[Hodar]

It's certainly not going to function as an HTPC--the Radeon 9200 isn't exactly what I'd call the best DVD decoder around. The thing's sound chip is a mystery, and it has no surround sound capabilities that I can find out about.

May I direct your attention to the article linked here. The fact that the H.264 is onboard; and that Mac 10.4 is designed to work with HDDTV in BOTH Blu-Ray as well as HD-DVD formats is no accident. Why support Blu-Ray is you have a low performance built in DVD player? Now, add Bluetooth and/or ethernet; and you can stream the material in a compressed state from an iTunes-like website; and Mac can compete in the Movie Rental business.

Consider, with Sony, MGM, 20th Centrury and others all supporting different HDTV standards (Blu-Ray or HD-DVD) and these standards being incompatable with each other; the user has a choice of buying a Mac Mini (and stream HDTV the night before, to watch at his leisure), or purchasing 2 HDTV playback decks.

Hollywood Video will have to rent 2 versions of HDTV, until a standard shakes out. Just like in the Beta/VHS days. Meanwhile, Apple cleans up. Just a thought.

[Terpfen]

Oh, I have no doubt that movies are in Apple's future. My point is just that it's in the future, not in the present.

And by the way, that link doesn't work. Could you re-enter it?

[jriemer]

Now, add Bluetooth and/or ethernet; and you can stream the material in a compressed state from an iTunes-like website; and Mac can compete in the Movie Rental business.

One add: The Mac Mini's Airport Extreme (wifi) allows sharing of content to other Minis, Macs and *gasp* maybe PCs running iTune-like Apple software.