Mini Me - The New Mac Mini is All About Movies

PBS ^ | 1/20/2005 | By Robert X. Cringely

[Swordmaker]

HMMMMM.

Even though I have a Mac G5, I was thinking of buying a Mac Mini to use with my new 26" LCD HDTV I got for our bedroom which is being remodeled to use as a DVD player and for computing from bed.

[Swordmaker]

Mac Mini PING!

iFlicks anyone?

If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, please Freepmail me.

[jalisco555]

Interesting take. I've been wondering exactly what the market for the mini was. I went to the Apple store yesterday because my 15 year old wants a computer for school work (it will definitely be a Mac of some type). We looked at the mini and it was cute and all but after figuring in the specs he needed and adding a cheap flat-panel monitor and keyboard I asked myself "Why not spend a bit more and get an IBook?". That way he'll have portability and we have a home wireless network. Haven't actually made the purchase yet but I think the IBook will be the way to go for him. I wonder how many others will make the same assessment?

[aviator]

Two years ago, my (then) 15 year old bought an ibook. They have been inseparable. Good move.

[jalisco555]

Two years ago, my (then) 15 year old bought an ibook. They have been inseparable. Good move.

Thanks. I bought a Powerbook almost two years ago and I've never regretted it. My wife calls it my baby.

[mental]

THAT's when we'll get the real story on what this thing is for.



I don't download music or movies. I'll be using one to trade stocks online. It should pay for itself in about two minutes.

[BunnySlippers]

Robert X. Cringely is always fun to read.

[CheneyChick]

Interesting ideas. He could be on to something....

[tubebender]

I wondered if the Mini was some gateway to a iPod type video recorder so Apple could sell movies ala iTunes. Too bad my 20" Sharp Aquos on my desk is not HD...

[avg_freeper]

Check out the series "Plane Crazy" with Cringely. You watch a man over the course of just a few days go certifiably insane. He's obviously a smart guy. Just doesn't handle pressure that well.

[JerseyHighlander]

South Korean and some Scandinavian cities are the only residential broadband last mile networks capable of transmitting (as in streaming) any HD movie over the net. Americans and the rest of the world have to download it first.

The layout of last mile broadband capable of this in the US is a niche super-high-end developer market, catered to by miniscule niche players like Eagle Broadband Inc.

We're talking ~5GB of data for each hour of HD-DVD video, and ~5GB for each 45 minutes of Blu video. That is a longer time then driving to Blockbuster and much longer than video on demand. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy HD-DVD would fill the Mac Mini's harddrive.

Apple would need to develop a proprietary distributed media network like Valve's Steam to make it work.

Possible. One heck of a project, and one where Walmart Blockbuster and Netflix are already investing.

It will come down to the film studio's anti-piracy lobbyists and lawyers.

[IncPen]

I think that with their new compression schemes Apple is betting on the internet delivery, beating TiVo, and becoming a content provider...

[BunnySlippers]

Check out the series "Plane Crazy" with Cringely.

A movie, TV series, book ...?

[avg_freeper]

It was a TV show on PBS about seven years ago. You should be able to rent it somewhere. You can kind of think of it as a forerunner to all these build it in time "Monster" shows on TLC. But everything went horribly, horribly wrong.

Cringley, who I guess was also an avid pilot and kit plane hobbyist, decided to design, build, and fly an aircraft in under 30 days. From drawing diagrams on a piece of paper to taking off in a month and PBS filmed every aspect of the project.

He took a few risks in his preliminary design that caused complications on down the line. In the end he had a complete breakdown.

I think it was shown in the UK too and was a big hit.

[Mr. K]

do you make a living doing that??? cool

[anonymous_user]

after figuring in the specs he needed and adding a cheap flat-panel monitor and keyboard

You've nailed it. Dell doesn't sell $499 PCs. They get people interested, show people their PCs are inexpensive, then sell them a real computer for about $1200.

[Question_Assumptions]

iBooks are great deal and they are quite sturdy. As the low-end consumer models, they also come with AppleWorks, etc.

[JerseyHighlander]

Thanks for the link. Looks good, I'm still not sure at 7 to 9 Mbps of full size HDTV video, it can be streamed to a Mini user at home. Not knocking the Apple Quicktime developers, it's just a huge feat.

[jalisco555]

iBooks are great deal and they are quite sturdy. As the low-end consumer models, they also come with AppleWorks, etc.

Knowing my son, sturdy is good. Also, we have a copy of the educator's edition of MS Office which has one installation left on it so he'll have the full Office suite. Lot's of Powerpointing in school these days.

[avg_freeper]

"You've nailed it. Dell doesn't sell $499 PCs. They get people interested, show people their PCs are inexpensive, then sell them a real computer for about $1200."

I purchased a sub $400 computer from dell before Christmas. That price included a monitor. I added to that a multifunction machine for about $20, 256MB RAM, and Office Home Edition. You can't just pretend that PCs aren't more affordable. Dell had some great Christmas pricing.