“Essentailly, people are speculating that the next version of the XBox will have a hard drive slot you can pop a device in and out of. The only reason I can see to have an easily removeable device in there is if it necessary to carry that device with you. Why would you carry a hard drive with you? Maybe if it played mp3s…”

I doubt that – Steve Ballmer hates iPods. Maybe it would be a device to swap your stored game settings with other players’ machines?

With regards to P2P, what you’d have to do is set up a “moderated” P2P network where everyone could swap files but each file would still require an authentication to begin playing. So your box could spend an hour grabbing a movie from 20 other boxes, but then when you hit “play”, your box pings the central service, makes sure your subscription is up to date, and then decides whether or not to play.

I think your points further illustrate why it would be great for Apple or a company with similar vision and ability to create truly great products to enter this market with a product that address these issues.

A $1600 box is unreasonable, and any p2p network seems unweildy to moderate. It’s not so much the licensing aspect that makes it so, a good DRM system like iTunes can manage that; but the ability of people to insert malicious content into the network.

Thanks for bringing up the topic and providing a forum for its debate. Your site is always a good read.

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1. How many bands do you know that play gigs big enough to warrant covering with camera’s and Sound Desk recording?
Probably a few. But the saturation will be reached VERY quickly. There are only so many times you can serve up incubus or u2 live before people start to lose interest.

The key to the iTunes model is that it brings a much wider range of music to your fingertips with very little effort. Songs can be downloaded before the album is even available in your country. You have choice and lots of it.

Now to those of us who use mp3 players (i dont use an iPod myself for a wide variety of reasons – mainly because i dont believe a simplified interface is worth shortchanging the very reason i buy a music player, sound and battery life) are used to an eclectic and wide variety of music – a lot of which we would not have purchased as a cd whether it be free singles for download online, or obscurity.

How much chance of seeing these little known bands live?
Slim to none.
Chances are the fringe bands i love so much will be neglected and only major bands gain the coverage.
Yawn. Im not subscribing to the “Anything you want. .. as long as it’s this, this or that.

2. Actually, there is no second point – i just figured that it was such a glaring hole that it was worth repeating twice.
$0.02

The same could be said for the BBC’s coverage of Glastonbury 2004, where Orbital’s last-ever outdoor gig was spoilt by obscuring as much as possible of the stage. I just remember a mess of yellow flashing lights and out-of-focus musicians. In other words, you couldn’t see what was going on. How I longed for a simple camera pointing straight at the stage, showing everything. That might have matched some of the experience the audience had.

I hate shows where they use multiple cameras, but insist on constantly flicking between them. Take Gwen Stefani at The Brits. Come to think of it I’ve always hated this technique in videos as well. No wonder Brian Eno chose to make a film of the sky where the camera never moves at all, and there are no edits.

Ideally I would like all live DVDs to offer multiple camera angles, so you can choose when to change view yourself. (Want to see what the drummer’s doing? (So often ignored by cameramen!) Just flick to that angle.) Likewise I would love a live broadcast to offer this, but I suspect it would be impractical due to the extra bandwidth needed for each duplicate channel. Say you had 5 angles to choose from. That would mean 5 times the size of the file. But at any one point, you’d only be watching one fifth of those!

So in terms of a Mac/TiVo hybrid, even if it just offered a single feed that was pre-edited to show multiple angles, it would still be great. But I don’t realistically see companies being happy about viewers being able to burn the shows. This would a) kill off all live CDs, and b) mean swapping shows with your mates who didn’t own the same kit. Unless…. Apple added code that meant you could only view the DVD on the kit that burned it. But would customers complain? (Anyway, it would soon be hacked.)

Great idea though. I think the mockup based on the Mac Mini shown at the top here is probably not far off. Keep up the great posts Mike!

I’m hoping for an iMovies store!

And streaming from the Mac to TV would be nice too.

Essentailly, people are speculating that the next version of the XBox will have a hard drive slot you can pop a device in and out of. The only reason I can see to have an easily removeable device in there is if it necessary to carry that device with you. Why would you carry a hard drive with you? Maybe if it played mp3s…

The XBox was widely rumored to be a mere experiment by Microsoft to erode Sony’s dominance of the living room. If they can set up the Xbox as the hub of your living room, one which you can use as both your game machine, dvd player, and, possibly, as a stereo for your mp3 player (you could use your remote and tv screen for song selection and visuals), you have a pretty good living room killer app.

