While yesterday we were postulating that a future Apple TV 2 might benefit from current discussion between Apple and Hollywood movie Studios, an announcement made by Intel might support this hypothesis. After unveiling its new Penryn CPUs, Intel provided information related to its forthcoming solutions for System-on-Chip (SoC). They plan to release in H2 2008 the Canmore, an x86 processor-based SoC supporting audio 7.1, hardware-decoding for high-definition video up to 1080p and advanced DRM management.
In summary, all functions required to build a new and more powerful Apple TV which could then become independent of any computer to get access directly to movie catalogs available on the iTunes Store.

[translation by Linathael]

It would be good to see direct access to HD films over the net, as well as some more HD trailers and music videos. I know they're out there!

My friend had a killer suggestion, which would be to put a Blu-Ray (the clear winner) drive into the Apple TV. People who don't have Apple products would end up buying it just for the Blu-Ray drive and end up falling in love with it! It'd sell like hot cakes! 

good idea, but it would most probably increase the price of the Apple TV whereas it is already identified as a major drawback. However, if SoC can drive significant price cuts, the idea is indeed smart.
With direct access to the net + BD player, I would immediately buy one.
At least in Europe fast ADSL offers at >10MB/s being almost the default one, direct access to the net would be great