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Mac mini All About Movies?
bikerguy99 writes "Robert X. Cringely, who had a good nose for the Mac mini from the very beginning, has published another bit of his thoughts on PBS. This time he speculates that Mac mini is all about movies - his thoughts on the subject are quite logical and provide intriguing insights into Apple's interest in producing a cheap headless Mac in the first place."
and most won't even hear that marketing.
of normal joe's that is. for others it's a good start for a small computer if you either want it to be a mac or don't care about the os(but it's just a start still, if you just want to view movies on the tv you're better off buying a stand alone player or heck, even xbox.. and most people won't ever edit movies).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
When MAC announced their "Mini", it caught my eye. Wanting to buy/build a small computer for my already cramped breakfast bar, I started pricing out similar hardware. The results startled me. Most of the configurations I found were more than the humble US$499 of the "Mini", often much more. To match price I had to configure with a much bigger shuttle-style case.
My question is this. What real computers are currently on the market to compete with this? When my wife asks for the "cute little MAC", what PC can I buy instead?
how the hell did this get /.ed??
-smash
my blog
There's an interesting Bio of Robert X. Cringely on the conferencing page of the Broadcast Engineering Conference 2003. http://www.chiariglione.org/leonardo/conferences/p rograms/nab2003.htm . :-) and I just decided to buy this little thingy.
He seems to be at least somewhat close to Apple, HDTV and MPEG
you talkin bout the article or your own post?
Apple employee: They seem to want the mini to act like a video iPod
Jobs: But that's just stupid, the drive it's so tiny!
Apple employee: They think that once the movies are compressed for downloading in AVC that they'll be both high quality and small file size..
Jobs: Excellent, I'm a genius. We'll release in Spring, now sue think secret for springing the idea early, we don't want anyone copying our genius today.
www.apple.com/trailers works fine... I don't know what he's talking about.
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
... one word iDonut maker !
So there are two possible solutions:
1) TS files - mpeg2 hd files which tend to be quite large
but play on slower machines. Movies tend to run 11-20 gigs 2) Mpeg4 - Much smaller. Much more cpu needed. 4-8 gigs
Video is very cycle intensive. Look at the amd and intel benchmarks for video. Intel always wins because their clockspeed is faster.The 1.25 ghz mac mini isnt going to cut it.
How is mac going to deliver gigs of content to all of these people in a speedy way? OC-192? Even if they got something even faster, people's connections would bottleneck the process. These things also dont have huge hard drives so it shouldn't be expected that they can store many movies at once.
Oh and guess what? Most people dont have HDTV and they arent going to run out and buy one that has a DVI connector(extra $$$) so they can plug their mac mini into it. The mac mini is simply what they state it is, nothing more.
NJ Local Music Scene
It must be nice to be cringely. Just make a different totally random prediction every week, and you'll be hailed as a visionary because just by the law of averages at least some of your predictions will turn out to be true, sort of, eventually.
But one of the problems is a lack of HDTV tuner. You could get Elgato's EyeTV 500 to make your Mini Mac into an HD PVR but you're still lacking 5.1 digital audio. I don't know what you could do about that. If you're spending the $$$ to get an HDTV then you probably already have, or would want to get a nice 5.1 or 7.1 sound system. You wouldn't want to be stuck with stereo from you Mini Mac.
I'm not sure Cringely's HD movie service would catch on either. It's an interesting idea, but I'm not sure it would be very successful. One thing is certain though, a lot of people are going to have a lot of fun and do some cool stuff with their Mini Macs.
--
Join the Pyramid - Free Mini Mac
infested with jello like fishes no melotron wishes
This is an incompetent big media CEO's wet dream.
This is one of Cringely's less-original flights of fancy, (lots of people have been suspecting that iTMS could expand to movies for some time now), but also one that seems to me to be very on-target.
My mini arrived at my office via FedEx on Thrusday, and I've been setting it up for exactly the same purpose as almost everybody else I've heard from who's buying one: It's going into the media room.
A $300 digital tuner called the EyeTV gives me PVR features, and a $60 USB break-out box gives me DTS sound for DVD's. (The G4 solution can't quite do 1080i in full-screen mode, but I only need 720p anyway...) The DVI port is compatible with the wide-screen projector I'm planning on buying next month. In spite of the relatively light-weight video card, it plays World of Warcraft nearly as well as my AMD Frankenstein box with a 256 MB GeForce card.
So this thing is already serving up movies, TV, music, and games, and will be just about the only media device in the room (I might consider moving the X-Box into whatever room my old TV goes to.)
However, like many geeks, I also sometimes watch downloaded materials. I'm not as big on bootleg DivX's as some folks, but the occasional anime "fan-sub" has found its way onto my HD, and there's also plenty of legit stuff out there, such as "Red vs. Blue."
If it was possible to click on a movie or classic TV show in the iTMS, and download it as an MPEG2 stream for a reasonable price, even if it took overnight to get it, I would probably snap it up.
I passed on the DVD burner option for the mini. I figure I can get a better & faster double-density burner sometime down the road as an external firewire option. If this movies-on-demand feature of iTMS actually comes to pass, I might find myself buying a burner sooner rather than later.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
At least, that hard drive in there isn't. It's a 4200 RPM laptop drive.
Also, maybe it's just me, but doesn't 40 GB or 80 GB seem awfully small for the storage of feature-length HD video? We're talking what, 10-20 movies at best?
For there to be a true digital DVD library device, hard disk storage prices are going to have to come down to a fraction of what they are now. Time will provide this, but right now, it doesn't seem like the hardcore movie buffs -- who seem like the target market for something like a digital DVD library -- would be satisfied with the comparatively tiny amount of storage available in the 2.5" hard disk form factor. A Mini with an external terabyte of storage would be better, but that's going to more than double its price.
Maybe I'm just not getting it, but I really think Cringely missed the boat on this one.
p
In Korea, long hair is for old people!
If you want a nice machine to run an HD recorder, look elsewhere.
Would a firewire HDTV tuner be possible, or would the broadcast industry's persistent efforts to prevent the jump from HDTV from being a technological step forward make that illegal?
It's a very interesting article and it seems very plausible that this is the direction Apple is heading. I guess we'll just have to wait and see how it plays out.
The download time for an HD movie (at least 30 gigabytes) on a standard DSL connection is still going to be 47.9 hours. This is not going to happen until more than 3 people in the US have residential fiber optic connections.
Not only does it seem great to be a media PC (Just run linux on it and MythTV and that's some hotness right there.), but it also seems like it would be good for movie distribution, as the author suggests.
Here's another couple movie related things w/ the Mini I can think of:
A quick-edit station, something to have in the back of your car if you're a wedding videographer or similar video person who may have to make quick edits for show.
To be IN movies. I mean, you guys have seen how powerbooks turn up in movies like independance day; This little thing is practically begging to be used by Hollywood in movies. It's small, it's cute, it's exactly what you'd imagine a hot girl using when.. (sorry mind is running away with me).
Ideas, comments?
Get a clue.. he has a weekly column! Does slashdot really need to tell everyone about it every time?
This comment seems unnecessary and strangely placed. FTA:
Here's my thinking, and it is just thinking -- I have no insider knowledge of Apple's plans, I haven't been diving in any Cupertino dumpsters, and nobody who knows the truth has told me a darned thing.
I've got to wonder if it was even mentioned because of the whole Think Secret lawsuit. Are people who are spouting idle rumors and speculation going to feel the pressure to issue out-of-the-blue disclaimers? Sigh. The overly litigious benchmark has long since been exceeded.
It CAN be connected to a television with that DVI to S-Video or Composite adapter.
Couple a Mini hooked up to a nice television and a wireless keyboard and mouse setup, and it would make a nice living room entertainment computer.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
Just look at the Accessories page, for the M-Audio-Transit AC3/DTS TOSlink adaptor.
And, it's also an input!
I was confused by that exclusion as well. But I really think they were just trying to make the box as cheaply as possible and realized most users would not need 5.1, so they could let it be a separate device.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I can buy an Xbox2 this fall for $300. It will do the same but better. Plus it will play games.
Second, the movies have to be purchased ($10 per download, for example) and stored on the HDD. The HDD is either 40 or 80 GB, making it capable of storing anywhere from 20 to 60 movies. What the customer should do after the disk is full?
There are solutions to both problems, though. The bandwidth can be spread between users using BitTorrent, and the customer can be allowed to re-download the same movie at a later time, as long as he presents the same key to the web store.
But for an average user a DVD player and a DVD store and/or rental place work just as well, and with much less hassle. iTunes works because it is easy. But downloading of a movie is anything but easy, at least so far.
Possibly, though, Apple looks far ahead. But if they just wanted to set up a video distribution business they could have released some iFlicks software for Windows, this results in an instantaneous user base, no need to wait for anything built or sold, and they can have the video store running within days.
Does anyone know yet? I've read lots of "insightful reviews" but nothing actually spelling out what a 1.2/1.4ghz Mac will actually run like.
I haven't used a Mac since the Mac Classic came out so I've got no idea what sort of grunt they need these days. I wouldn't mind a cheap one to play with but if it's gonna bug the hell out of me because it's so slow then I need to know that before I shell out for it.
Good one . I noticed last week i couldn't download quicktime just by itself. I had to download Itunes also.
it was interesting to see a representative from Sony with Steve Jobs at Mac World. the two companies have cooperated together in the past (the first powerbook, i think) this makes more sense as both companies seem to converge towards the same goal. that is, domination of home electronics.
now if the next Mac Mini comes with a Cell Processor, you can easly distribute alot of High Definition stuff. Mac Mini Cells, that your PS3 can play with
cool
Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
Last i checked, Win XP Pro runs almost half the price of the mini. That doesn't include half the stuff that iLife does.
Dont forget that apple are bundling a solid OS and a decent set of software in with that $499 price.
I think linux is great, and i use it everyday, but i know it's not for everyone.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
They could include a link to the Keyspan Express Remote on the Accessories page for the Mac mini.
