Apple iTV: An Alternative to HDDVD or Bluray

    Well, it has been almost a week since the apple keynote on September 15th.  For the most part, the keynote went as expected.  Three new iPods were announced. First, a new video iPod with a brighter screen, enhanced battery life, a price cut, and new search features. Second, a second generation iPod nano which now comes in 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB capacities.  Most notably the new nanos come in a variety of colors (similar to the iPod mini).  The third iPod is a new shuffle, which will ship in October 2006.  The new shuffle has 1 GB of memory and a built-in clip on the back side.  The size is amazing!
    In addition to new iPods, apple announced an upgrade to iTunes.  Along with iTunes7 apple rolled out their long anticipated movie store.  They announced that they will be selling all video with 640X480 resolution.  That is a vast improvement over their previous offerings.  The new iTunes also offers games which retail for $4.99 and work with all 5th generation iPods.
    The only part of the keynote that was not expected (other than a live performance by John Legend) was the demonstration of iTV, which Jobs said will ship in Q1 2007.  iTV will enable wireless streaming of video from your computer to your flatscreen TV.  The iTV, which is only a code name, has a surface area slightly greater than the Mac Mini and contains ethernet, component, HDMI, and optical digital jacks.  There is no inherent storage capacity.  It works merely as a conduit of video content to your television.  Although many have speculated about a device such as this, the annoucement struck many off guard. 

    The surprising thing is that Jobs announced a product that won't ship for over 4 months.  That is definitely atypical for one of the most secretive companies that exists.  But, this announcement is very interesting.  Why did apple announce it now? I would suspect that apple was not able to get their widescreen iPod ready to ship and had to announce something that would entice consumers to start purchasing movies from the iTunes store.  The reason that iTV is not shipping now is likely due to the fact that 802.11N has not been ratified yet.  It is unlikely that video could successfully stream via any existing wireless standard.  I would anticipate the release of iTV to coincident with the finalizing of the N spec.  I would also expect the release of a new airport base station around the same time in Q1.
    The reason that this announcement interests me the most is that it may offer an alternative to HDDVD and Bluray.  If apple offers HD content via iTunes and I can stream it to my TV wirelessly why do I need to spend $1000+ on a HDDVD or Bluray player.  I would much rather have the content on a hard-drive on my home network and just shoot it over to the TV.  Many might argue that it is not practical due to file sizes and download speeds.  To this I have not reply, other than that I hope that like  current iTunes moveis you can start watching several minutes after the download begins.  Once HDDVD and Bluray become readily available in computers you may opt to simply stream titles via a computer to a TV. But you will be limited to the titles offered to one of the two platforms, unless we see a drive that can play both formats (which seems unlikely).
    For all the people that were disappointed by the 640X480 resolution in iTunes I would not fret.  It is very likely that the titles have already been transcoded into a widescreen format which will be offered once full screen video iPods ship (which according to Think Secret will be Q4 2006).
    The keynote made no announcement of the widescreen iPod, no iPod phone, but we got a glimpse of something that could really change the way media is delivered to the home entertainment center.  I cannot wait to find out how this all pans out.