It’s possible that Apple sees some sort of convergence happening with set top boxes, and may want a piece of that action before they get squeezed out of the market.

Apple is never going to overtake Windows in a business enviroment. Just won’t happen, there is too much of an install base. But Apple has a chance in the living room. As I say on my blog about a month ago:

“Maybe Apple should buy TiVo? It seems like a technology marriage made in heaven. Apple and TiVo have brand loyal customers. Both firms are on the cutting edge of hardware and software design. And each embrace the user experience above everything else. But maybe more importantly TiVo’s patents could help Apple’s stated/unstated desire to own the consumer digital media hub.

The global consumer market is nothing to scoff at. In fact, only 6 million US homes have a DVR today, but it is estimated that 58 million will have them by 2010.

I can envision the day where a souped up version of the mini-mac is my digital media hub. I buy songs, movies, and TV shows from the iTunes/iMovie/iTV store. I edit and play with them through the iLife software suite. I upload these programs to my iPod, which is also a cell phone and PDA. And through my Airport network all this is managed and synced with my G5. I think a combination of Apple/TiVo can own the digital media hub and get it to my living room a lot faster.”

Just two other comments. Yes I love live music and live ablums Mike. Just dropped more then a little coin to purchase my 2005 Bonnaroo tickets (they almost doubled in price from last year). I am a firm believer in the business model of the Dead (althought I don’t think they knew it at the time) of giving away live music. Dave does it now. Not a huge fan of his music or his concerts, but his concerts is where he makes his money. And he lets any “Joe” record live performances to grow that audience.

Finally, if what Noel says about the Xbox is correct, Apple better get moving. Personally I am not a gamer. But I know a lot of people who are. Generally speaking they are educated and make a few bucks from 9-5. More importantly they can’t envision a living room w/o a gaming system (they perfer Playstation BTW). I had not thought of a firm taking over the living room via a game machine, but it makes total sense in hindsight.

There is only one event I TiVo no matter what. It is the free preview concert I get through DirecTv. Sometimes it is a band I know sometimes it is not. DirecTv wants me to pay $24.95 to watch two dudes in a steel cage. Sorry, not interested. But I would pay $24.95 to see U2 play a live show. I see a lot of people here not buying into the music angle.

Live music alone would not make a combo of Apple and TiVo a success. However, Apple needs to leverage what they have. And the iTunes store is a success. How many of us would have thought that it would be such a success after Napster and with file shareing? They have a business model to build upon. A business model that should be able to be taken to movies and other digital content.

If I am an Apple executive pitching this idea to Timewarner or Fox, I simply say “look, our business model worked for iTunes, do you really want to bet against us again?”

A recent article on Mike Davidson’s blog got me re-thinking about the rumors that Apple was going to buy Tivo…

a Intel Duo, MacMini with a built in iPod connector, WiFi, IR control… Tivo ports onto the platform, and then Apple freshen the interface to be more Mac clean… the interface becomes the TV monitor for music… brillant. Who wants to listen to the stereo on $59 speakers… isn’t that why we all bought $700 stereo’s??

It introduces the Mac to the living room, allows people to use the device as a DVD player, a music, photo, storage device.. plus all the PVR capabilities. One additional value… use it as the second storage location for Time Machine.

The size of the box can be wider… must be to fit the tuners. Needs to be to sit with the other boxes by the TV.

The other primary purpose is to act as the home gateway…. to serve video door bell, security and intercom, distribution point for video and audio in the house and provide a slingbox like function. It is always on, always connected, and people don’t download apps to used on the TV to hose it up… other than games?? so the thing will be realitively stable.

If we are wandering around the moon, and we technology has progressed this far, I find it hard to believe that this is a challenge that we cannot address.

I think this is an endeavor worthy in more ways than one. There is a a major monetary gain to figure out this answer.

I was headed out yesterday for a family Easter dinner and unfortunately had to leave right as the Michigan State/Kentucky game was headed to the second overtime. What to do?…