I would rather it be some kind of RF remote though.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The processing power for playing back those touted AVC H.264 movies should be borderline on the Mac Mini as this advanced media format is quite processor intensive. MPEG/ITU-T marketing papers have indicated that AVC/H.264 roughly takes 4x the decoding power for real time playback as MPEG-2 and AVC/H.264 offers the same quality at half the bitrate as MPEG-2. Using new builds of mplayer that support AVC/H.264 playback take up 70% of my G5's processor time at 420p, although other implementations take up less time as Apple claims 1080p is capable on a dual 2GHz PowerMac G5. It's hit or miss on a G4, depending on the extent of optimizations used and the bitrate of the encoding.
Apple has used a bitrate of 7.5mbps on their WWDC showcase of the 720p Troy trailer in H.264 and this quite a hefty amount of data to store locally and transfer over the internet as this article makes clear that "this is the year of HD." Doing the math, a 90 minute HD movie encoded at 7.5mbps should take roughly 5GB and on a 40GB drive you can store around 5 movies, 10 if you have an 80GB drive. These drives seem to be lacking in this department. As for internet transmission, if you were lucky enough, you'd have Optimum Online's 10mpbs download and a clear unobstructed path between the two endpoints you may be able to watch this in real time as if this is a variable bitrate encode, action scenes will require considerably more bandwidth to download in real time. I doubt the national average for broadband is near what Optimum Online provides.
An online store with HD H.264 movies may be wishful thinking for those with a Mac Mini, although my one problem with the Mac Mini as a media center is the lack of digital audio output. An M-Audio Sonica should take care of that...
I am itching to see what Jobs & Co make of this.
The playback software for Elgato takes no advantage of any hardware acceleration.
So, it may be possible to play back content with better accelerated players...
A friend has been forwarding me results of a test someone is doing with the EyeTV 500 and Powerbook 1.25GHz (roughly the same specs, probably a fair amount of memory). At first he was able to get just shoppy playback, but after some tweaking (forget what that was) was able to get stable playback, of at least a SDTV feed (not quite full HDTV). So there is some hope.
For normal TV devices that convert video to DV firewire feeds should work really well, I was editing movies easily a few years ago on my 667MHz Powerbook.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
is coming up!!! You haven't made up your mind yet? Is this a joke? Look buy the mini if you are actually want a mini computer for a breakfast bar. Come to think of it, breakfast bar?!?! What the fuck are you talking about?! What is a breakfast bar?! Why does it need a computer in it? Who are you- Jimmy Dean? Look whatever floats your boat! (weirdo) Here, if its got to be small and not an Apple, get a cheap laptop from some no name vendor or go on ebay for one. Be a dumb ass and take a chance!!! Its your dollar, spend the extra money. get what you want!!!. But stop asking the same stupid ass question!!!
Disclaimer: Sorry for the moment of instability. I am usually a decent guy but redundancy really ticks me off. You should see me moderate
Oh, your wife thinks its cute and you not getting it. Boy are you dumb. I can imagine the look on her face when you bring home some clunky ugly ass X86 PC shit instead of a Mac Mini and say, "Here, honey. Its better than the Mac Mini. It runs Linux!!" You dork, hope your hand doesn't have arthitis!!
I've always heard that online movies are compressed down to pretty low quality. How big would a two hour full HD movie be? Lots bigger than your typical DivX I bet. Your typical home broadband system would be hard put to download it in less than a day.
And where exactly is the audio digital out for this magnificent little movie machine Cringely is going off about? Video is only half the picture (not that the mini has the base specs for handling HD streaming in the first place).
Now I'm as guilty as the rest, but has anyone stopped to consider that the mini is just a low-cost, small-footprint Mac aimed at potential switchers?
I suspect that deep down, we know that's all the mini is, but we're just trying to find some kind of rationalization for buying one. (I'll admit it: I've been wanting to get one to act as a dedicated server for my iTunes Library, a function I think it'd perform quite well.)
why is it that every time I get mod points there's nothing like this around?
The support comment alone is truly insightful.
Notes From Under *nix: blas.phemo.us
For most people living in urban areas, video stores are all over the place. It's no more than a 15 minute trip the nearest Blockbuster, and I could walk down the street to the local place quicker than that. Even at a generously small estimate of a 1G download for a full length, full res HDTV over the average 1.5mb line is about an hour and a half. It's perhaps tolerable but it's not that near to the instant gratification of popping down to the shop to watch it "right now".
When I first saw the mini I thought that it had tons of potential as a HTPC as well, but then you realize that it only has a headphone out port by default and nothing like RCA out. No built in surround sound? They had to cut costs somewhere, but this would have been a great inclusion. Also, it's true that HDTV is great, but most of us out there are still using regular TVs with RCA inputs.
You mean uDonutEater (iDonutEater)
The where is the remote control? I know you can buy stuff aftermarket, but any serious media center would require a remote control like 99.99% of the rest of the serious market.
Take it for what it is, Apple is trying to take a stab back into the heart of the PC market with cheap and reliable machine for the masses. Is it a mystery to Mac fans why large institutions started dumping them in the 90's?
It's about the money, plain and simple. I bought my Powerbook because it was relatively inexpensive and extremely high quality notebook when you consider all the other machines with Linux/UNIX on them will cost you an arm and a leg one way or another.
It just doesn't seem likely to me. First off, the hard drive is tiny for HD (which has been noted). And second, there's no bluetooth. I think bluetooth would be essential for a remote control, and if it's designed to play video, they wouldn't have people buy a USB bluetooth adaptor. I suppose they could sell infrared receptors so that your regular remote works with it... Still, it just doesn't seem likely at all. They would have released it with HDMI, not DVI.
Reasons why Cringely is wrong:
... to me this is not even close to being a sufficient foundation to support his claims.
1. both models of the mac mini are currently shipping without support for either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray. Cringely glosses over this stating that the mini will exclusively be for delivering online HD content.
2. there is no IR/remote support on the mac mini, so no remote control. this is kind of a big and small deal at the same time. it would not have cost much for them to add support for this, yet it is a feature essential to media centers.
3. the current mac mini models are simply not powerful enough to decode HD video compressed with modern MPEG-4, WMA9-level codecs.
4. no component video out on the mini. Cringely once again glosses over this, stating that DVI is sufficient. while DVI does seem to generally work on DVI/HDMI and DVI/HDCP televisions, there are cases where it does not, and it is certainly not officially supported by most vendors. remember this is Apple, they're not going to push technologies that aren't officially supported. there is no evidence of HDMI/HDCP support on the mac mini.
A lot of these could be fixed in the future, with an "upgraded" mac mini. but i just don't think it adds up. the mini doesn't even look like a home theater component. Cringely seems to be basing his entire theory on the Quicktime trailers site being down for an evening
I do hope one day Apple releases a media center solution. They are one company who could really shake things up and bring some attention to the media center concept, which I am totally into after installing Xbox Media Center (http://www.xboxmediacenter.com) on my modded Xbox. I just don't see this happening anytime soon, and in particular not with the mac mini. I sure hope I'm wrong!
They do include a Superdrive as an option, so possibly you could burn DVD's...
But then again, would studios allow that? I suppose possibly Apple could cast a spell on them and allow the same kind of lenient DRM that ITMS enjoys.
It does seem unlikely but the presence of the president of Sony makes you wonder. All it takes is for HIM to get the importance of such an idea and be OK with relaxed DRM and the company will follow in line (after bitter internal complaints).
We often think of companies as giant brainless entities intent on a mindless unalterable quest for whatever, but we often forget there can be just one or two guys at the top that can really change things, if they want to. Sony is one of those companies that I do not think is as answerable to shareholders or boards as other companies might be... I could be wrong about that though as I've never bothered to really look at Sony's structure much.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Hmm, lets look at this again:
Mac mini, explicitly stated by Apple that it is supposed to entice low-end (and cheap) pc users into trying a mac. It specifically targets those people who like the iPod and are tired of dealing with spyware/virii/ms junk/pop-ups/windows etc. A lot of people are like that out there and they have $500 to throw down and 'give the mac a chance'.
They don't care if its expandable or has the latest tech. They want it to work and they will toss in in the trash after two years and hopefully buy an iMac or something better. This is what 90% of the public expects from computers, to get a use out of them for a few years and then get a new one.
The mac mini is not designed to take the pvr/media center market by storm, you may be able to hack it, add tuners etc. but that is not what it was DESIGNED to do.
Complaining about this makes about as much sense as saying a screwdriver makes a poor hammer.
No digital out for audio, which is found even on the cheapest dvd/divx players and digital tv boxes. SCART missing as well.
Hardly anyone in the market for a $500 device for video is going to buy MiniMac.
Oh and his wise suggestion to Apple to sell the Mini for $249 each and incur $1 billion in losses was just amazing! Amazingly stupid. Like Wall Street really rewards companies that burn up cash by selling products at a loss.
Yes, you are precisely correct. Under FCC regulations, every cable system that provides HDTV is required to provide their customers with a firewire-enabled decoder. All you have to do is ask for it.
0 40 426151111599
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20
This means anyone can get HDTV recording capability for free with any Mac. It takes tons of disk space, but it's already encoded so it shouldn't take huge amounts of processing power. The Mac Mini is just the machine for this job.
Right, that's why I (and the Elgato webpage) said HDTV playback at full resolution. I never said it couldn't play regular TV.
As far as using hardware acceleration... can Radeon 9200s do MPEG2 decoding?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I had not found any reviews of the device so I'm glad to hear it works well.
The great part is for DVD playback it should really just be a passthrough for the audio stream, so no CPU is needed (or just CPU enough to keep it streaming with the video).
If nothing else for me the Mac mini should be a nice DVD player replacement as I just have a projector I use for home theater I can tie it into.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This guy has it all wrong. The Mini-Mac is for movies but not for downloading movies, it's for home movies.
I am very happy with my current computer set up but if I wanted to start editing mini-DV footage and wanted to start making my own videos I would consider just buying the Mini-Mac. Currently I would have to buy video editing software, DVD creation software, and a firewire card or capture card or something. How much do those cost? Or I could just pick up a Mini-Mac, hook it up and plug the camera into it. It has I-Movie and I-DVD included doesn't it?
