I’ve heard a lot of speculation of “The Brick,” which is part of a rumor talking about what may be announced in early October by Apple. Many have thought that it may have something to do with the power brick of the notebooks (and that’s what I thought at first) and others have thought that it could be a new Mac Mini replacement or a new Apple TV.
What it isn’t going to be though is a networked DVR, Apple has too much invested in the idea of users purchasing TV shows in iTunes. But, it should be a networked DVR because Apple would do it right.
I’ve talked before of my idea for a network DVR and I think Apple is the only one that would be able to do it right. If the Brick isn’t a networked DVR it should be and if Apple isn’t in development of one they need to get on the ball. The power of what this DVR could do would be amazing and would really change the way people watch TV.
I’m not going to run through my entire idea of a perfect DVR, if you want that you can read my post specifically talking about that (My Idea Of The Perfect Network DVR) but I will tell you a bit of the most important features.
- Recording directly into iPod and Apple TV ready formats using a hardware H.264 encoder.
- Remotely manage recordings through a web interface (or through iTunes if Apple makes it).
- Automatically tag the recorded programs with descriptions, episode titles, show name, etc.
- Recorded content would be shared over the network as if it was an iTunes share, so iTunes on other computers or Apple TVs could see the content easily.
The reason I think Apple should do this is because it fits into their world where media is easily transferable from device to device (as long as it is made by Apple of course) and everything works together so nicely. Apple would really only have to add an H.264 encoder and a TV tuner to the Apple TV and they would be able to have this exact functionality after just a few months of coding.
Apple, get working. And, by the way I would probably pay $400-500 for this type of box.