Apple TV set to download YouTube

Thousands of hours of user-generated video madness will soon be available through Apple TV, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced Wednesday.

Jobs revealed the partnership with YouTube during his talk at the D: All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, Calif. Starting next month, Apple TV users will be able to select "YouTube" as an option from the device's main menu and view thousands of the most viewed and most popular videos on the site.

Apple TV is designed to connect a wide-screen television with content purchased or downloaded over the Internet by a Mac or PC. Until now, however, Apple TV users looking for content were mostly dependent on television programs or movies they had purchased through the iTunes Store. There's no browser inside the interface that would let users access other Internet videos, though they could move their home videos to Apple TV.

Now, Apple has designed a hook into YouTube that will let Apple TV owners access the most popular videos that have been converted into the h.264 standard, said David Moody, vice president for Mac hardware marketing at Apple. The full catalog of YouTube videos will be available later in the year, as YouTube converts the rest, Moody said.

Apple also announced that it will make a higher-capacity version of Apple TV available Thursday. The current Apple TV product costs $299 with a 40GB hard drive, but a version with a 160GB hard drive will now cost $399.

[rjpotts]

Why YouTube...

I surf YouTube's site when I need a break from work, but there is a lack of quality content. There is nothing on YouTube that I find worthy of downloading to Apple TV.

[coryschulz]

Exactly YouTube

I disagree. I find a decent amount of random things worth watching. They are either educational, or entertaining, or just contain tons of shock value. I'd say I watch as much content on YouTube every week as I do on TV. I maybe watch 60 to 90 minutes of TV a week, and that's usually just the Colbert Report or Mythbusters. Nothing too fancy, and both of them somewhat educational. Adding YouTube to Apple TV is just as fitting as putting apple in a pie. But I don't suggest putting your Apple TV in a pie, as that may void your warranty and require lots of Pepto-Bismol...

[rleon]

DivX would be best.

I like better Stage6 than You Tube

[DaiMac]

Like it or not, it seems to be the winner...

Like Google, YouTube has gained a certain critical mass of users
that makes it a huge content channel for all sorts of things, good
and bad. I'm happy its going to be limited to h264 (or is it x264)
content, maybe we'll start to see a general raise in quality of video
on the site over the next few years with h264 and its descendants
leading the way. Of course people are going to need to learn how
lighting and such works as well, we'll see ;)

[open-mind]

I Would Like Both

I think they need both, since each has different strengths.

YouTube has the mindshare and a huge amount of content. Most people have probably not heard of Stage 6, but I think the quality of their video is better. Hopefully, h264 will improve the YouTube video quality, since YouTube as-is it will look pretty small/crappy on an HD TV.

As far as codecs go, h264 probably has a bandwidth advantage, but it seems to require much more CPU to decode/play compared to the DivX codec. For example, on my old G4 Mac Mini, I can play DivX video at 920x540, and it looks absolutely great. That resolution is unplayable using Quicktime and h264, even though the encoded files are about the same size.

Since DivX content can already be uploaded to YouTube, hopefully they will be able to convert the DivX to h264 without the huge quality loss that happens now with YouTube.

[edgedesign]

iPhone next?

This likely means we'll see YouTube on the iPhone. YouTube videos
viewable via Apple TV are being converted into the h.264 standard
which iTunes, iPods and the iPhone can easily play as well.

Wonder if we'll be able to listen to Pandora via the iPhone web
browser?

[alawaiblowfish]

Don't wonder....know!

Come on, now. iPhone is an apple product with safari and osx built
in....of course it'll be able to play pandora :).

[open-mind]

Barely Mentioned The Bigger Drive

I think that news is just as big, because now the AppleTV is true iPod also. That is, all your music/photos should be able to fit on the Apple TV, allowing you to use it off-line as an iPod stereo component.

Now if they just offer subscription-based HD content for Apple TV, I think it will be a huge hit. I think it will make the internet a truly viable alternative to cable/dish subscriptions.

[felgercarbnaysay]

Not enough

I think it would have been better to add the ability to browse for and stream internet radio stations. Also the interface for dealing with digital photos is poor. I hope this is simply one of many upgrades coming to Apple TV. It's a great unit, but it is clearly in it's infancy. While YouTube is indeed a popular source of content, it's not one I or many other users will use heavily.

[thk123]

Finally Youtube on AppleTV...

This will definitely enhance the AppleTV product. While Youtube videos are not the best quality I always find something of value.

BTW, you can also watch Youtube and other video sites on TV using Nintendo Wii or PS3. Applications like moowee.tv and stumbleupon video make it easy to watch web videos on TV using the Wii.

[jv35]

Sites that bring YouTube and Dailymotion videos on the Wii

Youtube on AppleTV is cool but I've been watching Youtube on the Wii for the last six months. Recently, I checked out moowee.tv and they seem to have an easy interface to navigate various channels
and search and create custom channels and stuff.

[rkrakow]

Will it be the same lousy quality?

I find the flash encoding on YouTube to be barely watchable. Apple
makes a big deal about H264, but will we really be seeing home
videos shot in hidef or the same crappy files transcoded? Also,
who is going to be doing all this compression?

[edgedesign]

Re: Lousy Quality

You don't have to shoot in hi-def to get good quality h264
compression. Much of the video uploaded to YouTube is poor to
begin with (shot with phone, still camera, etc) then compressed
and converted to FLV (Flash video). I think Apple & Google will
focus on converting the best quality content first. Either way,
demand and technology will raise the quality over time.

"iLounge spoke with Apple's Vice President of Worldwide Mac
Hardware Marketing, David Moody, who provided more details
about this upgrade.

According to Moody, not all of the Youtube catalog will be
available on day one. Instead, "thousands of videos designed for
Apple TV" will be available at launch, but that the remainder will
become available by the fall. The reason for the delay is that
Youtube will be encoding all of their videos into a "H.264
streaming-efficient compression format" specifically for the
Apple TV."

[Dingbattie]

Yay! Now we can watch pixelated videos

of drunk David Hasselhoff and guys humping an ottoman

[Julian carter-2185284682826768]

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