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Mac mini, Apple DVR?

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the a-want-my-atv dept.

CDPatten was one of several to note the rumor of a new Mac PVR... code named Kaleidoscope and featuring an Intel CPU and Front Row 2.0.

487 comments

  1. Name sounds familiar by sudnshok · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    If they keep that name for production, I have a feeling these guys may have an issue with it. But I guess the way justice works in the US, whoever has more money is right, so Apple shouldn't be worried.

    --
    People who say "money does not buy happiness" are just people without money trying to make themselves feel better.
    1. Re:Name sounds familiar by ergo98 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If they keep that name for production, I have a feeling these guys may have an issue with it. But I guess the way justice works in the US, whoever has more money is right, so Apple shouldn't be worried.

      When's the last time a code name was also used for the retail product? I can't remember that ever happening. It's a "code name" for a reason - the developers and designers needed something to call it, without the hassle of all of the due diligence and legal work.

      For a media center to really work, it needs to be anointed by the cable and satellite companies: If it's unable to work with the digital EDTV and digital HDTV signals on their networks, with all of their DRM, then it is close to useless. Microsoft recently got that blessing, though apparently it won't be supported in retail deliveries until next Christmas.

    2. Re:Name sounds familiar by callipygian-showsyst · · Score: 0, Troll

      Apple loves stealing names. Look at what they did to "Apple Records" and "McIntosh Audio" (which they still print a disclaimer about in all their documentation).

      --
      Best Buy can have you arrested
    3. Re:Name sounds familiar by Eslyjah · · Score: 1, Informative

      When's the last time a code name was also used for the retail product? I can't remember that ever happening.

      Uh...Tiger?

    4. Re:Name sounds familiar by ergo98 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Uh...Tiger?

      Tiger's real code-name was Slate. Apple was playing a bit of a game, and choosing actual retail names that they publicly disseminated as "code names". Of course they could be doing it with this product, but the instant hit on a competing product proves that close to impossible.

    5. Re:Name sounds familiar by HTH+NE1 · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Man, I was just about to build one of those out of MythTV:
      Scripts. Scripts allow users to create and play any sequence of DVD discs, movies, trailers, episodes, favorite scenes, home videos, cover art, and other Scripts. This makes it easy to incorporate customized movie openings and intermissions for a truly personalized theatrical experience.
      I'd give their system a try, but "How much does it cost" is not in their FAQ, and I'm in one of the 14 states that doesn't have a dealer. I guess I'll forge ahead with tuning MythTV to my needs
      --
      Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
    6. Re:Name sounds familiar by sootman · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The disclaimer is only to avoid confusion. The Mac was named after the Macintosh apple, "America's favorite apple."

      On the other hand, who in the industry should we look to for originality--Microsoft with "Media Center"? Fucking Windows?!?!? "Windows" in a GUI were called "windows" long before MS came along and co-opted the word for their whole stupid OS.

      Then again, Apple and MS have one product that infuriates me--both of them call their remote-control app "Remote Desktop."

      --
      Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
    7. Re:Name sounds familiar by soft_guy · · Score: 0, Redundant

      When's the last time a code name was also used for the retail product? I can't remember that ever happening.

      Macintosh
      Newton
      Jaguar
      Panther
      Tiger

      There are probably others, but Apple has a long history of this.

      --
      Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
    8. Re:Name sounds familiar by bhtooefr · · Score: 2, Informative

      Lisa?

      That was a code name, IIRC. They ended up reverse acronym-izing it, but it certainly didn't begin life as a real name...

    9. Re:Name sounds familiar by frostilicus2 · · Score: 1

      It wouldn't be the first time that Apple would have been in this situation. It would seem that some parties are willing to sue over a code name. Fortunately rationality ensued, and Apple won.

      Only in America...

      --
      Nothing sucks like a Vax, nothing blows like a PowerMac G4
    10. Re:Name sounds familiar by cpt+kangarooski · · Score: 1

      When's the last time a code name was also used for the retail product?

      Such as Lisa, Macintosh, Newton, or Pippin?

      --
      -- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
    11. Re:Name sounds familiar by NatasRevol · · Score: 1

      Infuriates you? Man, I'd hate to be driving in front of you.

      Apple Remote Destop or ARD is the product name for Apple's remote control.
      Remote Desktop Connection or RDC is the product name for MS's remote control.

      And they're both very good products for what they do. RDC could add a few features, but it's good at controlling a remote Windows box.

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
    12. Re:Name sounds familiar by falcon5768 · · Score: 1

      unfortunatly none of those where code names. the current OS names have all been different internal code names and the "code name" that apple supposedly gave them have actually been public names.

      --

      "Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."

    13. Re:Name sounds familiar by bpevansncsu · · Score: 1

      Code names are typically names that can't be afforded legal protection. Places, animals etc that can't be copyrighted/trademarked. Apple tends to like they're animals, esp the Cats & apple varieties. Intel seems to favor city names. The real Kalidescope product looks pretty cool, curious if it's just MythTV wrapped up in pretty GUIs & hardware. I saw it first on Panbo.com as the ideal Yacht solution.

    14. Re:Name sounds familiar by callipygian-showsyst · · Score: 1
      The disclaimer is only to avoid confusion.

      What planet are you from? That disclaimer is there because McIntosh Labs reached a legal settlement with Apple Computer, Inc.

      --
      Best Buy can have you arrested
    15. Re:Name sounds familiar by JohnnyLocust · · Score: 1

      Scripts. Scripts allow users to create and play any sequence of DVD discs, movies, trailers, episodes, favorite scenes, home videos, cover art, and other Scripts. This makes it easy to incorporate customized movie openings and intermissions for a truly personalized theatrical experience.

      I would imagine if Apple made Quartz Composer available to the end user on this thing, it would be an insidiously powerfull, usefull, and fun thing to play with.

      --
      Havoc Video
    16. Re:Name sounds familiar by wealthychef · · Score: 1

      I guess it's time to point out again that Myth TV is no TiVo. It might be more less powerful GUI-wise, but it requires an infrared remote controller to change channels on your satellite box. This makes it unreliable maybe 5% of the time in my experience, that is, about 5% of the time, it failed to correctly change the channel as the signal somehow got "missed" from the transmitter. I require 100% reliability when I arrange a recording. It's not acceptable to miss even if it's 1% of the time, in my opinion. The system needs a hard wire or reliable wireless connection to be useful to me. I tried foil tents and other methods, but could never get perfect reliability. Ever since the time I missed a big football game I always just go with a dedicated combination TiVo/satellite box because it has the tuner internally and never misses a recording.

      --
      Currently hooked on AMP
    17. Re:Name sounds familiar by Ilgaz · · Score: 1

      For old mac people, it is something similar to Kaleidoscope, the theme utility for pre OS x Mac systems. Check

      http://www.kaleidoscope.net/

      Really funny thing is, they are same guys coded Konfabulator which is acquired by Yahoo!

      I am not getting into that fight but it is widely said, the Tiger Dashboard is Konfabulator. E.g. Apple basically stole it.
      Well, it became freeware OS X/Win32 tool in hands of a giant like Yahoo, I think everyone is happy.
      http://widgets.yahoo.com/

      I just wonder the face of guy when he first hears this projects name :)

    18. Re:Name sounds familiar by NeutronCowboy · · Score: 1

      Metropolis Street Racer was originally code named Project Gotham Racing. When the game moved to the Xbox, it became Project Gotham Racing. See also http://www.bizarrecreations.com/bc/games.htm/

      --
      Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
    19. Re:Name sounds familiar by cayenne8 · · Score: 1
      "What planet are you from? That disclaimer is there because McIntosh Labs reached a legao settlement with Apple Computer, Inc."

      Hmm...sure would be nice if they could come to an agreement on the home theater set up tho. Wow... McIntosh AV unit , McIntosh tube amps ...and Klipsch heratige series ( KlipschHorns , Heresey..etc) surround sound with the mac as the PVR and music source.

      Hey...while I'm dreaming...I'd also like a pony!

      :-)

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    20. Re:Name sounds familiar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      When's the last time a code name was also used for the retail product?
      Sometimes it should be... remember Nintendo's Dolphin/Gamecube? Dolphin sounds much cooler.
    21. Re:Name sounds familiar by HTH+NE1 · · Score: 1

      I guess it's time to point out again that Myth TV is no TiVo. And TiVo is no DVD library manager. I'm about to get my seventh TiVo, so I'm no stranger to TiVos.

      Only two of the ones I have now use external tuners, but they work reliably. For reliable control, two things must be true: (1) you must have proper alignment between the IR emitters and the external tuner's IR receiver and (2) you must not have any other IR signaling device operating at the same time that TiVo wants to change channels. TiVo cannot transmit IR at the same time it is receiving it. Direct sunlight can also saturate the TiVo's IR signaling bus.

      Most IR repeaters that allow you to control devices from another room are susceptable to RF interference causing them to continuously emit garbage IR signals. This interferes with the TiVo's ability to transmit IR to the external tuner. If you need to control devices from another room, use a wired repeater system.

      Well, there's another issue: you must have a reliable external tuner. I recently had experience with a Motorola DCT-2224 which would act like it was receiving the signals, change its ad-banner to report the new channel, but it would stay tuned to the original channel. I terminated a free 3-month trial with two premium movie networks prematurely over the issue.

      And then there's the cable company pushing updates to boxes that turn them off and leave them off. It isn't TiVo's fault the boxes don't have an ON remote signal, only a Power toggle signal.

      --
      Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
    22. Re:Name sounds familiar by Tim+Browse · · Score: 1
      When's the last time a code name was also used for the retail product?

      I'm not 100% sure, but in addition to the others people have mentioned, I think 'Xbox' was actually used as the codename for the MS console project. It was originally Project Midway, but they dropped that due to bad PR when it leaked. I seem to remember that it just turned into a "Well, Xbox is actually a good name - why don't we use that for real?" sort of thing.

    23. Re:Name sounds familiar by beeshman · · Score: 0, Redundant

      Apple's been doing it since OS X 10.1, I believe. Jaguar. Panther and Tiger have stuck as well.

    24. Re:Name sounds familiar by Tim+Browse · · Score: 1
      This makes it easy to incorporate customized movie openings and intermissions for a truly personalized theatrical experience.

      I know someone whose friend has a home theatre setup, and he has a DVD with the 'Pearl & Dean' bumper* on it that he plays when friends come round to watch a film. Er, that will probably only make sense to UK residents over a certain age :)

      it would be an insidiously powerfull, usefull, and fun thing to play with.

      Well, 2 out of 3 aint bad :)

      * "Ba baa ba baa ba baa ba baa ba ba ba..."

    25. Re:Name sounds familiar by Rosyna · · Score: 3, Informative

      Slate? Where did you get slate from? Tiger's codename was "Merlot", named after the wine. In the pre-Jobs days around the time when System X.X was renamed to Mac OS X.X, all versions of Mac OS had musical related codenames (or were somehow linked to Gil "Buster" Amelio). After Jobs, all OS X code names (at least since the cat names were used in marketing) were/are Wines.

      Since I am so freakin' awesome, I've gone ahead and found evidence to support what I say. See http://www.opensource.apple.com/darwinsource/10.4. 3/CF-368.18/Base.subproj/CFUtilities.h and search for "Merlot". It also has the codenames for Panther (Pinot) and, presumably, Leopard (Chablis).

      And just in case you don't have an ADC account, here is the relevant section:

      typedef enum {
              CFSystemVersionCheetah = 0, /* 10.0 */
              CFSystemVersionPuma = 1, /* 10.1 */
              CFSystemVersionJaguar = 2, /* 10.2 */
              CFSystemVersionPanther = 3, /* 10.3 */
              CFSystemVersionPinot = 3, /* Deprecated name for Panther */
              CFSystemVersionTiger = 4, /* 10.4 */
              CFSystemVersionMerlot = 4, /* Deprecated name for Tiger */
              CFSystemVersionChablis = 5, /* Post-Tiger */
              CFSystemVersionMax /* This should bump up when new entries are added */
      } CFSystemVersion;

    26. Re:Name sounds familiar by kimota · · Score: 1

      When's the last time a code name was also used for the retail product?

      Do Sherlock, Panther, and Tiger count?

      --
      Who moderates the meta-moderators?
    27. Re:Name sounds familiar by ergo98 · · Score: 1

      Slate? Where did you get slate from?

      I could very well be wrong, but I remember hearing it called Slate. This link correlates with that, though it appears to one of very few so it could be wrong.

    28. Re:Name sounds familiar by tfcdesign · · Score: 1

      Lame. When apple came into being it had nothing to do with music. Now , 30 years later, music is what the consumers want. Apple didn't steal anything.

    29. Re:Name sounds familiar by Omega697 · · Score: 1

      When's the last time a code name was also used for the retail product?

      Nintendo DS.

    30. Re:Name sounds familiar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I believe you mean "McIntosh Labs". :-)
      Well, technically, "McIntosh Laboratory Inc."
      http://www.mcintoshlabs.com/

    31. Re:Name sounds familiar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Actually, it -did- begin life as a real name. It started as the name of Steve's daughter.

    32. Re:Name sounds familiar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      It's a "code name" for a reason - the developers and designers needed something to call it, without the hassle of all of the due diligence and legal work.


      Well, it should also not give competitors useful clues to the project's goals and functionality should the code name get out.

      As for the legal bits, even codenames get cleared by legal on some of the projects I've worked on.

      The lawyers seem to be everywhere.
    33. Re:Name sounds familiar by vought · · Score: 1

      Macintosh
      Newton
      Jaguar
      Panther
      Tiger

      There are probably others, but Apple has a long history of this.

      The problem is that those were not the code names of the ultimate products.

      As to the name "Kaleidoscope":

      All Apple products developed since Steve came back have very different code names from what you hear in the computing press. The code names are actually "code names" and wouldn't mean anything to you if you overheard them. Quite boring.

      "Kaleidoscope" is probably either an intentional leak through a contractor or the usual unfounded code name made up by someone at Stink Secret.

    34. Re:Name sounds familiar by OwnedByTwoCats · · Score: 1

      My wife's big problem with TiVo (which makes it my problem...) is that when the power goes out, the cable box turns off. When the power comes back on, the cable box is still off. TiVo tells the cable box to change channels, and the cable box stays off.

      I thought I fixed this with a UPS for the home entertainment center (only the cable box and TiVo are on battery backup outlets; TV, dvd player, and vcr are on surge-protection only outlets. The receiver died :-). But we still go out for a night or a weekend away and come back and find that TiVo recorded a blank screen instead of shows, and my wife gets all upset. Telling her it's just TV and nothing to get upset over doesn't go over too well...

      Anyway, I can't see Apple bundling all the gear into a supermini to make it a home entertainment hub. Right now, my cable goes to a set-top box and a cable modem. The cable modem connects to a wireless router. If the role of the supermini is to sit between the cable connection and the TV, it needs to be a (wireless) router, cable modem, and Cable-card ready DTV tuner in addition to being a computer. Plug in the cable and go.

      Let's see what comes out in January.

    35. Re:Name sounds familiar by JohnC · · Score: 1

      "Macintosh" was a code name.

    36. Re:Name sounds familiar by ceri · · Score: 1

      Then again, Apple and MS have one product that infuriates me--both of them call their remote-control app Remote Desktop.

      Just look at the paths to the applications on their web servers:

      Apple: /remotedesktop/

      Microsoft:/windowsxp/using/mobility/getstarted/rem oteintro.mspx

      Doesn't that just encompass the whole difference between Apple and Microsoft?

    37. Re:Name sounds familiar by jkreuzig · · Score: 1

      I'd give their system a try, but "How much does it cost" is not in their FAQ

      Google. DVD Jukebox Maker gets sued

      As of a year ago, the basic system cost $27,000 USD, Granted, the linked article is a year old, but my guess is that the average /. reader is not going to go out and buy a couple of these.

      Another good article points out that it's basically a repurposed enterprise storage device.

    38. Re:Name sounds familiar by AdamReyher · · Score: 1

      They pretty much did it already with the iPod Nano. Creative has had the Zen Nano Plus MP3 player for awhile now.

      --
      The Computations of AdamR
      http://www.adamreyher.com
    39. Re:Name sounds familiar by Swift2001 · · Score: 1

      The Mac community started learning the code names. Apple Marketing figured out it was a better way to market an OS than "10.2, 10.3, 10.4", which are colorless. They're now carefully researched and vetted. Think Longhorn will come out as Vista, or another name still?

    40. Re:Name sounds familiar by Pentavirate · · Score: 1

      OCAP will soon be taking care of that.

      --
      www.joshferguson.org
    41. Re:Name sounds familiar by thedbp · · Score: 1

      Well, there was Panther.

      And Tiger.

      And next up, Leopard.

      But those are software products, so I suppose you could pick that nit if you chose to.

    42. Re:Name sounds familiar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Look at what they did to Apple Records? Give me a break. You are talking as if "apple" is a word that was made up by the record company. What happened was that Apple records had a trademark for their market, and committed barratry by threatening a company in an unrelated market in order to pressure them into signing a legally binding contract. There was no way Apple computers infringed on Apple Records' trademark, it was a completely different market. Of course, a couple of kids in a startup aren't likely to know that.

    43. Re:Name sounds familiar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It was Slate. And it was Merlot. And it was Tiger.

    44. Re:Name sounds familiar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      For old mac people, it is something similar to Kaleidoscope, the theme utility for pre OS x Mac systems. Check http://www.kaleidoscope.net/ Really funny thing is, they are same guys coded Konfabulator which is acquired by Yahoo! I am not getting into that fight but it is widely said, the Tiger Dashboard is Konfabulator. E.g. Apple basically stole it. Fool. For older mac people, Desk Accessories. http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh &story=Desk_Ornaments.txt&sortOrder=Sort%20by%20Da te&detail=medium&search=desk

  2. Plus an iPod dock by axonis · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Dont forget the all important iPod dock which was left out at last minute from the PPC version

    --
    bæ8Ã0sÃOE?5r©oÂÃ?âz:ÃÃAÃ?ÃOEÂ6fXÃ?]Â
    1. Re:Plus an iPod dock by Jeff+DeMaagd · · Score: 4, Informative

      I thought the conclusion for those solder points was that it couldn't be for a dock because the number and spacing of pins was wrong.

    2. Re:Plus an iPod dock by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Will it come with Treacherous/Trusted Computing built in, like the new Intel-based Macs?

    3. Re:Plus an iPod dock by iainl · · Score: 1

      Before, a Dock left the question of what sort, as each type of iPod had its own. Now Apple have created the single standard Dock that works with all.

      I wonder why...

      --
      "I Know You Are But What Am I?"
    4. Re:Plus an iPod dock by wvitXpert · · Score: 1, Funny

      I hope it doesn't have an iPod dock integrated. Apple changes thier iPod dock designs more often than I change my underwear.

    5. Re:Plus an iPod dock by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Really?
      You change your underwear every six months?

      eeewww!

    6. Re:Plus an iPod dock by shmlco · · Score: 1
      That's why they switched to the Universal Dock. The connector is the same, but they now ship each pod with the correct plastic "spacer" to fit the pod to the dock. Should the rumors be true I'd expect those spacers would fit the mini as well.

      Also keep in mind that all you need for a mini "dock" is the USB and power/recharger connection. Any sound, images, or video being shipped out would be the minis, and not the pods...

      --
      Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
    7. Re:Plus an iPod dock by Anubis350 · · Score: 1

      perhaps the new dock connector the new ipods have? maybe an idea ahead of its time...

      just a my $0.02

      --
      "goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
    8. Re:Plus an iPod dock by bryhhh · · Score: 1

      If Apple integrated bluetooth into the iPod, you wouldn't need an integrated dock or any cables to connect it, okay you would still need a cable to charge it, but with bluetooth, the iPod could be the remote control on a PVR.

      IMHO, the worst thing about the iPod has got to be the headphone cable. A set of bluetooth headphones would go down nicely.

    9. Re:Plus an iPod dock by David+Rolfe · · Score: 1

      Wouldn't syncing gigs of music and video via bluetooth suck?

      --
      Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
    10. Re:Plus an iPod dock by ceoyoyo · · Score: 1

      Let's see, 400 Mbps with Firewire, or a few k with Bluetooth... why would Bluetooth suck? :)

      I think I'll stick to plugging my iPod in, thanks. Gives it a drink of juice too.

    11. Re:Plus an iPod dock by David+Rolfe · · Score: 1

      Exactly my point. You should have replied to this post instead. Insinuating that an iPod with bluetooth wouldn't need a dock is fucking insane.

      Anyhow, thanks for taking the time to respond.

      --
      Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
    12. Re:Plus an iPod dock by ceoyoyo · · Score: 1

      Ah, sorry, I added a couple of details to support your post rather than replying directly to the parent and having my reply end up halfway down the page and modded as redundant. Guess I should have added a whack with the cluebat such as "in support of the parent..." at the beginning.

  3. In other news... by tlacuache · · Score: 5, Funny

    The MPAA filed a lawsuit against Apple this morning, citing massive revenue losses due to the new Apple DVR.

    1. Re:In other news... by Lonesome+Squash · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Quite seriously, one wonders what irritating DRM Apple will put in to avoid just those suits -- Or worse, add in later "upgrades".

      --
      Behold the riant ape! Beware, his crooked thumbs!
    2. Re:In other news... by God'sDuck · · Score: 5, Interesting

      one wonders what irritating DRM Apple will put in

      True...although considering that the mac mini isn't all that much bigger than a VHS tape, if all i wanted to do was tape something and bring it to a friend's house, even if they drm'd it to death i could conceivably just pick up my whole pvr and take it with me everywhere. intriguiging...

    3. Re:In other news... by Richard_at_work · · Score: 1

      To be honest, I havent ever had a problem with the iTunesMS DRM. iTunes itself doesnt add DRM to CD rips, I was fully aware of the limitations of the files I bought from iTunesMS and it has never ever been a problem, so what makes you think anything they add to a DVR would be any different? Or am I just supposed to nod and agree that DRM is bad bad bad, naughty Apple etc etc?

    4. Re:In other news... by network23 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      ...one wonders what irritating DRM Apple will put in...

      Apple doesn't irritate me with DRM. iTunes is a very good ripping machine that doesn't care about what you are doing.

      You can even drag folders and folders of illegal MP3s directly into iTunes to be automagically sorted and becoming a first class citizens together with your legally purchased music from iTunes Music Store.

      And you can mix. Burn.

      And transfer all your files to as many iPods you want.

      And you can copy ALL your music - except songs bought from iTMS - to whatever crappy non iPod player or SonyEricsson cell phone you have.

      The same goes for podcasts and vodcasts. It is quite easy to make your own iPod compatible videos with open source solutions like mencoder or with QuickTime Pro if you want a pretty GUI.

      For me, Apple has choosen the least irritating DRM possible, and ONLY used it to protect the songs and/or videos bought from iTunes Music Store.

    5. Re:In other news... by hal2814 · · Score: 1

      There will probably only be the typical HDTV flag issues (if they support HiDef). Apple doesn't typically add DRM to content they did not provide themselves. Now I hope this box will be snappy enough to play the TV shows off of iTunes. My current box can't. Right now I pay $2 per episode of Housewives and Lost but still have to find a torrent because DIVX plays better than QuickTime (mp4?) + DRM on my machine.

    6. Re:In other news... by somersault · · Score: 1

      You could say the same thing about computers? More interactive, but I still find that I end up wasting a lot of time just browsing or doing stuff like posting on Slashdot, then later wonder why I havent taken any time to catch up with reading recently.

      --
      which is totally what she said
    7. Re:In other news... by MaestroSartori · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Straying dangerously off-topic now, but...

      Some things broadcast on TV are entertaining. There's nothing wrong with wanting to watch entertaining things, so a system which helps me sift the entertainment out of the vast mass of TV crap out there is a winner.

      Why people like you advocate the wholesale boycott of TV instead of embracing the ways to cherry-pick the good stuff while ignoring the rubbish is beyond me. "We have the technology", and not all of us are vegetative couch potato folks sitting in front of the tube watching rubbish while waiting for the good stuff.

      --
      Game dev and music blog
    8. Re:In other news... by tomhudson · · Score: 1, Interesting

      At least with a computer, you're not a passive receiver, you ARE interacting. And a lot of the debates actually require you to think. To be a bit original. Look at any of the flamefests :-) I mean, if you haven't gotten a few freaks, you're not "interacting" hard enough (I've only got 75 - I want MORE!!!)

    9. Re:In other news... by daviddennis · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Let's give credit where credit's due here. I've bought a lot of music through the iTunes Music Store, and other than being asked for a password when I buy a new machine, I've had zero trouble with iTunes DRM. I download the music, and it just works on the computers I have registered for it.

      If any company can manage seamless, quality DRM acceptable to all parties, it's Apple.

      D

    10. Re:In other news... by tomhudson · · Score: 1

      Well, its not really off-topic, because PVRs are supposed to help you "cherry-pcik", but in reality people use them to consume even more junk. Just like the original VCR - people tape stuff "becasue they can", and nver get around to watching half of it.

      So, how much TV have you watched the last year, including the time spent doing the "cherry-picking"? Mine stays off for weeks at a time. Actually, its pretty much only been on this year when friends come over to watch a dvd.

    11. Re:In other news... by mrtrumbe · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Just turn the fucking thing off, okay? For ONE FUCKING DAY?

      No.

      Also, fuck you.

      I'm a TV viewer. I've also managed to hold a great development job in the financial industry, learned to play the guitar and piano (well, I might add), brew beer, exercise regularly, be fairly well-read, travel frequently, do development on the side and maintain (relatively) healthy friendships and relationships.

      Christ, does my life suck, huh? If only I hadn't watched so much TV!

      You know what I hate as much as you seem to hate TV and its viewers? Self-righteous assholes who think anyone not conforming to their way of life is a loser. Man, those guys blow.

      Taft

    12. Re:In other news... by Tim+Browse · · Score: 5, Funny

      I used to not watch TV, but I found I was spending so much time telling other people (who didn't want to know) about how I don't watch TV, that it took up less time just to watch the damn TV instead.

    13. Re:In other news... by timeOday · · Score: 4, Insightful
      True...although considering that the mac mini isn't all that much bigger than a VHS tape
      But the Mac Mini as we know it is not a PVR. The obvious problem (mentioned in the article) is the use of laptop hard drives, a very bad choice for a PVR. Then they need somewhere to put a tuner for analog signals, and hardware video compression circuitry. They need a digital audio out, plus composite, s-video, and hopefully component video outputs. In other words, of all the specialized requirements for a PVR, the Mac Mini hardly meets any of them, and doesn't have any room inside for expansion.

      Besides, I doubt Apple would try to push portability in a PVR design anyways. They'd probably rather people use the video iPod for that.

    14. Re:In other news... by tomhudson · · Score: 1, Troll
      So you have no problem that by the time kids finish high school, they've spent more time in front of a TV than with a teacher?

      Or that the tube is the baby-sitter of choice for most of the country's pre-schoolers? Or that it's the #1 thing kids do as soon as they get home from school?

      Here are the facts, courtesy of PBS (ironic, ain't it :-)

      1. The average American watches 3,000 ads per day on TV
      2. Kids watch 28 hours of TV each week
      3. The #1 after-school activity for kids 6-17 is ... watching TV
      4. The AMA says that the average teenager will have seen 18,000 murders and 200,000 violent acts on TV by the time they turn 18. (but no responsible sex - showing kids that people should use a condom to help prevent the spread of diseases and unwanted pregnancies is harmful to their little minds)
      5. The more TV your kids watch, the more likely they are to be obese, into drugs, and sexually active.
      6. Planned Parenthood - these same kids get to see over 14,000 references to sex every year, but less than 175 where the people are behaving responsibly. The message kids are getting - it's okay to have sex, as long as it wasn't "planned" - and you don't need to protect yourself, because adults don't.

      If you think all this isn't having a negative effect on people, you're the one who's fucked up. Or brainwashed. Probably from watching too much TV. Bet you didn't even notice they've gone to 10-second commercials, cramming 12 of them into a 2-minute break, and that they've "sped up" the shows by dropping frames, so as to grab another 3 minutes of commercial time to sell. You can now sit through up to 100 full-screen ads per hour, plus hundreds more "product placements", and "encrustations", "split-screens" while the credits are rolling, voice-over ads, crawlers, etc. 500 ads per fucking hour! And I'll bet you didn't even notice it was anywhere near that high. Why? Because you've grown used to it, and accept it as "normal." You're a good little consumer. So when the next version of DRM'd TV comes out, and you can't skip the commercials, and they run for 2 minutes, then 2 minutes of TV (framed by ads), then another 2 minutes of commercials, you'll happily bend over and take it like a man, because that's what you've been trained to do. You welcome your commercial-sponsoring overlords.

      Here, take the test (now that you've gotten some of the answers) http://www.pbs.org/kcet/senioryear/reachout/quiz.h tml

      TV - the big open cesspool. As they said - you'll never go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.

    15. Re:In other news... by squiggleslash · · Score: 1
      The average American watches 3,000 ads per day on TV
      Given an average 30 seconds per ad, that's, what, 25 hours a day of advertising? How the hell are they achieving that? Especially if they're only watching 28 hours of TV a week. I note the phrasing is "watching", but it's hard to believe even if the word is changed to "looking" (eg including print media, billboards, etc.)

      Yeah, I know, PBS says it. But you can't believe everything you watch on TV.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    16. Re:In other news... by tomhudson · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That's okay, as long as you take the appropriate precautions:

      Safe TV Viewing: You can watch all the TV you want - just don't plug the damn thing in!

      Because if you're going to go blind, you should at least go blind because you're doing something that gives you pleasure.

      How TV is like a bad girlfriend:

      1. They both encourage you to empty your wallet as fast as possible
      2. They both lie to you
      3. They both think they're the center of the universe, and you should pay attention only to them
      4. A lot of tease, but you never get to score
      5. They're always ready to make time available for the highest bidder
      6. They're always telling you what you should do to improve yor life, but talking to them is like talking to a wall (or a TV)
      7. They both take time away from your friends and family
      8. You only get their side of the story - as far as they're concerned, their side of the story is the ONLY side of the story.
      9. The opinions of airheads in muffin-top pants, or kooks like Tom Cruise, are just SO important ...
      10. Shop shop shop spend spend spend buy buy buy shop shop shop
    17. Re:In other news... by AeroIllini · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well, its not really off-topic, because PVRs are supposed to help you "cherry-pcik", but in reality people use them to consume even more junk. Just like the original VCR - people tape stuff "becasue they can", and nver get around to watching half of it.

      Then I'm glad you are here to tell us how to use our technology properly. News flash: everything on TV is there because lots of people watch it. That's the reality of the business. Just because you and I don't like 90% of the programming available doesn't mean that no one likes it. Obviously people are watching it, or the networks would replace it with something else. The whole point of television is to get people to watch, so they can sell advertising. And as a ten-percenter (someone who only likes 10% of available programming) I'm grateful for technologies that allow me to find what I want without having to watch the things I don't. And if I record something with the intention of watching it and never do, it's not a problem. I didn't pay to record that program, and once I delete it the disk space can be used for other things. No sweat.

      So, how much TV have you watched the last year, including the time spent doing the "cherry-picking"? Mine stays off for weeks at a time. Actually, its pretty much only been on this year when friends come over to watch a dvd.

      Actually, I've spent quite a bit of time watching program's I've "cherry-picked", but almost all of it was because of my automatic script pulling episodes out of RSS feeds and downloading them via BitTorrent. The actual television was off for most of that time, and the time spent doing the actual "cherry-picking" was minimal; it amounted to me typing a regular expression into my filter list and letting the script automatically download the episodes. Sometimes I hear about a new show, and I download one to try it out. If I like it, it goes into the regular rotation. If not, I delete it and get on with my life.

