Nickname: Matt

Review: From the comments you're making, it doesn't sound like you've used the iTunes Movie service. I was a little skeptical at first, but as it turns out, it seems to work as advertised. I can start playing most movies in about five minutes after the download starts and the video quality looks great on my large screen TV (I've got digital video in on my TV). Anyhow, I'm saddened that you guys didn't research more the stuff you're writing about. Oh, forgot to add, my Mac mini (to which the TV is connected) is wireless connected to the Comcast box via the built in 802.11g connection. No need for 802.11n.

Date reviewed: Oct 20, 2006 11:54 PM

Nickname: zahadum

Review: I hate being so picky about techical details, but why is it that major publications like BusinessWeek can't employ a copy editor who can correct terminology? The consumer electronics reporter doesnt seem to know the difference between his bits & his bytes... A five megaBYTE connection does not exist (as a consumer broadband service over copper; only over fibreoptic cable. Well, it could in theory, but doesn't in practice, yet. The correct data rate is five megaBITS per second ... This is nearly a 10X difference. If he/you can't get this important detail correct, is it really so suprising that the rest of this article substitutes uninformed blather for informed analysis?! Of course not. Sigh. The quality of technology coverage (or science coverage, for that matter) in the general media - even within supposedly prestige brands like BusinessWeek - is pathetic.

Date reviewed: Oct 19, 2006 7:18 PM

Nickname: TechBoomer

Review: "That a grandmother could understand?" That was an unwarranted and mean insult to older women. Americans across a spectrum of age, sex, and education have problems or impatience with complicated (frequently unnecessarily so) and poorly constructed (definitely unnecessarily so) electronic instructions. Maybe your grandmother is 90 and suffering dementia, but quite a few grandmothers are in the workforce, competently using and enjoying technology there and at home.

Date reviewed: Sep 27, 2006 2:46 PM

Nickname: oliverjaguar

Review: I think Jobs might be testing the market to see where is the space for this amazing gadget. I am afraid it would not reach our living room on schedule as he stated given so much uncertainty.

Date reviewed: Sep 19, 2006 12:31 PM

Nickname: Ash

Review: I think Jobs announced such a device only to shut up the critics. Secondly, the bandwith is certainly the biggest impediment that this gadget may face. Also, it is too early to comment on in this context and finally what about Hollywood. Surely, the guys out there might have started to feel the heat.

Date reviewed: Sep 15, 2006 12:09 PM

Nickname: Jon

Review: If it takes only 30 min to download a 2 hr movie over a 5 megabit cable modem, then it follows that to stream a movie wirelessly over its two hour running time will only require 1.25 megabits of wireless bandwidth. 802.11b gives up to 11 megabits and 802.11g gives up to 54 megabits (theoretical max). Your presumption that 802.11n is required to make this practical is clearly wrong. If you have a 802.11g signal with decent signal strength then even a hi-def movie could be streamed in real time. You also seem to be very suspicious of the "near DVD quality". The "near CD quality" of the music from the iTunes store hasn't hurt the iPod sales. 99.9% of consumers wont be able to tell the diference between DVD and an 640x480 iTunes movie, just like 99.9 can't hear the diference.

Date reviewed: Sep 15, 2006 10:12 AM

Nickname: Neil

Review: This is a nonsense article. The product can't possibly be vapourware as it exists and will be launched. It's not very for off launch date (Jan Q1) and seeds the market with expectation. I for one will be knocking on Apple's door to resell it and I want those agreements in place before it launches. You can already stream video podcasts from iTunes using Airport Express from one computer to another. If you download a movie from Limewire, you can preview it as it downloads - on a simple 2Mb/s ADSL connection. Near-DVD quality - is better than VHS and you can already run video podcasts full screen on a TV by simply plugging a video iPod into the TV. DVD by the way is MPEG2, video podcasts are either H264 or MPEG 4. Everything's been trialled and works, all this device does is to bring it all together in a neat and elegant way. It leaves all other offerings in the dust. Neil

Date reviewed: Sep 15, 2006 9:06 AM

Nickname: jesme

Review: I've used the Movielink movie download system on a 1.5 megabit DSL line. I was able to start viewing the movie in about five minutes. Behind the scenes, the computer kept downloading the rest of the flick. There were a couple of glitches, but generally it worked okay.

Date reviewed: Sep 14, 2006 10:36 PM

Nickname: Anh

Review: I dont get it. Netflix.com, you can order a dvd, be it normal or HD, and you can play it on a normal DVD or HD-DVD player. A very good normal DVD player goes for $100 these days, and the cost of a HD-DVD player will be around $200/$300 by the time this iTV comes out in 2007. I can only play these iTV purchased movies in iTunes or stream to an iTV.... but I can bring a purchased DVD to anyone's house and play it on any DVD player. I dont get it. Oh, maybe it's Apple who doesn't get it and Netflix does.

Date reviewed: Sep 14, 2006 9:53 PM

Nickname: puggsly

Review: I am really confused about people's expectations regarding bandwidth and movie streaming. To understand my confusion here is my experience: 1) Purchased Chicken Little on my son's G4 cube. It took about 90 min to download a 90 movie over my cable connection. But the cube had some problem playing to back smoothly so I copied it from the Cube via 802.11b to my wife's iMac G5 in about 30 minutes. I later copied it to my macbook pro via 802.11g in closer to 10 min. Ok, so 90min movie downloaded over 802.11b in 30min would indicate to me that I could have streamed it and two other movies in real time! Am I missing something? Note: Quality is great on my 50" DLP TV. I'm going to do some comparisons between standard def DirectTV and iTunes shortly (but I need to find some identical shows). Later I will do a HD comparison.

Date reviewed: Sep 14, 2006 9:07 PM