there might be a new 360 after all?

Mr_White said:
Straight from Steve himself iirc.

And also, what would be the point in releasing the Apple TV in europe without downloadable iTunes content, since it only plays videos downloaded from iTunes.

I think you've not been looking hard enough tbh ;)
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Well, I'm a bit confused. I am sure they said that Apple TV would be released "later in the year" in Europe, but wikipedia is stating February 2007, which is this month. He best get his skates on with that downloadable content!! I am sure the details were sketchy at the Jan conference for the European release date.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_tv

It's hard to always believe exactly what Steve says. Just recently he said apparently now he does not agree with DRM and says it was forced on him, after he has developed the largest userbase of DRM'd content in the world!! And is unwilling to license it to others. :D


There would be no point in releasing Apple TV without the content, like you say, which is why no firm release date is given for Europe, because he may not actually know when such agreements will be made with content suppliers. So it's easy for him to say the content will be here when Apple TV launches as no-one has a date for that. Unless February is correct (less than 2 weeks left!!).



rp2000
 
rp2000 said:
There would be no point in releasing Apple TV without the content, like you say, which is why no firm release date is given for Europe, because he may not actually know when such agreements will be made with content suppliers. So it's easy for him to say the content will be here when Apple TV launches as no-one has a date for that. Unless February is correct (less than 2 weeks left!!).



rp2000
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Febuary is the date given for pre-orders on the UK Apple store and still is.

So who knows.

But there's no doubt about downloadable movies and programs coming to europe via iTunes.
 
if they get iTunes handling your AVI's and streaming divx and xvid etc then there is a reason to release AppleTV. If they don't sort iTunes out so it can, then it is rather pointless.
i'd love iTunes to handle all my avi's as well as it does my music **sigh**
 
rp2000 said:
Often the TV companies sell 1 or 2 seasons to UK broadcastors at a time so until these contracts expire I cannot see how Apple could distribute these shows here? Obviously I don't know the intricacies of the contracts, but I am sure the TV channels would not sign contracts that would be ruined by iTunes showing the episodes the same time as they are shown in USA!.

rp2000
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There are multiple types of licence, for example Company A (the production company) might licence
TV rights to Company B
DVD/home video rights to company C
Download/DRM/VOD rights to company D
And a "rest of the world master licence" to compay E who may in turn licence it in different countries to F, G, H etc.

Some or all of the rights might be concurrent - it's not uncommon for TV and DVD rights to overlap.

As an example, in the anime industry the japanese production company will normally licence it to a TV company for broadcast (or produce it for them), then distribute it under another company, then licence it to a western company who sort out distribution/sublicencing in America and the rest of the world.

And if a new distribution method comes up after the initial licence is negotiated it can require all new negotiations to get the licening for the new format (which is part of the reason some stuff that was available on VHS isn't on DVD, or the music on some TV series had to be changed for DVD release).

It all depends on the exact wording of the licence, I know companies for example who have licenced a show and not realised until they've released the first disk that they only licenced the TV version and not the home DVD version (released a short time after the licence was signed) which may have had a few scenes redone.

I guess what i'm saying is, there is a good reason the legal guys who write/check these contracts make a very good living out of it, "Home Video" can mean something completely different to video ;)
 
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