      I am currently in the process of building a MythTV box, to free up my cable modem. And, so I can sit on the couch and watch the episodes, instead of at my desk. And, so I can see them on my big TV instead of my smaller LCD monitor. And, so I can record sports to timeshift (no one on BitTorrent seems to care about distributing NCAA basketball games). And, to free up my hard drive.

      The DVR has essentially turned television into a pull medium instead of the push medium it has been since its debut. It has put the consumer back in control. How is this a bad thing, again?

      --
      For security, the MD5 hash of this message and sig is 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0.
    18. Re:In other news... by tomhudson · · Score: 1
      See another one of my responses.

      Ads include product placements, 12 10-second commercials back-to-back in a 2-minute spot, framing the credits and opening scenes so they can run ads, running multiple ads in those framed screens, encrustations, crawlers, voice-overs "coming up next - the simpsons" ... its un-fucking-real.

      Sit down and count the ads in one show. Then watch it again, and see which ones you missed the first time. Then watch AGAIN, and see which ones you missed the second time.

      Its scary. Just the product placements - the best of which are very subtle, so that you DON'T catch them - are huge. They're considered to be the most effective form of advertising, and that's where the big bucks are going. Not the ads between scenes. Even if you skip through all the commercials, you've only cut out, at best, a quarter to half of all the ads.

      And the funny part - most people are so used to it, they don't even notice what's being fed to them.

    19. Re:In other news... by gnasher719 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      >> Then they need somewhere to put a tuner for analog signals, and hardware video compression circuitry. They need a digital audio out, plus composite, s-video, and hopefully component video outputs...

      Fortunately I live in Britain, where all you need is a demultiplexer to grab the digital signal and record it completely unchanged on the harddisk. Since a settop box with receiver, demultiplexer and decoder costs less than £30, all the functionality should be quite cheap.

      If you then consider that I don't need a DVD player anymore, and no games console, a Mac Mini PVR looks quite good. Just make it a bit higher to fit a 3.5" harddisk with 250 Gig, a fast processor so that everything can be recompressed to H.264 to save three quarters of the space, and it will sell.

    20. Re:In other news... by squiggleslash · · Score: 1, Interesting
      Something friends with PVRs have told me is they ended up watching a lot less TV once they started using one, so it doesn't quite work the way you're describing. A real anti-TV advocate could probably take advantage of the situation and slowly reduce the number of programmes it records, reducing the addict's dependency upon TV, until eventually it starts ordering books via Amazon.com, playing classical music, and generally improving the welfare and outlook of the user.

      TV addiction is a fairly serious problem in modern society, and I suspect it has much to do with the dumbing down of much of what we take for granted today. Like nicotine, it's addictive to the vast majority of people who take it. Like alcohol, the addicts have a tendency to justify their usage by claiming they're leading a relatively normal, oftentimes "successful", life and that they could turn off the TV at any time if they wished. But just as alcohol kills braincells, TV has a direct affect on the brain, by atrophying those parts that involve creativity. The stereotypical "couch potato" is no myth, a non-interactive medium that promotes consumption and eliminates free thought inevitably results in viewers with li[tt]le incentive to move from their seats.

      I suspect when politicians talk about fast-tracking the move towards HDTV, much of this has to do with trying to make a few clean breaks. By making television more expensive to possess, and content more expensive to produce, television may start to be priced out of existance. Meanwhile, the content industry is moving towards pay-per-view models, starting with DVD compilations of TV shows. This suggests they "get it" - they're seeing the anti-tobacco/anti-gun lawsuits, and getting the solutions in now, while there's still time. Simply saying "We're doing this for your own good" isn't going to cut it - it opens the entertainment industry up for lawsuits, and politicians get criticised for being patronising and "anti-TV", in much the same way as your original comment was flamed by at least one clearly hooked TV addict.

      PVRs are certainly a move in the right direction. And, y'know, we don't have to get rid of TV. We just need to control it. Alcohol in moderation isn't harmful. Neither should TV be the same. Getting people to the state where they watch, say, an hour of TV a couple of times a week, is certainly a reasonable goal. TV doesn't have to be abolished altogether.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    21. Re:In other news... by NatasRevol · · Score: 1

      Please don't call it 'iTunesMS'. Someone, probably a 'reporter' at cnet, could get the wrong idea...

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
    22. Re:In other news... by tomhudson · · Score: 1
      News flash: everything on TV is there because lots of people watch it.

      If only that wer the full truth. I've seen people using the remote for half an hour, channel surfing all their satellite channels trying to find SOMETHING worth watching, either on the regular satellite, or ppv. And when they come up empty, they go through the whole rotation again. Its like a mouse that, once its been trained to get a food pellet for pressing a lever, keeps pressing the lever over and over, because its "learned" that behaviour, and can't stop.

      In other words, the same pattern of addiction we see with video lottery terminals. They're not really enjoying it - they've learned a certain behaviour, and can't break the cycle. "There's gotta be SOMETHING on" ... and when there's not, they'll settle for crap. They don't say "fuck this", get up, and go for a walk or grab a book or go out.

      If every other channel is running crap, you too can run crap and make a profit, because there are people out there who have no control over themselves - they have to watch SOMETHING, they need their "hit", their "fix." And if they don't get it, they show all the symptoms of an addict in withdrawal.

      Hell, just look at how frantic some people get when they can't find the remote.

      Its not a pull medium when all you can pull is the crap they want you to pull.

    23. Re:In other news... by mrtrumbe · · Score: 2, Insightful
      So you have no problem that by the time kids finish high school, they've spent more time in front of a TV than with a teacher?

      First, my kids will not have watched nearly that much TV by the time they finish high school. Why? Because I believe in good parenting, which shouldn't include the TV as a babysitter.

      Second, do I care if other people's kids watch crazy amounts of TV? Not in the slightest. If parents want to stuff their kids with junk food, sit them in front of the TV for hours, then teach them that evolution is crap and God created all I don't give a goddamn. The great thing about freedom is that it's their choice to make. Their bad decisions shouldn't effect me or my own so long as I'm careful, so what's the big fucking deal.

      Look, TV isn't the problem here. It is just a product like any other. Just like any other product that provides some amount of enjoyment, it can certainly be abused and can cause problems if it is. If you are looking for somewhere to focus blame (which it seems to me that you are), point the finger at the bad parents who let their kids watch obscene amounts of TV.

      My question to you: why do you want to waste your time? These people obviously think there is nothing wrong with what they are doing, and seem perfectly content watching. They aren't going to change because you are arrogantly screaming at them to give up their junkie ways. Why waste your energy? Just raise your kids right and move along.

      FYI, I haven't watched commercials in a few years so I most certainly didn't notice the format changes they have made to ads in the last few years. TIVO keeps me well insulated from the shit on TV I don't want to watch. For those of you without TIVO, I hear the mute button also works pretty well.

      Taft

    24. Re:In other news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey, at least we don't get it up the ass from Billy G and Stevie B, not to mention, we actually own computers instead of big pieces of useless crap.

    25. Re:In other news... by bnenning · · Score: 1

      Quite seriously, one wonders what irritating DRM Apple will put in to avoid just those suits

      Right. I suspect I won't be replacing my mini+EyeTV combo. Apple's solution will probably be more elegant, but much less flexible.

      --
      How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
    26. Re:In other news... by NDPTAL85 · · Score: 1

      After the invention of the television how can watching it cause the "dumbing down" of anyone? What did people used to do before the television arrived, do some more work on the farm? Go play stickball out in the streets? What do you possibly learn doing those physical things? By sitting on my ass in my house watching TV I can learn how doctors perform new surgeries on the Discovery Channel. I can learn how rich people live by watching the OC on Fox. I can learn how the United States Airforce protects the entire galaxy from evil on Stargate on the Sci-Fi channel. The possibilities are endless. Yet you would rather people limit themselves to crap like stickball.

      Amazing.

      --
      Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
    27. Re:In other news... by javaxman · · Score: 1
      Something friends with PVRs have told me is they ended up watching a lot less TV once they started using one

      That is *definitely* not the case in my house. Truth be told, we probably watch about the same amount of TV we always did, if not more, and we watch for the same reason we always did - it's 'down time'. We're relaxing in the living room after dinner and want a couple of hours of mindless enterainment before bedtime.

      The *only* difference with a PVR is that you're watching *exactly* what you want to watch, *exactly* when you want to watch, with the ability to fast-forward, pause, reverse and replay. That's *it*, but it makes a big difference.

      I don't 'surf' anymore. I spend a lot less time watching 'most extreme building projects' and ( most regretably, I think ) random nature-shows, but I miss very few episodes of The Daily Show, South Park, The Venture Brothers, and I don't have to stay up late to see The Late Show.

      For some people, especially those with limited ( read: over-the-air-broadcast ) TV choices, this may mean they watch less. On the whole, though, you watch exactly as much TV as you want, good or bad, but at least with a PVR, it's shows you *want* to watch, not just whatever happens to be on at the time.

    28. Re:In other news... by Fahrvergnuugen · · Score: 1

      Why not just take your iPod??

      --
      Kiteboarding Gear Mention slashdot and get 10% off!
    29. Re:In other news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Read books, played instruments, y'know, the usual.

      You'd probably know that if you weren't glued to the TV all the time, desperate to see another set of hicks beat each other up on Jerry Springer.

    30. Re:In other news... by tomhudson · · Score: 1
      Oh, there's still a few things worth watching (but not very many):

      My (very short) list from the last year:

      1. The new Dr. Who series (for its mindless brain "junk food" value - watched 3 episodes of it in all)
      2. Les Bougon (a french series that quickly became the #1 show on the french networks up here in Canuckistan - friggin hilarious. Its being made into a movie for US audiences. If you want to see sacred cows get made into hamburgers, this show is THE one.)
      3. The new Battlestar Galactica series - which I was really surprised - because the original series sucked, and I'm not a fan of any of the star treks aside from the original series, but the new BSG, once you get past the cheesy references to the original, is really quite good)
      4. ... gee, there isn't any # 4 ...
    31. Re:In other news... by spleck · · Score: 1

      Sit down and count the ads in one show.

      That would require me to actually pay attention to the ads. No thanks. As an intelligent human being I have the capability to ignore things. ie If I'm in a noisy room, I can still pick out speech from the person I'm conversing with. If I'm finding Waldo, I can ignore the extras and pick him out. If I'm watching TV, I can ignore the commercials and "coming nexts" while I talk to my wife... or I can return to what I was doing on the laptop... or I can hit fast forward on the remote.

      And even more amazing is that if the ad is actually interesting, a little part of my subconscious mind will let me know and I can choose to pay attention.

      To say that watching TV is a waste of time while spending hours posting on slashdot (and actually reading other responses) is okay shows extreme bias and hypocrisy. Personally, I like sitting down to watch an exciting and suspenseful story unfold. I enjoy sitting down to relax after a stressful day at work. If posting on slashdot thousands of times and never watching TV gives you that same satisfaction, then congratulations--you may actually be enjoying your life.

    32. Re:In other news... by tomhudson · · Score: 1

      FYI, I haven't watched commercials in a few years so I most certainly didn't notice the format changes they have made to ads in the last few years. TIVO keeps me well insulated from the shit on TV I don't want to watch. For those of you without TIVO, I hear the mute button also works pretty well.

      You've still watched half of all the advertising on TV, even if you skipped the commercials. Product placement is BIG. Its also designed to be subtle, so that you DON'T spot it, because if you do spot it on casual viewing, it has failed totally.

      Its where the advertisers are spending their money. As the saying goes, follow the money. When money talks, intelligent people listen.

    33. Re:In other news... by jcr · · Score: 1

      Just turn the fucking thing off, okay? For ONE FUCKING DAY?

      It's been about a year since I had cable or satellite service. I've just used my TV for watching DVDs, but you've convinced me to subscribe to DirecTV again.

      -jcr

      --
      The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
    34. Re:In other news... by leuffi · · Score: 1

      How is this insightful? Funny? Yes, very funny, but insightful?

    35. Re:In other news... by tomhudson · · Score: 1

      And even more amazing is that if the ad is actually interesting, a little part of my subconscious mind will let me know and I can choose to pay attention

      So it doesn't bother you that your subconscious is actually "tuned into" all these ads without any conscious intervention or filtering on your part? This is the type of response advertisers love! You're taking it all in at the subconscious level, without any interference by the "supervisor program". And don't think it doesn't register - analyse what you wrote, and you'll realize that it in fact does register, as your subconscious will alert you to certain key events. Its all being processed. And most of it is bypassing your consciousness, with its built-in filtering and cynicism. 10 ads for ju food go by - you don't notice any of them - but you head for the fridge looking for some munchies. Why do you think there's a correlation between tv and obesity?

      Now do you see the problem a bit better?

    36. Re:In other news... by igb · · Score: 1
      3000 ads per day, eh? There's 86400 seconds in a day, so that means an advert every ever 28.8 seconds, assuming they're watching 24 hours per day. Since you're saying that kids watch 28 hours per week (ie 4 hours per day), and we can assume they are at least average, the rate you're claiming is actually 3000 adverts in four hours per day, which is an advert every 4.8 seconds. So I think you're talking nonsense.

      ian

    37. Re:In other news... by tomhudson · · Score: 3, Funny
      Clued-in moderators rate funny stuff as insightful, b/c funny mods don't increase karma, whereas a corresponding downmod will decrease it. Its the weird slashmath. For example, say you get 5 +1 funny mods. You get no karma points for Funny mods. Then someone else bitch-slaps you with 5 -1 troll mods. You get a -5 karma hit.

      Besides, you have to have a bit of insight to be funny ... otherwise it wouldn't be funny, so its karmic (ok, moan and groan, that pun was pretty bad)

    38. Re:In other news... by tomhudson · · Score: 1

      See my other posts.

      Most people don't realize how important product placement ads are. The same product may be "placed" a dozen times in the space of a few minutes. You have to count those ads - they're being paid for by the industry, because they're the most effective ads around. Now, get multiple products, multiple placements. You can easily get 500 ads per hour right there.

      Now add in the conventional ads, the back-to-back frenetic 10-second spots (18 in a 3-minute interval), the incrustations, the framed ads over the intros and credits, the voice-voers, etc. An ad every 5 seconds is not only doable, its now pretty much what you're seeing without even being aware of it - which is the true mark of success.

      Car companies want THEIR car being seen on the show. Food companies want kids to see other kids on TV nuking a frozen "pizza-dough product", or drinking a "sports beverage". Friends get their friends a brewski from the fridge, and, while you can't read the label, you don't have to, to recognize the can or bottle. They sit down to have breakfast, and there's a frozen waffle (gee - guess who makes that), and a bottle of ketchup (hello Mr Heinz) for the bacon and eggs, and cereal (the brand is hidden, but the box's coloring gives it away as Rice Krispies). And the right brand of running shoes for junior. It never stops.

      Hell, a family meal is good for a couple dozen product placements in the space of 30 seconds. If you think about it, I'm sure you can come up with a few you've seen, but hadn't cottoned to.

    39. Re:In other news... by yardbird · · Score: 1

      Fear not: the new mini will include a GPS unit to handle this contingency.

      --
      Free, legal music for iTunes users.
    40. Re:In other news... by JWW · · Score: 1

      Actually I don't mind subtle product placement. Like if someone is drinking beer in a show, I think its more annoying to label the can BEER than to have a real brand there. Some of the product placement should just be there because thats the way it is in real life.

      Now I do agree that some product placement gets out of hand. For example, Matrix Reloaded had that amazing chase scene on the interstate, BUT it just so happens that every vehicle in the scene was a GM product. After a few minutes I was watching to identify the products and not watching the scene only as part of a movie. It pulls you out of the experience, which is not good.

      Like you've said earlier, subtle product placement is the way to go because overbearing product placement set off bells and whistles about things being out of place. But of course in the real world product placement is everywhere as well.

      As for real commercials, MythTV skips those for me. It is actually amazing how much time in a show is dedicated to commercials, but you get that time back when you use a DVR.

    41. Re:In other news... by thatguywhoiam · · Score: 1
      But the Mac Mini as we know it is not a PVR. The obvious problem (mentioned in the article) is the use of laptop hard drives, a very bad choice for a PVR. Then they need somewhere to put a tuner for analog signals, and hardware video compression circuitry. They need a digital audio out, plus composite, s-video, and hopefully component video outputs. In other words, of all the specialized requirements for a PVR, the Mac Mini hardly meets any of them, and doesn't have any room inside for expansion.

      Your point is well-taken, although they are not as far away as you think. The mini has the ability to put out composite/s-video with a $10 dongle available from Apple (as do all the recent models, including the iMacs/PowerMacs). Component output would simply require another dongle with the right jacks. Also, while not standard on the mini yet, the iMacs and G5s have a nifty dual-use audio jack that doubles as analog line-out and optical minijack. Finally as we know any Mac made since the original iMac has no trouble digitizing FireWire video via iMovie in realtime, so perhaps they do not need dedicated circuitry. Really, all they would need the full-sized harddrive for performance/cost issues.

      A more interesting point is Hi-Def support, which would definitely need some additional DSP-type hardware, and a better CPU, to pull it off.

      --
      If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
    42. Re:In other news... by daviddennis · · Score: 1

      I certainly appreciate the warm courtesy and intelligence so apparent in your response.

      I see minimal to no advantages in using a generic MP3 player, so that argument's gone. Apple's the same price nowadays and has far superior design.

      I can and have backed up my music, so your second argument's gone, too.

      Steve still makes great stuff. Who else does in this boring, white-box, generic world? I don't happen to like white-box, generic stuff, so I'm going to stick with Steve's products, thank you very much.

      D

    43. Re:In other news... by Smurf · · Score: 2, Informative

      Dear Anonymous Troll,

      Apparently your bigotry doesn't allow you to educate yourself before writing stupid trash. Otherwise, you would know that the DRM in Apple's AAC files (or most any other DRM scheme, for that matter) will NOT prevent you from BACKING UP your files.

      Yes, dear Troll, you can still burn the files on CDs/DVDs or copy them to as many computers as you want. If one of the computers registered to PLAY the music dies, you can still register another one (and Apple will allow you to unregister the corpse).

    44. Re:In other news... by Smurf · · Score: 1

      Why not just take your iPod??

      Because the video iPods are only able to play videos that are smaller than a limited resolution (which depends on the codec used).

    45. Re:In other news... by tomhudson · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I think everyone noticed the gm vans - it was damned annoying.

      Now, if we're going to talk advertising impressions, and really amazing numbers, we have to go with the pros - pro sports, that is.

      Take hockey. You know all those ads on the sideboards in in the ice? Advertisers have people who count the number of times each ad shows on-screen. The more, the better. It means it was a fast-paced game, and had people looking. It also meant that the camera-work was good. We're talking about generating hundreds of ad views in under a minute. And this is what the advertisers who buy those spots want. They would rather you got 20 quick glimpses of their ad in the space of 30 seconds of hot action that you're really in to, than a 30-second spot that you'll either click away from, or fast forward through. And there's the bonus exposure on the news shows. A good hockey game can generate 10,000 - 50,000 or more "ad views".

      But hockey and football are small potatos compared to Formula 1. Spotters count every time each sticker on a car is on-camera. If only some of the stickers are visible, only those stickers count. The car passes someone on the outside, the stickers are hidden temporarily, - well, that's 2 impressions. Bonus! Now, if you've seen an F1 car, the're covered with ads. So don't be surprised when you find out you're getting over 100,000 ad views per hour. Heck, a really good race should generate a million ampressions or more, if the camerawork is done properly. That's what the advertisers pay for - good camerawork. Not for your benefit - for theirs. And someone has counted each ad view. And someone else has audited the counts. And a third someone else writes a check for them.

      They account for them that way, and pay for them that way, because that's what works for them. Follow the $$$.

      Kind of makes the 5,000 ad impressions your kid got watching the monster trucks featured on The Learning Channel's Big Machines pale in comparison.

    46. Re:In other news... by hunterx11 · · Score: 1

      Maybe you shouldn't make such an impassioned argument on a tuesday :)

      --
      English is easier said than done.
    47. Re:In other news... by OwnedByTwoCats · · Score: 1
      Finally as we know any Mac made since the original iMac has no trouble digitizing FireWire video via iMovie in realtime,

      FireWire is already digital. You need an external analog-to-digital device (e.g. digital camcorder, converter box) to convert analog video to FireWire. The iMac just processes it.

      And FireWire came with the iMac DV, in October, 1999. iMac rev. A-D do not have FireWire.
    48. Re:In other news... by valmont · · Score: 1

      The fact is, you can correlate obesity to just about anything that characterizes a sedentary lifestyle. In the end, we're drawn to escapism. Some people make it a priority in their lives to balance various activities to maintain mental and physical health, others will seek out whichever mean of sedentary escapism is available to them. It might be online gaming. It might be online dating. It might be pr0n surfing. It might be reading comics. Playing chess. Reading books. Drinking at bars with "buddies from work". Take just about any non-physical activity, take it to an extreme, and you bet your life you can instantly correlate it to obesity. It's just that watching TV is the form of sedentary "activity" that has the lowest barrier to entry and that is performed by the vast majority of populations of highly sedentary societies. The answer is not "kill TV, hate TV, hate and kill big evil money-grubbing corporations who advertise on TV", the answer is "choose your lifestyle well". No need to troll around on slashdot, just start with yourself, and your immediate family. The fact is, fewer people are giving TV their undivided attention. You'll find people tooling around on a computer, or otherwise multitasking with TV as a background noise. As a result, TV ads are losing some of their effectiveness, while a lot of advertising dollars are now being shifted to the Web. So they cram more ads on TV to keep revenues healthy. Fair enough. Ads on TV are not the cause of our sedentary lifestyle. They merely do their best to monetize it. All we have to do is stop watching too much TV and strive toward more balance. You, tomhudson, are not revealing some hidden truth. You're no more "enlightened" than the rest of us, who have already adopted a balanced, TiVo-powered approach to TV, and realize that in the end, if there was no TV, people would find other means to sit at home on their lazy asses, get fat, while putting "finishing touches" on their butt-ugly myspace.com homepage.

      --
      Extraordinary Vacations. Exceptional Prices
    49. Re:In other news... by thatguywhoiam · · Score: 1
      FireWire is already digital. You need an external analog-to-digital device (e.g. digital camcorder, converter box) to convert analog video to FireWire. The iMac just processes it.... And FireWire came with the iMac DV, in October, 1999. iMac rev. A-D do not have FireWire.

      I stand corrected. I am not too familiar with the actual FireWire transfer process. I suppose what you are saying, in this case, is that the D-A conversion happens in the camcorder. I had forgotten about the original iMac not having FW.

      --
      If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
    50. Re:In other news... by steve_bryan · · Score: 1

      Fortunately I live in Britain, where all you need is a demultiplexer to grab the digital signal and record it completely unchanged on the harddisk

      I'm guessing you may not get out all that often and may not be aware of the status of digital TV in the US. The transition from analog to digital began in 1998. At this point essentially all current prime time network programming is produced in HDTV and available over the air for free (more accurately: advertisement supported). It seems possible that Apple could decide to just support ATSC (the digital standard) and leave behind most of the legacy standards that will fade away in any case. A German company, elgato, has been pioneering the integration of digital television with the Mac and includes digital standards from all around the world. I would expect they would be acquired for this venture much like Astarte was for DVD authoring on the Mac.

    51. Re:In other news... by tgibbs · · Score: 1

      The AMA says that the average teenager will have seen 18,000 murders and 200,000 violent acts on TV by the time they turn 18

      So do you think that is why youth violence has dropped steadily year after year as violent programming on TV has increased?

    52. Re:In other news... by steve_bryan · · Score: 1

      ...you've convinced me to subscribe to DirecTV again.

      Now that's funny!

    53. Re:In other news... by JulesLt · · Score: 1

      True, but interaction isn't necessarily BETTER than receiving (nor is receiving always passive).

      Reading Tolstoy or playing Tiddlywinks - playing D&D or watching 'Once Upon a Time in the West'. Watching a documentary about some part of the world you know nothing about, or repeating yourself on some forum somewhere. Or even watching Futurama rather than playing Grand Theft Auto.

      Imagine if television was absolutely brilliant - unmissable content on every channel, never to be repeated. What hell that would be . . .

      --
      'Capitalists of the world, unite! Oh ... you have' (League Against Tedium)
    54. Re:In other news... by spleck · · Score: 1

      You're still acting as if ALL people are mindless zombies whose subconscious is really in control of all their actions. I have been relatively immune to subconscious suggestion for most of my adult life. I try to push it on others that I notice get enticed by advertising. The advantages we as humans have over other animals, even primates, allows us to impose a "supervisor program" even over our subconscious. It works the same way you can program yourself to give up habits (nail-biting, etc). Stop thinking of yourself as a creature that you can't control. You can program your subconscious far better than an advertisement.

      And actually I noticed my contradiction as I wrote it. But I also realized that I've tried to train myself to be observant and to take in information even when I'm not paying direct attention. I just don't let it control me--its information at my disposal.

      If 10 ads for ju food go by, I go, "Damn, I swear that's the 10th ad I've seen for ju foods!"

      The correlation between TV and obesity has to do with boredom. Most people are simply bored while they're watching TV. Experiment with 2 TVs. If the person is trying to pay attention to both, they're less likely to go for food.

    55. Re:In other news... by grrrl · · Score: 1

      I don't happen to like white-box, generic stuff, so I'm going to stick with Steve's products, thank you very much.

      white-box generic no way... but pretty shiny industrial design white mac box, yes please :)

    56. Re:In other news... by daviddennis · · Score: 1

      I suppose I should have been more careful with my language. The PC makers started making their boxes in black or colors, leaving Steve no choice but to go to an elegant white!

      Although if pressed I'll say I really, really like the aluminum/stainless steel in the more expensive models :-).

      D

    57. Re:In other news... by tomhudson · · Score: 1

      people would find other means to sit at home on their lazy asses, get fat, while putting "finishing touches" on their butt-ugly myspace.com homepage.

      Yeah - just what the world needs - more pictures of muffin-top pants :-)

      You're right about TV having the lowest barrier of entry to the sedentary lifestyle., BTW.

      But you're wrong about TV ads losing their effectiveness. They're still the highest-rated in terms of effectiveness, and ads on the web are still the lowest-rated. TV advertisers have successfully beaten back any threat from the web by responding with much more effective, aggressive, and edgy ads.

      Ads aren't the cause of the sedentary lifestyle - TV is. But you can't watch TV, even with a Tivo, without being hit by thousands of product placements.

      BTW, most people can't successfully multitask. That's why parents keep telling their kids "turn off the damn tv" while they're doing their homework. Because the difference shows in the end results. Ditto for driving while yakking on a cell/doing your makeup/eating/reading a book. If you have X amount of ability, you're obviously giving only a fraction of it to each job at hand when you "multitask".

    58. Re:In other news... by tomhudson · · Score: 1
      Those kids don't magically disappear when they turn 18 - they internalize it - then they grow up and act on it. Rmember, the US, which is the source of most of the drek, has the highest proportion of murders of any country in the world, and the highest proportion of people in jail, and the highest proportion of people under various legal orders.

      Heck, there was one county that made the news because fully half the adult male population had a restraining order or probation order against them.

      Also, as levels of violence increase, the level that violence has to escalate to, to get entered into the statistics, also rises. A generation ago "taxing" in the school yard would have been considered assault and robbery. Now it goes by the euphemism "taxing" - its not so bad, even governments do it ... WTF! Esy enough to make the stats look good if you change the definition of violence so that only the more extreme cases show.

      So kids have learned that they can use violence to extort lunch money, etc., from their peers. But its not even entered into the stats any more. Gee, what's next - start calling rapes "unparticipatory dates" - then we can claim the rape rate went down! And we can re-label incest "family ties". Another problem solved! Hell, lets go all the way and call murder "non-compassionate euthenasia". You could probably get it legalized since half the legislators are too drunk/coked out/busy lapping up lobby money to be able to parse it out.

    59. Re:In other news... by toddestan · · Score: 0

      Why people like you advocate the wholesale boycott of TV instead of embracing the ways to cherry-pick the good stuff while ignoring the rubbish is beyond me. "We have the technology", and not all of us are vegetative couch potato folks sitting in front of the tube watching rubbish while waiting for the good stuff.

      I don't watch TV, but I really didn't boycott it either. I just found that as time went by, I watched less and less TV as I found better things to do with my time. After a while, my TV viewing was down to 0 hours a week. It was a transition simular to what I did with radio a couple of years back. I didn't suddenly decide to stop listening to FM radio, it's just that one day I realized that I hadn't turned on a radio in months because I listened to my CDs and MP3s all the time.

      Now, I could try TV again, as you suggest. But that would cost me $50+/month for cable or satellite if I want more than 3-4 OTA channels. Then I would have to spend $100-$500+ either purchasing a PVR or somehow building one to filter out all the crap. Unless I wanted to watch everything on my old 13" TV, I might want to buy a new TV too. And after all of that, there is still a chance that I wouldn't end up watching it anyway - or atleast not enough to justify $50+/month. To me, it's just not worth the money or the hassle to "try out" TV again.

    60. Re:In other news... by tomhudson · · Score: 1

      All good examples. Those ole spaghetti oaters are still worth a gander. And Leila's hot ;-)

    61. Re:In other news... by GaryPatterson · · Score: 1

      Okay, just take a deep breath and stop for a moment.

      TV is like all things - too much of it is not good for you.

      Watching it to excess is like doing anything to excess, but in reasonable amounts, it's not necessarily a Bad Thing (tm).

      I think the secret is to turn it off when I'm not actively watching it. Instead I put some music on and do other things. But that's the way I am, and it may not apply to others.

      Giving people a hard time isn't being fair on them. A lot of people work hard and when they get home are too tired to do much more than just unwind in front of the TV. Saying that they're wrong to do that is itself wrong, unless you can spend the time to analyse their lives.

      You don't do that though, and just call them "good little consumers" and preach about the evils of television. You just cannot expect people to listen to your message when you effectively start by saying "okay, you're all fools and this is why..." You just get people's hackles up, and lose your point in the noise.

      It's good for you that you don't watch TV. Just don't preach to others about how enlightened you are without walking a few miles in their shoes.

    62. Re:In other news... by tomhudson · · Score: 1

      There's still an ongoing debate (and a very serious one) as to whether we in fact actually make very many conscious decisions. Most of what we appear to "decide to do" is actually decided before we realize it ... and just bubbles up to our conscious level after the decision has been made. This isn't just for small things, like picking up a glass to drink while you're "on autopilot" - turns out that huge chunks of most conversation are not really mediated by your conscious thought process - you "become aware of it" as you speak it, not because you decided to speak it. But because of the way our perceptions are structured to take that into account, you believe you've actually consciously decided to say what you said.

      An example - someone tells you a joke and you immediately burst out laughing, in far less time than it would take to analyse the joke and say exactly why it was funny. Worse yet, when someone asks you why it was so funny, sometimes you can't even say - you don't know. And on retrospect, you realize it wasn't funny. So why did you laugh?

      Or other times when, in the heat of the moment, you say something that you immediately realize you regret saying. Its not because you were consciously analysing what you were about to say - you were "going with the flow of the argument". If you had to think of each sentence before you said it, you would never have uttered those words.

      Again, we've evolved a mechanism that allows us to have a consciousness that can make some decisions, but that quickly becomes overwhelmed when called upon to make all the decisions. That's why training is important - it frees you up from making a lot of decisions. Like when typing - you don't have to think, you just do it. The words flow. But it took practice, so that YOU don't have to do it.

