Intel Mac mini To Evolve Into Digital Hub?

[JDOG_]

So if Apple were to create a Media Mac, they will probably keep it the same height as the mini, but allow it to grow in width. This would make the mini fit in an entertainment center in a much more aestetically pleasing manner.

ft

So like an iHome then right?

 

[ftaok]

So like an iHome then right?

Exactly, except it wouldn't be made out of cardboard.

 

[Aeolius]

If it's going to have an iPod dock built in, it HAS to be bigger, just to accommodate the extra depth a recessed dock would require.

Something like THIS, perhaps?

 

[LimeiBook86]

Something like THIS, perhaps?
<snip>

That's the Apple/Bandi Pippin gaming system heh, the Intel Mac Mini "Tivo-Killer" will be much more powerful than that old thing...although I'd love to play around with one. They're worth quite a lot

 

[joemama]

Yes, that is possible, but someone has to pay for the guide. Yes, Apple can license it for a price, and may be roll it into .mac subsccription. I mentioned that because there are folks here who seem to think they can get Tivo service like features without paying for it. There is no such thing as free PVR, even though people out there claim you can get "free" DVRs from Sattellite operators and cable MSOs. The comsumer pays for it one way or the other. Anyhow as I said, unless the new mini is more of a settop box than it is a PC, it aint going to be a Tivo killer (I am getting wary of this term, Tivo-killer, everytime someone says that about a product it turns out to be a complete piece of junk, but I sure hope the new mini is not a jack of all trades, master of none).

I just don't understnad why people think there has to be a monthly charge. Isn't the guide nothing more than a database of times, channels and whats on? Please excuse my ignorance, but how many people does it take to update this? It seems to me the expensive part would be pushing out to redundant servers so people can download the info. And wouldn't this be a small (text) file, far less in size than say a song preview? Isn't this more of a bandwidth issue, which Apple has plenty of?

Also, perhaps Apple expects to make up the costs of the dvr guide with itunes downloads. I thikn we take for granted we are mac fans. Let's not forgot the millions of people who still have yet to download a song!

Finally, if there is a cost, I think you will see Apple put it in .mac. If this "media center" is for songs and photos and sending/uploading images to a website, a .mac subscription will be necessary, or Apple will make it so.

 

[pjkelnhofer]

I think I'm out of touch with mainstream America... cuz as a total tech nerd, I have NO interest in a DVR.

Who has time to watch that much TV?

Give me a goddamn tablet so I can work more efficiently!

The beauty of the DVR is that you can watch what you want to watch when you want to watch it! For example, I work Sunday nights, but get to watch Family Guy (reference your evil monkey avatar) on Monday or Tuesday or whenever I have a chance!

 

[rdowns]

With my mac mini less than one-year old, how could I convince my wife that i need a new gadget.

Use my rule, 2 new pairs of shoes for each gadget I buy.

 

[Lynxpro]

It has a slow UI, really dumb "which one should I record?" function and horrible Mac compatibility. I'm tired of having to run the .tivo files through a DRM-stripper under Virtual PC just to watch the stupid TV program on my Treo.

Are you using Direct Show Dump? I love that program. Love it. Of course, it would probably work better if you picked up a cheap Windows PC and used it strictly as a TiVo-To-Go dedicated device... Then transfer those files over to your Mac and then run Handbrake on them.

 

[Lynxpro]

I'm really curious about this "TiVo-Killer" app. I currently use the Comcast DVR (which stinks by the way) and was considering TiVo or ReplayTV. If Apple is coming out with something however I might just hold off and see how it compares.

ReplayTV is a zombie in that it does not know its dead...it just walks around looking to eat more customer money before someone sneaks up on it and sets it on fire. The platform is on its third corporate parent; a corporate parent named D&M Holdings (Denon) which recently sold off its intellectual property it held in Rio and set the product line out to pasture.

Replay has something like 200,000 customers. TiVo has 4 million customers yet people still claim the company is dying. So wait and see what Apple has planned in January (if anything) and if nothing materializes, buy the standalone HD TiVo Series3 that will be hitting the market in Q1 2006. Or, you could wait until mid-2006 and upgrade your Comcast HD capable DVR (as long as its the Motorola) with the TiVo OS when it becomes available for a fee.

And in the meantime, there are ways of extracting the content on that Comcast DVR of yours via the Firewire port to your Mac or PC. I'm sure there are plenty of other users here who could direct you in the right direction with that endeavour.

 

[Lynxpro]

As I read more about the "Tivo-killer" aspects, I'm starting to wonder whether this is a vaporware rumor, designed to force Tivo back to the table. Tivo obviously wanted too much for the company. And then when Apple told them to step off, they antagonized them with the video iPod transfers, for PCs only

You really think the negotiations were for an Apple takeover? I mean, I'd love to see that since Apple's economies-of-scale would bring the hardware costs that keep TiVo from being profitable (as an independent company) would disappear overnight, but I did not think the negotiations were for a friendly Apple acquisition.

