larger perspective.  This change puts the framework in place for delivery of real and interesting content on Windows 7 capable PCs.  I have spent some time over the past couple of nights checking out the content and while it is not HD quality, it was certainly better than low resolution web video I have seen on other sites.  I’m hopeful that the visual quality of the material will be improved upon as time moves forward; it is the framework that I find really exciting.

As I stated previously, these are exciting times for the HTPC.  The role of PC technology in the home is constantly changing for the better.  The industry is rapidly changing, bringing more content to the consumer in ever easier ways to navigate and enjoy.

Till next time, Happy Trails!

Jay Taylor is a Senior Developer Relations Engineer at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.

By now you may have already heard some of the exciting news for the HTPC space over the last few weeks. However, in case you had not, let’s spend a little time talking about it here.

Last week Hulu announced a desktop application that allows you to use a standard Media Center type remote to navigate and view content on Hulu’s website. Now, instead of the traditional mouse and keyboard interface in a two-foot environment to navigate the Hulu website (think watching Hulu at your desk on a computer monitor), you can now launch this desktop application while using your Windows® Media Center Edition remote  in a 10-foot environment (think watching Hulu from your couch on your big HD screen). Adding this so called “Lean Back” interface technology is a big step for Hulu in making it easier for consumers to access and watch content in a much more user friendly environment. This experience can even be integrated into Windows Media Center Edition by using something like the MCE Menu Mender application so you can launch the Hulu application from inside Media Center Edition instead of the desktop.

Earlier this week, YouTube announced YouTubeXL. This is another 10 foot UI for YouTube content. While Hulu chose to release an application enabling the 10 foot experience, YouTube chose to launch a website that provides the 10 foot navigation.  In either case, this is great news for consumers that want to enjoy content from their couch instead of sitting and staring at a desktop or laptop computer screen.

But it does not end with Hulu and YouTube. A couple of weeks ago, Microsoft announced that they have teamed up with Netflix to support integration of Netflix functionality into the Windows Vista® Media Center application. While you could always do this via a 3rd Plug In application, what makes this interesting is that Microsoft recognizes the need for easy access to more content and is taking steps to make that happen.  Now, Microsoft has not yet (at the time of this posting) integrated Netflix functionality into the upcoming Windows® 7 platform.  I can’t speak for Microsoft here, but I would expect them to offer this in Windows 7 as well given that they just launched it in Windows Vista.

These are exciting times.  The role of PC technology in the home is constantly changing for the better.  As content owners and distributors integrate more 10-foot user interface (aka Lean Back) technology into their distribution model and as Microsoft further integrates those things into their Media Center application, the usage model and viability of the HTPC type platform increases.  The industry is rapidly changing, bringing more content to the consumer in ever easier ways to navigate and enjoy that content.

So, tell us what you think about these industry changes.  Are you taking advantage of all the content out there? Are you finding it easier to access this content? What do these changes mean to you? Du Yu Hulu?     

Till next time, Happy Trails!

Jay Taylor is a Senior Developer Relations Engineer at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.

In my personal life I consume media in many ways. My primary tool is my AMD LIVE! Media Center PC with Microsoft Vista Home Premium. It is in my bedroom and very integrated into my routine, and I use it heavily. In the morning I watch The Today Show while I get ready for work. When I get home from work I catch up on shows I missed that are pre-recorded. At night my wife and I watch Family Guy as we wind down and head to bed. When we go to parties and take pictures, the first thing I do when we get home is stick the camera’s SD card into the Media Center and copy the photos to the hard drive.

There are several areas that still need improvement. It is still a computer, so a wireless keyboard and mouse is a must. While the integration needs a lot of work, I do love being able to stream video from Hulu, Netflix, and YouTube onto a large screen TV.

Being able to use all the online streaming services without special support is great. Upgradability is also a plus. With all the HD content I’ve been recording, I had to upgrade the hard drive twice. There are still several more ways I plan on using my Media Center. In the near future I want to get either a Pica extender or a Microsoft Xbox 360 to view my content outside of the bedroom. I also want to get a SideShow device to have a more interactive experience with my computer.

I feel like I live two years in the future, because I am not a typical user. But I’m sure in two years everyone will have a computer hooked up to their TV. It might not be in the same form and I’m hopeful the setup will be more polished. I know I didn’t include Blu-ray in my setup, but once again that ties back to the great upgradability of a PC platform. PCs are the best kept secret in home entertainment.

1. THIS UTILITY MAY DISABLE SECURITY / ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE, OR ADVERSELY AFFECT YOUR SYSTEM. REVIEW ACCOMPANYING DOCUMENTATION CAREFULLY BEFORE INSTALLING.

Wesley Faulkner

Wesley Faulkner is a Product Development Engineer at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.