If people are going to be plugging the mac mini into a HDTV to watch movies, they are certainly going to want DTS or Dolby Digital audio. Home theater junkies love surround sound and aren't going to be satisfied with a 2-channel headphone jack. Apple could have added a cheap optical out to the mac mini if this is what they had in mind. Yes I know you can get USB or firewire sound cards that support DD or DTS, but if apple has some grand schemes in mind for the mac mini they would have just added the feature in the box and charged a couple bucks more. The mac mini is a stylish low-end mac to entice people who love their ipod to try getting a mac. They basically removed the screan from an ibook, changed the shape, and made it a desktop.
If Apple really does tie the Mac Mini to online movies, how long do you really think it will take before
a)Dell, Gateway, et al sell tiny PCs
and
b)Walmart et al offer Microsoft DRMed movies for download?
Apple may become the major player set-top/computer market, like it is in the MP3 player market, but it won't be the only player by any stretch of the imagination.
"Do I dare disturb the universe?"
Oops, rather 8 movies on a 40GB drive or 16 on an 80GB drive, save space for Tiger.
I have Dish and was wondering if they have similar requirements with having to provide a firewire output of the HDTV stream.
As much as I dislike Comcast, if I could use the mini in conjunction with that and not Dish I think I would switch.
I would have switched to Voom but it seems they are not long for this earth with EchoStar (dish) trying to buy one of their satellites...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I posted this in another message, but thought I might as well let you know before you rushed off to order anything - they also have on that same accessory page a link for a Keyspan Remote, which is a USB device with an IR receiver and small remote. By default it can control iTunes and also the DVD player.
I've not used it but seen great reviews.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I shouldn't say this cuz I might be right but... my theory is:
;-)
Asteroid was it? Some kind of firewire breakout box? Big time secret... for just a firewire audio recorder? Woohoo.
I think it's actually a multi-channel output box with a dedicated HD playback chip on it. The 1.25GHz G4 in the Mac mini can't handle it in software. It's either this OR... the reason Apple hasn't released the hardware assisted DVD API is that it's still in the works and will allow slower G4's to playback HD movies.
Anyways... can anyone tell me what the 20 something channels of audio the new QT 7 supports are for? Just planning for the future with expandability? Or to hook up THREE 6.1 stereo systems to a single computer, Left Right and Rear with 7 channels each?
-Don.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
If he is right, Apple should hire him to shut him up. There are reasons ambush's are ambush's.
If he is wrong, Apple should hire him to come up with strategies like this.
"A man is but the product of his thoughts what he thinks, he becomes." -Mahatma Gandhi
Cringley is a self serving hack.
I was trying to think of an excuse to buy a Mini. I've been asking my mother if she would use it. The problem was where to put it. After reading this artical it became obvious. I have a fairly new WEGA 20" Sony Flatscreen TV. If I get the wireless mouse/keyboard she can just use it with the TV. Does anyone know if three is an adapter to use a Mini with your TV? Does that require DVI?
Right, that's why I (and the Elgato webpage) said HDTV playback at full resolution. I never said it couldn't play regular TV.
:-)
I didn't say that you didn't say what I couldn't say... or something like that.
What I was saying is that a Powerbook 1.25 can seemingly playback an 720P signal with no dropped frames. Unknown yet if a full HDTV signal would work, but it's very promising given that using the Elgato software the video for that same 720p is an unwatchable mess, and the higher end Mac mini is 1.42 GHz.
I'm just saying there is actually a lot of hope for getting playback to work, and if it is possibly you know that Elgato is not stupid and would do everything it can to support hardware accelleration for the Mac mini, given that it could be a killer app for the product they sell (which otherwise I do not see many Mac owners buying).
Elgato had these devices out long before the mini, I think they just stumbled into a really successful market if they play the cards right.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm running from PBS
OK, so everybody seems in agreement that the Mini would be a nice media system in the living-room: nice form factor + DVD player + iTunes juke-box + web browser + maybe a few games. Not to mention potential PVR capability via that EyeTV thing everybody is talking about.
But how do you drive that baby? With a wireless keyboard? Isn't that a bit clunky for the living-room?
The iPod Shuffle's form factor sure would be suitable for a remote... Extend it for the next generation with blue-tooth and the proper firmware, et voila! And when you're done watching TV, just plug the Shuffle back in the Mini for a battery and music recharge. Am I missing something here? What else would be needed?
Please be nice: being no hardware techie, I might be way off the mark here.
"In our tactical decisions, we are operating contrary to our strategic interest."
I imagine that buying movies online you'd be able to buy more highly compressed versions using that new Pixlet (see sidebar in link) codec, just like you can buy compressed AAC files from the store instead of full uncomressed CDs. Here's what Apple has to say about Pixlet:
Pixlet is the first studio-grade codec for filmmakers. Pixlet provides 20-25:1 compression, allowing a 75MB/sec series of frames to be delivered in a 3MB/sec movie, similar to DV data rates. Or a series of frames that are over 6GB in size can be contained within a 250MB movie. Pixlet lets high-end digital film frames play in real time with any 1GHz G4 or faster Panther Mac, without investing in costly, proprietary hardware.
Yes, it's heavy on the marketing. But one interesting thing to note (apart from the estimate of 6GB going to 250MB) is that it's targeted as - a 1GHz G4! That processor performance target is much more interesting now. And it is meant explicitly for movies.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Does the Mini have enough CPU grunt to do HD playback ?
Broadband technology is not ready for HD content delivery. The fastest systems could just barely deliver 640x480 in real time. That means you could download HD in 1/4 time (approximately). Care to wait 12 hours to download The Return of the King? Jobs knows better than to bring a product to market before it is ready. The only way this could work is with higher compression, or some kind of groundbreaking broadband technology.
Though I do agree that there is more to the Mac Mini than Jobs is letting on.
The Apple Product Life Cycle, which a Mac developer friend told me about.
I saw a pundit somewhere -- might have been Cringely -- refer to an iMovie Video Store, like the iTMS for video. Cringely, among others, seems pretty set on the idea that it'll happen.
... check. ... uh, definitely not. ... if the movie studios allow it to be. ... only if you're planning to take the video with you somewhere, which I don't see becoming particularly commonplace until those cool little LCD "VR" goggles come down to headphone prices, and ... ... absolutely not. I already own enough DVDs -- and I don't own all that many compared to most of my friends -- to fill a decent-sized hard disk. Portable video? Fuhgeddaboutit, at least until someone can make an iPod-sized device that holds at least 10 whole DVDs AND doesn't cost more than $600. Music CDs cost about $30/gig. DVDs cost about $4/gig. Hard disk space costs about $1/GB for fairly large SATA drives. It's going to need to come down to about $0.15/GB before storing DVD content on a hard drive becomes as viable as storing CD content has.
I'm not buying it.
Look at what makes the iTMS, and downloadable music in general, so great:
1) more convenient than buying a CD
2) downloads in less time than it takes to buy a CD
3) cheaper (in many cases) than buying a CD
4) saves the additional step of ripping a CD to a compressed, portable format
5) even the most extreme music collections will fit on $300-400 worth of hard drive space
Now, how would an iMVS stack up?
1) more convenient
2) faster purchase
3) cheaper
4) saves a step
5) stores cheaply
An iMovie Video Store is not going to be a practical reality until problems 2 and 5 are solved. Number 5 might happen within the next two years. Number 2 very likely won't. Remember, the driving force behind the iTMS is the proliferation of broadband Internet access. Consumer bandwidth needs *at least* to increase by an order of magnitude to make downloaded movies practical. This simply isn't going to happen in the US without an overhaul of existing telecom infrastructure. Fiber would be a good start.
p
In Korea, long hair is for old people!
That's how "psychics" do it!
I think that Sony's president was probably there because of a collaboration with Sony to get the Cell processor.
From what I understand the Cell is basically a power processor with some extra hardware to help the processors work together, so this wouldn't be a major hardware change for apple... it's basically the same processor.
Sony have been talking about producing "cell workstations", unfortunately Sony while they make excellent hardware, make totally sucky software... But having a UNIX based workstation is on par for the course for Sony (all their ps2 dev tools are linux based). Plus it gives them all the software that's already been ported to OSX (including stuff like Maya, which is huge since they want to target media creation).
Mostly I'm assuming that cell workstations would be used for PS3 development, by partnering with apple here they not only get OS X but also XCode, other dev tools and all the software that OS X comes with, Sony can just play with GCC (which is what they did for PS2 development and they got hammered for it) but their developers will be happy (or happy-ish which is much better than with the PS2).
This also leaves room for 3'rd party companies such as SN systems and Metrowerks to develop PS3 dev tools for x86... Sony wants to keep these people in the game, since as I mentioned they suck at software and have no desire to support PS3 developers.
Apple have already shown that they love dual-processor setups, mostly since the single processor ones can't compete with x86 single processor (through no fault of apples)... so cell would be a natural extension for them.
Both Sony and Apple are more about selling 'their brand' than they are about selling their hardware.... so this is a very obvious partnering for both companies.
1) I think it's premature to call out lack of support for blu-ray when there are hardly any players anywhere yet! I think Apple did announce support in Tiger. Already the Superdrive is BTO, probably a blu-ray drive could be added later as needed and become another BTO option.
2) There is IR support, Keyspan USB remote which is an IR remote with a USB/IR receiver. Works by default with iTunes and the movie player. Is linked to from Mac mini Accessories page in Apple store.
3) Check out the specs for Pixlet which lets you play back "movie quality frames" on a 1GHz G4. But really the video card in the mini is powerful enough to do the job for HDTV, you just need players than make use of it.
4) Could use S-Video, though most real video people would cringe. I agree that is the major stickling point, I am OK as I have a projector but I have also heard of problems connecting computers to HDTV sets with DVi inputs. Perhaps Tiger will help in this regard.
I think it's very usable now, but I tend to agree they may well release an updated version later with a little more bundling (like 5.1 built in instead of requiring a seperate adaptor).
Sorry I didn't include more links to things but I've already done a bunch of responses, check those for more links.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
They do have a USB IR remote, but I would much rather see a bluetooth remote used as you describe.