      Or driving a car. Remember those first few experiences, where YOU had to make all the decisions? Now think about how many times you've avoided an accident by taking action before you were even consciously aware that you were in a "situation". Again, YOU had no say in what happened.

      Or you meet with someone and you for some reason immediately feel a dislike to them - and you don't even know them! You put it off as "they rub you the wrong way." The reality is you actually had no conscious say in such an important decision.

      Most of the time, you're just along for the ride. You're "the ghost within the machine," not your subconscious, which is in fact running most of the show, and feeding only select bits to you on a "need-to-know" basis. Your retina and optic nerve work the same way, filtering out most of the signals they get so that you don't even get to see a lot of what's in front of you. And that process is literally as obvious as the nose on your face. When you're looking at your monitor, your nose is very much within your eye's field of vision, and it IS registering on your retina. When's the last time you noticed it? But look at a picture taken to simulate your eye's field of view from a camera embedded in a model of the human head, and your nose is VERY obvious.

    63. Re:In other news... by tomhudson · · Score: 1

      A lot of people work hard and when they get home are too tired to do much more than just unwind in front of the TV

      So tell me, how is that whole watching someone getting their head blown off working out as a method of "unwinding" :-)

      I don't buy it. If they're that tired, they should take a nap, or make a point of going to bed earlier instead of trying to cram 5 hours of TV in after a days' work, and then complaining they don't get enough sleep.

      Most people are walking sleep deficits. And a big part of the reason why is the refusal to admit that sleep is more important than an extra hour of TV viewing.

      Those sleep deficits don't just make you feel tired - they affect your performance, your driving ability, the way you interact with the people around you, your overall stress level ... so you "self-medicate" with a bunch of caffeine or caffeine in sugar water, to get that "extra boost" you need to get going in the morning. Why do you need a pick-me-up first thing in the morning, unless you didn't get enough sleep the night before?

      s good for you that you don't watch TV. Just don't preach to others about how enlightened you are without walking a few miles in their shoes.
      Been there, done that ... didn't make a conscious decision to avoid the tube - just, as time went on, other things took up more time, and TV less and less ... until I finally noticed that I hadn't turned it on in months, and didn't miss it.
    64. Re:In other news... by HuguesT · · Score: 1

      You write :

      > Second, do I care if other people's kids watch crazy amounts of TV? Not in the slightest.

      Except we live in a democracy. These people and their kids will vote. Their decisions will affect your life.

      Think of how the "debate" on the invasion of Iraq was skewed, think of how the President has been elected for the last 40 years or so.

      Appearance, not competence, is the key.

      In other words, you should care.

    65. Re:In other news... by squiggleslash · · Score: 1
      I had a bunch of problems related to the iTunes 4 -> iTunes 5 -> iTunes 6 "upgrade". iTunes no longer sent half my music to my iPod (actually, a little more than that), and I found I couldn't play stuff in one room that played fine on the other. The thing kept coming up with requesters announcing I needed to register that particular machine and log in to iTunes. I had. It asked me again. Infinite loop. Why? Well, one machine had iTunes 5, and the other 6, and I originally had iTunes 4.

      At no point did it actually say something sane along the lines of "This music file that you downloaded needs iTunes 6 or later", or "The reason why I can't copy this music to your iPod is you ripped it with iTunes 5 but I want you to upgrade the firmware on your iPod before I'll let you transfer this music because, like, it will not work or something."

      There's a combination of problems there, related to at least the upgrade of the FairTunes crap (which I didn't know about until I Googled for it), to something else that presumably changed otherwise it'd have been quite happy to at least copy ripped music across to the iPod. For all Apple's supposed skills at UI management, their inability to come up with a meaningful explanation for why something went wrong and how to fix it is something I find all too frequent. Why is it protesting that I haven't logged in with my Apple ID when I just did, and when iTunes seems quite happy to acknowledge that fact? Why doesn't it tell me why I can't copy music to my iPod? Why do I get the feeling that the iPod firmware upgrade was 90% about fucking Real and their customers, rather than providing features I want? (It might be because of the way Software Update would ignore my requests to have it ignore the iPod update that included the "Screw Real" hack until the next iPod update came out.)

      And why does my second generation iPod suddenly have a crappy battery life and an extra level of menus (Playlists is no longer the first option on the main menu, though I can "customise it" but if I do so and want the Music menu, the Music menu ends up being the first option. Great job Apple!) now I've done the firmware upgrade?

      I don't think Apple is a great implementor of DRM. I think they suck less than Microsoft, and they theoretically have given users some freedom in the sense that we can burn a CD, but they're constantly playing a game of updates and upgrades to spoil the ability of competitors to interoperate with their technologies, and they're incompetent - utterly incompetent - when it comes to "managing the user experience" for anyone who is doing anything but the crudest "Always run the latest version of everything on one machine" drone.

      I made a mistake recently thinking I might have been over the top in rejecting iTMS some time ago, the results of buying three songs (and upgrading iTunes to play them) were a lot of pain in the arse debugging and software management. Not again.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    66. Re:In other news... by tgibbs · · Score: 1

      Those kids don't magically disappear when they turn 18 - they internalize it - then they grow up and act on it. Rmember, the US, which is the source of most of the drek, has the highest proportion of murders of any country in the world, and the highest proportion of people in jail, and the highest proportion of people under various legal orders.

      However, the murder rate, and violence in general, have dropped steadily as violent movies and other entertainments (e.g. videogames) have become more popular. It has dropped in all age groups, but fastest for the younger demographic who are the biggest consumers of such entertainments. So perhaps we need more violence on TV, not less.

    67. Re:In other news... by tomhudson · · Score: 1
      The page you show misquotes the source. (Use the source, Luke): What it says is that the RATE OF INCREASE of offenders, not that the rate is lower. The fucktard who wrote the game page can't read, or is lying on purpose, but what do you expect from someone who uses Word to create their html documents and can't get rid of the strange formatting artifacts? http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/correct.htm
      U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs
      Bureau of Justice Statistics

      Summary findings

      The number of adults in the correctional population has been increasing.

      Adult correctional populations, 1980-2004
      * In 2004, nearly 7 million people were on probation, in jail or prison, or on parole at yearend 2004 -- 3.2% of all U.S. adult residents or 1 in every 31 adults.

      * State and Federal prison authorities had in custody 1,421,911 inmates at yearend 2004: 1,244,311 in State custody and 170,535 in Federal custody.

      * Local jails held 713,990 persons awaiting trial or serving a sentence at midyear 2004. An additional 70,548 persons under jail supervision were serving their sentence in the community.

      After sharp increases in the 1980s and 1990s, the incarceration rate has recently grown at a slower pace.

      Incarceration rate, 1980-2004
      * Between 1995 and 2004, the incarcerated population grew an average 3.4% annually. Population growth during the 12-month period ending December 31, 2004 was lower in State prisons (up 1.8%) than in local jails (up 3.3%) and Federal prison (up 5.5%).
    68. Re:In other news... by AeroIllini · · Score: 1

      I've seen people using the remote for half an hour, channel surfing all their satellite channels trying to find SOMETHING worth watching, either on the regular satellite, or ppv. And when they come up empty, they go through the whole rotation again.

      This person is obviously a ten percenter who hasn't come to grips with it yet. I used to be like them (and you, from the sounds of things). I used to complain a lot about the things that were on television, and how all of it was crap, and why can't they run some decent shows, and who's running this stupid channel anyway, and who watches this crap, and....

      And then it hit me: these shows are not FOR me. I am not the target audience. The networks don't care what I think. And you know what? I got over myself. Let the networks have their crappy shows and their marketing data that proves that such-and-such show is a huge hit among boys aged 10-15. I don't need any of it.

      And then I came back to the realization that there ARE "diamonds in the rough," so to speak; there are a few select shows worth watching. They have to be hunted down, tracked through the dense forest of bad programming, and cherished. Technology like DVRs is my way of taking control of my television back from the masses that decide what's on. None of the shows I like last long, since very few people appreciate them, and the network replaces them fairly quickly. But I have no problem with that. If a beautiful moment lasts forever, it becomes ordinary.

      So get down off your soapbox and stop deciding what's good for everyone else. If you don't like TV, don't watch it. But stop preaching.

      --
      For security, the MD5 hash of this message and sig is 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0.
    69. Re:In other news... by tgibbs · · Score: 1

      The page you show misquotes the source. (Use the source, Luke): What it says is that the RATE OF INCREASE of offenders, not that the rate is lower. The fucktard who wrote the game page can't read, or is lying on purpose

      Wrong. Here's the source. As you can see it is not the rate of increase, but the actual rate per 100,000 population. So there may be a "fucktard" who can't read or who is lying on purpose, but it is not my source.

      Remember, I'm talking specifically about the incidence of violent crime, not incarceration, which includes a lot of nonviolent offenses and also is sensitive to things like changes in sentencing standards.

    70. Re:In other news... by tgibbs · · Score: 1

      Correction: the rates shown are per 1,000 population. In any case, there has been a steady decrease in violent crime rates, coinciding rather well with the increased popularity of violent entertainments, and steepest precisely among the age groups who are the greatest consumers of such entertainments.

    71. Re:In other news... by tomhudson · · Score: 1
      READ THE DISCLAIMER AT THE BOTTOM

      Those are not the actual crime stats - they're a SURVEY of 75,000 people.

      this survey of households interviews about 75,000 persons age 12 and older in 42,000 households twice each year about their victimizations from crime

      Also, all rapes were excluded, because you can't exactly go and interview rape victims w/o really violating their rights. As were victims of child abuse, etc. So how can you say kid crime is down when you are purposefully excluding a huge chunk of the kids from even being counted in the first place? Fucking dumb!

      My figures stand, because they're not from a survey, where people report what they want - they're based on actual convictions and people being thrown in jail. Those are up - way up.

      Learn how to think critically.

    72. Re:In other news... by tomhudson · · Score: 1
      Facts: there has been no change in the murder rate in the last 5 years - it hasn't gone down. http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=1 2&did=169 Now remember, we've got about 3000 extra murders thrown in there due to 9/11 in 2001, so the actual rate excluding 9/11 was lower in 2000 than now.

      Also, the FBI stats http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_02/html/web/offreporte d/02-table01.html also has an interesting footnote, but you have to REALLY squint to find it:
      The murder and nonnegligent homicides that occurred as a result of the events of September 11, 2001, were not included in this table.

      Why? because it would screw up the stats. Awwwww. The fact is that, after the total # of crimes peaked in 1991 and going into decline under Clinton, its starting to inch back up again under Bush, even excluding 9/11.

      Also, they no longer count such things as "taxing" by school kids as violent crime, but it is. "Give me your lunch money and your new runners or I'll beat you up" is assault. Not including it in the stats doesn't make it "go away."

    73. Re:In other news... by tgibbs · · Score: 1
      Those are not the actual crime stats - they're a SURVEY of 75,000 people.

      That is a huge survey, so the statistics should be quite accurate. This is of course the only reliable way to do it (that's why the Bureau of Justice uses this method), because it allows for determination of the rate of unreported as well as reported crimes. Since these are anonymous surveys of victims of crime, people have no incentive to minimize their experience of crime

      Also, all rapes were excluded

      Wrong again. From the same reference:

      The violent crimes included are rape, robbery, aggravated and simple assault, and
      homicide


      Here's a chart showing the steep decline in rape incidence

      My figures stand, because they're not from a survey, where people report what they want - they're based on actual convictions and people being thrown in jail.

      You haven't presented any figures at all for violent crime. People get thrown in jail for all kinds of reasons. In any case, incarceration rates have more to do with sentencing policy than with crime rates. All measures show violent crime rates declining. Homicide rates (which are not based on survey) show exactly the same trend (they are now at the lowest level in 40 years).

    74. Re:In other news... by tgibbs · · Score: 1

      Facts: there has been no change in the murder rate in the last 5 years - it hasn't gone down.

      I suppose that might be a valid argument if violent TV and games appeared suddenly 5 years ago. But they didn't. So let's expand our time base back 10 or 15 years, which better correlates with the increased trend of violence in the media, and we find that the 5 year period that you are selectively choosing to focus on represents a stabilization after a steep decline, and that overall murder rates are holding at the lowest level since the 1960's.

      The murder and nonnegligent homicides that occurred as a result of the events of September 11, 2001, were not included in this table. Why? because it would screw up the stats. Awwwww.

      So your argument is what? That the terrorist attacks of September 11 occurred due to Muslim extremists watching too much American TV?

    75. Re:In other news... by tomhudson · · Score: 1
      If you looked further down on the page you linked to, they say the following about the rape stats:
      Sources: Rape (excluding sexual assault), robbery, ...
      They have no way of including those stats in a survey because its illegal to divulge the victim's name, even for the purpose of collecting stats. Ditto for certain other classes of crime.

      Another thing left out (in addition to the 9/11 killings) was the continuing death and injury rate to US GI forces. Another 500 men and women a year added to the official murder rate, and a whole slew more to the aggravated assault stats.

      Then we also have to include the government-sponsored assaults, etc., (gitmo, people "renditioned" illegally to other jurisdictions so they could be tortured, etc).

      Government-sponsored violent crime is HUGE, and it shows nowhere in the stats.

      Besides, the whole point you were originally trying to make was that violent crime is down, so maybe we should have more violence on TV ... which was in response to my point about kids seeing thousands of volent acts on tv, etc.

      Do people feel safer today? No. Are there more incidents of stupidity like road rage? Definitely - the term didn't even exist 20 years ago. Advertising on TV is all about perception. And the marketers (and this includes the Bush administration) have become adept at marketing their product.

      20 years ago, the government would have fallen on news of officially sanctioned torture, or knowingly misleading the public in a bullshit war. Now, because of the administration's continuing advertising campaign against its own people, they've got everyone too scared to say anything, for fear of being seen as disloyal.

      And the government's ad campaign was done with the full cooperation of the media, and included every trick in the book - product placements, testimonials, ads portrayed as news, staged "events" ... and nobody with a TiVO escaped that.

      Funny how TV is seen as so important to the government that it has allocated $3 Billion to get people to upgrade their TVs. Why? Possibly because the "upgrade" won't be as benign as you think. It would be no big deal to include a "report back home" capability. Heck, they could even include a mike and minicam for less than $10 more per box in the quantities they're talking about.

      Before you think - no, they wouldn't do that - remember, this is the same government that was aready proven in court to be hijacking the OnStar voice systems of people's cars, activating them remotely to eavesdrop on conversations without a warrant. A judge told the FBI to stop, but who can say if they really did?

      Include government-sponsored crime, and 9/11, and violent crime is way up. And you really have to include them - they exist, they affect your life, and ignoring them perpetuates the problem.

    76. Re:In other news... by tomhudson · · Score: 1
      Actually, the decline in murder rates corresponds to increased economic performance under Clinton. The halting of that trend was thanks to Bush tanking the economy. And the 9/11 attacks can be laid at his feet - he knew they were coming, and purposefuly allowed it to proceed as excuse for war. This was the plan his strategist Richard Perle hatched up, reported in 2000, a year before the attacks. Find some prefix to get into a war with Iraq. You might want to friend this guy - he quotes it here today http://slashdot.org/~Philip%20K%20Dickhead/journal /123291.

      Heck, if you kept a journal, I'd friend you just because you know how to debate, and would probably have some interesting things to say.

      People resort to violence when they're desperate. Hard times make people desperate. If we really wanted to fix the violent crime problem, we'd do a few things:

      1. decriminalize a lot of the "social crimes" - the war on drugs is lost - the only ones benefiting from it are ogranized crime and crooked cops; these are social and health issues
      2. improve funding for education, instead of reducing it, as has been done under the "No Child Left Behind" scheme
      3. realize that the general populace is more in need of tax relief than multi-millionaires
      4. get out of Iraq. and don't try a strategy of replacing ground troops with more air power. It's going to take 20 years minimum for that particular wound to heal, why keep picking at it?
      5. fix the health system so that people don't go broke when they get sick, or put off treatment fo so long that what was a minor problem becomes catastrophic
      6. get some sort of hand-gun control. Canada has more guns per capita than the US, but 1/3 the murder rate per capita http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/cri_mur_cap
      I know, in the current context this seems really commie pinko socialist. But think about this - Canad implemented hand-gun controls in 1977. If you remove the murder rates due to firearms, the per capita rates of the 2 countries match. All the difference is due to the easy availability of hand-guns in the US. In Canada, someone watches a show with a shooting, and its not like they think "yeah, someone pisses me off, I'm gonna take my 357 and show them what's what" - they don't hve the same "gun culture". Guns are for hunting animals, not people. Same TV shows, different culture.

      Mixing violent TV shows with a culture of guns is dangerous. The stats show it - 3x the murder rate.

      The NRA has made a big thing about it being a constitutional right - nowhere in the constitution does it mention handguns, and thats what is doing most of the killing. Guns don't kill people - gun nuts with handguns kill people.

    77. Re:In other news... by tomhudson · · Score: 1

      Ah, frig it - I'm friending you anyway. This way, if at any future date you DO start writing in your journal, I know I'll have something interesting to read :-)

    78. Re:In other news... by tgibbs · · Score: 1

      If you looked further down on the page you linked to, they say the following about the rape stats:
      Sources: Rape (excluding sexual assault), robbery, ...
      They have no way of including those stats in a survey because its illegal to divulge the victim's name, even for the purpose of collecting stats.

      Are you seriously trying to argue that it is legal to collect statistics on rape, but not on sexual assaults that do not culminate in rape? That is about the most foolish thing that I have ever heard. Note that none of these statistics divulge anybody's name, so that is quite irrelevant. I challenge you to produce the law that makes it illegal to collect such statistics.

      Most likely, they are not including non-rape sexual assaults under rape because they are already counting them as assaults, and it would bias the statistics to count them right.

      Another thing left out (in addition to the 9/11 killings) was the continuing death and injury rate to US GI forces.

      And how, specifically, do you conceive this as being a consequence of TV violence? If people didn't watch TV, they wouldn't join the army?

      Do people feel safer today? No. Are there more incidents of stupidity like road rage? Definitely - the term didn't even exist 20 years ago.

      Again, this is pretty foolish. The fact that the buzzword "road rage" hadn't been coined doesn't mean that people didn't get angry over being cut off on the highway 20 years ago. As somebody who actually was around, and driving, 20 years ago, I can assure you that they did.

      20 years ago, the government would have fallen on news of officially sanctioned torture, or knowingly misleading the public in a bullshit war.

      Have they quit teaching history in the schools? We fought a bullshit war in Viet Nam, with its own atrocities, 20 years ago, and fought it for considerably longer than we have been fighting this one. People today are upset about white phosphorous? Back then, we had that and napalm, too. The government didn't fall. The antiwar candidate, George McGovern was defeated in one of the greatest political landslides in recent memory.

      Now, because of the administration's continuing advertising campaign against its own people, they've got everyone too scared to say anything, for fear of being seen as disloyal.

      Oh, and that never happened before? I won't even try to educate you, but you might find it informative to see the movie "Good night and good luck."

    79. Re:In other news... by tgibbs · · Score: 1

      Actually, the decline in murder rates corresponds to increased economic performance under Clinton.

      You can't really prove anything by correlation. Quite a few things changed over that tiime period. Levitt and Dubner, in "Freakonomics" make a pretty persuasive case that the decline in crime is due to easier access to abortion.

      What we can say, however, is that if violent TV, movies, and videogames do not actually reduce real-world violence, then any pro-violence effect of these influences must be small relative to other social, economic, and demographic factors

      Mixing violent TV shows with a culture of guns is dangerous. The stats show it - 3x the murder rate.

      So are you claiming that the US did not have a higher murder rate than Canada prior to violent US TV shows? It's a bit risky to compare statistics collected with different methodology, but this chart doesn't seem to support the notion that a greater crime rate in the US than Canada is a particularly modern phenomenon. Looking at these data, one would tend to ascribe the difference in crime rates to long-standing cultural differences rather than to modern entertainments.

    80. Re:In other news... by tomhudson · · Score: 1

      Dude, these are surveys. They're NOT conducted by official police agents gathering facts. they're conducted by civilians, who have no need or right to access rape victims names. Those files are usually sealed by the courts. Same with paedophiles - the names of the victims are expurgiated from all public docs.

      My initial point which we've gone well away from, was that I didn't see any real need for anyone to buy a PVR because there is so much drek out there. It gives a really distorted view of the world. For example, we allow all sorts of violence, but we don't show normal healthy sex. Which do you think would disturb a kid more - walking in on Daddy giving it to Mommy with his dick or an axe? We can show the latter, but not the former.

      As for the connection between 9/11 and violence on TV, check out the correlation between "patriotic" movies, where American troops or American heroes win out the day been shown prior to initial war movements. This was painfully obvious prior to the earlier Desert Storm operation by Bush Sr. Food for thought, no?

      gain, this is pretty foolish. The fact that the buzzword "road rage" hadn't been coined doesn't mean that people didn't get angry over being cut off on the highway 20 years ago. As somebody who actually was around, and driving, 20 years ago, I can assure you that they did.

      So was I, but I had never heard about it degenerating into gun battles. Now there are some places where people drive "extra-polite" because they don't want to get shot. That's nutso!

      Have they quit teaching history in the schools? We fought a bullshit war in Viet Nam, with its own atrocities, 20 years ago, and fought it for considerably longer than we have been fighting this one. People today are upset about white phosphorous? Back then, we had that and napalm, too. The government didn't fall. The antiwar candidate, George McGovern was defeated in one of the greatest political landslides in recent memory.

      IIRC Nixon did have to resign. Ford took his place. He lost the next election because of his blanket pardon of Nixon.

      Do you really believe that people were all that upset about Watergate on its own? It was because it was just more of the same. People were fed up. They wanted Nixon gone, and they were going to seize on anything to do it. The plumbers gave them the opening they needed.

      <i>Now, because of the administration's continuing advertising campaign against its own people, they've got everyone too scared to say anything, for fear of being seen as disloyal.
      </i>
      Oh, and that never happened before? I won't even try to educate you, but you might find it informative to see the movie "Good night and good luck."

      Did I ever say it didn't? Lets see ... Joe McCarthy and Edgar Hoover immediately spring to mind. Nixon's "laundry/shit list" and dirty tactics/disinformation squads. The whole "missile gap" thing under Kennedy. The "red menace". The Munro Doctrine. The lies about needing to nuke Japan. The interement of ethnics of asiatic descent during the war - just in case. It just goes on and on ... no wonder the US is perceived as the Great Satan in some parts of the world. We love you but ...

      The use of the media, the self-censorship by the media in the last 4 years, the cooperation of reporters who should have known better ... I mean, where do you start? Faux News? Its not JUST the violence. Its the pervasive misuse of the media.

      For example, the rest of the world got to see the evidence on TV that the "aluminium tubes" were definitely not for processing nuclear material, then they got to see Colin Powell get up and lie through his teeth about it in the UN an hour later. I saw it. So did pretty much everyone outside the USA. But unless you were near a border station and could catch a Canadian TV News feed, or grab the BBC off the net, yo

    81. Re:In other news... by tomhudson · · Score: 1

      You can't really prove anything by correlation. Quite a few things changed over that tiime period. Levitt and Dubner, in "Freakonomics" [amazon.com] make a pretty persuasive case that the decline in crime is due to easier access to abortion.
      Good point. I would expect easier access to abortion to have a direct economic spin-off effect as women are no longer constrained to part-time motherhood and part-time jobs. Such is the way freaky connections intertwine :-)
      What we can say, however, is that if violent TV, movies, and videogames do not actually reduce real-world violence, then any pro-violence effect of these influences must be small relative to other social, economic, and demographic factors
      What has always "gotten" me is that violence is perceived as entertaining. Like boxing. Watching 2 people trying to beat each other unconscious is no more valid as entertainment than a cock-fight or a snuff film. We've banned the latter 2 - why not boxing? Wrestling? Well, everyone knows its fixed (except the "true believers", but they'll believe anything :-)

      So are you claiming that the US did not have a higher murder rate than Canada prior to violent US TV shows? It's a bit risky to compare statistics collected with different methodology, but this chart doesn't seem to support the notion that a greater crime rate in the US than Canada is a particularly modern phenomenon. Looking at these data, one would tend to ascribe the difference in crime rates to long-standing cultural differences rather than to modern entertainments.
      No but its interesting that the rate has been increasing as more Canadians get access to more American programming, no? There's been a lot of deregulation of cross-border content, and the growth of cable companies over the last 30 years that also offer American content, seems to correlate well with the graph you offered up.
    82. Re:In other news... by tgibbs · · Score: 1

      Dude, these are surveys. They're NOT conducted by official police agents gathering facts. they're conducted by civilians, who have no need or right to access rape victims names. Those files are usually sealed by the courts. Same with paedophiles - the names of the victims are expurgiated from all public docs.

      You are really clutching at straws at this point. Do you even bother to look at the references? The surveys are carried out by the US Dept of Justice. I guess that you should say that they are civilians, in the same sense that the Attorney General is a civilian, but I don't see why you imagine that is relevant to anything. Surveys of victims are the most accurate method of determining crime frequency because not all crimes are reported. modern sampling methods are highly robust and have been validated by years of research. You have provided no basis for suggesting that these results are biased. And since we are talking about trends rather than absolute levels, you cannot explain this result even if people tend to be reluctant to report being victims of certain types of crimes-- you would need to find some reason why people would be becoming, year by year, more reluctant to report their personal experience of crime on an anonymous survey. Note that the trend applies to every form of violent crime, including burglary, not merely those that some people might reasonably be particularly reluctant to report, such as rape. Note also that the same trend applies to murder, which is not based on survey results.

      My initial point which we've gone well away from, was that I didn't see any real need for anyone to buy a PVR because there is so much drek out there.

      This also makes no sense at all. The purpose of a PVR is to be able to have a selection of the shows that you enjoy available at the time when you want to watch TV. If there is a lot of "drek" out there, such that it is hard to find the type of show that you enjoy--nonviolent documentaries on science or history, perhaps--then you have a greater reason to want a PVR, which will select those rare shows for you, even if they air while you are at work or asleep, and make them available for you to watch at your leisure.

      Do you really believe that people were all that upset about Watergate on its own? It was because it was just more of the same. People were fed up. They wanted Nixon gone, and they were going to seize on anything to do it.

      Nixon resigned because he was about to be impeached. And all of the articles of impeachment concerned the Watergate coverup, not the conduct of the war. Twice, Americans were offered a clear choice at the polls between a candidate who favored continuing the war and one who favored prompt withdrawal: Nixon vs. Humphrey and Nixon vs. McGovern. In both cases, they chose Nixon.

    83. Re:In other news... by tomhudson · · Score: 1

      Its not a question of clutching at straws. Its a fact that most employees don't have access to that data.

      Guess you don't know that even employees who DO have access to names, addresses, and case files have their access monitored ... and can be fired if they go snooping where they're not supposed to.

      There have been too many incidents of, for example, cops snooping into the personal files of ex-girlfriends trying to dig up something for a little bit of "leverage". The controls that are in place would freak you out. All accesses are logged. All. Electronic files. Paperwork. Everything.

      If you're a cop, you WANT that sort of logging, to protect you against unjust accusations. Cops don't like Internal Affairs, but they REALLY don't like the stupid prick who gets IA breathing down THEIR necks.

      A "survey" is only as good as its methodology, and a big part of that is choosing the sample. We know the sample is flawed - ergo, so is the survey. Idem that a survey can't replace actual stats. This is "feel-good" stuff from the DoJ.

      This also makes no sense at all. The purpose of a PVR is to be able to have a selection of the shows that you enjoy available at the time when you want to watch TV. If there is a lot of "drek" out there, such that it is hard to find the type of show that you enjoy--nonviolent documentaries on science or history, perhaps--then you have a greater reason to want a PVR, which will select those rare shows for you, even if they air while you are at work or asleep, and make them available for you to watch at your leisure.

      For most people, you're right. But that's because they've become dependent - addicted - to TV, many to the point where it interferes with their daily lives, and their relationships with the people around them. We don't bother about it because we're so used to it.

      Nixon resigned because he was about to be impeached. And all of the articles of impeachment concerned the Watergate coverup, not the conduct of the war. Twice, Americans were offered a clear choice at the polls between a candidate who favored continuing the war and one who favored prompt withdrawal: Nixon vs. Humphrey and Nixon vs. McGovern. In both cases, they chose Nixon.

      They also chose Bush. But the majority want out of Iraq NOW, and if they can find something else to go after Mr Chimp with, they'll settle for that.

      McGovern was a joke candidate. You can't be serious. His platform was naive - it went way too far way too fast, promising radical social change. He should have promised less, delivered, and built on that. In the end, the anti-war message took the hit. It also didn't help that the "dirty tricks" gang brought out the whole ECT thing on his running mate at a time when mental illness had a serious stigma attached to it. Besides, we've ssen from recent history that the voters get it more wrong than right, and spend the next few years regretting it. They were fed up with the war. The most popular shows on TV (eg - shows like All In The Family) were getting their audiences by lampooning the "war effort" and the stupidity of blind patriotism - Archie Bunkerism.

      The parallels between the two wars, and the type of people who support the president in both cases, is particularly illuminating by a quick exam of the quotes from that show, which sound like they could come from a Bush supporter today.

      "God don't make no mistakes. That's how he got to be God"
      "It ain't supposed to make sense; it's faith. Faith is something that you believe that nobody in his right mind would believe"
      - Archie Bunker

      - compared to today's faith-based administration ...

      "
      Little boys who play with dolls grow up to be other boys' roommates"
      "I never said a guy who wears glasses is a queer. A guy who wears glasses is a four-eyes; a guy who's a fag is a queer."
      - Archie Bunker

    84. Re:In other news... by tgibbs · · Score: 1

      Its not a question of clutching at straws. Its a fact that most employees don't have access to that data.

      And they don't need it, because these numbers are based upon anonymous statistical surveys, not upon access to confidential data on crimes reported to the police (which wouldn't be much use, anyway, since many crimes in this category are never reported). There are no legal restrictions on the ability of employees to conduct such surveys.

      A "survey" is only as good as its methodology, and a big part of that is choosing the sample. We know the sample is flawed - ergo, so is the survey. Idem that a survey can't replace actual stats. This is "feel-good" stuff from the DoJ.

      We don't know the sample is flawed. You haven't identified any flaws in the sample. It's a large sample, so it should be statistically robust. For crimes that often aren't reported such as simple assault or rape, a survey is far superior to police records. Clearly, in the population that is being sampled, the frequency of violent crime has been decreasing for over a decade. If you want to argue that the sampling has missed some subpopulation in which crime is increasing--which would have to be a pretty large fraction of the total population to make a significant impact on the national statistics--then you are left with the problem of explaining why it is that the murder statistics, which are not subject to the same sampling bias, show the same downward trend.

      For most people, you're right. But that's because they've become dependent - addicted - to TV, many to the point where it interferes with their daily lives, and their relationships with the people around them. We don't bother about it because we're so used to it.

      Being able to watch the shows you prefer when you choose to do so rather than when they are broadcast reduces rather than increases the interference of TV with other aspects of daily life. TV becomes more like reading a book or listening to music--you do it when you have the leisure time for it and it doesn't interfere with other activities that are important to you. Some people enjoy watching TV with their families, and find that shared enjoyment of an entertainment enhances rather than harming their relationships. That is, after all, why people often go together to movies, concerts, and plays.

      People tend to be a bit too ready to use the pejorative word "addicted" when somebody else happens to like something that they don't appreciate. I have tastes and interests; you have addictions. I think that equating enthusiasm for hobbies and entertainments with drug addiction minimizes and obscures the very real problems of addictive substances.