Apple does not need to acquire TiVo in a friendly manner. Apple has ample amounts of money to plunk down for a hostile takeover (which wouldn't cost much more), but maybe they would prefer a friendly acquisition to stave off a bidding war by Microsoft, Yahoo, Time Warner, or Google.

If Apple simply bought up TiVo, the intellectual property of ReplayTV from D&M Holdings, and Hauppage, they'd own the PVR business. Just think how many consumer electronics/cable/satellite companies are violating that chunk of IP today.

 

[Lynxpro]

I currently have dish network dvr. Its great for the sheer fact that it will search the guide and record all the programs that are shown for a preticular search query. It also allows dual input from the dish so you can watch live tv while you record from another channel. The only problem is that the HD is small. Unlike TiVo, you can skip commercials.

You can skip commercials with TiVo, thank you very much. And with TiVo, you can export your saved programs to your computer, unlike the Dish Network wanna-be DVR as well as many other well-thought-out features that makes a TiVo a TiVo. TiVo is also suing Dish (ahem, Echostar) for patent infringement. The Dish Player is Shasta Cola to TiVo's Coca-Cola.

Maybe since they have a working relationship with cingular (whose parent is SBC) Sbc has a working relationship with dish network, so the ability to put dish acces card functionality could be easy.......but, I'm dreamin.

The relationship between SBC/Cingular (soon to be simply known as AT&T) and Dish Network is an open marriage of convenience. It is only meant to keep SBC residential telephone customers from signing up with the likes of Comcast to get broadband and television service. SBC revenue-shares with Dish for each customer they bring to the table. Once SBC completes their IPTV project, the relationship with Dish will be severed.

 

[Lynxpro]

Everybody keeps saying: Apple can't sell a DVR, they want to sell video on demand.

If Apple sold a broadband-enabled DVR that easily could acquire HD content directly and for a reasonable fee, they'd sell millions of set-top boxes. And each one of those purchases probably would mean that one less house would sign up for cable television or satellite television and instead only sign up for cable/DSL because we'd finally have total a la carte pricing under such a scheme. That would mean death to the padded cable television bill for stuff you don't want like the BET Jazz or ESPN-The-Ocho.

 

[EricNau]

If Apple sold a broadband-enabled DVR that easily could acquire HD content directly and for a reasonable fee, they'd sell millions of set-top boxes. And each one of those purchases probably would mean that one less house would sign up for cable television or satellite television and instead only sign up for cable/DSL because we'd finally have total a la carte pricing under such a scheme. That would mean death to the padded cable television bill for stuff you don't want like the BET Jazz or ESPN-The-Ocho.

Apple would never do that. They are a computer Hardware/Software comapny, not a cable comapny.

 

[Multimedia]

Sell the Old One, Buy the New One

With my mac mini less than one-year old, how could I convince my wife that i need a new gadget.

By selling the one you have for a hundred or two less than the new one and then rolling over the sale price for the new one for only one or two hundred more.

 

[~Shard~]

Apple would never do that. They are a computer Hardware/Software comapny, not a cable comapny.

Exactly, they're just a hardware/software company, they'd never ever go into anything to do with TV - or music for that matter.

 

[Multimedia]

HDTV is Easily Displayed On Your Mac's Screen.

Why not offer 2 "Mac Media Center" versions? One with HD capacity, one without? THere are a LOT of people who dont have HD TVs that want a DVR, but why would I pay extra for a larger hardrive and extra HD hardware when I dont need it?

Because HD is in the air and you can display it on your Mac. You don't need a HDTV to enjoy its advantages. What is coming in off the air is amazing and once you get a taste of it, you will insist on having it for the rest of your life.

 

[Multimedia]

TitanTV.com Is A Fantastic Free TV Guide I Use Every Day

You are the one that is mistaken. All entertainment PCs have free TV Guide. I just bought a Sony HD-DVR that has free TVGuide. eyeTV 500 uses TitanTV as free program guide.

As an owner of eyeTV, I would like to note that the integration between it for FREE and eyeTV 500 is amazing. Moreover, I would like to recommend TitanTV.com to anyone who wants to know what's on. You can totally customize it for any set of channels you want to pay attention to and delete those you never view. Anyone who is unfamiliar with TitanTV.com owes it to themselves to check it out. You will find it among the best ways to keep on top of the latest channel choices you want to know. I am sure that YunusEmre, who thought we didn't have FREE channel guides, simply never googled "TV Channel Guide" before. TitanTV.com RULES for me.

 

[skellener]

There will be no "TiVo-killer DVR" from Apple. Period.

Expect more downloadable content from the iTunes Music Store.