Then you could also have a bluetooth keyboard and mouse tucked away for light browsing, but mainly just a nice remote.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Coming from x86, they will seem remarkably fast at some stuff, and kinda pokey at others. I have a 1.33 in my laptop and it's quite tollerable. I think the processor speeds are a comfortable fit for the hardware. If you're thinking net-appliance or a casual workstation, it's cool. Get a lot of RAM.
He only needs a devices that "crushes the Mac MINI" in terms of price. That is what he was looking for.
If you have the magical formula for how to make your "Crushing" shuttle-like PC cost less than the Mac mini, by all means give us the list of parts and prices or point us to where we can find such a list.
I was also looking at mini-ITX cases and the Mac mini is a very compelling option - on price alone! And the performance is more than good enough for an HTPC.
Plus it is the only HTPC that can act as an iTunes server for sharing music to other macs. Not a thing to sneeze at.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yeah, because the only ones that will mod your trolling "flame me up the ass" post are the ones who will be personally offended, not the ones who want to avoid seeing a flamewar because some little boy thinks Macs shouldn't exist because they "suck away your life force", even if they're on the other side of the world from them.
Way to justify yourself.
Everyone is thinking that you actually want to keep all your movies on the mini all the time. Thats inefficient.
Try this. I have a Mac mini attached to my HDTV. I power on the TV, go to iMovie, and pick something interesting to watch (assuming I will be plugging in my credit card here for some DRM). iMovie starts downloading the movie in background, and then shows me some trailers that it has already locally cached. (maybe there's a countdown timer to movie start) The trailers finish up, the movie starts, and then iMovies holds a cached copy of the first 1/2 hour of the film so that I can watch it again if I want to.
Seems simple to me...
Apple makes a snazzy bluetooth keyboard and mouse. To connect to your TV, you should get a DVI to Component cable or adapter. Something like these:
Adapter
Cable (I would get this)
I can already edit video pretty well with my Powerbook 667... so I think for video editing on the fly laptops would still hold sway...
EXCEPT that if you already had a compact LCD monitor, and just needed to use a computer at generally fixed locations with power (like weddings) the Mac mini would be a lot cheaper than a laptop. Even an old one! So it could be a really nice device for fixed-location editing of video or photos (like a sports shooter at an arena or a wedding phtoographer/vidographer, as you noted).
I also agree it's probably going to show up in a lot of movies.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Get that Cappuccino, the new system is $455 (BYO HD) and the refurb is $379 (BYO HD). If you want the refurb with 20GB 2.5" Ultra DMA 33/66 4200RPM Hard Drive, it's $478. Both these prices include a "dos system", meaning "Install your own OS".
And stop duping comments (thanks typhoonius).
Roland Piquepaille and slashd
They make a ton in USB and Firewire interfaces. The Firewire Audiophile springs to mind. Just a couple of hundred dollars on some sites. Probably even cheaper cards out there dedicated solely to surround out (Audiophile is mainly for recording and has MIDI capability).
why is it that every time I get mod points there's nothing like this around?
Seriously, I just use all my mod points modding down other people with "get a free mac mini" sigs.
They were messing around with some open codec at one of the keynotes (I think it was the one where they first showed Tiger). Looked like it would be cool for streaming. Same quality as divx at half the size? Something like that?
No.
although my one problem with the Mac Mini as a media center is the lack of digital audio output. An M-Audio Sonica should take care of that...
Or an M-Audio Transit.
Apple seem to agree :-).
I'm also amused by the "what is it for" crowd.
I think it is aimed at exactly the sort of people who claim to know what it is for. It's a computer, so of course there are a bunch of things it could be used for, and the small form-factor gives you the all of the usual non-desktop options that SFF systems are used in. All of these people who are saying "it's for $foo" are really just projecting their own ideas, and will likely go out and buy one and use it for $foo. Those who are saying "oh wait, it can't actually be used for $foo, because it lacks $bar" will probably go out and buy one anyway, and buy the add-on required for $bar.
The "it's for $foo" people must be working out great for Apple, as free advertising. All of the pundits out there (including Cringely) are collectively declaring more uses for the Mac Mini than Apple's marketing department could ever dream up, and spreading the word more widely than Apple's advertising budget could ever afford.
Given that a pyramid scheme is mathematically guaranteed to screw over the majority of the people who get sucked into it, even in the best case, what makes you special? What makes you lucky enough to have a good chance of succeeding?
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
I can picture a nice aftermarket (or Apple) docking station for the mini. All the plugs are there, slide the Mini in, and for about double the space, add a firewire harddrive, all the digital audio and composite video outputs, a couple front mounted USB & firewire ports, maybe a IR receiver. All that cool jazz. It should fit perfectly in my entertainment center.
OK Belkin, Griffin, whoever. Build me one. It should sell for no more than $149, and have an empty drive bay, 2 if possible.
For $199, include wifi and bluetooth.
I can't wait, the MacMini accessories cometh!
Wake up.
Mac Mini + Apple 23" LCD + FireWire DTB Decoder + USB/IR Remote Control + Bluetooth Kbd/Mouse
This will _nearly_ give you _true_ HDTV.
The 23" Cinema Display can display true HD resolution content, not the 1280x768 that most LCD TVs can display - the only problem is the FireWire decoders I've seen only do HD content on a Dual G5, as (I assume) they use the host CPU to decode the content...
So near, yet so far...
Specialist Mac support for creative pros, Melbourne
This is a simple question, but since I am completely Apple-illiterate I'd like to know for sure. Can I plug a nice USB audio card on the mini? Will it work? An Audigy NX would be a nice choice for games, a firewire m-audio would be nice for recording. Generally speaking, do PC USB peripherals work with apple computers or do I need "special" expensive Mac versions?
P.
I'm not sure that the Mac Mini is Apple's Set-top box. I reckon there's more to come in that department.
:))
However..
Everyone seems to be assuming that for an iTunes Movie store to work the movies would have to be downloaded in their entirety.
However, the new codec is also ideal for high quality streaming - select your movie and a time for delivery, fill the cache, and away you go. Pauseable movies delivered to your home. Maybe not HDTV but surely near DVD quality..
(of course if they start with something already low qauality eg TV shows, they will have a breathing space until the hardware and brodband connections catch up to HDTV standards. Although I admit that's not very Apple
Streaming into a proprietry iTunes player negates the worry of movies being burned to disk.
Am I missing something?
From TFA: "Like the iPod, it will be a simple device"
This is a full desktop-style PC running a full unix-style operating
system - this is not simple in the same sense as the iPod. It has
massive capability (and complexity) that a dedicated device like the
iPod doesn't have and it doesn't have a simple play/stop/next type of
interface. It doesn't even have anything like the specs of a "media"
PC (no remote, no on box LCD disply, no on box controls - volume,
play/stop, etc).
I see it as the new cube - cute but not particularly exciting.
with 20GB 2.5" Ultra DMA 33/66 4200RPM Hard Drive, it's $478.
Slower ( 500 MHz Celeron vs. 1.2 GHz G4)
Louder (much, much louder)
Smaller HD (20 GB vs. 40 GB)
Less memory (64 MB, maximum 256 MB supported vs. 256 MB, 1 GB supported)
Slower memory (PC-133 vs. PC2700 DDR 333)
Crappy wireless options (802.11b vs. 802.11g; big external antenna vs. internal; no bluetooth)
No OS vs. the best OS in the entire universe.
No software vs. a fantastic suite of software.
Lame TV-out (VGA/S-Video vs. DVI goodness with included VGA adapter and optional s-video adapter)
Looks like the Cappuccino is inferior in every way, but hey, in exchange for buying a total piece of shit, you save 22 bucks!
You had me for a min. Then I woke up and smelled the cappuccino and realized this sucker holds 1/4 the RAM of the Mac or less and apox 1/3 of the cpu MHz of the Mac mini and costs nearly the same . Maybe more by the time you get a hard drive,which comes with the Mac.oh ya it also need an OS . Great smart buy Dude
i'll be buying a mac mini to use as a pvr amongst other things, but i don't think apple had movies (htpc) in mind. however, the mac mini does have characteristics desireable in a htpc. this is apple's foot in your door. apple wants mindshare before releasing a product for your living room (besides as the maker of ipod). also, i'm sure apple is very interested in how these mac mini's are used. with the right feedback & demand, who knows what this will lead to... apple will be (is?) poised to offer something for the living room, but it's not the current mac mini. in the future there will be a htpc mac (designed with htpc in mind, or specifically for htpc). but, apple movie store?! got bandwidth?
The form factor of the Mac mini seems to invite the idea of producing matching, perhaps stackable, peripherals (with the Mac at the top of the stack, naturally). I can imagine several - An AV receiver that raises the stack height to a cube with matching cube speakers; a pvr/tuner; hard disk and dvd burner; musician's breakout box (Asteroid?)... So far, so ordinary - what else could be made that is perhaps not so obvious? An espresso machine? Bagel toaster? Or perhaps a scientific data acquisition module? Photo printer? But it's very clear to me that this is all part of the marketing plan - this thing is deliberately made to a spec and style that will help to creat an eco-system in the exact way the iPod did. I think this is a genuine tipping point - the first real mass-market consumer's computer that goes some way towards the 'it just works' philosophy of consumer goods. Don't be surprised if Apple owns the living room space in a few years.
--- Yx3 = Delilah ---
that article is totally retarded.
anyone can speculate that it was intended for anything.
for music?
for work?
a cheap pc alternative?
a porn pc in the living room.
a box for digital video editing.
a fucking movie distrobution pc.
that's the beauty of NPR... sometimes the shit is moderately interesting, and sometimes it's completely and utterly retarded.
So there are two possible solutions:
Nope, try again: "the proprietary content will be video encoded in AVC H.264, which will be supported first in OS X 10.4" (from the article)
"Look at the amd and intel benchmarks for video."
Well, Apple doesn't use any of those architectures ...