    85. Re:In other news... by tomhudson · · Score: 1
      these numbers are based upon anonymous statistical survey
      You need a NAME to survey the person. Even if the data are later compiled and all identifiers removed, someone has to do the interviews. Besides, if you read the survey, this is not a survey of crime victims. It is a survey of people, asing aobut their experience over a certain period of time. Most are NOT crime victims. The reason they do it this way - because they have no legal way of doing it otherwise.

      The survey would be cast as "junk science" in any other field.

      Why do you insist on continuing to deny the obvious?

    86. Re:In other news... by tgibbs · · Score: 1

      You need a NAME to survey the person. Even if the data are later compiled and all identifiers removed, someone has to do the interviews. Besides, if you read the survey, this is not a survey of crime victims. It is a survey of people, asing aobut their experience over a certain period of time. Most are NOT crime victims.

      Of course not! Think about it for a moment. If you want to do a survey on crime incidence, the only valid way is to pick people at random and ask them if they have experienced a crime. A survey that selected out crime victims for questioning would be completely useless for estimating crime incidence.

      The reason they do it this way - because they have no legal way of doing it otherwise.

      On the contrary, the same methodology is used to estimate frequency of crimes such as burglary where the privacy concerns of rape do not arise. It is done this way because it is the only valid method for tracking changes in crime incidence.

      The survey would be cast as "junk science" in any other field.

      I've noticed that the term "junk science" is almost never used by people who are actually qualified to evaluate the science in question. So far, you have failed utterly to raise even a single valid objection to the study. As a biomedical scientist with considerable experience in the evaluation of statistical methods, the study looks perfectly valid to me. The approach used is an epidemiological strategy that has been used successfully in investigating questions of disease incidence and drug safety.

    87. Re:In other news... by thatguywhoiam · · Score: 1
      Second, do I care if other people's kids watch crazy amounts of TV? Not in the slightest. If parents want to stuff their kids with junk food, sit them in front of the TV for hours, then teach them that evolution is crap and God created all I don't give a goddamn. The great thing about freedom is that it's their choice to make. Their bad decisions shouldn't effect me or my own so long as I'm careful, so what's the big fucking deal.

      The big fucking deal is that these people get voted into office and then want to make that way of life the law of the land.

      --
      If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
    88. Re:In other news... by Mad_Rain · · Score: 1

      just as alcohol kills braincells, TV has a direct affect on the brain, by atrophying those parts that involve creativity.

      I know this really isn't the point of your post, and although I haven't read the book myself, I find the ideas proposed by Steven Johnson in his book "Everything Bad is Good For You" an interesting counter-argument to the idea that "TV makes you stupid." Television is steadily growing more complex, and requires more thought and concentration to follow it. For example, TV-shows were initially developed for an audience of people at their intelligence levels. So there were shows with 2-4 main characters, who had very simple, understandable relationships (husbands and wives, parents and children, coworkers - think "I Love Lucy" or something similar). Now television programs have more main characters who have more complex relationships and their connections can be unclear or ambiguous. ("ER" might be an example of such a show - a dozen or so main characters, some romantically involved, some not, and some you suspect). So while you're not learning math or another language by watching something like that, you learn a little bit about complex social networks (or a Hollywood-ized version of them) and use more brainpower than you think.

      --
      "What do you think?" "I think 'What, do you think?!'"
  4. The excuse I need. by Shivetya · · Score: 4, Interesting

    To own a Mac is to have it give me some functionality I cannot easily derive from my Windows PC in a format that doesn't collide with my entertainment center.

    I would like to have a Mac around to experience OS/X but I don't need it and therefor have no reason to spend the money. Make it do something useful for me that I would have to already spend money to have and then I can consider it.

    Yeah I know TiVO is big, my friends have them. I also see MCE and some Linux solutions. The first is proprietary and the other two require work on my end to have something that both looks decent and might actually work.

    If Apple can deliver a PVR that also allows me to dabble with OS/X who knows where it might lead. The big IF is, will they price it for the market or let their ego do the pricing?

    --
    * Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
    1. Re:The excuse I need. by Hieronymus+Howard · · Score: 1

      Be careful. This summer, I bought an iMac for my wife to use. Now my Gentoo box, which previously was switched on 24/7 and had months of continuous uptime is standing alone and unloved in a cold room, switched off almost permanently and I'm wondering whether to purchase a mac mini to replace it.

      OS X is so damnned good that I've pretty much abandoned Linux after been devoted to it for many years.

    2. Re:The excuse I need. by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1, Interesting

      OS X is indeed very nice, however Apple customer support is the worst I have ever encountered. The first time I sent my PowerBook in for repair, they lost it and didn't replace it with a working one until two months later. The last time I sent it in, they fixed the problem by replacing a slightly defective main logic board with a completely defective one. When I sent it in again, they tightened the hinges, but didn't fix the not booting problem. I am still waiting for it to be collected for repair again, since they managed to screw up the dispatch twice. Over an eighteen month period, I have been without a working machine for three months (fortunately, I have a spare ThinkPad, and I've been re-discovering the joys of a FreeBSD / GNUstep desktop).

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    3. Re:The excuse I need. by utexaspunk · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yeah I know TiVO is big, my friends have them. I also see MCE and some Linux solutions. The first is proprietary and the other two require work on my end to have something that both looks decent and might actually work.

      So you dismissed the TiVo because it's proprietary and yet would like a DVR from Apple? I seriously doubt whatever Apple releases will be any less proprietary than TiVo...

    4. Re:The excuse I need. by Trigun · · Score: 1

      They'll give you the ability to buy television programs. Bye Bye cable bill.

      I wrote about this Last Month

    5. Re:The excuse I need. by soft_guy · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Apple used to have the best support in the business, hands down. Support that today you would marvel at. Amazing support.

      At the exact same time, people were abandoning Apple in droves for competitors who had lousy support.

      So, you can't blame Apple for bad support. You have to blame the invisible hand of the free market.

      --
      Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
    6. Re:The excuse I need. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I would like to have a Mac around to experience OS/X but I don't need it and therefor have no reason to spend the money.

      How about the money you don't spend on anti-virus software? Or the time you spend to fight with other malware (e.g., dialers)?

      Obviously if you want raw power a PC (especially with AMD) will probably be better. But there are other things to consider (especially if you're just dont web, e-mail, and chat).

    7. Re:The excuse I need. by Amiasian · · Score: 1

      That's funny. Just yesterday I walked into a new Apple store near where I lived, came up to the Genius Bar (which you seem to need reservations for, and I didn't know this) waited for just a bit and was able to get my malfunctioning iPod replaced, no questions asked.

      True, I had AppleCare, but I thought it'd be more inconvenient than just that.

      So, to each, mileage may vary.

    8. Re:The excuse I need. by utexaspunk · · Score: 1

      Your article is probably correct. Too bad you had to try so hard to make it "edgy" with the language. I don't have anything against using fuck or whatever, but overusing obscenity ends up making the words useless and powerless distractions from the actual point of your message. And it makes you sound like a fucking teenager.

      And I agree- they definitely better not put a clock on it.

    9. Re:The excuse I need. by multiOSfreak · · Score: 2
      OS X is indeed very nice, however Apple customer support is the worst I have ever encountered. The first time I sent my PowerBook in for repair, they lost it and didn't replace it with a working one until two months later.

      That's too bad. I just had a fantastic experience with Apple support. My iBook fell prey to the heinous iBook Logic Board Screwup. It didn't break until a week after the free replacement program ended, but Apple agreed to fix it anyway for free. They sent me a nice box to ship it in and paid for the shipping costs to and from the repair center. I got it back in 5 days, and they had also fixed the lid latch (which I had broken) at no charge. That's been my only experience with Apple support, but it was a good one.
      --
      Transistors and Beer!!
    10. Re:The excuse I need. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      No you don't need those excuses. Man up, buy yourself a birthday present or something. Go buy a used G4 on ebay or something like that, it's still a fine machine for a lot of things. Not a really serious number cruncher but just fine for email,web and office tasks.


      Then after a few weeks you'll be contemplating a dual core G5.


      I'm a complete Linux/FOSS biggot. I use it everywhere. I have run it as a primary machine for about a decade now. I still love it but it's a non-stop battle, living "off the grid" like that. I bought my wife a mac because she was getting tired of the Linux stuff (she's not a geek) and I've fallen in love with that machine. I do more work and less playing, tinkering and "support"


      Buy something used on ebay for $400 or buy a mini. Check it out. There will never be a really huge feature that it has that windows doesn't. However, they just work and that's pretty nice in and of itself.

    11. Re:The excuse I need. by mrchaotica · · Score: 1
      I seriously doubt whatever Apple releases will be any less proprietary than TiVo...
      If it is like a Mac Mini (as the summary says), then it'll be a general-purpose computer. The TiVo isn't.
      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

    12. Re:The excuse I need. by daviddennis · · Score: 0

      Nope. I had the same experience he did, and I am sorry to report Apple hasn't paid me any money to say this.

      In fact, in the last few years I've dropped over $5k at the Apple Store.

      Customers really do love Apple computers, and with some exceptions, Apple loves us back. True, life in the Apple camp is expensive, but there's a definite warm glow of "got what you paid for" which I just don't see in the Windows world.

      D

    13. Re:The excuse I need. by AKAImBatman · · Score: 1

      Indeed. I took my iBook in to have the logic board replaced under warranty. Not only did they replace the logic board, but they took care of the entire case as well!

      The case had been warped from someone falling on top of it when a bus I was riding on came to a rather sudden stop. The screen went way beyond its hinge design, but it held together and continued operating without incident. All I had needed was the logic board changed, but they threw in the case repair at no charge! I didn't even have the Apple Care plan. Now that's service!

      P.S. Learn to use the online reservation form on Apple's site before going to a Genius Bar. It saves tons of time and ensures that everyone who's been waiting for a half-hour or so will give you dirty looks when you stride in and grab the next representative. ;-)

      --
      Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
    14. Re:The excuse I need. by Jozer99 · · Score: 1

      Media center requires absolutely no work, at least no more than TiVo, which I take is your standard for "usability, not features". Just boot the thing, enter your area code, and choose from a list of TV providers (Satilite, Cable, ect...). Its all set then. If you want your music, video and picture collections to show up, its another 30 second wizard for each of them. MCE is INSANELY easy to use, just not very customizeable. MythTV can be changed all you want, but it takes a rocket scientist to get it running properly.

    15. Re:The excuse I need. by Trigun · · Score: 1

      Well, aside from the fact that I haven't been a teenager for ten years, I do swear a lot. Some people paint, some build model airplanes. I swear. I swear like a drunken sailor that has been recently sodomized by coal miners. It's a hobby. Hopefully, with practice, I can learn to imprecate in such a style and manner yet unbeknownst to mankind, choosing my words with surgical precision. I understand that less is more, but I see swearing like learning a programming language. The first step is to code everything in it. The next step is to learn the languages limitations, its nuances, and use it when it is the best fit. As for being "edgy", or trying to be, I really couldn't give a rat's ass about it. So what? My loyal readership (both of 'em) enjoy my rants, find insight, and maybe learn a little. The rest just call me crazy. You know who else they called "Crazy"? Jesus. That's who.

      Now I'm not likening myself to Jesus, but we both have a kick-ass beard.

    16. Re:The excuse I need. by poot_rootbeer · · Score: 1

      I also see MCE and some Linux solutions. The first is proprietary [...]

      And that's different from this phantom Apple FrontRow PVR how, exactly?

    17. Re:The excuse I need. by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1
      I too have Applecare - I am paid a few hundred pounds for support, which is why it irritates me that it's so bad. I would love to go to an Apple store to get it fixed, but there are only three or four in the UK, and none of them are in Wales - the closest is about four hours drive away from me.

      Actually, when it broke this time, I was in Pittsburgh and I did take it to an Applestore there. The person at the Genius Bar quickly identified the problem, but they didn't have any spare logic boards in stock for my model (which is two revisions old, I believe) and couldn't get one before I left.

      While I was waiting for it to be repaired this time, a friend of mine bought an iBook, which worked for about two days before the backlight in the screen died (quite fun actually - if you put a lamp behind it then you get an Apple-logo shaped bit of the screen working fine, and the rest completely black). They managed to get the dispatch right for his, and it's been picked up already - hopefully mine will be soon...

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    18. Re:The excuse I need. by vonFinkelstien · · Score: 1
      I find this hard to believe (but not impossible to believe). My iBook had its logic board blow right when I was working on a book and had a deadline coming up. It was the only computer (still is) that I had. So when I asked Apple if I could rent a replacement computer, they sent me one for free!

      Free shipping on the bad iBook.
      Free replacement computer.

      Would Dell do that?

    19. Re:The excuse I need. by el_womble · · Score: 1

      I love OS X. I own a iMac G5 and a PowerBook, and my girlfriend has a iBook. As a platform it is pain free and makes a lot of task very simple. But I also have a secret love for Debian.

      More and more I find that I actually need a dedicated server in the house. I need a web server, an NFS server, CVS and bittorrent. Its not that I can't perform these tasks on a Mac, its that I don't want to. They're all niggles that absorb resources... not a lot, but enough so that when it takes an extra bounce for Pages to open you start wondering if thats because something else is using those extra cycles. So I farm them out to an old PIII Debian box.

      Mac OS X is a delight as single user platform. If you are actually sat at the box I can't think of a single OS I'd rather have at my finger tips. But if the closest your going to get to the box is an SSH session your Debian is a tough beat. I've installed Postgresql on the Debian box from the park via my PowerBook and a 3G phone. I frequently SSH into the box to run updates or, if there is a bit of software that I want to Bittorrent, I'll use firefox or lynx to get the torrent then btdownloadncurses so that I know it will be on the network by the time I get home. This is the power of dpkg, a feature that Apple really needs to add to OS X, but then as your a gentoo user I'm preaching to the converted.

      I'm not saying that you shouldn't by a Mac mini, I'm just saying, that one person - one computer is a philosophy of the 90s. A mac mini with X11 is a great way to drive your Gentoo box - two heads are better than one and when you can pick up a usefull PC for ~$200 why not have 3?

      --
      Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
    20. Re:The excuse I need. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wasn't bothered by the swearing, but the content of the article got lost in it and i gave up trying to read it because the info was to hard to find

    21. Re:The excuse I need. by ciroknight · · Score: 1

      Then again, the TiVo is a standalone machine whereas the Mac Mini is a networkable computer. This means video from the Mac mini can be shared (without hacks mind you), whereas video from the TiVo, can't. Of course, that'd probably get Apple in some kind of trouble, but I'm sure Apple will be smooth about it.

      --
      "Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
    22. Re:The excuse I need. by Tim+Browse · · Score: 1

      They also laughed at Coco the Clown.

    23. Re:The excuse I need. by _|()|\| · · Score: 1
      Apple customer support is the worst I have ever encountered ... Over an eighteen month period, I have been without a working machine for three months

      I found the Apple phone support to be quite good: reasonable hold times, unscripted techs. who stayed on the phone with me reboot after reboot, and appropriate escalation. However, the people doing the mail-in repair were terrible; so bad, in fact, that I was eventually given a brand new iBook. It was two revs. newer, but that would have been cold comfort if it had been my primary computer.

      The iBook AppleCare is plenty expensive as it is, but I would pay another $50 - $100 if it included on-site service.

    24. Re:The excuse I need. by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1
      The first time, when they lost it, they offered me a loan unit and I was told customer services would telephone me with the offer. They never did. A few days later, I 'phoned back and was told it was Apple's policy never to offer loan machines (I'm now fairly used to hearing conflicting things from their support people). Eventually I did get a loan machine, but only by writing up my entire experience and sending it to their head of press relations for the UK (the loan unit had an intermittent fault with the screen, but it was usable 99% of the time). Oh, and they refused to accept any liability - offering me a 10% discount on my next purchase from the Apple store as a 'gesture of good faith' - a 10% discount, by the way, doesn't even cut into their profit margins, and certainly doesn't compensate me for two months without the machine.

      In between my two awful experiences, I had a repair which went well - machine taken away one day, and returned working two days later. Sadly, this seems to be the exception rather than the norm.

      From what I have heard, their support (as well as their prices) is a lot better in the USA than it is in Europe.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    25. Re:The excuse I need. by cayenne8 · · Score: 1
      "Not only did they take care of the logic board, but they took care of the entire case as well."

      I recently had to send in my first mac...and iBook that I bought used off eBay. I've been quite happy with it so far...then the logic board blew. I was quite happy with Apple when I called...and they said I could just make it under the deadline for a free repair of this. They sent me a box to ship it in...paid for shipping both ways, repaired the board quickly and sent it back.

      Overall, I was quite impressed...However, I notice the outside of my laptop is now scratched all to hell....dunno what they did to it. I was almost wondering if instead of replacing the logic board, if they just took out my harddrive, and plunked it into another box and sent that to me. I checked...looks like the serial number is the same.

      Anyway, overall..first impressions were good with their service. But, wish they'd be a little more careful with the case....

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    26. Re:The excuse I need. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've had the same experience. Only real upside is I've made more $k on apple stock than $k spent in apple store, so far. thanks ipod :)

    27. Re:The excuse I need. by timeOday · · Score: 1

      I disagree. The Series 1 TiVo was good, but subsequent models are completely closed and locked down. If Apple releases a PVR, I would be amazed if you cannot write your own software to control the hardware, copy the movie files around, play them from a network drive, etc etc. But I guess it's all speculation for now.

    28. Re:The excuse I need. by eheldreth · · Score: 1

      I was going to make a comment about 6.24 a kwh times 3 computers but I did the math and came up with something like $4 a month so nevermind.

      --
      The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum. - O'Toole's Corollary
    29. Re:The excuse I need. by NatasRevol · · Score: 1

      I bet Apple will even automate the software writing part for you.

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
    30. Re:The excuse I need. by dusanv · · Score: 1

      Nonsense. Of course they should be blamed for bad support. They were being abandoned for a different reason in mid nineties. People who buy their products pay more but expect more so why wouldn't that apply to their support? I am about to dump my bank because I'm sick of dealing with the half-wits they hire for phone support. That all said, I had my PowerBook repaired by Apple last year and it was done well and within a reasonable time frame.

    31. Re:The excuse I need. by johndierks · · Score: 1

      Check out TivoToGo, which allows you to download content off your Tivo and onto a computer where it can be burned on to DVD for easy viewing. Also allows downloads to mobile devices like Video iPod.

    32. Re:The excuse I need. by dcstimm · · Score: 1

      Hey, Your problem is with the depot that apple sent it to not with apple. I would suggest looking into who they sent it to, flextronics, or CTS, or whoever (those are the two that come up when I do a google search) and You should also blaim DHL, considering they are the ones responsible. If you contact apple support at 1800APLCARE and talk to someone that is higher up, they might just replace your computer with a new one. Also why didnt you just take it to an Apple Store? Also just like any tech shop if they do a repair, they verifiy the problem, replace what the problem part was, then they verifiy the repair. If the repair looks complete, they mail it back. Its not their fault they didnt see anything wrong after they did the repair, heck it might be even something that was caused by being in lost in transit for 2 weeks. Maybe your power adapter is bad and is causing spikes in voltage to hit the logic board, WHO KNOWS.. I would just recommmend contacting you local apple store and expressing you situation. Apple will take care of you.

      --
      keanmarine.com
    33. Re:The excuse I need. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      whoever moderated this as flamebait is an idiot

    34. Re:The excuse I need. by AKAImBatman · · Score: 1

      From what I have heard, their support (as well as their prices) is a lot better in the USA than it is in Europe.

      From all your posts, that's my impression as well. Apple has its head screwed on straight here in the states, but it can be difficult to exert proper influence over international offices. (Assuming that a company is paying attention in the first place, which many aren't.) If I were you I'd write to Apple here in the states and let them know that their service needs improving. Knowing Jobs, he'd be threatening to slit someone's throat if the quality of service wasn't fixed in a hurry. ;-)

      As for prices, well... How do I put this? VAT sucks. Even the worst sales tax here in the States doesn't come close to the overhead included by law into the sale of each item over there. You get a lot of social services in exchange, but... *shrug* to each their own.

      --
      Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
    35. Re:The excuse I need. by hey! · · Score: 1

      Yes, and generals always prepare for the last war.

      The reason Apple could afford great support is that they had a high end product -- in a decade that saw the replacement of the ubiquitous Selectric with the office computer. The median computer sale was probably in the dozens.

      So if you didn't have enough money to buy all the computers you wanted, if faced with taking one or two years to "computerize" a department with Wintel, vs. three to four years with Macs, what would you choose?

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    36. Re:The excuse I need. by Sammy76 · · Score: 1

      Yes, I've had equally disturbing applecare service. One time they repartitioned my hard drive, making it appear that my hard drive was erased. Another time they sent the machine back without even fixing it. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that apple doesn't service the powerbooks, they subcrontract it out to flextronics. Anyway, it is really ridiculous, considering that applecare is anything but cheap.

    37. Re:The excuse I need. by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1
      If you had read my other posts in this thread, you would know that I am in Wales. The nearest Applestore to me is in a different country. Here, the Applecare number is not free, it is charged at national rate - I have spent almost fifty pounds on the 'phone to them so far.

      I have no intention of plaming DHL (or UPS who were actually responsible for transporting the unit) - every time Apple have actually got around to setting up the dispatch, they have been very prompt with their shipments.

      As for blaming the repair depot - I do. The depot, however, is operated by Apple, and so they should take responsibility for this.

      Again, if you had read my post, you would know that the unit was not lost in transit - the long delay was between having it returned unfixed and having it taken away again to (I hope) actually be repaired.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    38. Re:The excuse I need. by TibbonZero · · Score: 1

      So if you didn't have enough money to buy all the computers you wanted, if faced with taking one or two years to "computerize" a department with Wintel, vs. three to four years with Macs, what would you choose?

      It seems that you are trying to say the whole thing of 'Apples being more expensive' which isn't true at all. Sure a Quad processor G5 isn't exactly cheap, but what does a quad processor Dell solution cost? Have you ever priced an Alienware system? I know they aren't going for the bargan basement 199 computers, but they aren't that bad really. Try to price out some SGI, IBM, Alienware and Dell workstations and it comes out about the same.
      The mac mini also tilts the scales pretty well for low end computing. It isn't a bad box. I've thought of buying a few for family members.

      You could certainly fill a floor of cubes with Apples for not much more than their PC counterparts.

      --
      Tibbon
      tibbon.com
    39. Re:The excuse I need. by mjpaci · · Score: 1

      Are you sure you didn't post a link to your blog because of this: http://evilempire.ath.cx/node/88

      (You're welcome)

    40. Re:The excuse I need. by rampant+mac · · Score: 1
      >> "I also see MCE and some Linux solutions. The first is proprietary and the other two require work on my end to have something that both looks decent and might actually work."

      > "So you dismissed the TiVo because it's proprietary and yet would like a DVR from Apple? I seriously doubt whatever Apple releases will be any less proprietary than TiVo..."

      Re-read that first quoted sentence: "I also see MCE and some Linux solutions. The first is proprietary and the other two require work on my end to have something that both looks decent and might actually work."

      He was commenting about MCE being proprietary, not Tivo. Granted, I don't know how Apple could be less proprietary than the MCE solution, but Apple's DRM is fairly easy to strip away.

      --
      I like big butts and I cannot lie.
    41. Re:The excuse I need. by Trigun · · Score: 1

      Thank you, I just had a mini-orgasm. And yes, I can admit it. I'm a blog whore. But I stand by my point, I called this on Oct 19th. I'm motherfucking Kreskin!

      But thanks for the link anyways. I'm like #6 for a google search for vigina, and the only one showing for blondeantelope. I'm 11 out of 349,000 for succeptable. I think that if I ever do go into advertising on my site, my success would be my poor spelling. That, and Slashdot. And the beard.

    42. Re:The excuse I need. by macshit · · Score: 1

      OS X is so damnned good that I've pretty much abandoned Linux after been devoted to it for many years.

      I think it kind of depends on the sort of person you are: if you spend lots of time looking at "folders" and place lots of stuff on the "desktop", and run "apps", then you'll probably love OS/X -- it's made for someone like you.

      But personally everytime I've used OS/X my reaction is "meh"; it's very pretty, and stuff is very smoothly integrated into the GUI, but the whole thing feels wrong, like I'm being forced to wear a formal suit for no good reason. [My reaction to Windows is much the same, except of course it's a lot less pretty, and a lot more clunky.]

      There are good things about GUI environments -- I use Gnome's task bar, it's a reasonably nice way to keep track of multiple windows and have a few widgets -- but the idea that they are some sort of ultimate good for all people seems a bit narrow-minded.

      That's why I view the oft-seen claims that "all the engineering types are moving to OS/X and abandoning linux/bsd/whatever" with a bit of skepticism. No doubt some "engineering types" were just hankering after a really good desktop, and pounced when OS/X came along -- but surely some are like me, and view something like OS/X as well-crafted but pointless (and slightly annoying) bling-bling.

      [What I do use largely comes down to Emacs and firefox. Emacs especially overlaps the functionality of many common GUI apps, but does so in a much more malleable and adaptable way (albeit less pretty).]

      --
      We live, as we dream -- alone....
    43. Re:The excuse I need. by el_womble · · Score: 1

      I guess I should take power into account, $4 a month isn't the real cost (as the environmentalist in me says)...

      The biggest factor (next to economics) for why I've not filled the spare room with PCs is noise pollution. PCs sure are fan happy and external HDDs are noisy too. Thank god for cheap CAT5 cable so that I can run my linux boxes in the basement!

      --
      Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
    44. Re:The excuse I need. by hey! · · Score: 1


      It seems that you are trying to say the whole thing of 'Apples being more expensive' which isn't true at all.

      I was speakig about the 1980s. It was never true even back them -- if you counted the cost of training. But training is not visiible progress.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    45. Re:The excuse I need. by Sandor+at+the+Zoo · · Score: 1
      TivoToGo isn't supported on Macs. :-(

      TiVo's latest statement is "middle of 2006", but I think this is just buying time to keep Mac fans off their back for a while.

      TiVo's hardware is unfortunately stuck in time. I just bought another TiVo (best of bad alternatives), and getting it up and running with a VoIP line was painful. At this point, TiVos should be using MPEG-4 or AVC, support HD content, have cablecard slots, and built-in ethernet and/or wireless.

      Grrrr.

      If Apple comes out with a PVR, I'll give away my TiVos in a heartbeat. (To family -- this isn't an offer to /. readers!)

    46. Re:The excuse I need. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Winners compare their achievments to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.

      Unless you really feel that all others only have one achievement between them, you might want to fix your sig - compare theirs to those of others.

    47. Re:The excuse I need. by dr.badass · · Score: 1

      The big IF is, will they price it for the market or let their ego do the pricing?

      Apple does price for the market, and the market pays.

      When people complain that Apple's products are "overpriced", what they mean is "I don't want it (at that price)". You are part of the market, not the market. Just because you don't want to buy at that price doesn't mean that plenty of other people will. Apple has trouble keeping up with demand for many of it's products as it is. If demand slips over time, as it invariably does with computer products, they will adjust pricing to offer either a new product for the same price or the same product for a lower price. This is completely normal and not, as you say, "ego".

      "Ego" would be assuming that one's individual contribution to demand constitutes that of the whole market.

      --
      Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
  5. Will MythTV run? by drewzhrodague · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I wonder if MythTV will run, or how their software stacks-up against MythTV. I really enjoyed having a Myth in the living room, but it is pretty annoying to make a PC into a set-top, with cables, adaptors, and stuff. Machines built for the set-top are (obviously) more specialized, but generally lack major features (like keyboards, mice, MAME, etc). Maybe I should have picked up a PVR-250 yesterday during the non-sale.

    --
    Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
    1. Re:Will MythTV run? by Pxtl · · Score: 1

      Having seen how OSX measures up to most *nix desktops, I think I'll be using the built-in PVR software. The only reason I'd use MythTV would be to dodge the Apple DRM.

      As an aside, I hope Apple goes with their plan to use a larger HDD. I mean, the unit is much, much smaller than it needs to be - I doubt anyone would complain if their PVR was even as big as a DVD player - and the Mini is obscenely tiny. The payoff in disk space (or price) would be well worth the increase in size.

    2. Re:Will MythTV run? by Eccles · · Score: 1

      There are plenty of stackable Mac Mini add-ons that look pretty nice. I'd rather they keep the base box small for in-car use (or at least have one variant that is car-sized and car-powerable), and allow you to stack storage to the height you desire. Some connection that would allow you to avoid short cables on the back would be nice, though.

      --
      Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
    3. Re:Will MythTV run? by andreMA · · Score: 1
      Two possible solutions to the existing stackables...

      (1) keep the same footprint but make it about an inch or so taller (I think a 3.5" would fit?)

      (2) Give away a plastic adapter with each machine with a larger footprint, resulting in a "step-pyramid" like stacking arrangement.

      The larger capacity, higher performance and lower cost of using non-laptop HDDs is a large positive, IMO, against the small negatives of a slightly larger form factor.

      *shrugs* Then again, (small) size isn't important to me personally in the first place. Silence is, though, and from what I understand the mini is pretty quiet. I'll be replacing my dual G4/500 one day (probably when the second of the 3 36GB internal SCSI disks fails), though I'd probably be more in the market for an iMac. But the Mini would be in the running as a second Mac, I guess.

    4. Re:Will MythTV run? by Eccles · · Score: 1

      The stackables do have 3.5" drives, for example, this one.

      The current Mini could use a slightly faster connection (gigabit ethernet or Firewire 800) but otherwise, it's pretty good upgrade solution.

      --
      Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
    5. Re:Will MythTV run? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have to saw I have used Myth, KnoppMyth and Media center and being a Tivo die hard found them all seriously lacking. Myth is such a pain to setup correctly and get it working if you want it "one button simple" That and the pcHDTV doesn't work all that well. I have to say unless you are a die hard linux fanboy so far linux hasn't put of a decent offering in the PVR space. I am disappointed there isn't something better but it's not even close yet. With that said MythTV has a lot of options but they need to work in the interface, setup wizards, easier card integration and discover and oh yeah a distrobution that works well and doesn't require you know how to compile software.

  6. Apple smacks M$FT around by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Unless Gates pulls something out of his ass soon, Apple will soon be smack M$FT around. Who didnt see this coming? This DVR has been predicted for a while. M$FT had a chance for the DVR play with the Xbox, but instead required people to buy a media center gadget.

    Because of Fairplay DRM ipod will lose it's position as number 1 mp3 player for a long ass time. Since competitors won't be able to make mp players that play songs bought of itunes.

    I hope in the end, the cost of operating systems drops to like $10 or $20 bucks or something. Why can't Microsoft make with billions what Apple makes with millions?

  7. Geeks have been making Linux boxes like this by ylikone · · Score: 1

    Geeks have been making multimedia PVR type Linux boxes like this for the living room for ages now. Nice to see that some brand name is getting in on the game for those of us that don't have time to custom build something.

    --
    Meh.
  8. Apple iProduct. You'll buy it. And you'll like it. by voice_of_all_reason · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Reminds me of the line "What is it? We're not saying yet, but that won't stop you from posting about it on every message board you have access to."

  9. video ipod by aberson · · Score: 5, Insightful

    this is an obvious step... it better be able to sync with a video ipod.

    Seriously, who cares about "Watching their music"

    1. Re:video ipod by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Seriously, who cares about "Watching their music"

      Those of us on acid, naturally.

    2. Re:video ipod by tpgp · · Score: 4, Insightful

      this is an obvious step... it better be able to sync with a video ipod.

      I can guarantee that it will not sync with the video ipod in a useful way (ie transcode TV shows to ipod's low res format)

      Because:

      1) I doubt this thing will be fast enough to transcode a TV show in a timeframe deemed acceptable to Apple's high QA standards.

