Holiday Progress Update

Merry Christmas Eve! Hopefully by now you've got all your holiday shopping done, but if not, the new AppleTV is becoming a more appealing option with each passing day. Imagine a single, easy to use (sub $100) device that provides unrestricted access to all your current media along with new content from services like Netflix, Last.fm and the iTunes Store. Excited yet? We sure are.

We'll be taking a few days off during the holidays, but wanted to share what we've been up to over the past few weeks. Read on for the latest details as well as a new teaser video.

Additional Codecs

We've made exceptional progress towards creating a new hybrid player app that will enable access to a wide range of media formats that are not normally supported on the AppleTV. This new player will provide a mix of hardware and software decoding, providing seamless access to additional media types through the native AppleTV menus.

As of this writing we have the following media types working on the AppleTV.

  • Video: H.263, H.264, Windows Media Video, DivX, XviD
  • Audio: MP3, Windows Media Audio, AAC, AC3, PCM
  • Containers: mp4, mkv, m4v, flv, avi, mov, vob, wmv

There is still a fair amount of work to do before this feature is ready for beta testing, but many of the most challenging hurdles have already been overcome. 

Additionally, because the storage capacity of the AppleTV is extremely limited (only 8GB) we're also working to enable direct network streaming. This will allow you to browse and play files stored on your Mac/PC as well as most NAS devices without the need for iTunes. 

Below is a new teaser demo that showcases native DVD (VOB) file playback on the 2nd gen AppleTV. This feature is still a bit rough as we have yet to add many of the niceties such as chapter navigation, menus and special features, but it provides an exciting glimpse of what's soon to come.

Happy Holidays :-)

Comments are welcome below.