I just noticed this in the Applestore: the Eyehome Wireless. Here's a link:
o a/91509/wo/bD6PFSBqDyws2ZdoHhpULKcQK7R/0.0.11.1.0. 6.21.1.10.1.0.0.0.1.0
http://store.apple.com/Apple/WebObjects/nlstore.w
You can use it with a remote control to stream movies, images and music from your mac. I guess there's some truth in this story!
Cheers,
Bartv
They'll download the first 20 minutes or so of the movie to the disk so you'll have something to watch while the mini buffers data from their server. That way you can pick the movie you want to watch and just go. Also I wouldn't be too surprised if they built airport extreme functionality in to the software for the mini, so you can stream music from your computer to your entertainment system in a similar way.
it's a wannabe who stole the name from Infoworld. "Robert X Cringley" is a pseudonymous byline which was/is used for a gossip column in Infoworld. The column has over time been written by several different people. The person calling himself "Robert X. Cringley" on PBS is just one of those people, and not even the first. He no longer works for Infoworld, and no longer has any legitimate rights to the pseudonym. What he's done is the ethical equivalent of stealing the copy machine when you lose your job.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
http://www.i-flix.com/l oads/macosx/video/iflix. html
http://www.apple.com/down
Does this imply anything of significance?
Red.
In my mind, there is a major flaw in this argument. The lack of a digital audio out port.
Sure, most people could probably live without digital audio out. But who would *want* to?
sig not found
But why? I really don't understand the draw of the mac as a server. The things people claim macs are good about have to do with intuitive gui, clean gui, conducive to productivity. These are not really important for servers. On a server you want stablility, which OSX has but so do all the free unicies. All the fancy gui stuff would just go to waste sitting there headless.
This post written under Gentoo-linux with an SCO IP license.
Does anyone else read this article and think, "WEAK" Yes, perhaps I am trolling, but come on. This article has no substance. Apple is making a PC with a small form factor. A form-factor that has existed in PCs for quite some time. A form factor that is popular in corporate america for it's small footprint which ultimately contributes to it's ease of use.
But, you are probably right...they are planning to change the world with this machine. Wow! It is sooo innovative.
I repeat....WEAK.
If that were true, then once there was hardware that could support the software, Apple would have made a small, lightweight Newton.
the mini will serve up movies...from the new iFlicks in hd. The mini will sit as is...but plug into new Sony HDTVs that will have firewire inputs (and of course the DVI) The firewire from the mini is to output the sound to the sony TV's component and digital outputs as well as allow the sony remote to control the mac mini. iPhoto, iFlicks, iTunes....tv stuff is handled on the new sony box. its a merger requiring two items for a true HD media center.
No, in a land of .Net and the SUV, the mini is a lesson on thinking small that we need in a large way.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
For a number of reasons:
1. Apple is the first company I know of that has really popularized legal downloads of multimedia on a truly large and profitable scale.
2. Steve Jobs is well-liked among people in the entertainment industry, so Jobs could convince the Hollywood movie/TV studios to create a system of legal video downloads.
3. Thanks to the increasing proliferation of broadband here in the USA, there are enough customers to justify such a service even though videos downloaded through the "iVideo" store would require about 100-200 MB of disk space per hour for good quality video.
4. Hard drives of high capacity (120 GB and above) are so cheap nowadays that customers could now store potentially hundreds of hours of videos with a decent compression codec.
5. Devices such as Sony's PlayStation Portable point the way of portable video playback devices viewing video programming downloaded legally from "iVideo." While the PSP is technologically not perfect (too small hard drive and too limited battery life), by this time next year the technology may be there for a PSP-sized device from Apple using a hard drive designed for the iPod of 120 GB capacity and with higher-capacity batteries. Such a device will likely connect with the computer where the videos are stored using IEEE-1394 or USB 2.0 connections.
Pixlet is lossless, and the file sizes show it. It's meant for clips to be stored on the backend, as opposed to the delivery to consumers.
No, what Apple will deliver the content in is h.264, an open standard the allows HD at the same quality and the same bitrate as current codecs with normal-def.
I've got more mod points and GMail invi
Definitely some interesting speculation by Cringely, but I don't think it will happen for one reason and one reason only: 5.1 Optical Output... The Mac mini has none. On the new iMac, they included an audio out that doubles as stereo analog or 5.1 Optical with the purchase of an adapter. They could have included this new type of output on the Mac mini, but obviously chose not to, probably for cost reasons. If the Mac mini was really intended to be a media box they would have included a digital surround sound output. Who wants to watch HiDef movies with crappy Dolby ProLogic surround?
Now, perhaps a rev. B of the Mac mini will be released when Tiger comes out that will have optical out, perhaps a component out dongle, Blu-Ray burner, and be called the Mac movie, but I wouldn't count on it.
That's one thing about Cringely. He makes some great predictions like "yeah, wouldn't that be cool if Apple released the Mac mini for $249..." Yeah, Robert, that would be really cool, but you know what? Apple is in business to make money, not to cater to all of the Mac fanboys out there.
Don't get me wrong, I love my G4 AlBook, but this prediction doesn't sound too realistic right now.
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
DVD movies are around 4 gigs each, ignoring all the bonus material. Even if the HD content somehow stays the same size, it'd still take days to download the movie you wanted.
And more and more broadband companies are imposing limits to how much you can download. One movie would easily wipe out most users entire monthly allotment.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Blu-ray PVR recorders have been out in Japan for months. I can walk down to the electronics store right now and buy one, and the media.
Ain't no myth. They are alive.
Anyone found a FireWire drive that would sit nicely under a Mini?
Or a case they I can put my own ATA drive in? With a 250 or 400 GB drive sitting under it, the Mini could make a rather excellent home server.
Socket 370 Celeron or Pentium III?
Max 256 Megs of Ram?
No available DVD-RW?
4 MB Shared Memory Video?
No Hard drive included?
At that price, you might as well buy the Mac Mini. Expecially when you tack on the price of a windows OS. Or even the cost of Linux. What? You haven't supported you favourite Linux distro yet? Stop being so cheap.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
It boggles my mind why this guy keeps getting publicity, relentlessly, from slashdot. It all started out of nowhere - as far as article presentation on slashdot goes, he was presented as a trustworthy expert with his first article. That wouldn't be so bad, if he weren't a complete buffoon and goof. He's been wrong about nearly everything.
Cringely and slashdot editors' approach to him brings to mind the Horoscope column in the local newspaper, or that dude on Usenet who makes a million predictions about earthquakes. After spending several years doing nothing but making scattershot predictions about obvious trends Cringely is bound to get one right sometime. But why aren't his laundry list of awful, stupid and just plain wrong foretellings ever mentioned?
I want to have an HTPC to integrate with my system, but it must have:
Ample CPU power to decode HD content and codecs. Currently these seem to use about 60% CPU on my 2GHz Athlon. Can't see the slow G4 rendering without hiccups.
Ample Disk space. The mini uses laptop drives. Very space limited. My Athlon has 400 Gigs online and I am always in Danger of running low, from all the TV shows I have online.
Sound: Spdif/out is a must as a standard feature for any media box. If this was the intended purpose they would have included digital audio out.
In short there is no eviddence that this is the intended purpose. Right after the news about the mini I sent email to apple suggesting the build a media box. It should have a bit more HP, take 3.5" drives and have digital audio out.
Actually there are no computers on the market to compete with this because while they may have X+(machine epsilon) features they all are wintel. And none are that cute either.
On another note, if the parent is not TROLL, I don't know what is...
There's no 'on' position on the Slacker switch!
Yeah, but click in my sig to get a free one for yourself!
with video and the mini, Apple's going to do for all of us what it did for iPod.
1) provide a core product and let the users create content or buy content from them legally.
- iPod = iTunes songs from labels, or you rip your CDs or make your own music.
- mini = movies downloads using the new h.264 spec, homemade videos, recorded media from other players, dvd player software
2) allow 3rd party products and accessories to flourish and support this product ecosystem
- iPod = Bose, iTrip, BMW, etc
- mini = Elgato,MythTV, HDTV boxes, firewire Harddrive manufacturers, etc
There will be some limitations, but expect solutions to appear on the market that will cover these weaknesses
At the end of the day, Apple's strategy is sound, and becoming clearer every day. They will only offer video downloads thats playable at full resolution using the h.264 spec. We will be free to do whatever else we want with whatever we legally own.
Just like what we do with the iPod now.
Video = same strategy as Music with a different ecosystem structure (and yet still interchangable)
Cheers,
BG
Robert X. Cringely - "What is this thing for?"
Well Robert, I personally believe Apple is trying to help some of those "would-be" Mac users by offering a computer that does not force them to throw away their existing monitor, keyboard, and mouse. That is it - PLAIN and SIMPLE. The Mac Mini is a low-cost entry machine that is still feature-rich.
But heck, that is no where near as exciting as Robert's desprate article. He spends all that time writing about "what could be done with it". I am all for sharing folks, but use your own imagination. Buy it for what it is and keep in mind there are already hardware hack sites starting to crop up that will help you do other things with it.
Frankly, I think those people that are not using this device as Apple intended (desktop PPC), will very likely use this device like a net appliance and many other things we havent even thought of yet. Anyhow, I think Cringley needs to quit pontificating and ask more questions before writing an article like this. His supporting ideas are weak and full of holes! Terrible form, Robert.
Movies over broadband right now won't work. Apparently Apple's having trouble making money of iTunes downloads, and only really recouping the cost on selling hardware. Most people aren't going to download 3 gigs of content, and wait the required 2 days to get a movie. And if they want it to be HD, then the files are going to be big. Or won't look as good as a DVD, let alone those new HD Discs that they are going to be competing against. Plus ISPs are going to catch on. If everybody starts downloading HD movies all the time, broadband costs are going to skyrocket. Broadband is only cheap because 75% of users only use 5% of their allotted bandwidth.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Coucou Coco.
I have a few Macs, but mine have aged a bit. I program a bit. I'm an overall Mac Geek!
I also contribute to mozilla in my free time.
My main workstation these days is an IBM thinkpad... not my beloved Mac's. Because I need it for school, and for CPU (it's faster than my current Mac's)
I really want a Mac Mini so I can work with Mac OS X again. It's a cheap way for me to use my beloved Mac's on my tiny desk. Get a 17 inch display... perhaps upgrade the HD to a 120GB drive.