      2) Revenue sources (why would anyone buy what they can set their shiny new Apple PVR to record?)

      3) Fear of getting sued.

      --
      My pics.
    3. Re:video ipod by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      I'm not too bothered about watching my music, but being able to queue it up from the TV rather than a seperate computer wouldn't be a bad thing.

      I hope it does sync - not that I have any intention of getting a video iPod but that would actually increase it's use value several 100%. However, I can see the various networks blocking such a move - and would undermine the more likely revenue stream of 'iTunes movie store with full-quality video' that will follow getting a set top box out.

      Of course, someone will do it very quickly (as they have with PSP video syncing and ripping DVDs to video iPod) - maybe that's a good enough solution - get the hardware out there and let the community take care of the software problem (and legal issues) - waiting for the networks to get onboard will take too long.

    4. Re:video ipod by Gulthek · · Score: 4, Insightful

      1) I doubt this thing will be fast enough to transcode a TV show in a timeframe deemed acceptable to Apple's high QA standards.

      Apple has a QA standard to tv transcoding? The closest thing I can think of is an iDVD encoding which can take hours on my dual 1.8Ghz. I'm sure that a mac mini can transcode a tv show to low res in less than hours. Hell, even with the hardware that's in the little boxes now shows could almost be transcoded on the fly. How is that not good enough?

      2) Revenue sources (why would anyone buy what they can set their shiny new Apple PVR to record?)

      The same reason people with tivos still buy DVDs, extra content. If you refer to the music store, then I submit that their ultimate goal is to be the content distribution medium for videos and shows that *aren't* on network television. Think of Star Trek: Beyond; now replace Star Trek with New, Brilliantly Written, Made by the Viewer tv show. Such a beast could never hope to reach a market via television unless they were very lucky; but now anyone can make a show and get it on iTunes.

      3) Fear of getting sued.

      Silly. It would be no more than a portable tivo.

    5. Re:video ipod by BarryNorton · · Score: 1

      Like the likely PS3-as-PVR -> PSP link.

      (PSP as a LocationFree client is already confirmed and shipping...)

    6. Re:video ipod by GWTPict · · Score: 1

      If it's decent acid you shouldn't need the video ipod to watch your music :>)

    7. Re:video ipod by Ravnsgaard · · Score: 1

      And i can guarantee that it WILL sync recordings to iPod.
      Transcoding will only be required, if this thing records in in higher resolution, and who said this will be the case?
      Anyway, don't discount the option of hardware encoding. This is already part of many of the existing tuner solutions.

    8. Re:video ipod by utexaspunk · · Score: 1

      It's not going to be a PVR. Apple has no interest in putting tuner cards in their PC's, particularly when they don't work with the digital cable that probably 90% of their target market uses. In order to actually do that, they would have to put a CableCard slot in the Mac Mini, and then negotiate with that. All of it is way too much trouble and would only succeed in getting them more legal hassles and cannibalizing iTunes video sales.

      No, this device will just have TV-out. The idea is that you buy video from the iTunes store and watch it on your TV. Working out deals with the content providers beforehand means you can just sell the video directly to the consumer, commercial-free. It will likely be competing with the Xbox360 and PS3 for this, but Apple has the distinct advantage of being the only company with a serious presence as an online media retailer.

      I think that if Apple really wants to get smart they'd make iTunes work with any MP3 player. Maybe that would screw up their DRM, which would screw up their deals with the industry, but if they could do that they would certainly become the de-facto standard for online media. The iPod doesn't need its exclusivity w/iTunes for people to know it's the best portable music/media player out there, but as long as there are non-iPod mp3 players out there and the iTunes store doesn't support them, there is a market for other content providers. Someday, probably with the takeoff of the PS3, Sony will get their store up and running and Apple will have some serious competition. They have the opportunity to nip that in the bud now, but they have yet to do it.

      And why have the user transcode the video for their iPod? I would think that Apple would offer both versions for download, or even give you both when you purchase a show.

    9. Re:video ipod by Johnny+Mozzarella · · Score: 1

      How hard would it be to have a dedicated hardware MPEG-4 encoding?
      QuickTime Pro already supports capture and encoding to MPEG4 and H264.

    10. Re:video ipod by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 1

      I can guarantee that it will not sync with the video ipod in a useful way (ie transcode TV shows to ipod's low res format)

      My current PVR is running on a an old dual 533Mhz G4 tower that doubles as a general media player, Web Server, File Server, and a few other misc. tasks. It has no problem recording video from firewire, encoding it to other formats, or burning DVDs of said content, all simultaneously. It takes about two minutes to re-encode a 21 minute show (after I remove the the commercials) into a portable format even while recording a new stream and burning a DVD. I don't see why a mac mini would have any problems with this.

      Revenue sources (why would anyone buy what they can set their shiny new Apple PVR to record?)

      Why does anyone buy music from the iTunes store when they can just grab it online or from the radio? The answer is ease of use, selection, and instant gratification. Also, you overestimate Apple's concern about sales via the online store. They are close to break even on it. They make money from hardware sales, the store is an incentive and a strategic move.

      Fear of getting sued.

      Apple gets sued all the time. You think they are worried about lawsuits for replicating the functionality of the VCR? That lawsuit was fought and won long ago. Unless new laws are passed, that is a non-issue. There is some concern about the partnerships Apple has with media producers, but lawsuits are not likely to be a problem.

    11. Re:video ipod by poot_rootbeer · · Score: 1

      I doubt this thing will be fast enough to transcode a TV show in a timeframe deemed acceptable to Apple's high QA standards.

      Maybe it won't have to transcode on docking.

      Maybe it will record video in the iPod's native video format. This would be a BAD idea, though: iPod video maxes out at what, 320x240? That's not going to look good on a 40" plasma TV.

      Maybe it will record video at TV or HDTV resolution, and transcode to a second copy at portable resolution using idle cycles. Most programming would then be ready-to-go when the iPod is docked, but would bump up the CPU and disk requirements of the PVR noticeably, and thus also the price.

      Or maybe it's just a rumor and a true Apple PVR is still a year or more away from reality.

    12. Re:video ipod by LionMage · · Score: 1
      I can guarantee that it will not sync with the video ipod in a useful way (ie transcode TV shows to ipod's low res format)

      This is actually two major assumptions; one, that syncing recorded shows from the DVR onto the video iPod won't actually happen; and two, that synchronization will only go one way.

      What about video content that is purchased through the iTunes Music Store and legally resides on the iPod? If you sync your iPod primarily on a desktop computer (Mac or PC) and then carry your iPod to the living room and plug it into the dock on top of the DVR, shouldn't you expect to view the programs you paid for? They needn't even be copied from the iPod's hard drive to the DVR's; they can be viewed in place, similar to how the Xbox 360 allows you to play music from a plugged-in iPod.

      Then again, a home network would obviate the need to do even this much.

      I doubt this thing will be fast enough to transcode a TV show in a timeframe deemed acceptable to Apple's high QA standards.

      If Apple uses a dual-core Yonah (or whatever the Intel code-name is for the dual-core Pentium M derivative that Apple will be using) or any of Intel's beefier dual-core offerings, I think the transcoding could be done very quickly and efficiently -- especially for SD (standard definition) offerings. HD is another story, but then again, would you really want to cram HD content onto your video iPod?
    13. Re:video ipod by nine-times · · Score: 1
      1) I doubt this thing will be fast enough to transcode a TV show in a timeframe deemed acceptable to Apple's high QA standards.

      Unless the thing has a special chipset in it that drastically improves encoding time. Word is that both ATI and Nvidia are working on hardware h264. In any case, even if you have to leave it for a couple hours, chances are that if you're recording it, you weren't going to watch it for a couple hours anyway. Plus, it'd be a way of dealing with the problem of not having enough video sources for the iPod (since they've only gotten ABC onboard).

      2) Revenue sources (why would anyone buy what they can set their shiny new Apple PVR to record?)

      I bet they aren't making much money from selling shows just like they aren't making much money from selling music. It's about selling hardware (mostly), and if the can sell you extra hardware to replace the content that they're providing only for the marketing gimmick to sell more hardware, all the better.

      3) Fear of getting sued.

      What, like Apple doesn't have lawyers? Making a DVR isn't illegal. They can get the thing thrown out. Anyway, by opening the iTMS in the first place, Apple's already shown they're willing to take a hit on a lawsuit if it improves their business model.

    14. Re:video ipod by chasingporsches · · Score: 1

      their best bet would be to install one of the new H.264 encoder chips in the box.

    15. Re:video ipod by TangoCharlie · · Score: 1

      I for one, I regularly take Ascorbic acid. I can honestly say that I don't want to watch my music. Saying that, I don't watch much TV either. I don't see the point of men wearing dresses, I suppose. I do however watch a fair amount to Tele. Oh, well, that'll be the "acid" taking effect (or is that affect?!).

      --
      return 0; }
    16. Re:video ipod by tpgp · · Score: 1
      1) I doubt this thing will be fast enough to transcode a TV show in a timeframe deemed acceptable to Apple's high QA standards.
      Apple has a QA standard to tv transcoding? **irrellevant hardware comparisons snipped**
      Erm, you haven't ever QAd a product have you? I think Apple probably has QA standards for general waiting times rather then specifics. However, as others have pointed out, they would probably do hardware encoding, so this wouldn't take as long as I thought.

      2) Revenue sources (why would anyone buy what they can set their shiny new Apple PVR to record?)
      The same reason people with tivos still buy DVDs, extra content. **gushing speculation snipped**
      Tivo do not make money selling TV content. Apple plan to. Your analogy breaks down.

      3) Fear of getting sued.
      Silly. It would be no more than a portable tivo.
      Hmmmn, You do realise that NBC have been making noises about suing Tivo (for video Ipod / PSP transcoding) don't you?

      So, I still think that Apple will cripple this PVR (if thats what they're coming out with), but (as I have been corrected) for legal and business reasons, rather then technical ones.
      --
      My pics.
    17. Re:video ipod by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      I'm sure that a mac mini can transcode a tv show to low res in less than hours. Hell, even with the hardware that's in the little boxes now shows could almost be transcoded on the fly. How is that not good enough?

      Apple has always loved multiple file streams - I'm thinking they could have a codec which produces two streams at differing resolutions pretty easily. I don't know much about the actual encoding process, but surely it's possible to optimize and encode both with less overhead than encoding one and then transcoding to the other... In any case, the end result would be a single file which plays at something up to HD resolution from the DVR, and allows the low-res stream to be extracted along with the original audio track for export to a video iPod. They could use the same stream for thumbnailing video's in a menu, or just have a secondary "hint" stream to help a later transcode.

    18. Re:video ipod by Sir_Cockalot · · Score: 1

      We're magnificently fried out here...

    19. Re:video ipod by Val314 · · Score: 1

      according to http://www.chip.de/artikel/c1_artikel_17625421.htm l (sorry german) ATI's X1300, X1600, X1800 have a "Turbo Video Encoder" to encode Videos 5 times the speed then current solutions.

      IMO integrating a X1300 (curenty about 80) should be a possibility for a Mini, so it *could* work.

    20. Re:video ipod by thatguywhoiam · · Score: 1
      I can guarantee that it will not sync with the video ipod in a useful way (ie transcode TV shows to ipod's low res format)

      Oh. Well, that settles it, then.

      (In the fine Slashdot tradition.)

      --
      If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
    21. Re:video ipod by elemental23 · · Score: 1

      Seriously, who cares about "Watching their music"

      I have synaesthesia, you insensitive clod!

      --
      I like my women like my coffee... pale and bitter.
    22. Re:video ipod by altek · · Score: 1

      Are people doing that?? I mean, creating their own shows and distributing them for iPod users? I didn't even know you could podcast video, although it certainly makes sense to be able to. If this does exist already, do you have any suggestions for some good shows to check out?

      --
      THE MAGIC WORDS ARE SQUEAMISH OSSIFRAGE
    23. Re:video ipod by bergeron76 · · Score: 1

      1) I doubt this thing will be fast enough to transcode a TV show in a timeframe deemed acceptable to Apple's high QA standards.

      Ever hear of QuickTime?

      --
      Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
    24. Re:video ipod by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      3) Fear of getting sued.

      Don't you mean the shining?

      Shh boy, Do you want ta get sued?

    25. Re:video ipod by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ever hear of QuickTime?

      Yes. What's your point?

    26. Re:video ipod by dr.badass · · Score: 1

      Are people doing that?? I mean, creating their own shows and distributing them for iPod users?

      Yes. Some talk about Digg. Some of them are robots. And some of them are naked.

      --
      Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
  10. DVR/PVR/HDTV = larger size? by plastiquepenguin · · Score: 1

    After RTFA, my guess is that they'll have to make the enclosure bigger for a 3.5" drive, if indeed they are going the PVR route. My only hope is that there's an option for a HDTV compatible (ATSC) tuner. For Apple to claim innovation for this beastie, plain ole standard-def TV just won't cut it..... my 1c

    --
    The above is all false - as is this sig
    1. Re:DVR/PVR/HDTV = larger size? by nxaccount · · Score: 0

      Take a look at iMovie HD. Apple isn't one for adopting yesterday's standards. They usually create them, or accept the lattest and greatest (Firewire, Blu-Ray DVD, AAC, etc).

    2. Re:DVR/PVR/HDTV = larger size? by Kantara · · Score: 1

      One thing about the current Mac Mini is that its monitor port is a dvi connection, not vga. There are adapters and there is HDMI. That will at least get your HDTV to be the monitor. Along side the H.264 codec, it might just work. Kantara

    3. Re:DVR/PVR/HDTV = larger size? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The part about the 3.5" drive was purely speculation by ThinkSecret, that detail didn't come from their sources.

      3.5" drives are cheap, have high performance, high storage capacity and a low price.
      A PVR typically needs high performance and high capacity, something wich a 2.5" cannot provide.

    4. Re:DVR/PVR/HDTV = larger size? by mmeister · · Score: 1

      Better Yet, support CableCARD(s) and beat Microsoft to the punch (their CC ready MC isn't due until late next year)!!

    5. Re:DVR/PVR/HDTV = larger size? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The current mini has DVI out. The key is to record HD video.

      As for the form factor, I hope for something wider and shallower than the mini. I want to stack it with my amp, DVD player and VCR.

  11. It's good, but... by ian_mackereth · · Score: 5, Funny

    I hate the way that it keeps charging me 99c every time a music track plays in the background... At least it won't have some of the annoying features of Windows Media. I hate it when Clippy appears and says "You seem to be watching pro wrestling. Shall I e-order beer and pizza for you?"

    1. Re:It's good, but... by cmossell · · Score: 5, Funny

      "...Shall I e-order beer and pizza for you?"

      I wish clippy did anything as useful as suggesting beer and pizza.

    2. Re:It's good, but... by Betaman · · Score: 2, Funny

      Or: "Based on vocal patterns and poor video quality you seem to be watching porn. Click here to order more lubricant!"

    3. Re:It's good, but... by shotfeel · · Score: 1

      No, knowing Clippy like I do, I think it would be more like "You seem to be watching porn. Click here to order beer and pizza."

      And don't even think about juxtaposing the two the other direction (I warned you!).

  12. iTunes video sales by rice0067 · · Score: 1

    I'm not sure where this fits in the buisness model with iTunes selling TV shows. While I think it would be nice to have a mini with a tuner, it makes more sense that Apple et al would go with the mini as a digital cable hub. IE.. you download your "on demand" content from either the iTunes store or cable provider so you can watch it on tv, puter or iPod.

    Where this would fit in for me: I don't have or want a TV. I like to DL shows from the internet and watch on my powerbook, on headphones. That might be because I'm a grad student an have about 1hr a week for tv. (so like 2 episodes of lost)

    Anyway I want an intel mini so I can load windows on a small partition for those rare times when I need it.

    1. Re:iTunes video sales by Quevar · · Score: 1

      So, you have choice. They will continue to allow shows to be downloaded and in addition, you'll be able to have a DVR that can record TV shows in a format that you will be able to watch on your PowerBook. It seems like the best of both worlds.....

    2. Re:iTunes video sales by hal2814 · · Score: 1

      GP: "I don't have or want a TV."

      P: "you'll be able to have a DVR that can record TV shows in a format that you will be able to watch on your PowerBook"

      Record from what exactly?

    3. Re:iTunes video sales by mrchaotica · · Score: 1

      Record from the dangling TV cable that's currently not attached to anything?

      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

    4. Re:iTunes video sales by hal2814 · · Score: 1

      Why would you pay for cable or a TV antennae and then not own a TV?

    5. Re:iTunes video sales by mrchaotica · · Score: 1

      Someone who lives in a dorm or apartment or something where cable is included with the rent, or someone who lives in a residence where the previous owner installed an antenna. Besides, even if he doesn't have a cable subscription, he most likely does have coax in his walls. All he'd have to do is start subscribing.

      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

    6. Re:iTunes video sales by rice0067 · · Score: 1

      Thats a whole 'nuther can of worms. I have coax in the room, but RCN is like $80/mo for basic cable and internet (they dont sell internet alone) Comcast was 50, but they couldn't figure out how to install it (because they are stupid). So I have DSL from verizon (without phone service) for $35/month.

      Anyway tv is not worth paying more than a few $ a month anyway.

    7. Re:iTunes video sales by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yet you find time to read, and comment on slashdot..

      Perhaps he's getting his thesis in Slashdot posting?

      If only I had some mod points, I woulda tossed some humor points your way.

  13. MythTV already runs on Mac OS X by JonTurner · · Score: 5, Informative

    The Myth front-end (the part used for viewing) already runs on the Mac. It's the back-end, the part with encodes video streams, that is not yet ported.

    http://www.mythtv.info/moin.cgi/MythOnMacOsx

    1. Re:MythTV already runs on Mac OS X by Tony+Hoyle · · Score: 1

      If you can't encode video streams that basically means that MythTV does *not* run on OSX.

      A PVR without the V.. what is it, a PR?

    2. Re:MythTV already runs on Mac OS X by chrismcdirty · · Score: 1

      No.. it can at least watch videos. So it will remain a PV. What it can't do is record video. So I suggest calling it a PVW(atcher), PVV(iewer), PVD(isplay).

      --
      It's like sex, except I'm having it!
    3. Re:MythTV already runs on Mac OS X by Psykechan · · Score: 1

      It can play back those streams as well as everything else that the Myth front end gives including queueing shows to be recorded, they just have to be actually recorded elsewhere.

    4. Re:MythTV already runs on Mac OS X by bhtooefr · · Score: 1

      Actually, a PVM - Personal Video Manager.

      It's what you get when you put XP MCE on a box without a TV tuner card, not just put MythTV on a Mac.

    5. Re:MythTV already runs on Mac OS X by cbreaker · · Score: 1

      Are you slow?

      He said the front-end, read: VIEWER runs on OSX. So yes, the MythTV Front-end VIEWER does work. With a back-end machine doing the heavy lifting, a MacMini attached to a TV would make a really nice front-end if you ask me. Small, quiet.

      And what the hell do you think the V stands for? For everyone besides you, it stands for Video. It's the "R" that stands for Recorder. So it's more like a PVP, Personal Video Player. Your PR would mean Personal Recorder? Besides, MythTV front-end is more then a player.

      I give up.

      --
      - It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
    6. Re:MythTV already runs on Mac OS X by mrchaotica · · Score: 1

      True, but that just means that it works perfectly to have a central server tower stuck in a closet doing the recording, and Mac Minis next to each TV for the interface.

      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

    7. Re:MythTV already runs on Mac OS X by joelito_pr · · Score: 0

      I'm from Puerto Rico you insensitive clod!!!

    8. Re:MythTV already runs on Mac OS X by mattkime · · Score: 1

      isn't that just a myth?

      --
      Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
    9. Re:MythTV already runs on Mac OS X by commodoresloat · · Score: 1
      it can at least watch videos. So it will remain a PV. What it can't do is record video. So I suggest calling it a PVW(atcher), PVV(iewer), PVD(isplay).

      I have something like this too. I just call it a TV.

  14. Mini-mac PVR by dvdungeon · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm already using my mini-mac as a pvr. Mini-mac, plus eyeTV (via firewire) plus 21" lcd = pvr. It does recording, live pause thingy, editing, plays dvds and music. I use an external 160 usb drive for recording, and can archive to dvd. The eyetv software gets listings from the internet. Not bad for a quite little box. Matt

    --
    oops...
    1. Re:Mini-mac PVR by Golias · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Likewise. The EyeTV 500 is a nice little HD tuner that lets the mini do the work of a PVR, along with all the other usual stuff.

      Since I use a projection system and don't really need my media computer to be teeny-tiny, I'm actually replacing it this week with a refurb G5 tower. The mini is going into my music studio rack as a headless digital audio processor. Versitile little gadgets, those minis.

      --

      Information wants to be anthropomorphized.

    2. Re:Mini-mac PVR by blackmonday · · Score: 1

      I think the killer app will be HD. I checked out the specs on the HD version of the Eye TV, and I was stunned. According to the box, you need a dual G5 as a minimum requirement to play full 1080i.

      If this new box can do HD and remain price competitive, its gonna kick all kinds of ass. Let's face it, standard TV is on the way out. Remember Apple's "Year of HD"?

    3. Re:Mini-mac PVR by JazzCrazed · · Score: 1

      Is it sufficient for HDTV? I had a Mac Mini before, and was so upset by its speed (for the price) that I sold it. I had used it for graphics for a while, before that frustrated me so much that I put it in the living room to play my XviD DVD backups on my TV (via Apple's DVI->s-video adapter). I was using MPlayerOSX, and got skipped frames rather often - not to mention that I could never quite get the refresh just right with the Mini on my TV, so I'd get visible tearing.

      I know it's probably the operating system colliding with drive bandwidth limitations more than anything else. It could also be a software issue - maybe MPlayerOSX isn't the best player to use. But whatever the case, its low ceiling for the $600 I paid for it was not satisfactory. Now I use a similarly priced PC with twice the hard drive (7200 RPM one at that) and RAM in a Shuttle case running an Athlon XP 2000+, a Hauppage PVR-250, and Ubuntu+MythTV. Not as pretty on the outside (though SFFs certainly ain't no beige boxes), but it flies in comparison, and plays my XviD and Vorbis collections just fine. Worth noting that I wasn't doing TV on my Mini, as EyeTV is another $300+; so I can't speak to the performance of TV on Mini (much less, HDTV). But I'd assume that if I had problems playing MPEG-4, pausing/recording live TV can't be much better.

      On the other end of the spectrum, my girlfriend has a dual 2GHz G5 tower (enormously discounted as a bonus from work, for working so much damn overtime) which sits in our bedroom, and runs OS X as it was meant to be run. :) Probably down the road, I'll gift her (me) with an EyeTV and give it a good head-to-head with my Myth setup (ignoring price for a while).

    4. Re:Mini-mac PVR by eheldreth · · Score: 1

      What software are you using for audio processing, A few months ago I bought a PowerMac and went completly digital in my recording. I'm always looking for new toys^H^H^ols to play with.

      --
      The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum. - O'Toole's Corollary
    5. Re:Mini-mac PVR by shotfeel · · Score: 1

      I pretty much do the same with an ancient iMac DV. Not quite as nice as yours and I need to copy stuff over to my "main" computer to archive to DVD. It also has my entire music collection (CDs ripped using Apple Lossless Codec) on a Firewire drive and is hooked up to my stereo. That plus a wireless remote for running iTunes and various video players has served well for quite some time. I've been thinking its time to upgrade it though (no way it can handle HD). Maybe this would be the answer.

    6. Re:Mini-mac PVR by Golias · · Score: 1

      Is it sufficient for HDTV?

      Depends on what you mean by sufficient. The 1.42 mini with 1 GB of RAM did a fine job of playing back the HDTV signal, but did so at 540 lines of resolution instead of 1080 (not a problem for me, since my 720p projection system would automatically be rescaling a 1080i broadcast anyway.)

      It did, however, occasionally drop a frame or two when there was a great deal of motion. For example, when watching the NCAA Finals on CBS last Spring, it would get a little choppy when the camera was panning to follow a fast break from one end of the court to the other. It's a problem which rarely came up, but still an annoyance.

      When playing back media files, I found that it did a SUPERB job of playing back just about anything, if and only if I used a Quicktime-based player for full screen playback, such as EyeTV (or, more recently, iTunes.) Any attempt to play back the same media files with VLC or MPlayer yielded horrible results.

      With the rise of x264 compression, I'm finding it not quite up to snuff. Frame loss becomes more of a factor when you ask that poor little G4 chip do to decompression on the fly like that... which is why I'm migrating to the G5 Tower. (Well, that and the fact that I got a sweetheard deal on a refurb. Were that not the case, I would have probably held out to see how the upcoming Intel-based mini fares.)

      --

      Information wants to be anthropomorphized.

    7. Re:Mini-mac PVR by Golias · · Score: 1

      Well, for hardware I'm using an old MOTO D/A 808 with it, which plugs in to the Firewire port. (I'm building a small mobile rack for the 808 and the mini together.)

      For 90% of what I do, Garage Band actually cuts the mustard really well.

      For live use, I just set all the channels to "monitor" and it's like having a modeling guitar amp (with effects), a bass amp, a vocal preamp, and a mixing board, all in one. I just run the line-outs from the 808 to my PA system, and plug all mics and instruments straight into it.

      For recording, it does everything I need it to do, and is every bit as simple as a multi-track tape deck.

      Were I a big MIDI freak, I'd probably pony up for some of the more high-buck options out there, but so far I'm pretty darn impressed with what GB2 can do for me.

      --

      Information wants to be anthropomorphized.

    8. Re:Mini-mac PVR by Golias · · Score: 1

      Oops... Typo.

      That should be MOTU (and in Mark of the Unicorn), not MOTO.

      --

      Information wants to be anthropomorphized.

    9. Re:Mini-mac PVR by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Elgato stuff is awfully overpriced: the EyeTV 200 (FW) sells for EUR 329 around here. For that price I can buy a stand-alone DVD recorder/PVR with built in 160GB hard disk and skip the Mac altogether.

    10. Re:Mini-mac PVR by David+Nabbit · · Score: 1
      The Elgato stuff is awfully overpriced: the EyeTV 200 (FW) sells for EUR 329 around here. For that price I can buy a stand-alone DVD recorder/PVR with built in 160GB hard disk and skip the Mac altogether.
      It is fairly expensive, but worth it, in my opinion. EyeTV is nice because it doesn't bog down my system while recording, and I can edit out commercials and save clips easily. If a stand-alone unit works better for you, then go with it.
      --
      "Her idea of wit is nothing more than an incisive observation humorously phrased and delivered with impeccable timing."
    11. Re:Mini-mac PVR by jollespm · · Score: 1

      It seems like a great product, but according to documentation doesn't control a digital cable box. That severly limits it's usefulness to me. I'd love to ditch the TIVO and be able to archive shows to DVD, but if it can't record what I want, it won't do much else. If/when there is a solution that will allow control of a digital cable box I'd probably buy one.

    12. Re:Mini-mac PVR by JazzCrazed · · Score: 1

      Thanks for the input... I did sell my Mini already so there's no turning back there, but 1080i would have been good enough for me. I take it the EyeTV reduces the load on the CPU quite a bit (especially the 500 part). Were you doing the whole DVR thing, pausing, rewinding, etc.?

      I will admit that Quicktime was (understandably) good - although 720p QT7 files (H264) was a little skippy. But granted, although the HDTV spec, that's an awfully high resolution, and AVCs like H264 are more processor intensive than any codec to come prior. They were shaky also in the QT7 for Windows (running on an Athlon 64 w/ 1GB PC3200 RAM).

      I experimented with x264, the open source implementation of AVC, for a couple encodes, and was largely satisfied. The resolution was a lot less than 720p - more along the lines of DVD resolution (480p I guess, give or take), but I didn't play around with it that much. I did one full backup with the codec and was astonished on color and detail accuracy at lower bitrates (higher bitrates and the distinctions aren't as significant next to MPEG-4 ASP). But encode times are a bit too much to ask compared to XviD. With time, it'll definitely be my codec of choice. Although post-processing filters in many of the popular open source players can alleviate issues with lesser codecs like XviD.

      One thing I'd be greatly interested in is the Intel factor. G4, as you said, is a major achilles heel of the whole setup; maybe moving to Intel will help encoding/decoding a lot (after all, P4s have held the content-creation benchmark record in Windows over AMD's parts for a long time), and it could prompt a healthy price drop (I don't know how well Apple's premium pricing will hold over when the Intel Mini is compared to similarly-spec'ed $300-400 Dell boxes).

      In the meantime, I'll look into turning our G5 into an HDTV PVR. Never really paid attention to EyeTV, but you piqued my curiosity. :)

    13. Re:Mini-mac PVR by commodoresloat · · Score: 1
      The EyeTV 500 is a nice little HD tuner that lets the mini do the work of a PVR

      Yeah, except it works for shit on a Mac Mini. It needs a lot more firepower because it tries to record huge hdtv streams. I wound up trading down for EyeTV 300.

  15. Apple's move to get video on the ipod by mattyohe · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This makes perfect sense. Now you will be able to have some sort of integration between the DVR app and iTunes to load up your iPod with your saved tv shows...

    But now that I think about it, this would cannibalize iTunes TV show sales... Maybe this is all rumor?

    --
    - what is the definition of simultanagnosia?! I've been meaning to look it up!
    1. Re:Apple's move to get video on the ipod by ryanw · · Score: 1
      But now that I think about it, this would cannibalize iTunes TV show sales... Maybe this is all rumor?
      Well, think about this... maybe steve jobs wasn't able to nail down contracts with anyone other than disney^H^H^H^H^H^HABC. So this is his way to insure the Video iPod will succeed..
    2. Re:Apple's move to get video on the ipod by Ravnsgaard · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Apple couldn't care less. They will make more money on hardware, than on selling tv shows. Short term and long term. -Remember that they are gunning for total iTunes dominance.

    3. Re:Apple's move to get video on the ipod by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 1

      But now that I think about it, this would cannibalize iTunes TV show sales... Maybe this is all rumor?

      Sort of the way the ability to rip CDs and import downloaded songs cannibalizes iTunes music sales? Apple has been using the same model for years, they break even on consumer software and services in order to sell hardware and professional grade software. I don't think they care if users use the iTunes store except in that it leads to iPod and Mac sales and counters an MS file format lock-in on media. That said, I have no idea if this rumor is true or not. I'd welcome it and might even consider it as a replacement or complement to my current PVR solution. More importantly I might very well recommend it as a solution for less technical friends and family who have been looking for a good, easy to use PVR, but don't want to pay a monthly subscription and want all the features I have (DVD archiving, DRM-free files for transfer to other devices, etc.).

      Without the PVR ability such a device simply does not provide the necessary amount of programming, nor is it price competitive.

    4. Re:Apple's move to get video on the ipod by MidKnight · · Score: 1

      The real golden fruit for selling video content via the iTunes Music store is content that you can't really get (easily) from a TV anyway. Movies, specialized content, etc etc.

      Think how easy this would be: buy a movie from the iTunes store, sync your iPod, then shove it into the top of the Mac Mini in your living room. It'd take about as much time as making the microwave popcorn (assuming a decent network connection).

      This sort of possibility makes me wonder if we'll soon see "expirable" video content, so you could rent a movie the same way. Would you pay movie store rental prices to download a movie file that is only good for 5 days? I think most people would. Those expirable DVD's were worthless mainly because there wasn't a good distribution model; having the iTunes Music Store and millions of iPods really changes that story in my mind.

      I don't think we'll see this sort of DRM scheme on music, but it makes a lot of sense for video....