 

[YunusEmre]

I just don't understnad why people think there has to be a monthly charge. Isn't the guide nothing more than a database of times, channels and whats on? Please excuse my ignorance, but how many people does it take to update this? It seems to me the expensive part would be pushing out to redundant servers so people can download the info. And wouldn't this be a small (text) file, far less in size than say a song preview? Isn't this more of a bandwidth issue, which Apple has plenty of?

Also, perhaps Apple expects to make up the costs of the dvr guide with itunes downloads. I thikn we take for granted we are mac fans. Let's not forgot the millions of people who still have yet to download a song!

Finally, if there is a cost, I think you will see Apple put it in .mac. If this "media center" is for songs and photos and sending/uploading images to a website, a .mac subscription will be necessary, or Apple will make it so.

What's on a channel on a given time ultimately comes form the network where the TV program orginates. If you want to cook up your own guide you need connection with all the networks that your DVR supports, nationwide. Or you pay fees to one of the existing TV guide providers, which is what Tivo does.

You need a business model that will sustain itself and make money for its shareholders. You cannot do that unless you charge for the service you provide. The TV guide is just one part of it, there are many other aspects of it that cost money, such as royalties you have to pay to third party etc. Someone needs to pay for all that.

As for rolling it into .mac, I said that is possible, but Apple is not in the business of TV, they can get into it. But they would have to provide the same service without rest of .mac subscription (not all DVR users will want to have the other features). And I am not sure they transition to that so quickly.

Anyway, the bottom line, one more time is that whatever Apple brings out, it aint gonna be a Tivo-killer.

 

[YunusEmre]

...

Apple does not need to acquire TiVo in a friendly manner. Apple has ample amounts of money to plunk down for a hostile takeover (which wouldn't cost much more), but maybe they would prefer a friendly acquisition to stave off a bidding war by Microsoft, Yahoo, Time Warner, or Google.

...

Well Tivo has what's called a poison pill. So it would not be so easy to acquire Tivo by hostile takeover. But in any case, hostile or not, if Tivo is up for sale there would have to be a bidding war, in the open, or behind closed doors otherwise the shareholders would not be so happy

 

[EricNau]

Exactly, they're just a hardware/software company, they'd never ever go into anything to do with TV - or music for that matter.

There is a big difference between downloadable online music and being a cable company. They might start selling TV shows, but that can't/won't replace cable.

I do see your point though.

 

[camomac]

As an owner of eyeTV, I would like to note that the integration between it for FREE and eyeTV 500 is amazing. Moreover, I would like to recommend TitanTV.com to anyone who wants to know what's on. You can totally customize it for any set of channels you want to pay attention to and delete those you never view. Anyone who is unfamiliar with TitanTV.com owes it to themselves to check it out. You will find it among the best ways to keep on top of the latest channel choices you want to know. I am sure that YunusEmre, who thought we didn't have FREE channel guides, simply never googled "TV Channel Guide" before. TitanTV.com RULES for me.

wow, thanks for that!

 

[itcheroni]

Okay, so I just ordered a mini today from Amazon. I was waiting for January, oh so close, but after all these rumors, decided it wasn't worth the wait. All this DVR talk made me realize there won't be anything I would want from the new minis except a for a faster processor and a better graphics card. But if the price and form factor might increase to accomodate DVR capabilities, then I'd rather buy the current mini. I'm buying it as a computer, why would I want it to be bigger and more expensive?

 

[Multimedia]

Next Mini Will Not Coast More

Okay, so I just ordered a mini today from Amazon. I was waiting for January, oh so close, but after all these rumors, decided it wasn't worth the wait. All this DVR talk made me realize there won't be anything I would want from the new minis except a for a faster processor and a better graphics card. But if the price and form factor might increase to accomodate DVR capabilities, then I'd rather buy the current mini. I'm buying it as a computer, why would I want it to be bigger and more expensive?

It won't be significantly bigger and it won't be more expensive.

 

[Multimedia]

TitanTV.com TitanTV.com TitanTV.com TitanTV.com TitanTV.com

What's on a channel on a given time ultimately comes form the network where the TV program orginates. If you want to cook up your own guide you need connection with all the networks that your DVR supports, nationwide. Or you pay fees to one of the existing TV guide providers, which is what Tivo does.

You need a business model that will sustain itself and make money for its shareholders. You cannot do that unless you charge for the service you provide. The TV guide is just one part of it, there are many other aspects of it that cost money, such as royalties you have to pay to third party etc. Someone needs to pay for all that.

As for rolling it into .mac, I said that is possible, but Apple is not in the business of TV, they can get into it. But they would have to provide the same service without rest of .mac subscription (not all DVR users will want to have the other features). And I am not sure they transition to that so quickly.

Anyway, the bottom line, one more time is that whatever Apple brings out, it aint gonna be a Tivo-killer.

You know you are one uninformed member YunusEmre. TitanTV.com is not only FREE, it is totally integrated with eyeTV tuners and any other system you interface it with.