IMHO that is why this machine rocks. A simple way to get a decent Mac.
I'm drooling looking at it. The idea of having a sexy mac mini on my desk just makes me salivate.
This person has a 400 MHz iMac! OMG that would suck. Wouldn't want to go back to that era.
When Ando-san appeared at Mac World, everyone sort of laughed -- no one mentioned it, but we all knew Sony was competing against the iPod, and not surprisingly, in Japan, the country where Sony Music came from, Apple hasn't been able to open iTunes Music Store yet.
This makes me think that if Apple wants to get into this, they have to partner up with some important broadband ISPs. Then, though, the whole thing might rule.
Why does it need a 'special reason' to exist?
I'm going to buy it for some perfectly ordinary reasons: 1) it's a Mac 2) it is small and QUIET 3) it is cheaper than an emac or imac by a long shot.
People keep comparing it to cheap PC's. First, I don't want a cheap PC. I'm tired of windows (spam, viruses, spyware). and I'm tired of the noise that my linux box makes (3 fans in an AMD system)
But really, compare it to "cheap" PC's. If you buy a cheap PC you get pretty much the same keyboard, same case, same mouse, same monitor as in an expensive system. But on the inside you get cheap/noisy fans, and low cost LOW QUALITY motherboards and other internal components. On the mac mini, we're getting pretty much the SAME internal components as I already have in my Powerbook G4 (at work).
Is it FOR movies, or FOR media centers, or FOR ipod lovers? Dunno, I just think it is for regular folks.
What's this then?
I doubt that Apple has built this for movies. Maybe another machine will come around, but not the Mac Mini.
After reading yesterday's article about the new 'Cell' processors that are being developed by Sony, Toshiba and IBM (The article mentioned that OS X was the best equipped consumer OS to be able to take advantage of the new 'Cells'). The presence of the Sony guy makes me think that Macs WILL be the first general purpose computers to feature the 'Cells'. And that Sony is interested in increasing Apple's marketshare so that they can sell more 'Cells' in the future. ( Just a theory )
Oh, modern codecs can do a LOT better than the MPEG-2 subset in DVD.
H.264, which will be supported on that box in QuickTime 7, is roughly 3x more efficient than MPEG-2. So DVD quality at around 2 Mbps. You could do great 1080 24p HD at around 8 Mbps with it. WMV9 Advanced Profile from Microsoft offers equivalent performance, although likely won't be on the miniMac in a high performance version for a while.
Not sure if the G4 will be able to do HD decode of H.264, though. Apple has only demoed full HD decode on dual G5. Maybe if they're able to do some video card offloading or something.
My video compression blog
In many parts of the country (such as Raleigh, NC) Netflix has a 2 day turn around, that mean that when I send back my three movies, I have three new ones two days later (three days if a sunday or holiday is in between). There's no way that I can download 3 full-length DVD movies in MPEG2 format (so I can encode into whatever I want with minimal loss) over my cable modem within 48 hours (we're looking at about 7GB/DVD). I'd say that video rental over the Internet, that is HD movie rental and such, is still a year or two away. More bandwidth is still needed. I am please at how TWC in my area has been steadily increasing the speeds, but I hope some competition (perhaps from Verizon FTTP or something) lights a fire under their monopolistic asses and gets us some real bandwidth that is competitive with the US mail system.
M-Audio-Transit [m-audio.com] AC3/DTS TOSlink adaptor.
Apple really should have just integrated this on the MB. My $20 sound card (Envy24 HT-S) does bit-perfect 48-192KHz 16/24/32-bit output on SPDIF or coax, using ASIO, up to 7.1 channels. If I could buy this card for $20 then Apple could get it as an IC for like $5.
Da Blog
If you want an inexpensive set top box for playing DVDs, Xvids, Mp3s, and even games, you are better off getting an Xbox for $99 to $150 and doing a software hack on it (no mod chip needed). Then run Xbox Media Center, which is free and open software. The Mac has no equivalent to XBMC. You can use a remote control to easily browse movies and music that you are sharing and streaming over home's wifi network, and it also supports web radio!
:)
With the Mac Mini you will pay nearly 5 times as much money, and then you will have to find a piece of software that is similar to XBMC. Considering that XBMC is based on mplayer, there is a chance that it could be ported to the Mac... but why wait? Save yourself some money and hack an Xbox.
Of course, if you want to do something other than set top movies, music, and games... choose something other than an Xbox. You know, its all about the right tool for the right job. Don't kid yourself, the Xbox is the king of set top boxes, assuming you hack it, of course
The lack of of a DVD HD or Blu-Ray drive is not a problem, if Apple is looking to make their money on content delivery. The unit already has a basic DVD drive so that it's a useful component in your living room, but Apple would make the money on the HD content.
I agree that the lack of an IR port is problematic. Other posters here are pointing out that an IR remote is available as an accessory, but come on. If Apple's strategy was to have a significant installed base of Mac Mini's for delivering HD content to the TV on the day that they roll it out, then they definitely dropped the ball by not having an IR port built-in. I have to buy an adapter to use a remote? Come on, Apple is a little more attentive to design issues than that. Jobs's vision has alway been to reduce the clutter coming out of the back of your computer. And it's going to discourage a lot of people from hooking it up to their TV if they have to have a keyboard and mouse attached. Huge oversight there. If Jobs had simply said that the IR port was for iTunes users, nobody would have questioned it since the Mini is aimed at iPod users, anyway.
I suppose Apple could just sell a Bluetooth remote, but they left Bluetooth as an option as well.
Lack of a decent audio out is the other real killer. Again, you have to buy a peripheral to get what should be basic functionality in a media center component.
Third problem is the lack of S-Video out and the narrow scope of Cringely's vision (yes, I know, buy another peripheral if you want S-Video!). This is supposed to be targeted towards HDTV owners, but is that a big enough market for Apple to make any money on? And if not, then they have to fall back on regular TV-owning slugs like myself.
So, for me to use this on my TV, I have to shell out another $115 in peripherals, not counting Bluetooth card and wireless keyboard and mouse, which would then bring it up to $225!
I will say, though, that it's interesting that the 5.1 sound M-Audio Transit is sold through M-Audio's site and not the Apple Store. They don't stock it but it was too important to leave off the page. That was no small decision by the Apple Store, to potentially disrupt the buying experience by having you go offsite.
Personally, I hope Cringely's right, but I just don't see the forethought there yet. Maybe reading his column will give Apple the idea. I'd hate for Microsoft to be the only player in the media pc space.
Dear Mr. Jobs,
I am a switcher of three months, now a happy Mac user after years of Windows computing that just didn't make sense. I don't miss the General Protection Faults and Blue Screens of Death one bit! I can't believe I waited so long to make the change! I bought a Power Mac G4 with Mac OS Jaguar and haven't looked back since. There's only one small thing missing, however.
Gay shit. I want to be a human toilet. I've been looking for the right nasty little boy who can train me and use me like the brown log shredder that I am sit me under a toilet seat and go to town pumping fudge into my mustachioed maw. I thought that by buying a Mac I'd get into the scene, and make some hot hookups with colons packed to the gills in crap worms. So far, however, I've been disppointed.
Mr. Jobs, I plead with you to release more information regarding getting into the hardcore underground stool swallowing scene. All I can think about is gobbling down an 18" ass-birth fresh from the fart factory. Mac users popping squats over my face and letting loose with a tempest of farts and raining a hail of turds.
I hope you can help me with this issue.
Thank you.
The first wrong presumption in the article is that a new piece of hardware is needed in order for Apple to start selling movies online. What is needed for any company to succeed in that bussines are a lot of customers with faster internet than what is currently available in most areas. Untill fiberoptic networks like the one that Verison was building become the norm there is no way that people are ever going to wait for 1-2 hours in order to download a movie and still pay for the service. When you want to watch a movie you want to do it now or at least in the next 30 minutes. So all this crap with selling legal copies of movies online is most likelly not going to fly for some more time and Jobs knows that very well. Also even if there was a way for Apple to start making money selling movies online why would they need a new computer to do that? What's wrong with the currently available ones. The answer is absolutelly nothing. Oh yeah and a G5 is pretty damn quiet so I really don't care if the fan on the miniMac is audible or not. The case with the iPod was that when it was released it filled a void that still no other company can fill as well as Apple does. Plus music files take close to no time to download so it is actually faster than going to the store. In the case of the miniMac you have no such factors. The only reason why the miniMac came out is because there are a lot of iPod users that are starting to consider buying a Mac but are turned off by the really high price tag. If you spent $400 on an iPod what is $600 for a computer that can do all that the iPod can plus some ... And the reason why the miniMac has no monitore keyboard and mouse is because it was intender for use with a kvm switch. After all Jobs never even dreamed that Windows users are all of a sudden going to switch to full time Mac use. And who needs clutter arroud their desk anyway?
All this was a careful study of the market and the reasons why people are reluctant to switch form Windows to say linux and how exactly they do that. The truth is that almost all linux users have a dual boot machine with windows also installed (just in case). Well you can't do that with a Mac so hence the miniMac with it's low price tag. After all the miniMac is only a steping stone towards a *real* Mac computer (say a G5).
I tried and it didn't work.
It just occured to me that perhaps the true reason for download caps might not be stinginess on the part of cable companies at all. It certainly isn't a quality-of-service issue. Most broadband users can attest to unstable connections and awful customer service.
If you're downloading hundreds of gigabytes of data each month, what are you realistically downloading? Sorry, nobody really downloads more than a handful of different linux distros. Warez, perhaps, but over 50GB? And who's going to download over 50GB of music in a month in compressed form? That leaves porn and movies. Both of which are offered as pay services by cable companies. Let that sink in for a minute.
If the cable companies let you get hooked on free downloads of decent quality movies and porno rips now, it will be far more difficult for them to sell it to you later. They're simply trying to block a free (but almost always illegal) alternative to one of their paid services.
Some people have style, some people don't.