    5. Re:Apple's move to get video on the ipod by Fahrvergnuugen · · Score: 1

      It's called: Video on Demand Want to watch Desperate Housewives, Episode 3 of Season 2? No prob, just navigate through the iTunes music store using your 6 button Apple remote and download it.

      --
      Kiteboarding Gear Mention slashdot and get 10% off!
  16. Perfect.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just what I was waiting for! The perfect tool for my HD-TV..that I still got to buy!

  17. Times Have Changed by PacketScan · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Wow I am very happy with the direction that apple has taken in the past few years. They are truly coming back as a worth while competitor.

  18. Re:Apple iProduct. You'll buy it. And you'll like by greginnj · · Score: 2, Funny


    Yep, it looks like the Apple Product Cycle is operating 100% according to spec on this one.


    --
    "Threads pop up around feature wish lists, favorite colors, and likely retail price points..."

    --
    Read the best of all of Slash: seenonslash.com
  19. Kaleidoscope by derniers · · Score: 5, Informative

    way back when Kaleidoscope was a nifty UI app for OS 9 and the guy who wrote it (Greg Landweber) went to work for Apple

  20. Re:Obligatory......... by steveo777 · · Score: 1
    ... all your Mini are belong to us. ... move along, no Mini's to see here. ... this will SO be the death of the X-Box 360/PS3/Revolution.

    Of course, there's more, but I'm tired.

    --
    This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
  21. Form Factor by Snorklefish · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If Apple wants to be at the center of the A/V world, I suggest they build a machine that can physically sit at the center of a typical A/V ensemble. The mini's size makes sense on a crowded desk. But putting a mini on top of your tower of A/V components looks silly and feels cheap.

    1. Re:Form Factor by griffindj · · Score: 1

      What's your alternative? A mid-sized pc case running mythtv with cords coming out every which way? Or a mid-sized pc case running XP-MCE?

      Personally the white will fit in nicely with my whole sliver/glass component case setup. And maybe with apple's use of black with the ipod nano and ipod and rumors of colors for the shuffle we will see the first Black/Gray/or at least non-white pc built from apple.

      And if that doesn't work...try this

    2. Re:Form Factor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I use a mini on top of a Panasonic SA-XR10. It looks great to me.

      minihdtv blogpot com

    3. Re:Form Factor by frankie · · Score: 1
      What's your alternative? A mid-sized pc case

      No. Snork (et al) is hoping for a Mac DVR in a stereo component form factor, so it can sit directly in the media cabinet, replacing any current PVR and DVD player/burner. A true Mac appliance. Its real-world probability approaches epsilon, but folks still dream.

    4. Re:Form Factor by bigpat · · Score: 1

      No. Snork (et al) is hoping for a Mac DVR in a stereo component form factor

      Go ahead and put it in a large ugly stereo component shell then, it is small enough. Isn't the real problem that all the other stereo components are big and ugly?

    5. Re:Form Factor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, an elegant solution is keeping your PC where it is now and using an X-Box 360 as an extender to the TV.

      Most new PC's are sold with Win MCE 2005 these days. Adding a tuner card is almost trivial. Then an X-Box 360 in the living room that can talk to your MCE PC, out of the box, over your network.

      Your combination of X-Box 360 and Media Center PC will give full DVR capabilities, even HDTV, Killer livingroom gaming, Complete access to your MP3 and Video Collection, and DVD playback.

      The best part is, if you own or buy a 360 and have purchased a PC (even a cheap one) in the past 6 months, chances are, you have everything you need but a TV tuner card.

    6. Re:Form Factor by MarcQuadra · · Score: 1

      Actually,I think a 1.3" tall mini with the footprint of a small stereo component would give you room to have 2 3.5" drives... which would be what you need for a PVR.

      --
      "Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
    7. Re:Form Factor by Empty+Yo · · Score: 1

      I highly disagree. Add a Mac Mini, a couple of extra HDD units made to match from any of a number of manufacturers, then route everything into something classy and small like a Cyrus system. Not all A/V units are big and black.

      --
      I'll tolerate anything except intolerance.
    8. Re:Form Factor by timeOday · · Score: 1
      Isn't the real problem that all the other stereo components are big and ugly?
      That's a matter of preference, but the stereo component form factor has lasted a long time into an era when smaller components are available. Based on that, I don't think most people find stereo components inherently ugly due to their size. I know I don't.

      Besides, if the alternative is a Mac Mini plus an external tuner/compression box plus an external hard drive plus one to three big AC/DC power supplies, it's no contest - the Mini loses for integration and wiring.

    9. Re:Form Factor by jeffgeno · · Score: 1

      Learn a little bit about MCE machines before running them down. There are a wide range of component shaped computers available.

    10. Re:Form Factor by thatguywhoiam · · Score: 1
      If Apple wants to be at the center of the A/V world, I suggest they build a machine that can physically sit at the center of a typical A/V ensemble. The mini's size makes sense on a crowded desk. But putting a mini on top of your tower of A/V components looks silly and feels cheap.

      Just out of curiosity - do you happen to own an Xbox 360? :)

      --
      If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
    11. Re:Form Factor by fusionsquared · · Score: 0

      It doesn't seem like you would need any other AV equipment other than speakers as a mini can take care of it all.

    12. Re:Form Factor by Gilmoure · · Score: 1

      There was an All-in-one Mac TV a few years ago, that was black. Was a 13" screen built into a squarish case with 68040 processor, I think, and built in TV tuner/remote that allowed you to plug in cable and record shows to the hard drive. Never really took off...

      --
      I drank what? -- Socrates
    13. Re:Form Factor by toddestan · · Score: 1

      On the other hand, the Mini is so small that I could easily cram it behind the A/V ensemble (the place where you aren't supposed to put your XBox's power supply), and you would never see it. Of course, that will only work if you don't plan on having to access the optical drive.

  22. sorry guys... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sorry guys, this is nothing but another geek masturbatory fantasy. Cheap, good-enough DVRs from the cable company already beat down Tivo, and now, rather than buy a $200 Tivo, you expect me to pay $500 for a DVR mini? And you expect me to use this on my SDTV? Not everyone has HDTV yet.

    1. Re:sorry guys... by tgibbs · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Sorry guys, this is nothing but another geek masturbatory fantasy. Cheap, good-enough DVRs from the cable company already beat down Tivo, and now, rather than buy a $200 Tivo, you expect me to pay $500 for a DVR mini? And you expect me to use this on my SDTV? Not everyone has HDTV yet.

      If everybody was happy with "good enough" then Apple would have gone out of business years ago. As for HD, I'm seeing rows of cheap ($500-600) HD TVs at Walmart. In a lot of areas, all it takes is a cheap roof antenna or even rabbit ears to bring in perfect HD, so why pay for cable, anyway?

    2. Re:sorry guys... by Jinjuku · · Score: 0

      Uh, programming that isn't available w/ over the air transmission?

    3. Re:sorry guys... by dancpsu · · Score: 2, Informative

      In a lot of areas, all it takes is a cheap roof antenna or even rabbit ears to bring in perfect HD, so why pay for cable, anyway?

      I know quite a few families who have cable only because over the air reception is fuzzy for the local stations. When I tell them that they can get a $200 box at wal-mart that gets crystal clear over the air stations, plus up to 3 extra channels per station built into the signal, they can't believe it. I'm really surprised that there are no commercials on the regular stations for ATSC set-top boxes. The only thing I hear about is satellite and cable. In fact, most people who I talk to believe that HD is *only* available on cable and satellite. I suppose those companies like it that way.

      --
      "Scientists don't change their minds, they just die." -- Max Planck
    4. Re:sorry guys... by tgibbs · · Score: 1

      Uh, programming that isn't available w/ over the air transmission?

      If you are a history channel or comedy channel fanatic, cable is worth it. But a lot of people end up getting cable just to get decent reception of network programming. And once you have a DVR, the problem tends to be finding enough time to watch the stuff you like, not finding good stuff to watch, even if you are limited to the broadcast channels. And a lot of the good cable stuff shows up on DVD pretty quickly, anyway.

  23. I am freaked out... by Walkiry · · Score: 1

    ...by the burst of kaleidoscopic light.

    --
    ---- Take the Space Quiz!
  24. Why build when... by WebGangsta · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Apple should just go ahead and buy TiVo and get it over with.

    TiVo already negotiated the ability to transfer files to the Video iPod, so why not go the next step and put the iPod connector directly on the box itself?

    1. Re:Why build when... by renderhead · · Score: 4, Informative

      TiVo negotiated nothing. They're just incorporating the technology to automatically convert the video they record into a format that the iPod supports (which is completely open - simply MPEG-4 video that fits within certain dimensions). A nice feature, but they didn't require or receive Apple's cooperation.

      --
      I wish that my inferiority complex were as good as yours.

      -RenderHead

    2. Re:Why build when... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They didn't get the content providers permission either - that's why NBC is threatening to sue them...

    3. Re:Why build when... by WebGangsta · · Score: 1

      I think the NBC bit is more about the fact that NBC invested money into TiVo in the beginning than it is about the ability to transfer programs from the TiVo to the iPod/PSP. (Does NBC still hold a bit of ownership? I don't believe so...)

    4. Re:Why build when... by JeffTL · · Score: 1

      And of course, NBC is mostly blowing hot air -- remember that cassette deck manufacturers don't need permission to manufacture and sell their hardware products from every radio network from Westwood 1 on down or every station owner from Clear Channel to the Podunk Public Schools.

      (IANAL)

  25. DVB perhaps? by shippo · · Score: 1

    Maybe it'll only support DVB systems, cutting down on the need to do transcoding on the fly. However Apple will have to adapt to the different DVB standards (DVB-C, DVB-T and DVB-S), as well as offering the various encryption options. They will also have to support the various output connectors used by TV systems in the world, as a composite video connection will not be good enough. There's also differences in some of the DVB implementations - for example the UK uses a different system for text applications than the rest of Europe.

    There's a few DVB-T PVRs available for the UK market, but they're all flawed in one way or another. Mine has a dreadful user interface, and various serious stability problems which randomly prevent it from completing a recording.

    1. Re:DVB perhaps? by Tony+Hoyle · · Score: 1

      I'd kill for something as good as Tivo in the UK (Sky+ is a pale imitation) however DVB-S is probably a non-starter, since Sky will *never* release the details of their encryption to *anyone*.

      HDMI inputs, and the ability to control an STB would do the trick - just like Tivo but ready for HD when it arrives. For SD of course SCART is an absolute necessity (biggest problem with MCE at the moment is it's *very* hard to find capture cards with SCART inputs, so they can't be attached to standard media systems).

    2. Re:DVB perhaps? by frostilicus2 · · Score: 1

      "since Sky will *never* release the details of their encryption to *anyone*"

      This is true, NDS , who are contracted to provide sky with its encryption systems, have never (and most likely will never) release any details in any way regarding any part of the crypto. But, a number of details are known about the encryption scheme as gleaned from patent documents and the such:

      Sky is using the videoguard encryption which (so I am told) uses an industry standard scrambling algorithm called the CSA. (see http://csa.irde.to/). The algorithm is known and if the keys are known, the stream can be (and has been) easily decrypted. This is where the problem lies - the encryption relies not on the complexity of the algorithm or in secure distribution of keys but instead the algorithm used to generate the keys (done by your viewing card), as this is much more suited to a many-to-one service, such as content distribution. The key generation algorithm uses a closed and extremely complex algorithm and although the keys can be intercepted, they are practically impossible to predict. So even if this key generation algorithm was cracked (rumours suggest that in the past it has been) the broadcaster could easily encrypt the streams using a new algorithm and new viewing cards issued quickly, thus preventing free tv to any wanabee hackers.

      --
      Nothing sucks like a Vax, nothing blows like a PowerMac G4
  26. Price cut? by HappyCakeOven · · Score: 2, Informative

    As it stand now the base cost for a Mac mini is $499. Seems a little expensiveif you're only using it for a DVR considering replayTV starts at $179 and TiVo at $199 ($79 and $49 with instant rebates).

    --
    It makes real cupcakes, with a 40 watt bulb, and there's icing packets....but the secret ingredient is love.
    1. Re:Price cut? by dreadlocks · · Score: 1

      actually you can now get a replay 40 hour unit for free after rebate(assuming you get a subscription). You then have to pick a subscription $13/mo or $300/lifetime.

      I've seen Tivo's for free also using the same type arrangement

    2. Re:Price cut? by fir5t+psot! · · Score: 1

      Yes, but if you have a 50-inch plasma hanging on your wall, having something like a Mini hooked in makes perfect sense. I imagine I would enjoy surfing the web even better if I could do it with a wireless mouse and keyboard from the comfort of my couch as opposed to 15 inches from the CRT. The same goes for word processing, crunching numbers, etc. I'm sure there's a downside, but it seems like this setup would be easier on the eyes and back, and I think the added functionality might justify a $500 investment.

      If I just wanted a DVR, I would rent from the cable company.

    3. Re:Price cut? by renderhead · · Score: 1

      I'm hoping for the price cut, too, but there would be added value that the Mac would have over the replayTV. Here are some of the things that I'm positive Apple would include as features that no sub-$400 DVR does:

      1.) Plays DVDs. No need for a separate DVD player.
      2.) Plays and rips CDs
      3.) Stores and plays your digital music library
      4.) Allows both audio and video downloads from the iTunes Music Store (tangent: will they be renaming it to simply the "iTunes Store" in the near future?)
      5.) Sync with the iPod directly

      And then there are the features that it could offer, but might choose to leave out of a simplified DVR:
      5.) Browse the web
      6.) Play games
      7.) Run the full OS X
      8.) Play video downloaded from other sources

      Don't get me wrong. I would kick up my heels for joy if they priced this thing at $300, but it would still be a great value at $500. Plus, if they lowered the price that much, I'd be worried about subscription fees.

      --
      I wish that my inferiority complex were as good as yours.

      -RenderHead

    4. Re:Price cut? by Eccles · · Score: 1

      It's also a DVD player with upconversion. I currently use a PC as my primary DVD player, and VGA out to a projector is sweeeet.

      --
      Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
    5. Re:Price cut? by NardofDoom · · Score: 1

      It's not expensive if you don't have to pay any monthly fees. That's what's keeping me from buying a TiVo. I'd rather spend $500 once than $49 now and $250+ for the life of the machine from a company that could be out of business in a year.

      --
      You have two hands and one brain, so always code twice as much as you think!
    6. Re:Price cut? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I hope the box will support a Freeview tuner as an option - the UK's digital free TV service with 30+ channels. Freeview plus PVR boxes have started appearing this year, and are fast coming down in price. given that in just over 2 years from now analog TV in the UK will start being switched off, Apple should probably sit down and have a bit of a think about this one.
       
      That said, it always amazed me why TiVO never cleaned up the UK market. Instead of sticking around, they bailed on us in 2002 and it took another 2 years before companies cottoned on to makering PVR boxes of any description.

    7. Re:Price cut? by shotfeel · · Score: 1

      Maybe not so expensive if you don't have to pay a subscription.

      Plus, with iTunes and a cable to your stereo, you can have your entire music collection on hand.

      Not to mention having all the other capabilities of a computer (you could actually surf the net and read email using your HDTV).

      And who needs a game console if you have a Mac hooked up to your TV? OK, if you actually wanted to play a real game you might still need to...

    8. Re:Price cut? by Junior+J.+Junior+III · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but does anyone's TiVo allow them to surf the net, run Office, and play games?

      --
      You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
    9. Re:Price cut? by Gorbag · · Score: 1

      If you can afford the 50-inch plasma, the 7.2 surround sound system, and appropriate high quality inputs, you might as well have a rack of G5 servers rendering your own customized movies too. Forget DVR, think the moral equivalent of Avid Nitris.

      --
      -- I speak only for myself
  27. On the Mactel, repartition the drive or by alfredo · · Score: 1

    on a separate drive, put your Windows OS and/or Linux. That way you will have the connectivity you desire and the stability and security of OSX and Linux.

    --
    photosMy Photostream
  28. Yeah, about time.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Because it's not like Microsoft, HP, Dell, Compaq, Toshiba and Sony (and many, many more) haven't been building Windows Media Center Edition PC's and Laptops for the last two and a half years.

  29. In the meantime... by sootman · · Score: 3, Informative

    ...I'm a huge fan of MediaCentral. It does just a few things and does them very well. Amazing that it's just a 0.1 release, unlike CenterStage, which--as neat as it will surely be, someday--has been in development since February and is currently at a semi-functional 0.4. It's also very simple to use. Key features:
    - plays movies
    - plays DVDs
    - plays DVDs ripped to a VIDEO_TS folder and the parent folder name is what shows up in the menu
    It also works with EyeTV products, but I don't have or care about that--being a happy DirecTiVo owner, I was just looking for something that does everything the TiVo doesn't. Works with some ATI remotes, according to the site, and it also works with my $30 Keyspan DMR remote control. Just set '*" to be 'quit' and 'stop' to be 'eject' (in addition to the regular keys--left, right, up, down, enter=middle, space=play/pause, escape=menu) and you're in business. Runs fine on my base (1.25 GHz, 256 MB) Mini.

    --
    Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
  30. Whats Funny Is... by squallbsr · · Score: 1

    I have been thinking this might be what Apple was up to with Front Row or whatever it is called. I even mentioned it on my (pretty boring) blog, for Apple to be hooked to the TV is where they should be. They do media extremely well, so for them not to have a PVR solution would be very odd...

    --
    Sleep: A completely inadequate substitution for Caffeine.
  31. PVR by osewa77 · · Score: 1

    PVRs are the way to go for TV entertainment. If Apple can become the king in this area, they'll make an awful lot of money. ooking forward to it.

    1. Re:PVR by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >ooking forward to it.

      Nice subtle dissin' of monkey-boy Ballmer ;-)

  32. it's funny... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I work at apple and I don't even hear half of these codenames that thinksecret spouts off.. *shrug*

  33. Kaleidoscope "skins" were unreal -- take a look by ianscot · · Score: 5, Informative
    Greg Landweber ascended to the mother ship? Decent example of Apple taking on someone whose main product Jobs didn't really agree with. Steve-o has never much liked the custom "skins" idea, and basically killed it with OS X.

    For those who aren't familiar, the old Kaleidoscope gave you the ability to drop "skins" over the OS 9 finder and OS, to the point where you could go with a complete BeOS or any number of completely outlandish looks and feels.

    Half of the results weren't amazingly useful, exactly, but it was so easy to develop a new scheme that you could easily tinker around and produce yout own flavor. The archive of schemes pretty much says it all.

    --
    "Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
  34. all-important? by frankie · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Really wouldn't say that iPod integration is "all important". It would certainly be a nice touch with elegant Apple style, but the value add is maybe 10 bucks max.

    True DVR capability though... if it has both well-designed, powerful iSoftware AND true plug-n-play hardware, that would make it a serious killer device that launches Macs into millions of living rooms.

    If there really is a Macintel mini next month, most likely they'll release a low-end model comparable to the existing high-end, and a premium version with built-in DVR. Personally I'm not prepared to accept this rumor just yet, but boy would it be a nice birthday present.

    1. Re:all-important? by timeOday · · Score: 4, Interesting
      Really wouldn't say that iPod integration is "all important". It would certainly be a nice touch with elegant Apple style, but the value add is maybe 10 bucks max.
      The iPod is Apple's #1 springboard into content distribution. How much does the value of the high-margin video iPod go up if you can simply drop it on your DVR and automatically get all your selected programming to go, with no further hassle?

      Compared to dedicated products like TiVo, an Apple PVR could have a lot to offer if it is not a closed, locked-down system. Provide a high-quality usable product up-front, but in addition turn the user base loose and see what they come up with. Remember, Apple did not invent podcasting.

      Would an Apple PVR go anywhere Microsoft's media PC hasn't already gone? Since Apple already has content distribution deals with major players like ABC, I'd say it's a possibility. Hardly anybody even knows that Microsoft has its own music-store competitor to iTunes.

    2. Re:all-important? by frankie · · Score: 1

      Which is irrelevantly orthogonal to discussion of a mini built-in dock. If Apple offers that, it could (and should) work exactly the same on standard external docks.

      Eliminating a couple feet of cable and a small piece of plastic is not a big deal.

    3. Re:all-important? by NatasRevol · · Score: 1

      Eliminating a couple feet of cable and a small piece of plastic is not a big deal.

      No kids, eh? Seriously, it is a big deal. My kids will eat, pull or rip anything within their reach, which gets bigger every day.

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
    4. Re:all-important? by Afrosheen · · Score: 1

      A Macintel mini DVR is the worst idea I've ever heard. People are already using the Minis as Mythtv frontends, and with the powerpc they run cool enough and are quiet. However, put an Intel chip into something that size and you've got a nuclear power plant. It's going to be hot and noisy regardless of the Intel chip you use. Unless you use a seriously underclocked Pentium M it's pointless. The P4's are out of the question in this respect. Sure, from the outset it sounds like a good idea, but think about it from a practical standpoint and it suddenly becomes a bad idea. Plus, just how big of a hard drive can you mash into one of these things? Will full size IDE/SATA drives fit or only low profile laptop drives?

    5. Re:all-important? by timeOday · · Score: 1
      Eliminating a couple feet of cable and a small piece of plastic is not a big deal.
      Not in your study, but in an entertainment console it's much more important. (Come to think of it, if Apple does this they should definitely include a wireless keyboard and mouse).

      More importantly, having an integrated dock would give a much clearer impression that these things are just meant for each other and, by golly, if you don't own both you're missing out on the big party.

    6. Re:all-important? by bnenning · · Score: 1

      However, put an Intel chip into something that size and you've got a nuclear power plant.

      Intel is moving away from the P4 toasters. Their roadmap is focused on Pentium-M derivatives, which have much better performance per watt than PPC.

      --
      How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
    7. Re:all-important? by object88 · · Score: 1

      Eliminating a couple feet of cable and a small piece of plastic is not a big deal.

      It's not a big deal to do, but it's a big deal that someone does it. ;) Not to be argumentative, but...

      My home computer desk has a dock for my wife's iPod, a Palm Pilot dock, a loose hanging USB cable for my digital camera, a loose hanging USB cable (different size) plus power cable for my Archos jukebox. Around the pack of the desk there's the wires for all that, plus speakers, lamp, and all the other typical nonsense. Freakin' messy.

      I intend to get a memory card reader for the computer, which will address one USB cable, and I wouldn't mind an iPod to replace my Archos, but it would be really great to connect them to the computer directly. That would just leave the Palm Pilot dock-- tolerable.

      (Of course, this new in-computer dock would have to charge iPods while the computer is off-- or the computer better be dead-silent while on..., reportedly something the Mac Mini is good at?)

    8. Re:all-important? by frankie · · Score: 1
      First, if you had (horror of horrors) read the article you would know that the rumor is a slightly larger mini with a 3.5" HD.

      More importantly, you haven't been paying attention to Intel's timeline. Codename Yonah (65nm dualcore Pentium M with SSE3) is on the way, and it's perfect for the mini.

      Hmm... this rumor is sounding much less implausible than I first thought.
    9. Re:all-important? by The_Rook · · Score: 1

      speaking of a not closed, locked down system, how popular would it be if you could increase the amount of space available for recorded teevee prograsm by just buying a firewire or usb-2 hard drive and plugging it into the main unit? right now, if you want to expand your Tivo storage you have to either buy another Tivo unit (and another Tivo subscription, bleah!) or hack together your own pvr or hack an exisitng Tivo machine (not a popular choice with the technically unaware).

      oh, and here's an idea, pack a couple of game controllers with the Mac Mini. pvr, game console, dvd player, music player all in one with no need to hack together a software solution. it might not be the best at each individual function, but overall it could be a pretty compelling package.

      --
      when religion is no longer the opiate of the masses, governments will resort to real opiates.
    10. Re:all-important? by Afrosheen · · Score: 1

      Timelines and on-the-way can change overnight. Look what happened with Intel being forced to adopt AMD64 instruction sets after their own 64bit chips failed.

        Regardless, a dual core, cooler-running Pentium M derivative would probably be nice as long as the power consumption was low enough.

    11. Re:all-important? by shmlco · · Score: 1
      The mini is, for all intents and purposes, a laptop without a screen and batter. Nor is it the speed demon of the Apple line.

      That being the case, a Pentium M notebook chip would probably do just fine, especially if they included some custom chips so video encoding/decoding could be done in hardware. Add a superdrive so you can read AND write DVDs, support the remote used in the new iMac G5, allow AirPort Express Video streaming, and I think you'd have a hot box... [sic]

      --
      Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
    12. Re:all-important? by pjp6259 · · Score: 1

      Remember, Apple did not invent podcasting.
      Isn't podcasting really just playing a long mp3 of people talking on your iPod? I don't think it took much to 'invent'.

      --
      Computers don't make mistakes. What they do, they do on purpose.
    13. Re:all-important? by Pantheraleo2k3 · · Score: 1

      A wireless keyboard with a usable built-in pointing device would be even nicer.

    14. Re:all-important? by child_of_mercy · · Score: 1

      podcasting is the rss and the podcatchers to automatically bring the long mp3 down onto your ipod, while you sleep, when a new one appears.

      --
      'There is a Light that never goes out.'
    15. Re:all-important? by Hadlock · · Score: 1

      And if you'd read more closely, the rumor is an Apple DVR, with speculation that the rumored product could include a 3.5" hard drive.

      --
      moox. for a new generation.
    16. Re:all-important? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I agree. Once upon a time I had a wireless keyboard with a built-in touchpad, which was *perfect* for a system that I'd set up as a "living room computer". Since then, I can't even find a company that makes one - is anyone aware of one somewhere?

    17. Re:all-important? by Anubis350 · · Score: 1

      and if you get a new pda (eventually) with bluetooth, no need for that dock either...

      --
      "goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
    18. Re:all-important? by henryhbk · · Score: 1

      I think an important item to add is that the case of a mini is useless in a consumer video/audio stack. It would HAVE to be the top item (unless you like precariously balancing other components on your mini). There is a reason that all those components are essentially the same width, and that's that they stack.

    19. Re:all-important? by dr.badass · · Score: 1

      Sure, from the outset it sounds like a good idea, but think about it from a practical standpoint and it suddenly becomes a bad idea.

      Most technical innovation involves taking something impractical and making it practical. This really doesn't sound like anything that a handful of resonably intellegent designers and engineers can't handle. Add to this the probability that they have access to newer 65nm-process chips and it becomes quite plausible.

      --
      Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
    20. Re:all-important? by Kadin2048 · · Score: 1

      closed, locked-down system

      I think if it's from Apple and it's destined for the mass-market consumer, you can pretty safely bet that it will be a hermetically sealed, white box. They might let you upgrade a few things on it, as you can do with the Mac Mini computers, but I think it will be more tightly integrated than them and more like an iPod. You're probably not going to be plugging USB2 drives into the back without some serious hacking, that's for sure.

      Upgradability isn't something that most people think about when they're purchasing an appliance, which is basically what this is. We can argue here whether or not we (speaking as geeks/computer enthusiasts/whatever) care, but the majority of America doesn't seem to. After all, iPods sell like hotcakes and you can't even take out their batteries without a special tool and a soldering iron, and batteries (even rechargeable ones) are consumables.

      Given that the iPod is Apple's biggest success story since probably the Apple ][, I think it's a pretty safe bet that they'll go down the same design path if they decide to do a DVR: Usability, integration, aesthetics, price. Upgradability or extensibility is not one of their goals.

      --
      "Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
    21. Re:all-important? by Clock+Nova · · Score: 1

      Actually, it looks like you already can attach a new drive directly to the back. It's FireWire, though, not USB2. But I don't think that matters. This thing appears to stack pretty nicely with the Mini, meaning expandability shouldn't be a problem, so long as LaCie updates it to mount with future Mini form factors.

      --
      There they were, sitting in the van with all those dials, and the cat was dead. -V. Marchetti, CIA
  35. Probably not exactly a pvr... by Raleel · · Score: 1

    More likely that it won't have a pvr and will just be frontrow on a mini, along with expanded content on the ITMS video selection. I can see an ipod dock. I can see an hd tuner in version 2 of this. Probably not in version 1, because they are still kinda pricey.

    If they _do_ offer pvr functionality, it'll probably be tied to .Mac, enhancing that revenue stream. Assuming this is the case, I can see integrated links in the pvr schedule to "buy this episode now!" from the ITMS, to satisfy that instant gratification thing that apple has pegged. If they don't tie it into .Mac, they are gonna club their own revenue stream. Tie it to .Mac, they can sell it to those of us who are too cheap to pay for that stuff. Inevitably, some open source zealot will code up something to use a free service and automagically import it into the video folder. Most of that is already available.

    If they changed the form factor seriously (I kinda doubt that) they could do a lot more with the hardware (big fast drives, for instance). I kinda doubt that this would happen. They will take the designs that they already have, add IR to the mini so you can use a remote with it, make some software tweaks, take advantage of the faster intel processors, and add a hardware encoder/tuner to the setup and call it an iTheatre (to go with Front Row). Of course, I see now after a google search that there is already a project called iTheatre for a mac mini pvr :)

    --
    -- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
  36. This is interesting... by Fahrvergnuugen · · Score: 4, Informative

    There is software available as part of the Apple FireWire SDK that lets you record MPEG2 streams direct from a firewire enabled cable box. Hmmm....

    Check here, here and here: [use this link: http://machdtvtimer.home.comcast.net/%5D for more info.

    --
    Kiteboarding Gear Mention slashdot and get 10% off!
    1. Re:This is interesting... by Fahrvergnuugen · · Score: 1

      POS slashdot software keeps obliterating the URL. One more try: mac_hdtv_timer.home.comcast.net

      --
      Kiteboarding Gear Mention slashdot and get 10% off!
  37. The famous butt-head astronomer by coinreturn · · Score: 3, Interesting

    When's the last time a code name was also used for the retail product? I can't remember that ever happening. It's a "code name" for a reason - the developers and designers needed something to call it, without the hassle of all of the due diligence and legal work.

    Of course, this being America, you can sue any time you want - including when it's just a codename. That's what Carl Sagan did over the use of Sagan as a codename by Apple. Apple responded by using the codename BHA, which stood prominently for Butt-Head Astronomer.

    1. Re:The famous butt-head astronomer by frankie · · Score: 2, Informative
      In partial defense of Carl, let the record show that Apple was designing three PowerMacs right then:

      1. PM 6100: codename Piltdown Man, famous archaeology hoax
      2. PM 7100: codename Sagan
      3. PM 8100: codename Cold Fusion, overhyped physics flop du jour

      In his place, I'd also be unhappy about the implication of being placed in between those two.
    2. Re:The famous butt-head astronomer by coinreturn · · Score: 4, Insightful

      In partial defense of Carl, let the record show that Apple was designing three PowerMacs right then:

      PM 6100: codename Piltdown Man, famous archaeology hoax
      PM 7100: codename Sagan
      PM 8100: codename Cold Fusion, overhyped physics flop du jour

      In his place, I'd also be unhappy about the implication of being placed in between those two.

      That's one take on things. Another is to note that the PM6100/7100/8100 were the first Macs to be powered by the PowerPC - a major evolution for Macs (first processor family change). Piltdown man was supposed to be the missing link that would revolutionalize the theories of evolution, whereas Cold Fusion was supposed to revolutionalize power generation. Did Carl Sagan revolutionalize physics? Well, he certainly brought it to the masses.

      Still, it was a friggin' internal codename. I'm glad he lost the suit (and the BHA suit).

    3. Re:The famous butt-head astronomer by benbean · · Score: 1

      After the many late nights I've spent sweating over a PM 7100 in a previous life, I'd say it was definitely an insult to associate the man with that horrible thing. Not one of Apple's better designs.