Free Manning, jail Obama.
I am using my new Mac Mini (Picked it up at the Apple store this morning), and it is an awesome machine for the price. First Macintosh I have owned. Love it, love it, love it. Can't wait until my shuffle ships from the online store. :-)
I want my rights back. I was actually using them when our government stole them after 9/11.
I like RXC, I find him to be on top of things and a hell of a Mac Pundit, but I have to say this: WE ALL KNOW THAT IT'S A MEDIA SERVER - if you don't see that, you're blind.
And I also will mention that it's a hell of a product, some stats from a guy who knows a guy:
Initial 50,000 were sold on day one. Of those 50,000 over 45% were switchers. So tell Dell to get off of Apple's nuts, we know it was a strong business move, and presumably, it's working.
You obviously haven't read much Cringely - he's good deal more insightful than your AC post! And he's been doing it for like 15+ years?
Big Daddy, Johnny, Burp, Aunt Zelda, Scott, Slurp, Big Momma
I really don't think that puppy has the horsepower for HDTV quite frankly.
... Standards and Practices !
PenGun
Do What Now ???
You all should checkout this review and think twice before you buy the shuffle http://davesipaq.com/articles/iPOD_Shuffle_Sandisk _MP3.html/
They may be alive, but not for the average consumer.
Karma Schmarma
sure, manipulate the market, limit free choice and overcharge everyone
and amazingly enough, so many first worlders want to believe this is capitialism, free enterprise and just business
sure dood, whatever
ever heard of denial?
all this is, imho, is the privileged using their undeserved wealth to tilt the playing field so as to ensure that they always win
thanks for ripping us all off mr jobs
player, not the storage.
SO you have your 'normal' computer, and when you want to watch a movie, it loads up onto the mac mini.
Hmm I like that concept. This way you can keep your work horse out of the living room, and still get your digital content.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Don't get me wrong -- I've got a Samsung 46" LCD TV with 1920x1080p "resolution", but I know that the best signal I can feed it is really 1920x1080i if it's coming over-the-air.
> 2. there is no IR/remote support on the mac mini, so no remote control. this is kind of a big and small deal at the same time. it would not have cost much for them to add support for this, yet it is a feature essential to media centers.
uh, BLUETOOTH! duh.
*chuckles*... IR... pffft....
You can buy smaller Windows and Linux machines. You can buy cheaper Windows machines from all the big brands.
Objection! Irrelevant!
The Mac... mini, maxi, or midi... can't be compared on a hardware feature for feature basis to a PC... headless, diskless, or fanless... running Linux or Windows. Not if you want to figure out what the Mac (mini or not) is all about.
Even throwing in the cost of Windows XP Pro, a Mac
Mini costs more than the equivalent hardware you could toss together in a Shuttle case. Yeh, it's small, but that's not the trick. If it was a slab with as much free space as a Mini-ITX stereo-rack box it'd still sell for more... and justifiably so.
Because no matter what you do with your Windows box or your Linux box, it's not running OS X. OS X has a user-friendly environemnt that puts Windows to shame (and makes Linux look like it was just dug from a crypt), a hacker friendly environment that's almost the equal of any other open-source OS... without the driver support pains, and more than enough actual commercial software that ordinary people (as opposed to geeks or gamers) actually want to use to get by.
It's not as good a game machine as Windows. It doesn't have as much commercial software as Windows, but all the hot niches are filled well enough (no Open Office for Mac native? Aww, gee, we'll have to put up with Appleworks, Office X, and iWork). If you're looking for a PC to do PC stuff, the Mac'll scratch your itch.
It doesn't have all the server hots of traditional UNIX, yet. Tape support sucks, for example. But it's more than good enough to get by. If you're looking for a UNIX box or a Linux open-source hacker platform, the Mac'll scratch your itch.
It's a land-bridge between two hostile continents, and it's a clean, comfortable, safe place to live.
Over in Windows land, crime's pretty bad, the police are on the take, and you're never quite sure that the private guard you hired from Symantec or Macafee is entirely safe to keep around. But the food's great, and more than makes up for having to rebuild your house (but always to the exact same plan) after it falls down every few months.
Over in Linux land, the police are unobtrusive and honest and you don't need many anyway because your buddies look out for you. You get used to eating rice every day, and if you want to rebuild your house the way you want nobody's going to stop you.
In Macland, we have honest police *and* houses that don't fall down. The food's plain but varied... and always good. And this is the amazng new feature... you can actually afford to live here! Isn't that revolutionary enough? Why do yuo have to come up with theories about hidden agendas, comrade?
From apple's website:
:)
Densely-packed Power
Squeezed in under the cover of the Mac mini lies a G4 processor, room for up to 1GB PC2700 main memory, a Radeon 9200 graphics chip, and a large enough hard drive -- up to 80GB -- to store today's digital media.
that is all
You like your new Mac more than you like me, don't you, Dave? Dave? I asked...She said Yes.
Why do so many people insist on referring to the Mac Mini as headless? A headless computer is one that has no graphical console or graphical capabilities (has no head.) My Sun servers are headless in they do not have framebuffers, and therefore no graphical console. The Mac Mini, however, has an integrated ATI graphics chipset; the fact that it does not have an integrated monitor does not make it a headless machine, just as the Power Mac G5, with no attached monitor, is not referred to as headless.
-- Never hit a man with glasses. Hit him with a baseball bat.
Well, there may be room for heroic optimization yet, but there aren't any G4 machines that can decode 1080i MPEG-2 in real-time. Not a problem on my dual G5, certainly.
Maybe they're limited by the limited FSB on the G4?
My video compression blog
Mac minis are darn small, and sooner than later someone will come along and compile a kernel for mac os X, patched for openmosix. Imagine: a cluster of 7 mac minis taking up the space of one normal pc. Thats what id use a mac mini for. Fill my closet with those macs, add a couple of hubs and some power bars....
my karma ran over your dogma
The Mac Mini's problem is that it can't decode AND push out the video at that resolution because of the processor.
y et v500_faq#faq12
Apple's DVD player has no special advantage at 1080, because it is not ever decoding 1080, it's decoding a DVD, which is 720. So the only reason why they put this in the FAQ is because somebody was comparing HDTV MPEG to DVD MPEG, which is not an equal comparison. EyeTV is HDTV only, so this should have been obvious to the technical user, perhaps not to the unskilled.
http://www.elgato.com/index.php?file=products_e
The "funky calls" are called optimizations. If you read the second part of their answer (#13) you'll see:
"... and they have various DVD-specific limitations that make them unsuitable for EyeTV."
Which means, even if they were available, they couldn't use them anyway. It's not like these things are hidden in the video cards and are mandated by Apple to be included in the silicon. They're just pieces of software that offload DVD-related tasks to the GPU. They still run in the CPU.
If someone wanting to compete with the Apple DVD decoder on processor requirements, all they would need to do is write similar routines to offload tasks to the GPU. No need to reverse engineer anything, just use the programming interface to the video card.
But you know what, none of that matters to Elgato because like they said: the hidden routines are "unsuitable for EyeTV." So it doesn't matter that Apple's DVD player has lower requirements, because it only plays DVDs and EyeTV does more than that.
1080i (1920x1080) is more than double the pixels of 720p (1280x720). This would naturally require more power out of the processor. In order to make sure there's enough horsepower for recording, viewing, and decoding, I think it's a natural choice to suggest a dual G5 when a 1.25 G4 may be barely adequate.
It's not a some evil conspiracy, really. HDTV just requires more.
Moderators: Please note that "bonch" is a known fanatical psycophant whose obnoxious offtopic rants are legend here on Slashdot. It doesn't matter what the topic is, he'll find a way to scrape in some pointless Microsoft shilling. While nobody expects us to love Microsoft in any way, his particularly tepid style of calling anyone he replies to "troll" or "liar" because he happens to disagree with whatever they're saying is well documented and should not be rewarded. If anything, bonch is the type of person that should not be part of the open source/free software community. He is an anathema to all that is good about free software.
/. subscriber, I invite you to look through some of his posting history. I guarantee that you'll be hard pressed to find someone that is more "out there" than bonch. You'll also probably notice he's got quite an AC following. Don't just read his posts, make sure you go through the replies.
I'm posting this so that you (the moderator) have some context to consider bonch and not mod him up whenever he posts his filler preformatted rants about installing Windows or whatever that unfortunately get him karma every single time and allow him to continue posting his trademark toxic crap (read on) day in and day out. You may consider this a troll - I consider it community service. And I ain't kidding.
If you're a
For example, in this recent post bonch not only calls the OP a troll but attempts to "tell it like it is" while making some vague argument about "MS". Yes, if you're confused, you're not alone. The reply (modded +0) proceeds to simply destroy his bogus argument. You will notice he did not reply. This is what some people call "drive-by advocacy". A sort of I'll just leave you with my thoughts here and move on to the next flamebait kind of deal. In fact, he almost never replies because he knows that his fanatical arguments simply do not hold up to any sort of discussion. It's not that he's chosen the wrong cause - he's just going at it in a completely wrong way.
More? Just read though this post and the subsequent replies. I guess this stands on its own.
More? Bad spelling in astounding conspiracy theories, more offtopic FUD and uninformed "I'm right, look at me" rants, promptly proven wrong. Worse even, bonch wants to be Bill Gates, apparently (that first one is a winner). I mean, really. You think?
FUD, FUD, FUD, FUD, offtopic FUD, and more FUD. This guy is like the Monty Python SPAM skit, but with FUD and more FUD instead of canned meat. Amazed yet? Don't forget that KDE and Gnome make you dumb, and it's all a Slashdot conspiracy. How low do you want to go? Maybe as low as this?
The infamous Slashdot Front Page Troll? Nuclear fireballs? It goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on (troll?). Like the energizer bunny. Or take these two, which stretch the definition of weird.
It's up to you. We can get rid of this guy and make Slashdot a better place. I don't know about you, but I'd rather take the trolls and crapflooders over people like "bonch" any day. And I sure as hell don't want to be categorized along with him. This is not how you advocate free software, period.
I agree they are not targeting the box at this market exactly... the difference is that I do believe it's suitable to it.