      --
      It's a Unix system - I know this.
    4. Re:The famous butt-head astronomer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All the early PowerMacs were crap. Especially if you are running a 040 68k mac. Some of had those 060 accellerator cards that came out at the same time. They were much faster than the first 601s for most things we actually did. (In PhotoShop, I usually found most of my work faster with the accellerator card, but filters took about twice as long due to slower floating point)

    5. Re:The famous butt-head astronomer by n0mad6 · · Score: 1

      Off course, Sagan proceeded to sue Apple again over the code-name change to BHA (over libel this time). He again lost. Apple changed the codename again anyway, that time to LAW (Lawyers Are Wimps).

    6. Re:The famous butt-head astronomer by coinreturn · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Okay, so the PM7100 wasn't the greatest machine they ever made. You have to admit that their changing to a completely new processor was an amazing accomplishment - fat binaries, 68K emulation/translation. That successful transition is the only thing that makes investors and users believe that the Intel switch is even possible.

    7. Re:The famous butt-head astronomer by Judge_Fire · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Strange.

      We came to appreciate all of our 7100's as the sturdy, reliable ones. Later abominations, such as the 4400, would keep crashing all day while the 7100 just chugged along.

      J

    8. Re:The famous butt-head astronomer by piltdownman84 · · Score: 1

      Watch who you are calling a hoax ;)

    9. Re:The famous butt-head astronomer by mjpaci · · Score: 1

      They were a bitch to work in. I still have scars on my fingers from the sharp edges...

  38. Deal by Tom · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Two years ago, I put my old notebook in the living room as an entertainment center. Since then I've tried MythTV and half a dozen other solutions, but none of them satisfy me (I want DVD, video and music playback, no TV functionality). Today I run mplayer or xine from the commandline, it's the least hassle.

    If this thing actually appears, I have an old notebook for sale.

    No way in hell am I giving M$ the keys to my living room. Linux was tried, but didn't quite work out. I do have confidence in Apple to pull this off. I'm very much looking forward to the Expo.

    --
    Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
  39. Many people waiting for this by olddotter · · Score: 1

    I think there are a large number of people waiting for this product. This might make me buy a second mac mini. I know several freinds thinking of using Mini's as a Myth front end. What I want to see with this is 5.1 audio support on the mini!!

    --
    Think Deeply. ...
    1. Re:Many people waiting for this by askegg · · Score: 1

      If Apple produce a mini with Front Row and HDMI/DVI and digital 5.1 surround I will purchase so fast my credit card will not know what happened. An ipod cradle and DTV would be added bonuses.

      Thge interface is simply elegant and functional. At last I can keep up with my 2 year olds constant requests to put on yet another DVD.

      --
      I don't make predictions, and I never will.
  40. Kool by thecpuguru · · Score: 1

    Then I don't have to wait for TVio or pay their silly fee's to get a Mac DVR!!

  41. Interesting, but by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 1

    If this actually materializes, it'll be interesting to see what other features are included. I love my Mac - but I also love my Tivo. Apple will have to give folks like me a compelling reason to "switch", since it's hard to imagine them significantly improving on the Tivo experience. As a matter of fact, Front Row seems pretty Tivo-like in its operation.

    Having a built-in DVD player might be a selling point for some...

    --
    #DeleteChrome
    1. Re:Interesting, but by Internet+Ronin · · Score: 0

      By simply offering the ability to get your video content from your DVR to your Mac (in this case, the idea is that they are one and the same) is ALREADY a competitive reason to switch from Tivo. I've been toying with the idea of nixing my Tivo in favor of a ReplayTV because frankly, I want to watch some Adult Swim on my PSP when I'm on the bus, and I'm tired of the wait. Getting Tivo files onto a PSP without Windows is like pulling teeth. They've repeatedly told the Mac Faithful, wait, wait, wait, then oops, nothing because it's expensive. Now we get PSP support, MAYBE in the middle of 06? Whatever, I'll wait till after the January Expo to move to ReplayTV, or Apple's new option, assuming it materializes.

    2. Re:Interesting, but by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Apple will have to give folks like me a compelling reason to "switch", since it's hard to imagine them significantly improving on the Tivo experience.

      There is plenty of room for improvement over an non-hacked Tivo, and lets face it, most people will not hack their entertainment center components. Reasons I did not buy a Tivo include lack of DVD burning, lack of the ability to transfer shows to other devices, DRM restrictions, no 30 second skip, and being limited to one provider of scheduling information that charges a monthly fee. Also I prefer an integrated media player that includes ripping of CDs, downloading music and video, DVD and CD playback, VCD playback, etc. The Tivo is a well made PVR, but has a restricted feature set and is no "digital hub." If all my audio and video can reside in one place with easy searching and playback I'll be much happier. As it is I get all the functionality I need from a home made solution but it is not all in one box, took some work to set up properly, and is not one smoothly integrated solution. If Apple can do it right (or anyone else for that matter) they will not only win me as a customer, but also many of my friends and family.

    3. Re:Interesting, but by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've got a Series 1 with Ethernet added, and I use Tivotool to pull shows off to my Mac. It works great, and the wait doesn't really bother me-- I just kick off the transfer and do other stuff while it runs. Dunno what kind of TiVo you've got or what you have to do to the video to get it onto a PSP, but you should definitely check out Tivotool.

    4. Re:Interesting, but by The+Lynxpro · · Score: 1

      "By simply offering the ability to get your video content from your DVR to your Mac (in this case, the idea is that they are one and the same) is ALREADY a competitive reason to switch from Tivo. I've been toying with the idea of nixing my Tivo in favor of a ReplayTV because frankly, I want to watch some Adult Swim on my PSP when I'm on the bus, and I'm tired of the wait. Getting Tivo files onto a PSP without Windows is like pulling teeth. They've repeatedly told the Mac Faithful, wait, wait, wait, then oops, nothing because it's expensive. Now we get PSP support, MAYBE in the middle of 06? Whatever, I'll wait till after the January Expo to move to ReplayTV, or Apple's new option, assuming it materializes."

      It would probably be better for you to pick up a cheap (possibly used?) Windows PC and download the program called *Direct Show Dump* (DSD) which strips the DRM from recorded TiVo files that you transfer over through TiVo-To-Go. From there, you could transcode to get it onto the PSP or iPod (video) without pesky DRM. And in doing so, you wouldn't be forced to "dump" your TiVo in favor of ReplayTV which will only be kept alive until D&M Holdings finds another company to rid themselves of the platform and hopefully make a small profit off the intellectual property just as they did with Rio.

      DSD works great. Would I love to see it and TiVo-To-Go work on OS X? Certainly. But that's not enough of a reason for me to dump TiVo in favor of a platform (ReplayTV) that is well known to bankrupt its owner (Replay, SonicBlue, and waiting on D&M Holdings) and inevitably leads to another round of corporate musical chairs. TiVo's problem is that it is small and doesn't have a large revenue stream (which prevents it from providing great Mac support) since it only has around 3 million customers (most of which are through the DirecTV deal....2 million of 'em). Replay has never attracted anything beyond 200,000 users. Which platform do you think is more solid now?

      --
      "Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
    5. Re:Interesting, but by MachineShedFred · · Score: 1

      Not only would a built-in DVD player be a selling point, but a built-in DVD burner, and a FireWire connection to all those cable boxes the FCC mandates the cable companies need to make available upon customer request.

      In fact, Apple has had a FireWire video stream recording app in their FireWire SDK for over a year now that you could run, and record HD signals straight away. Most HDTV sets have a DVI port on them (mine does, at least), so you've got your video interconnect ready to go as well. Put one and one together, and you've got one hell of a device.

      I'd hope that they would have some form of converter cable to go to component video as well, just so I could use my receiver, but hay.

      --
      Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
    6. Re:Interesting, but by marktoml · · Score: 1

      Most of these are addressed with the Tivo Desktop software and a PC. Granted, there is the odd software bit (like the directshow dump utility) that you have to look up, but nothing major.

    7. Re:Interesting, but by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 1

      Most of these are addressed with the Tivo Desktop software and a PC.

      Gee, great, but that does not help. If I want to set up a solution using a PC and external box, there are easier solutions than a Tivo. No, what I'd buy (for others and maybe for myself) is one box that just does everything needed. Tivo could have been that box, but they sold out their customers to the cable/satellite companies, and I don't blame them. It was good business, but it does not give me, the customer, what I want. I want 30 second skip, CD/DVD/VCD ripping and playback, archive to DVD, and transfer to other devices like laptops, desktops, and handhelds. I want a choice of programming guides, or at least a free programming guide, and I want to be able to download and play audio and video from the internet or my local network. I want to be able to buy that and hand the box, gift wrapped, to by mother, brother, or girlfriend and expect them to be able to plug it in and make it work. I can obtain all the functionality today, but not with a Tivo or any other self contained box. Sorry Tivo just does not cut it.

    8. Re:Interesting, but by David+Rolfe · · Score: 1
      This is kind of a reply to you and to the GP. I'm also thinking I'm going to just start posting it whenever TiVo comes up... This is a post that was rejected at the inception of the TiVo blog.

      This was written November 11, 2005, prior to the 'Tivo on iPod annoucement'. It remains to be seen if 'Tivo on iPod' will require Windows or not; I admit that I haven't checked to see if they actually commit to Tivo2go for iPod on Tiger. Anyway...

      Here's where it isn't: http://blog.tivo.com/tivo_blog/2005/11/team_tivor. html (note that they only want to keep the 'tivo rocks!' comments).
      -----
      Dear Tivo,

      I wish TiVo wasn't so in bed with Microsoft and the Studios, i.e., I wish I could view video on: Mac, iPod, (ironically) other Linux based systems, etc. (Granted, I could get video on an iPod -- possibly illegally due to DMCA -- through unsupported methods. Despite TiVo's developers embracing/exploiting open technologies like Linux and Java, Tivo2Go remains tied to Windows.)

      I wouldn't be surprised if the next series of TiVos gave up on Linux too and just used some form of subsidized Windows Embedded. (ed. note: with the Viiv article, this seems to be the case, haha, how prescient of me.)

      Here's the irony, your early adopters, like me, generally loathe Microsoft... and yet... HMO is unsupported on Linux, Desktop is broken on Tiger (yeah, I'm not going to go without OS upgrades just to watch TV), no TiVo2Go, no video for the new iPods (AND THE LIST GOES ON). I thought you guys were promoting the TV revolution -- TV my way?

      As long as "my way" is tethered to a couch or a Microsoft device.

      It must suck that iPods are about to encompass every function that TiVos do (and Archos' players already do PVR). Here's how it will work in the not too distant future... maybe even before you get the cable-card and HD recorders out:

      Cancel Tivo. Throw out box. Cancel cable. Throw out box. (That's the hard part, all that wiring and talking to customer reps.) Put iPod dock where TiVo used to be (that's the easy part, connect one cable to TV, one cable to PC/Mac/Airport/USB charger). Now, download shows from iTMS. Take iPod in living room, place it in dock. Enjoy commercial free television with elegant user interface right from the couch with comfortable remote.

      There's a good chance that when I'm saving over $100 a month (cable plus TiVo subscription) that I'll maybe even come out ahead buying episodes at $2 a pop! You're killing me! You don't see this?

      Don't even get me started on Front Row and what will happen if/when Apple's mythical PVR/mediacenter comes on scene. You still have the edge while MythTV and El Gato's EyeTV are the other non-Microsoft choices. TiVo is a great value in today's market. Here's hoping that HD and cable-card save you before online-distribution becomes the new model.

      Don't get me wrong -- I love TiVo, I've been pimping it to friends for years now (4? more?). Each time I've upgraded, I've given my old one to someone else who's signed up (and that first series 1 is still dutifully serving a friend of mine). I'm just scared that 'being on the ropes' has made you too timid. This is the time to be pushing the envelope not bowing to the DRM crowd and frustrating your most loyal customers.

      You could be running surveys right on all the TiVo boxes out there right now (maybe in Tivolution with a system mail saying where it is). You could start with this one: Do you have a computer? Do you use Windows? Do you dislike Microsoft? Should the MPAA control how you watch video you've recorded on your TiVo?

      I'd imagine the majority of responses to EACH question will be 'yes'. Yes, most people with computers use Windows, despite that, I'd be surprised if most people love Microsoft for it. I'm sure that no one with a TiVo wants "The Man" telling them what they can do with video on their own devices in their own homes.

      Please seize the day. All of your early adopters will thank you -- we believe in the vision. I don't want to see it compromised for expediency.

      Sincerely,

      David Rolfe
      --
      Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
  42. I am ready to buy my first Mac! by guidryp · · Score: 1

    I was long one of those geeks building my own computers, snorting derisively at the Mac price/power ratio...

    But somewhere along the way my attitude changed and I am looking for something fresh. I am getting tired of sorting out MB conflicts, windows conflicts etc...

    I have also come to the point where the power curve is really flattening. My many years old Athlon is still adequate in power for all my needs. Any PC I buy will likely last me many years now.

    Everything is lining up now and buy a well packaged quiet little box that just works has very much appeal. Moving away from windows at the same time also is very sweet.

    Heck even without PVR functionality I am there. I download most of my TV anyway. Just make sure it has digital Audio output this time. H264 1080p decoding would be nice, but I dont' expect that is likely. Other than that meeting my needs is a no brainer. Hacking a dual boot support for legacy Win2k should be doable as well I imagine. It will make the transition so much easier.

    Really looking forward to this...

    1. Re:I am ready to buy my first Mac! by davebarnes · · Score: 1

      I did.
      I became tired of having to learn about all the different components for the Windows PCs I built.
      So, I decided to let Steve Jobs do my thinking for me. Now, we own 4 Macs and one Windows PC.

      --
      Dave Barnes 9 breweries within walking distance of my house
  43. Finally!!! by keymygrip · · Score: 1

    This is the reason I still own Apple stock. It is only a matter of time before we have a movie and TV version of iTunes.

    1. Re:Finally!!! by Yahweh+Doesn't+Exist · · Score: 1

      the TV version of iTunes is already here for the USA

  44. Chances are by TheSkepticalOptimist · · Score: 0

    Apple will get this wrong on the first try. They have been slow to get into the HTPC market (do mac's even support 5.1 surround sound?) and Steve Jobs has said that PC/TV connectivity is a fad that will never last.

    He also said that more then one button on a mouse is superfluous, and he renegged.

    He also said video on a MP3 player would never take off, and he renegged.

    So, chances are, despite Stevie saying that PC/TV connectivity is a fad, its probably that he just feels nobody has "done it right" yet, and will come out with Apple's version of the PVR in the near future.

    What will really happen is that they will simply tie in iTunes Music Store more intergrated with the Mac Mini and market it as an iTunes media appliance. The "PVR" feature will simply be buying and downloading television shows from the music store. Apple will say they innovated the On-Demand PVR.

    It would not make sense for Apple to suddenly allow their customers to record and playback television from cable when they went to great lengths to form a partnership with ABC to sell television shows for iPod usage. I am sure ABC would not like it if Apple customers could suddenly simply record episodes of Lost and burn their own DVD's as opposed to paying for the episode.

    But, in the end, this may be one of those unfounded Apple rumours. Someone may have got a tidbit of information about the features that might appear in the Mac Mini, and blew it out of proportion. In any regards, Apple is now about 3 years behind in terms of HTPC and I doubt they will get it right on the first try because the company seems to be at odds as to how these things should work.

    --
    I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
  45. Slashdotted by Noelix · · Score: 0

    Aaaaaand we have slashdotted that website to hell...anyone know of a mirror or can post the info?

  46. macintosh was by way2trivial · · Score: 1

    http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macin tosh&story=Bicycle.txt&sortOrder=Sort%20by%20Date& detail=medium>

    read that (and if you'd like to kill some time) and associated links

    --
    every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
  47. Kaleidescape by fisternipply · · Score: 0, Redundant

    There's a company in the movie server business already called Kaleidescape, and they make the coolest DVD server that costs more than your SUV. They'll no doubt defend their name if this thing hits the street as a "Kaleidoscope."

  48. Disappointed by Mac Mini as entertainment center by Cereal+Box · · Score: 5, Insightful
    This may be a little offtopic, but I just wanted to share my disappointment in using the Mac Mini as an entertainment center (didn't even bother with the DVR stuff).

    • Cost -- the Mac Mini is a little expensive. But that's OK, I had originally bought it as a general-purpose desktop, and later decided to it a shot as an entertainment center and having constant problems with my Windows entertainment center.
    • Audio -- the only decent 5.1 audio solutions for the Mini are USB or Firewire hardware from M-Audio. The cheapest one I could find that does proper AC3 passthrough was something like $80-$100, and it was just some cheezy little USB thing! Turtle Beach sells pretty much the same thing for $20, and it works on the Mac, but without the AC3 passthrough (if you're curious, AC3 passthrough works on Windows). Oh, and let's not forget, the M-Audio units require you to do a manual AC3/PCM selection! I.e., you can't just go from listening to MP3s to 5.1 sound when watching a movie unless you manually change the output format. Geez.
    • Video -- the DVI connection works great on my HDTV. Unfortunately, I have to shell out $20 for a program that will allow me to set the Mini's display resolution to 1280x768 (the TVs native resolution). VGA is not an option, because my TV will do image realignment every time I switch back to the VGA input, and if I'm watching 4:3 pillarboxed material, the image will be shifted quite a bit to the left.
    • Remotes -- The only IR remote I could find was the crappy Keyspan remote. That thing has only like 20 buttons! You've really got to get creative if you want this thing to control your entertainment center. And before you ask, I can't use the ATI Remote Wonder because it's an RF remote, and I want to use my IR universal remote to control the Mini.
    • Software -- By far the worst offender. CenterStage just plain didn't work with my ripped DVDs (a series of VIDEO_TS folders on a share). Matinee didn't seem to work either. I wasn't going to bother with MythTV (way too much hassle on OS X). There really is a stunning lack of passable frontend software for the Mac. It's a shame, really.


    These are all the problems I ran into, and I can't imagine how much trouble it would've been getting emulators to work in addition to movies/music (none of the frontends seemed to support emulators).

    So to all those that think the Mac Mini is a good entertainment center choice, I say think again! It's really expensive, the software is terrible, and the hardware issues are a real pain. You know what I did recently? Spent far less money on an XBox and put XBMC on it. It works just the way I expect it to, and with a lot less hassle!
  49. Predictions for the Apple Mini HD: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Apple Mini HD:
    Available in iPod Nano Candy Black.
    5.1 Sound with Optical In/Out.
    Smaller HDMI HDTV In/Out Connectors replaces DVI connector.
    (Adapter cables available for other video cable formats)
    Yes, slightly bigger Harddrive.
    New HD Transcoding Chipset on the MoBo
    Boosted graphics chipset for gaming.
    Similar Price range.
    Bluetooth / RF Remote Control
    iPod Dock
    Same form factor.

    There is no reason to price them like TiVos, the Mini HDs
    can do a lot more than TiVos.
      (DVR + Internet + Games + Programs + MS-Office + iLife + iWork)

    Now, if only they could Run PlayStation2, Gameboy, and original XBox emulation at fast speeds, they really will take off.

    XBox 360 and Playstation 3 are aiming to replace the Home computer with the home entertainment console (games/music/sales/searches/video/etc.), afterall, having a multiCPU-Cell driven box opens up a lot of opportunities.

    The race is on to dominate the living rooms of the World!
    (Moo ha ha ha ha !!!)

  50. Mac mini done better by wootest · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm not at all terribly into the DVR aspects of the new Mac mini. It's nice, but there are plenty of other things to get more excited about.

    First... An Intel Mac mini means a sub-$500 computer that runs OS X and Windows. Steve Jobs quipped during the launch of the first Mac mini that they wanted to price it so that "people who are, you know, thinking of switching, will have no more excuses". With this they won't even need to keep their own PC - assuming the storage is plentiful and drivers available, they can transfer over all old files from their PC and keep their old environment truckin' in addition to working in OS X.

    Speaking of storage. Think Secret's report notices that a 3.5" HD might be in the cards (instead of the current 2.5") which would, even after adding bulk to the relatively small machine, be a good move as it would allow for more storage and cheaper drives. The most spacious 2.5" drives Apple offer today are 120GB for the Powerbook and only 100GB on the mini - the smallest 3.5" Apple will let you get away with on the iMac is a 160GB drive.

    While we're dreaming, I hope Apple will make Superdrive (DVD+-RW and Dual Layer) standard, and add Gigabit Ethernet, an extra USB port or two and certainly an extra RAM slot.

    1. Re:Mac mini done better by IntergalacticWalrus · · Score: 1

      "Think Secret's report notices that a 3.5" HD might be in the cards (instead of the current 2.5") which would, even after adding bulk to the relatively small machine, be a good move as it would allow for more storage and cheaper drives."

      And don't forget performance. The 4300RPM 2.5" drives in the current Mac Minis are ridiculously slow. That alone makes the mini an uninteresting deal to me. (Sure you can plug in an external drive, but they don't give an option to order a mini sans internal drive.)

  51. "TiVo killer?" I'm bored already... by dpbsmith · · Score: 1

    ...I don't think I can recall a single example of any product that was billed as an "X killer" that was even interesting, let alone "killed" X.

    My first recollection of such a billing was the IBM 4341 "VAX killer" although I'm sure those sales types that always speak in military and athletic analogies had been using it for decades.

    Whenever something is positioned as an "X killer" it never seems as if X needs to worry much.

    --

    "How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!

  52. Why do people buy from iTMS? by Johnny+Mozzarella · · Score: 3, Insightful

    People can get music on their iPods for free. Why would anybody buy from iTMS?
    Once Apple has millions of these in living rooms, there will be a much larger potential audience for paid video content.
    Not a lot of people are buying iTunes TV shows because not a lot of people have a Digital Home Theater.

    1. Re:Why do people buy from iTMS? by Mike+Peel · · Score: 1

      But Apple doesn't ship macs capable of out-the-box radio recording, which is what a DVR is to video.

    2. Re:Why do people buy from iTMS? by wembley · · Score: 1

      Not a lot of people are buying iTunes TV shows because not a lot of people have a Digital Home Theater.

      Not a lot of people with "Digital Home Theaters" would buy 320x240 resolution content to play on their HDTVs.

      The iTunes TV shows as currently formatted are aimed heavily at the video iPod.

      --

      Share and Enjoy!

    3. Re:Why do people buy from iTMS? by Johnny+Mozzarella · · Score: 1

      The content is currently sized for the iPod video but that is not Apple's real goal.
      The iPod is primarily a music player and probably always will be.
      Apples iPod videos are a test balloon to see how interested consumers are and wake up the MPAA.

      Eventually Apple wants to take over your living room and sell/rent you HD video.
      But first they have to create the infrastructure.

      First, Apple will starts selling a Home Theater Mac capable of playing HD.
      Then they will launch a NetFlix like service to rent HiDef Movies.
      Instead of shipping you a DVD, the Mac will download a HiDef movie a la BitTorrent.
      Apple will be renting HD while NetFlix and BlockBuster wait for BluRay.

  53. If it had some decent games . . . by indytx · · Score: 1

    could I get rid of my Xbox? Standardized hardware is what makes console gaming so attractive. Apple standarizes hardware. This one box could satisfy the needs of LOTS of people in an attractive, small form factor.

    --
    Make love, not reality television.
  54. Not going to happen. Apple wants no part of DVR. by jocknerd · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Apple is too close with Hollywood. Cable and Satellite companies own the DVR market from here on out. Unless Apple and them agree on a way to extract the recordings off the cable box, it just won't happen. Apple knows this.

    Apple will make a Mac mini running an Intel chip that will be a media player though. It will connect to your television and stereo. It will show photos, play music, and play videos that are on the computer. But it won't record television broadcasts.

  55. Re:Uhhh, what are you on? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Ok, we'll take this slow since you obviously weren't paying attention the first time.

    The idea that Apple doesn't `price products for the market' is completely idiotic. Sure there is a price premium compared to beige boxes. Apple decided (probably correctly) a long time ago they couldn't compete in that market, so they don't.

    Following?

    So they sell products with (sometimes not much, many macs aren't really expensive) a premium based on the idea that enough consumers will believe they are providing enough extras to make it worth while. Your 2500 mac `performing' the same as a 1000 pc is incorrect, although there is a performance gap on some metrics, but it really doesn't matter. For some of apples market, price really isn't the point and you can't buy a pc for *any* money that will perform as well (also note, there aren't any equivalently equipped pc's and macs. period.). Failing to understand this is naive, similar to believing the point of view of random slashdot readers is likely to be relevent to most computer users (it isn't. you care a lot about things that they don't care about at all) . If they are decently profitable, they are doing this correctly.

    Still following?

    Apple doesn't care about the slashdot market. They really don't care about anybody who would rather save a few bucks building their own machine.

    Repeat after me: they don't care, because that isn't their market. And they are perfectly correct in doing this.

    Apple isn't trying to eat the market share of cheap pc manufactureres. They can't. They are trying to stay in (and grow) a profitable niche. Whether or not they can pull it off long term is an interesting question.

    Comments about comparing mac prices with generic pc's and intimating that you understand marketing better than apple just make you look naive or stupid.

  56. Re:Apple iProduct. You'll buy it. And you'll like by bloodstains · · Score: 1

    I've always felt it should be called the iCon instead.

  57. DRM? by Mr.+Cancelled · · Score: 1

    I have a home built PVR, which is getting a bit old (aprox. 4+ years), but it still does the job. The reason I built my own versus buying a Tivo, or some other pre-built system, is that I don't want the big media companies, and the setup manufacturer to start restricting what I can do with my content.

    Has anyone heard anything about the DRM potential for this rumored machine? Based on how Apple's restricted their technologies in the past (can't record in 16 bit on ipods, max. video resolution for ipod video is very low, can't retrieve songs from ipod using iTunes, etc) to appease the various media company paranoia's, I worry that this may also be hindered by kiss-ass restrictions and limitations. Anyone heard otherwise?

  58. What about games? by bigpat · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You hook up a couple USB or bluetooth game controllers and you have yourself the best looking game console around. Maybe not as its main feature, but there are plenty of games out for OSX to make a Mac Mini a versatile PVR, game console, DVD player/recorder and living room PC.

    The key would be not to limit functionality to make it feel too much like a special purpose device, but to have a simple button to switch the software from one mode to the other. Maybe just have a remote like a multipurpose remote, with buttons on the top for switching between different modes, and a cool ipod like menu wheel. That would be pretty slick.

  59. makes sense, but... by penguin-collective · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The Mac Mini makes sense as a PVR, from its form factor and appearance. But, as someone who has been trying to use it for just that purpose, I have to say: they need to do something about performance, both of the hardware and of OS X itself. It's not just that the system needs MPEG hardware encoding/decoding, they also need to make OS X less of a resource hog (or ship with 1G of memory), need to make the screen rendering more efficient, and fix a lot of other performance issues. None of that matters much on a big Macintosh, but on these little machines, it is an issue.

    As it is, I use my Mac Mini for DVD playback and as a jukebox; as a PVR, it's not all that usable in its current form.

  60. How about the Xbox? by kapowaz · · Score: 0, Redundant

    When's the last time a code name was also used for the retail product? I can't remember that ever happening.

    How about the Xbox? That name was in wide circulation way before any details surrounding the actual hardware were known, and eventually Microsoft just decided to use the codename.

    1. Re:How about the Xbox? by Krach42 · · Score: 1

      This is correct... Microsoft was using X-Box as a codename internally, until they had hyped it so much as X-Box, that they decided to change the name would be a bad idea.

      They had to buy a license to use the name, too, because someone else already had X-Box. So they got an agreement on it, and went forward.

      --

      I am unamerican, and proud of it!
  61. It's all about the content... by BoraSport · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Disclaimer... I am an Apple zealot. I have tasted the Koolaid and it was good.

    The new iMac with the built in camera, remote, and Front Row was interesting. It was tied to the iTunes music store and created (either by accident or design) the largest iPod on the planet, complete with 20inch LCD if desired. If we apply the remote technology and Front Row from the iMac to the Mini we can in effect turn it into a giant iPod dock.

    With the new video iPod we can already perform almost everything we can do in Front Row on a TV by just connecting the iPod. To be really interesting the Mini will need to tap into a greater source of content. It is the content that is the key to any PVR/DVR solution IMO. Comcast manages their content through OnDemand, Tivo was wildly successful because it taped into a huge content store, starting with over the air, then moving to satellite. Unless the Mini can at a minimum support the content I already pay for (digital cable in my case) then I'm really not interested.

    There is another post here talking about connecting to digital cable through the firewire connection on the cable box. That would be the least desirable method, but even that would be enough for me to make the purchase. HOWEVER, this firewire connection must be native to the product, not a hack. Ideally I would like to see a cablecard slot in the Mini but that is because I pay for cable. I'm not sure what the best solution is for the folks out there that are using satellite.

    My prediction is that the new features of the Mini will tap into a Apple managed content pool, the iTunes store. The launch of this device will coincide with the launch of a much larger video content pool on iTunes, and, if we're lucky, the ability to rip your DVD's to the mini.

    Ripping DVD's creates its own set of headaches on the Mini. Even with a switch to 3.5 inch hard drives there would still only be room for 1 drive in the system. Even if that drive were a 500gb SATA monster my DVD collection would not fit on the drive. My hope is that Apple will recognize this and let the Mini be the engine or brain allowing me to access a much larger NAS storage solution. I don't want to have to stack external firewire drives next to my Mini in the entertainment center.

    This type of separation is a week spot already in the iTunes library. I keep all my music on a NAS appliance at home so that my wife and I can access it at the same time with out a server. When I add new music to the NAS appliance I have to go to my wife's machine and add the new folder to her library. My hope is that a new media center focused Mini could solve this issue by allowing our computers to access the Mini as a server for all of our content, music, video, etc. But if the Mini is limited to internal storage it really won't be able to keep up with the volume of content.

    PVR/DVR solutions don't really have this problem because by design, you never own the content. It is assumed that the content on these drives would be overwritten over time. Apple on the other hand sells their content through the iTunes store so it is expected that the user would keep their content because they own it. It is the balance between these two sales models that needs to be addressed, prior to releasing any PVR/DVR functions on a new Mini.

  62. Area man by sadida_333 · · Score: 1

    Wow, you sound cool. Do you know this guy?

    1. Re:Area man by tomhudson · · Score: 1

      Actually, I don't usually go around telling people to stop watching TV, because most of the time the subject doesn't come up. But I do have friends who have "taken the pledge", in the sense that they hardly ever watch the tube either. And I have others who are hooked on it. Its pretty lame when they have to interrupt a phone conversation because they're going to miss part of a rerun of that craptacious Star Trek/TNG or Babylon 5. (I could understand if it was Red Dwarf or the new Dr. Who or Les Bougon :-)

  63. Re:Disappointed by Mac Mini as entertainment cente by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What OS release are you using. One of the new features in Tiger was USB AC3 generic passthrough support. I use the M-Audio devices without a driver, when an AC3 stream starts it mutes the PCM channel, and when the AC3 stops it unmutes it.

    I imagine it works with all the generic adapters (most use chips for a few companies, I looked at buying a chip from TI, building a board that plugged into the internal modem slot, and then buying a TOSLink PHY and replacing the RJ11 jack, but that ended up being too much work ;-)

  64. Think of what you are saying man! by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    Apple is too close with Hollywood. Cable and Satellite companies own the DVR market from here on out.

    So you are saying Apple is too close with the CONTENT PROVIDERS to get CONTENT?

    Why do you need to get anything of cable boxes at all if people can just download shows directly after they are aired? Why does that not make tons more sense than the stupid "show is only availiable in this brief window" that we have today?