I am with others in wondering why they couldn't include the same combo plug they have on the airport express, but it seems so obvious to do so you have to think there was some reason (howveer slight) it was not done.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I don't believe anyone can legitimately claim that the MiniMac, in its current state, is capable of ushering in some new generation of on-Demand downloadable HD content but Cringely does touch upon what I think is a far more interesting topic: the partnership between Apple and Sony.
In his keynote, Jobs astutely suggests that the next generation of Apples will exclusively support Sony's own Blue-Ray DVD format. Sony, who has snubbed the Mac audience for years in the digital music player market with its proprietory ATRAC format and Windows-only drivers has recently made public concessions that this was the wrong approach.
Wouldn't it be fitting if the two companies, both masters of eye-candy electronics, partnered up to take control of the next wave of hi-def portable multimedia devices.
I was thinking that if the Mac Mini does come with a slow laptop hard-drive, that I could upgrade it. However, does the Mac Mini come with install disks for the latest Mac OS? Or would I have to shell out another $100+ on top of the cost of a hard-drive to upgrade?
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
And Amazon? They lost money hand of fist for years. It wasn't Wall Street that killed those charlatans. It was the VCs and anyone with common sense.
Yeah, remember how we used to order books online? Man, those were the days. Whatever happened to that Amazon guy anyway? George Bozos, I think his name was. Didn't he die a pauper after Amazon failed so badly?
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Since you actually have one, maybe you can comment on the amount of noise it makes. I have heard comments that it is essentially silent. This is another reason that it would be good in the media room.
What is your impression?
Most "geek" types prefer keep a big collection of movies around, but you're forgetting that the majority of "normal" people out there can't be bothered to sit and manage and share private illegal movie collections (easily running into TBytes as we know!) ... now, while an mp3 on an iPod is something you want to listen to over and over, movies are not generally watched over and over, and most people think of them in terms of "renting for a day" or a few days, perhaps for private, social or family viewing. Like renting a movie, they'll just want to download it, watch it, and delete it. So most people wouldn't need/want space for more than a few movies at most at any one time. 40GB/80GB seems perfect. Most people really do have 'better things to do' than sit and collect movies.
Get home from work - ask girlfriend which movie she wants to watch this evening (or let her pick). Go for run and clean up. 1 hr. Have nice relaxing dinner. 1hr. Have nice relaxing shag after dinner (1 hr) instead of driving to blockbuster (15min), picking movie and waiting in line (30 min) and driving home (15min). Watch movie.
Remote for Mac Mini is HERE AND NOW. Our 1st Mac Mini arrived with bluetooth, and shortly after it was out of the box, my son was controlling it from his Cell Phone (Sony Erikkson 68i) to select iTunes songs from a playlist he copied to the Mac Mini to play off hid stereo system. It even works downstairs.
Next he's connecting the DVI to his TV. Skeptics are often proven wrong and seem to have little faith in man's ingenuity to come up with novel solutions. THINK DIFFERENT!
(By the way, my son has never taken a computer course - nowadays, he claims, you can find most of what you need to knoww about computers and electronics on the Web)
What's past is NOT ALWAYS prologue for the future!
Whether he's been "debunked" by Slashdot nobodies is irrelevent. He's probably made more money than most of us, he has a hit TV documentary series, and gets to spend a lot of time messing with home-built airplanes.
I may have been miscorrect in quoting SDTV, but I know for sure I read of smooth 720P playback.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I actually was thinking about h.264 with what I wrote, but I could not remember the exact numbers and for some reason got it in my head that Pixlet was another name for the same technology (even though I knoew the name Pixlet came before h.264)...
Thanks for the correction.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Note that they sell other companies accesories on thier own site, and in the stores. They have found with the iPod great success in accessory sales to enhance a product in small ways (like remote, or jacket, or photo-storage add-on...)
The photo storage add-on in particular is a good exampple of how Apple will work with a partner (in this case Belkin) to produce something the market might want but Apple doesn't yet want to provide itself. It's a smart strategy to not spread yourself too thin and let third parties take some risks for you.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Do you have evidence otherwise that Sony does not do as the president likes? He might give free reign to departments but could act as an overriding force.
But as I said I'm not sure how Sony is structured, if you know differently please point us to some information.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I read a report from the expo that Elgato plans to shut down production of the EyeTV 500 some time this spring. This is due to the dung infested legacy of retiring FCC chairman Michael Powell and his infernal Broadcast Flag. Since there is no practical way to implement it in a computer device
I was thinking along the same lines (buy the device before the gradfather date).
However in a recent review I could have sworn it says it already supports the broadcast flag! That would mean they could keep selling it, but also that there would be no rush to buy one as you'd still have the same limitations.
I really hope the EFF challege wins out, it can't hurt that Powell will be out as well (easier for a new guy to back out of even if he would otherwise support it). I did donate money to them this past year (well really I give them money every year) and that is one of the reasons.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Your post is exactly why I try to always name the thing I am point at rather than just providing a link... now sadly none will ever know what product you were asking about!
I think the chances are yes, but we'll never know.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Also, maybe it's just me, but doesn't 40 GB or 80 GB seem awfully small for the storage of feature-length HD video? We're talking what, 10-20 movies at best?
...
A Mini with an external terabyte of storage would be better, but that's going to more than double its price
Exactly, that is why there is that FireWire port at the back. Buy an external FireWire drive and BAM! you've got enough storage for your movies.
While you may have an otherwise reasonable point, I was refuting the parent poster's statement that Bluray is a myth, while in fact, it is selling in electronics stores as a consumer product right this very second, and has been for months.
They'll have to do a second version with the video and audio stuff built-in.
You could make it work with external interfaces, as many suggest, but it would fail in the marketplace. The extra mess of cords alone would kill it.
It has to be one piece.
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
I think they'll give QuickTime an iTunes-like interface, with a library and sharing, and they'll use it for a QuickTime Movie Store. That way they won't clutter up iTunes' interface and turn it into Windows Media Player.
Using the QuickTime name would get QuickTime lots of free press, and bolster their format against Real and Windows Media, and encourage media outlets to switch to QuickTime streams. It might also help promote Apple's video editing software, and the use of Macs for video editing.
Using QuickTime.app instead of rolling it into iTunes would also let Apple chalk up another, distinct success, in addition to iTunes and the iPod. If a movie store is as big of a success as iTunes Music Store has been, it would be better if it were counted separately and not blurred into one big iTunes success.
(When you're at 2% marketshare, you need all the wins you can get. Separating the movie store would give Apple three wins, instead of just two.)
You already need QuickTime to use iTunes, so they wouldn't have to worry about people not having the program. They'd just slip it a QuickTime update with an iTunes update, like they already do.
Moving people from one app to the other would be simple enough. There could be special links, like those to the iTunes store, which cause QuickTime to open up. Those could be used to scoot users from a page in the iTunes store to QuickTime's store. Doing this, it wouldn't take long to introduce enough people for a QTMovieStore to reach the tipping point of word-of-mouth.
It would be easy to put add movies to iTunes, but I don't think that would be the best move strategically.
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
Consider a QuickTime Video Store, where the "CDs" are actually things like "The Simpsons: Season One".
The tracks would be episodes. Instead of downloading a 2-hour movie, you'd be downloading a 24 minute episode.
If you had the patience and a good connection, you might go for an episode of a 1-hour show, or, what, 48 minutes of video?.
There's a whole lot of old TV that could be sold that way online. And new TV, too. It'd be a coup if Apple convinced someone to put new shows up on there immediately after the first broadcast.
Full-length movies could be sold as DRM'd Quicktime-format movies on data DVDs, mailed to the buyer and copied onto the hard disk. (The DVD wouldn't work in a DVD player, however.)
As bandwidth rises, longer videos could be downloaded online.
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
So an episode of The Simpsons (25 minutes) would be about 1.4GB, but could actually be less because HD would probably be overkill, and who knows, maybe it'd compress well.
An episode of Buffy (44 minutes) would be about 2.5 GB.
How much could be saved by clipping the opening/closing credits (where possible) and converting them to still frames rather than video? For a 24/25 minute sitcom, that might be worthwhile.
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
Cringely is absolutely right, and I know that he is right because I figured out the exact same thing, but couldn't see the forest for the trees. I think that's Cringely's greatest ability -- to step back and see the big picture.
I recently bought an El Gato Eyehome. It's a $200 (now $150) device that grabs pictures, music and movies from Mac over ethernet. I loved my Eyehome, until the Mac mini was announced. At that point, I realized that I gave up the beautiful UI for something that was merely functional. Of course $200 vs a budget price Mac was too great a price difference last fall. Now, however, I'd certainly go to $500 for a living room computer.
What never occurred to me, but did occur to Cringely, is that I'm not the only one who feels that way. Millions of others will too. Bring on the iTunes Movie Store! For a preview, check out some of the music videos on the iTMS and pretend that they are movies you want to see!
Mike van Lammeren
It will challenge your head, your brain, and your mind.
if your wife asks for a Mac mini, you get her one. end of story.
if she asks for a Prada bag, you don't go to the chinese import shop and buy something that looks "almost the same" and has "the same usability, anyway". or do you?
has been upgraded with a larger hard drive and connects neatly to my projector. It's soooo quiet. VLC plays those VOB's nicely... well most of 'em.
I think if that was really the case, there would be a video out port. Are there adapters for the DVI out?
You Can Have One, Too!
i'll be buying a mac mini to use as a pvr amongst other things, but i don't think apple had movies (htpc) in mind. however, the mac mini does have characteristics desireable in a htpc. this is apple's foot in your door. apple wants mindshare before releasing a product for your living room (besides as the maker of ipod). also, i'm sure apple is very interested in how these mac mini's are used. with the right feedback & demand, who knows what this will lead to... apple will be (is?) poised to offer something for the living room, but it's not the current mac mini. in the future there will be a htpc mac (designed with htpc in mind, or specifically for htpc). but, apple movie store?! got bandwidth?
I see his points head on. I feel we have been foretold the future here. No amount of words matter. We shall see all in due time.