    The broadcast model is what is doomed. Eventually, just because it makes more sense (and more money for content providers!) everything will be on-demand.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Think of what you are saying man! by jocknerd · · Score: 1

      So you are saying Apple is too close with the CONTENT PROVIDERS to get CONTENT?

      No, what I'm saying is the content providers hate TiVo and DVR in general. Apple won't do anything to hurt their feelings.

      I totally agree with you that broadcast television is ultimately doomed. On demand is the future. The question is how will we get on demand. Will it be streamed? Or will we download it and view it at our convenience.

    2. Re:Think of what you are saying man! by @madeus · · Score: 1

      I totally agree with you that broadcast television is ultimately doomed. On demand is the future. The question is how will we get on demand. Will it be streamed? Or will we download it and view it at our convenience.

      Actually broadcast is not doomed, not for at least the next 20 years or so while people adjust to having more 'on demand' content and while bandwith at the local loop level is still an issue. Think of trying to stream different - non multicasted - HD quality streams to millions of households at the same time or even just a few thousand at a single exchange point - ouch, that's some serious bandwith (and at 1-1 contention as users won't put up with anything less for TV). Sure you can store copes of the movies at the local POP to reduce load on the core network, but even then your still going to get quite a few users pulling down unique content you don't have cached.

      The answer to your question is a mixture of both.

      People will love being able to not be tied so closely to TV schedules just to see shows they like (and just stream them when they get home), but they will also want to be able to just sit back and relax and be entertained when they turn on the TV - and of course still be able to catch their favourite shows as soon as they air (and so still providing a valuable revenue stream to the media companies - and a great way to promote new shows, as they do now). Certainly rolling specialist channels - such as news, music, cartoon, comedy, history (etc.) - are likely to remain popular, and if they exist it's likely that premier channels that exist today will also remain - though lesser channels may well disappear, unless they find that operating costs drop sufficently to allow them to stay viable.

      A lot of content (for popular shows, movies) is likley to be preloaded locally on your PVR - providers like Sky (prop. J. Murdoch) already reserve a large portion of HD space on their Sky+ TiVo-esque Satellite units in order to allow 'instant on' activation of pay-per-view movies. They have also been publically discussing their plans to cache and save hit shows automatically, not unlike TiVo suggestions. Their HD units (which are demoing now, and are expected to start shipping Q1/Q2 next year) have Ethernet ports too, and there are no prizes for guessing why that might be (and in fact, the High Definition capable X-Box 360 is already download movies and games, including HD movies, and can do on demand delivery and billing via your X-Box Live account).

  65. Re:Disappointed by Mac Mini as entertainment cente by Cereal+Box · · Score: 1

    Well, that's the first I've heard of Tiger having generic AC3 passthrough support (I use Tiger BTW). I never went ahead and bought one of those USB audio devices because of the cost and the fact that I couldn't find any comments online stating that AC3 worked without significant hassle.

    At any rate, the audio thing is the least of my worries :).

  66. Re:Disappointed by Mac Mini as entertainment cente by ElectroBot · · Score: 5, Informative

    Audio -- the only decent 5.1 audio solutions for the Mini are USB or Firewire hardware from M-Audio. The cheapest one I could find that does proper AC3 passthrough was something like $80-$100, and it was just some cheezy little USB thing!

    Last year I bought myself a Creative Soundblaster MP3+ (paid around $42 US then, its $36 now with FREE ship). The device works great with my iBook G4 and provides me with 1/8", 2 RCA, and OPTICAL inputs and outputs. When connected to the iBook it doesn't require any drivers and all the outputs are recognized under Mac OS X 10.3 and 10.4.

    Here's the link to the Creative Sounblaster MP3+ on Amazon.com:
    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000095IMS/102-14 60630-4949731?v=glance&n=172282&n=507846&s=electro nics&v=glance

  67. Moderators, WTF??? by coinreturn · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Apple loves stealing names. Look at what they did to "Apple Records" and "McIntosh Audio" (which they still print a disclaimer about in all their documentation).

    That's modded as informative?? That's troll/flamebait if I've ever seen it. I seriously doubt Apple goes looking for names to steal - they do not like all the legal attention. Apple Records sued Apple Computer simply because it saw a chance to gain some revenue. Why don't they sue AppleOne Employment http://appleone.com/? At the very least, they should be suing Bad Apple Records, Big Apple Records, Black Apple Records, Crab Apple Records, Mountain Apple Records, Screaming Apple Records, and Zapple Records, or the very least the City of New York for use of "The Big Apple."

    1. Re:Moderators, WTF??? by d34thm0nk3y · · Score: 1

      Well, at the time the Mac was the system for audio enthusiasts. I believe it was the first system to ship with a sound card even. So there was a bit of "confusing" market overlap. Apple settled the case so there is no way to know how the courts would have ruled. The terms of the settlement did require Apple to stay out of the music business, not sure why they haven't followed up due to iTunes...

  68. 4 way battle now. 360 v PS3 v Revolution v Mini by monkeyGrease · · Score: 1

    I'd favor the Mini in the long haul. Hardware is not a single locked spec, but important APIs are (roughly). The HD is not 'optional'. The dev environment is no additional charge (XCode), so a true indy game/app ecosystem can thrive.

    Sure, the 'consoles' will initially be superior in graphics muscle, but that will wane. By 2009 the Settop Minis will eclipse the locked-hw-spec aging consoles in power. The underfunded hardcore gamers can justify a 360 or PS3, but not many others. Well funded hardcore gamers are already on PCs, and will remain there. Even the Radeon 9200 of the current Mini can deliver for them just fine at PAL/NTSC resolutions. By the time casuals are moving wholesale to HD, the Minis will have GPUs to match.

    And as a state-of-games data point: Civ 4 will be out on OSX before the PS3 is even out.

    The real killer is, duh, the iPod. Look around at the gym or mall...those are almost all iPods around people's waists and necks. Teen comes home. Plops down in front of TV with bag of chips. Opens MTV, iTunes, and an IM client (and the bag of chips). Nirvana.

    Keys to settop mini success vs. the consoles:
    Price Point -- comparable to 360 and PS3
    Wireless Keyboard with integrated mouse (to support that teen workflow).
    iPod dock (not so much for practicality as for advertising 'hey look, this is what this new mini is for')

  69. Weak article, all speculation. by tji · · Score: 3, Informative

    We all know how reliable Think Secret is with there "inside info". This looks like another case of ass-talking.

    Some of their quotes from this article just seemed silly.. "It is similarly unknown whether Apple will scrap the 2.5-inch hard drive currently featured in the Mac mini in favor a standard 3.5-inch hard drive". WTF? Have they seen a Mac Mini? A 3.5" drive would require a completely new, much larger, case. Also, 3.5" drives account for 10W+ more power/heat, which is a no-go in the tiny confines of the Mac Mini.

    Ever since the x86 announcement, people have been speculating that the Mini would be one of the first to go Intel. I don't see this.. Even the Pentium-M processors can't go as low in power/heat as the PowerPC G4's. The extremely small space of the Mini tells me that it would be the last to go x86, not the first.

    1. Re:Weak article, all speculation. by argent · · Score: 1

      WTF? Have they seen a Mac Mini? A 3.5" drive would require a completely new, much larger, case.

      Did yuo read the article? They already brought that point up. The small size of the mini is a crippling bottleneck all round, it really NEEDS to be bigger just from the standpoint of cooling.

    2. Re:Weak article, all speculation. by tji · · Score: 1

      The small size is half the point. It is called Mini, after all. There is nothing crippled about it, it is quiet, compact and powerful enough for anything but gaming.

      With my Mini, using external firewire drives and/or network drives is more than sufficient. I definitely would not want to trade off the small size, low power, low heat, and low noise of the current design just to have more internal storage.

    3. Re:Weak article, all speculation. by argent · · Score: 1

      The small size is half the point. It is called Mini, after all.

      It could be twice the size and it would still be half the size of any competitive device, so even if your odd devotion to the dubious value of a trademarked name was an issue, it would remain mini.

      With my Mini, using external firewire drives and/or network drives is more than sufficient.

      Without an external drive disk performance is poor enough to be noticable even in everyday use, and once you add an external drive the resulting accumulation of parts is far less mini and far less convenient than a single slightly larger device would be... and it would still have a video port the runs under spec, and a USB port that's only within spec by treating the mini as an unpowered device, and a GPU that's inadequate to support Quartz Extreme 2d, or even fully support Quartz Extreme on a large monitor. And to keep it quiet I can't even stretch it to its limits... just browsing some web pages is enough to turn the fan to high... it would actually be quieter if it were larger and better cooled. All these restrictions are part of the cost of that small design and the tight power restrictions that go along with it.

      It's not inadequate, no, but adding not even twice but just half again the height would have allowed it to be easily twice the computer, so it's a crippled version of what it could have been.

  70. Re:Disappointed by Mac Mini as entertainment cente by wembley · · Score: 1
    A good list of things to address in the PVR Mini. However:

    • Cost -- It's an Apple; they cost more, we know it. I feel you're paying for quality and integration, YMMV.
    • Audio/Video -- I agree this is an issue. I will not replace my TiVo with something that doesn't do HD and surround sound. Apple's not known for shipping with these features, as of now. However, this is the sort of thing a purpose-built media center should include.
    • Remotes -- Pretty much solved, in the new iMac. I don't doubt the Media Mini will ship with either the same or improved.
    • Software -- Not at all worried about this. If they intend it as a PVR, it'll ship with PVR software. Apple has a pretty good history of bundling media apps for areas they are pushing.
    --

    Share and Enjoy!

  71. Re:4 way battle now. 360 v PS3 v Revolution v Mini by monkeyGrease · · Score: 1

    Oops, the 'good enough on PAL/NTSC' was meant for casual, not hardcore, gamers. I did not write that clear enough.

  72. Re:Disappointed by Mac Mini as entertainment cente by Cereal+Box · · Score: 1

    You don't understand. I'm not talking about simply getting a single out of an optical connection. That's no problem. The problem I was having was getting AC3 (I.e., DD 5.1) sound passed over the optical connection.

  73. why pay for cable, anyway? by brokeninside · · Score: 1

    Because (1) not everyone lives in an area that has good reception and (2) not all cable content is broadcast over air.

  74. You Forgot Cable by simpl3x · · Score: 1

    Imagine when people who pay for both DSL and cable television are confronted with the possibility of purchasing shows ala carte. $40 dollars for cable? or 20 programs/movies delivered as desired for $2 each.

    There's another shake up coming to compete with the cable shakedown. There is also the option of new distribution channels and new forms of entertainment...

  75. Re:Not going to happen. Apple wants no part of DVR by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's funny because there's a firewire port on the back of my digital cable box. Out of curiousity, I
    plugged in into my mac and my mac recognized the device and even records the shows off it. I can set
    it up to record shows and watch it on the train on the way to work. Go fig.

  76. minor nitpick (OT) by Achoi77 · · Score: 1
    Tiger's codename was "Merlot", named after the wine.

    Merlot is a grape. :-P (sorry for the nerd attack)

    1. Re:minor nitpick (OT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, it's also a varietal.

  77. Cisco + Apple by mabeesman · · Score: 1

    Cisco just bought Scientific Atlanta, probably the #1 maker of set top boxes. Wireless G setop to Mini anyone?

  78. it better have a decent hard drive by pash0902 · · Score: 1

    This sounds like a great product, syncing with ipod & front row will definitely make it part of my home entertainment solution, but for it to be a media center, it needs to have a decent hard drive, 40/80 GB will not cut it! dont want and external harddrive clinging to my "PVR"

  79. waht no projector by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    need a built in SVGA projector. Geeeaaaah boooy

  80. Re:Disappointed by Mac Mini as entertainment cente by reg · · Score: 1

    Cost - Hasn't stopped the iPod...

    Audio - The new PowerMacs and PowerBooks ship with 5.1, so expect it in the next mini. It's an obvious addition.

    Video - No experience with a Mac Mini and HDTV, but seems like a bug/missing feature in OS X... If it can be done, then it'll be done.

    Remote - Of course the new mini will support the Apple remote.

    Software - I suspect that we'll find Kalidascope is really the name of the video software, not the code name for the new Mini.

    My predicitons are that there won't be PVR software. Apple are only just starting to experiment with video distribution. If iTMS is the model they want to follow, then I suspect that they will sick to distributing the content themselves, or letting you import content that you 'own'.

    My prediction for this release will be a Mini, very similar to the current one, but with 5.1 sound, an integrated dock and the remote. They might up the HDD size... More storage is always better. It will not have a TV tuner. But, I think that they'll also launch an Apple branded HDTV projector - Apple are getting good traction in the laptop market, and a projector will serve them well on both the mobile and home fronts. They have enough experience with displays, but no experience with TV, so I think they'll go the projector route rather than the flat screen TV.

    Regards,
    -Jeremy

  81. Re:Disappointed by Mac Mini as entertainment cente by rjung2k · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This may be a little offtopic, but I just wanted to share my disappointment in using the Mac Mini as an entertainment center

    Considering the current incarnation of the MacMini isn't advertised, promoted, or intended to be a media center-style PC, why are you disappointed?

    --

    --R.J.
    Electric-Escape.net

  82. but the most important question... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't see the most important question of all answered or even discussed anywhere: Will it be available in black?

    And if they want to call it a PVR, can they please make it 17" wide like all other "real" hifi or video equipment?

  83. Re:Disappointed by Mac Mini as entertainment cente by nathanh · · Score: 1
    So to all those that think the Mac Mini is a good entertainment center choice, I say think again! It's really expensive, the software is terrible, and the hardware issues are a real pain. You know what I did recently? Spent far less money on an XBox and put XBMC on it. It works just the way I expect it to, and with a lot less hassle!

    Amen to all your points. I started with the Xbox running XBMC. It works perfectly with my infrared universal remote. It has 5.1 audio and decent video. The MythTV frontend on Xbox is tricky to setup but works brilliantly once you get past that hurdle (Xebian, Lirc and Mythfrontend). I bought a Mac mini and decided to test it out as a potential replacement, with disappointing results. No remote. No 5.1 audio. Video is inferior (fuzzy, washed out, even with calibration). Video playback in the Mac Mythfrontend is choppy if you scale the video (eg, zoomed 16:9). I thought the Xbox was loud but the mini gives it a run for the money (it's normally quiet but the mini's fan kicks in pretty quickly when you're playing video).

    I'm not unhappy with the mini because I bought it for other reasons. Also the mini is nifty for having VLC and iTunes on the main hifi system. But overall, an Xbox with XBMC is a far better choice for a video/audio media centre.

  84. Bigger footprint means more room inside for stuff by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If they make it as wide and as deep as the average home entertainment electronics, they can probably enclose the power supply in the box instead of the external brick, and put in two full-size hard drives to store content instead of the laptop-size hard drive that isn't really rated for 24/7/365 operation (I replaced the stock 2.5" HDD in my mini with one that was better suited for continuous long term use.)

  85. Re:Disappointed by Mac Mini as entertainment cente by Empty+Yo · · Score: 1
    I echo your complaints, but will add to them ...

    DVI is already disappearing from TVs I see sold at electronics retailers in favour of HDMI. I know there is an adaptor to convert DVI to HDMI, but if what you want is top-notch video quality, then some kludgy adaptor isn't going to give it to you. I'm also afraid that with the shift to HDMI, that an independent audio cable (Toslink or SPDIF) will disappear, making it more difficult to wire up systems exactly the way you might wish to.

    What I would like to see is HDMI plus an optical output for 5.1, enabling me to run audio and video to the TV for general viewing, but also allowing me to run surround sound to a receiver for when I want the extra oomph over the TV speakers.

    --
    I'll tolerate anything except intolerance.
  86. Re:Disappointed by Mac Mini as entertainment cente by sootman · · Score: 1

    "Software -- By far the worst offender. CenterStage just plain didn't work with my ripped DVDs (a series of VIDEO_TS folders on a share)."

    Check out MediaCentral. It'll play VIDEO_TS folders, though I haven't played with it enough to see if it works with (or can be tricked into working with--i.e., aliases?) files on a share. I've only had it for a couple weeks--hell, it's only been out a month and it's at 0.1--but it's already way better than the does-everything-and-will-be-great-someday CenterStage. It's great so far and I think it has a lot of potential. The Mini is not for everyone, but it's great for me--I don't have (or care much about) 5.1, I'm using a projector instead of a widescreen plasma, and my TiVo handles TV duties.

    --
    Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
  87. Re:Disappointed by Mac Mini as entertainment cente by ElectroBot · · Score: 1

    The Soundblaster MP3+ does do 2.1 (RCA outputs) and 5.1 (optical outputs) although the only place I found this information was in the Quick Start pamphlet and in a review on http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/10/27/creative_s oundblaster_mp3/ (second last paragraph).

  88. Re:Disappointed by Mac Mini as entertainment cente by Cereal+Box · · Score: 1

    You're correct, but there is a sizable "Mac Mini HTPC" online community, for whatever reason. I was just commenting on all of that.

  89. Because FW iPods EOLed by Steve+Cowan · · Score: 1

    Another reason they may have scrapped the iPod dock: The Mini's circuit board puts FireWire connectivity where a dock would have been likely. While the Mini was in development, Apple's iPod group was probably deciding that future iPods (Shuffle, Nano, Video) would be USB-only. When the Mac Mini design group was showing off their product in devlopment, somebody from the iPod group likely stood up and said "um, you're going to hate us for this, but..."

    (my speculation)

  90. Re:Disappointed by Mac Mini as entertainment cente by tranquillity · · Score: 1
    Software -- By far the worst offender. CenterStage just plain didn't work with my ripped DVDs (a series of VIDEO_TS folders on a share). Matinee didn't seem to work either. I wasn't going to bother with MythTV (way too much hassle on OS X). There really is a stunning lack of passable frontend software for the Mac. It's a shame, really.
    The latest version of VLC plays these VIDEO_TS folders without any problems.
  91. XBox 360 by Bones3D_mac · · Score: 1

    Could part of this sudden rush at Apple, as described by Think Secret, be in response to the XBox 360? As it is, the 360 is currently the closest thing to Apple's ideal behind the "digital hub".

    The 360 software seems to accept almost any device you can throw at it. I imagine with a large external USB 2.0 drive connected to it, one could easily store their entire dvd collection on it and play it back using the 360 itself.

    Also, the new XBox Live Marketplace could easily be made into the next iTunes Music Store, offering both music and tv shows on demand for a small price. Obviously bandwidth isn't an issue for Microsoft, since they already allow free downloads of game demos to the 360... many of which weigh in at 500MB-1GB in size.

    I think we've only seen the surface of the 360's overall capabilities so far. The next year or so should be very interesting.

    --


    8==8 Bones 8==8
    1. Re:XBox 360 by Hitchcock_Blonde · · Score: 0

      Really? I hear the 360 crashes left and right. Guess they better get that fixed before they even attempt to take on the iPod/iTMS

      Besides, how many people actually believe that MS is capable of delivering anything near as good as the iPod/iTMS experience?

      --
      Karma Schmarma
  92. Re:Disappointed by Mac Mini as entertainment cente by askegg · · Score: 1

    Those "kludgy adaptors" are nothing but pin to pin converters. HDMI uses DVI for video transmission - the two use exactly the same specification.

    --
    I don't make predictions, and I never will.
  93. Re:Disappointed by Mac Mini as entertainment cente by Tim+Browse · · Score: 1
    Remote - Of course the new mini will support the Apple remote.

    The OP was moaning that the only remote he could get 'only' had 20 buttons. iirc, the Apple remote has 6 buttons (a fact Mr Jobs was crowing about at the launch). How happy do you think the OP will be with only 6 buttons?

  94. I would buy it by Jozer99 · · Score: 1

    I would buy it. A cheap media center PC? Who cares if Windows doesn't come installed, if the mac software sucks, then I can install Windows XP MCE. It would have to have a 3.5" drive, not a wimpy 2.5" drive, but if they are using a Pentium M, they can probably get away with a smaller motherboard and cooling. Sure, it wouldn't be that fast, but it would be killer to have a real computer, wimpy or not (at least by todays standards) in my AV cabinet.

  95. OMG Its Pippin! by thedbp · · Score: 1

    Finally! Years after Bandai bungled the project, Apple's Pippin is finally going to see the light of day!

  96. Reason for code name Kaleidoscope revealed... by Wonderkid · · Score: 1

    ...slashdot readers may or may not be aware but about a year ago, some Mac blogs and news pages reported that Apple had filed a patent for a device casing that used embedded (LED?) illumination to alter the perceived colo(u)r of the device. This would possibly provide a chameleon effect to help the device blend in with it's intended environment. After all, not everyone will want a metal / silver / white chunk of technology in their living room. Similar to those nice Philips flat panel TVs, the casing could glow with white in a modern white painted apartment, glow yellow in a room with slightly warmer lighting, green for those with no taste whatsoever and red in the lurrrve den. (I jest, but am dead serious, no one ever gets it totally right with what Apple has up their sleeves, and it's rarely just a minor aesthetic upgrade to a previous product, but as per the iPod Nano, totally ground breaking. Cue the digital hub that not only AUTOMATICALLY changes colo(u)r to blend in with it's surroundings but flashes to it's iTunes too.

    --

    O'WONDERWe're working on it.

    1. Re:Reason for code name Kaleidoscope revealed... by frostilicus2 · · Score: 1

      Here's a link to the patent application , and here's an overview from MacNN (note that the link posted by MacNN appears to be invalid).

      --
      Nothing sucks like a Vax, nothing blows like a PowerMac G4
  97. Sad and lonely by Goldarn · · Score: 1

    See my other posts.

    Saw them, but you keep repeating them. Kind of like advertising.

    Your whole argument falls down, though, when someone realizes that all ads are not created equal. A 30-second ad is much different than "Oh, hey, he's driving a Corvette!" in a product placement.

    Seeing a large number of food items on a TV show probably doesn't make you run to the fridge any more than a large number of cars makes you run to a car dealer. The fridge is just closer. If the characters enter a library, do you suddenly find the urge to grab a book?

    The plain fact is, your argument is ridiculous. My opinion is that someone who sits there and counts the number of "recognizable" products in a TV show should seek professional help. And I don't mean professional counting help.

    1. Re:Sad and lonely by tomhudson · · Score: 1

      Your whole argument falls down, though, when someone realizes that all ads are not created equal. A 30-second ad is much different than "Oh, hey, he's driving a Corvette!" in a product placement.
      the product placement is much MORE effective. You don't recognize its an ad. Just look at the M&Ms fiasco with ET. They were kicking themselves in the butt for years after turning down that product placement opportunity. Hershey agreed to spend a million bucks promoting the movie in return. Deals have become a lot more commonplace, and a lot more lucrative, since. To the point where pepsi paid to have a coke can digitally replaced with a pepsi can in one movie (they were offered the opportunity after filming was over, and agreed to pay the bullion)

      The advertisers don't think the arguments are ridiculous They spend billions every year. Remember, money talks, bullshit walks. To say that the argument is ridiculous, when there is study after study that shows otherwise, is the bullshit part.

      My opinion is that someone who sits there and counts the number of "recognizable" products in a TV show should seek professional help. And I don't mean professional counting help.
      Again, you don't get it. People are paid by the advertisers to audit these product placements. Sometimes, the results also get passed to outsiders, either through a friendly leak, a piece of pr, or court documents, or other means.

      Product placement is real, its here, and its the biggie. It makes the 30-second spot look old-fashioned, tired, washed-up. That you don't see it that way is a true testimonial to its effectiveness.

  98. Cost of subscription services vs. DVD's by @madeus · · Score: 1

    If you are a history channel or comedy channel fanatic, cable is worth it. But a lot of people end up getting cable just to get decent reception of network programming.

    I don't know anyone who would get cable for things like the history or comedy channels, which are usually included even in the most basic channel packages as filler. I don't think you understand why people actually get cable. 'Better reception' is not even statistically close to what people put down as their primary reason. The reason people get cable is for the programming on channels like HBO, FX, SKY, STAR and misc. movie and music channels.

    And a lot of the good cable stuff shows up on DVD pretty quickly, anyway.

    Sure, at 30-40 USD for a single series of a given show (that they may never have seen a single episode of), that tends to put people off though.

    To compare costs:

    Let's say you have a somewhat generous cable package, at 40 USD a month (so you can include HBO and a few extra packages), that's going to cost you 480 USD a year. That may seem like a lot, right?

    Your average American says they watch about 4 hours a day, the same as most western Europeans. That's an average that includes people who don't have any cable or satellite TV at all (and those who don't own a TV, or who almost never watch it). Obviously amoung people who care enough to get cable, it's going to be higher than average.

    Most people who have something like HBO/FX/SKY tend to watch them primarily, but just assuming even only some of that is cable and only half of that is stuff they'd actually care to watch (the rest being adverts or 'junk' they are only watching 'because it's on'), that's still 2 hours a day, or 730 hours of TV a year worth of decent TV. Two, maybe three, decent shows a night is probably about an accurate figure for that I'd say (less on some weekdays maybe, but then more at weekends or on specific nights).

    Given a show run length of 45 minutes (even though in reality most have episodes of only 30 minutes) and a standard 24 episodes per season at the average cost of 30-40 USD per season box set, your looking at 1400 USD or more in series DVD's a year for a similar amount of programmin (and that's being reasonably generous to the DVD model).

    Of course if you watch an hour or less of TV a day, because like most /.'ers you spend more time on the computer, or if through some bizzare fluke of nature you actually have a family, and so watch about 75% less TV than the national average, then DVD's could well be more cost effective and more convenient. It's scary how much TV most people watch though (and that's without a PVR...).

    1. Re:Cost of subscription services vs. DVD's by tgibbs · · Score: 1

      I don't know anyone who would get cable for things like the history or comedy channels, which are usually included even in the most basic channel packages as filler.

      Your circle of acquaintances is clearly limited. I've known a number of people who never watched any cable-only channel other than the History Channel and Weather Channel.

      I don't know anyone who would get cable for things like the history or comedy channels, which are usually included even in the most basic channel packages as filler. I don't think you understand why people actually get cable. 'Better reception' is not even statistically close to what people put down as their primary reason. The reason people get cable is for the programming on channels like HBO, FX, SKY, STAR and misc. movie and music channels.

      I also know quite a few people who have only basic cable and watch local network channels almost exclusively.

      Given a show run length of 45 minutes (even though in reality most have episodes of only 30 minutes) and a standard 24 episodes per season at the average cost of 30-40 USD per season box set, your looking at 1400 USD or more in series DVD's a year for a similar amount of programmin (and that's being reasonably generous to the DVD model).

      Many dvd rental stores and services offer a monthly plan. For example, Netflix's premium (3 disks out at a time, unlimited number of disks per month) plan is $18/month. Cheaper plans are available for those who watch less, but even this premium plan is much cheaper than a cable subscription with premium channels. Blockbusters offers a similar deal, both for mail and walk-in customers. And of course you get all the extras on the DVDs, if you are into that.

    2. Re:Cost of subscription services vs. DVD's by @madeus · · Score: 1

      Your circle of acquaintances is clearly limited. I've known a number of people who never watched any cable-only channel other than the History Channel and Weather Channel.

      That's a fallacy, in the same way it is when you hear people say they only have a computer to "help with the family accounts" / "help the kids with their home work" or that they only get Playboy "for the articles".

      I also know quite a few people who have only basic cable and watch local network channels almost exclusively.

      Sure you do!

  99. Re:Disappointed by Mac Mini as entertainment cente by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As the owner of a Sound Blaster MP3+ on a Mac, I also have to say that I don't know if it does AC3 passthrough. I doubt it would, actually. Sure, 5.1 optical out... where Mac OS X resamples the output to 2-channel, or something like that.

  100. Quid pro quo by mjpaci · · Score: 1

    You're welcome. Go read the comment I left posted at the parent-parent's link...

  101. No, he wasn't... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "The first..." referred to Tivo, "...and the other two require work on my end..." referred to MCE and Linux solutions.

  102. Yonah is already in production by frankie · · Score: 1

    Anand says: By now we've hopefully stressed the importance of Yonah, and there's just one more detail to mention - we have one.

  103. Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    bbsos@humboldt.edu

  104. Re:Disappointed by Mac Mini as entertainment cente by rjung2k · · Score: 1

    Sure, but there's also a sizable community of folks who want to turn Honda Civics into tricked-up street machines. Yet I wouldn't expect to go to my Honda dealer, buy a Civic, and then go blow the doors off my neighbor's 'vette.

    I'd like to see a Mac Mini HTPC myself, but if the do-it-yourself solutions don't cut it yet, the blame isn't with Apple.

    --

    --R.J.
    Electric-Escape.net

  105. two words by John+Harrison · · Score: 1

    hardware encoder

    Do you think that Tivo puts a big fat general purpose CPU in its boxes to encode content? No, they have an application specific processor for it.

    --
    Lasers Controlled Games!
  106. errata, oops by David+Rolfe · · Score: 1

    Sorry, I made a typo, the letter was originally sent November first, not the eleventh.

    --
    Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
  107. Interesting.... by commodoresloat · · Score: 1
    I am currently in the process of building a MythTV box...

    Funny how everyone who mentions this is "currently in the process of building a mythTV box"... never do I hear "I'm currently watching football and pr0n on my MythTV box". Is mythTV really a plot to make people stop watching TV?

    1. Re:Interesting.... by glennrrr · · Score: 1

      I watch football on my MythTV box and have done so for months (also various dramas, the odd comedy, and even standard definition reality shows). Setting it up was Linux hell, but now it's done and works semi-well. I can sit here in my cubicle and schedule recordings with the MythWeb (Apache hosted) interface.
      Don't know how you'd watch much pr0n on a MythTV, it generally records only free OTA programming.

  108. MacMini versus MythTV by glennrrr · · Score: 1

    As someone with both a G4 based Mac, and setup a Linux based MythTV, I can say that Macs and Linux boxes have their strengths and weaknesses as PVR platforms.

    Linux Box strengths:
    * NVidia driver support for decoding MPEG-2 streams on the video card.
    * Cheap hardware


    Linux Box weaknesses:
    * Unbelievable setup complications (I'm talking days of setup time).
    * GUI limited to what can be done in Qt.


    Mac strengths:
    * Devices "just work" (if they work at all). Comparing the time it takes to setup an EyeTV 500 to a MythTV, we are literally talking two orders of magnitude less setup time.
    * Potential for much more attractive GUI elements from CoreImage and Quartz. (Beautiful transparent onscreen controls, vectored display elements, etc.)

    Mac weaknesses:
    * PowerBooks, iBooks, and MacMini's do not have the horsepower to display full screen, full framerate HDTV. My 1.33 GHz Powerbook G4 can do maybe 2 frames a second running MythFrontend for Mac OS X. It can do significantly better running EyeTV, but still not good enough.
    * Portables and MacMini have too small a hard drive for serious PVR use.


    Notice the Mac weaknesses are probably going to be solved in the next 2-6 months, (and you could use a Firewire hard drive right now anyway), so the MythTV community's challenge is to match EyeTV's (or any Apple PVR) ease of setup.

  109. AMD Trouncing Intel by meehawl · · Score: 1

    P4s have held the content-creation benchmark record in Windows over AMD's parts for a long time

    Em, no, at least, not now.

    --

    Da Blog
  110. ot:Re:Plus an iPod dock by David+Rolfe · · Score: 1

    It's no big deal, I'm just saying.

    The poster that thought a dockless iPod would be "teh awesome" would be more educated from your post than my snarky comment about how sucky dockless iPods would be :-D (it's likely that in replying to me he/she won't ever see your addition to the discussion). That's why I was saying that you should have replied directly (you know, just as a suggestion).

    Well, that's my justification anyhow.

    --
    Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.