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Microsoft Releases Second 'Laptop Hunters' Commercial

AidenShaw said:
Second class HD, but HD.
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Uh yeah, whatever you say. I guess since I've been doing stuff at 3840x1080 that would be Über HD. ;) Wheeee!

Even right now as we speak, some stations do 720p while others do 1080i, at least the over the air/analog cable. I think the digital cable still gets ****ed over to 1080p highly compressed MPEG-4 with possible audio sync issues no matter what the source is -- but I don't have digital cable so I would not know for a fact. :D

-mark
 
gwerhart0800 said:
I just went through this exercise with my college bound son. He is attending the University of Colorado at Boulder. They have on campus support for Apple and Dell products. (Meaning, for any Apple or Dell PC/Laptop under warranty, you can take the system to their repair depot and they will fix it.) Additionally, we asked at orientation if there was a preference and were told that they only required a fairly recent version of Microsoft Office products, but individual colleges within the university might have additional requirements. So, my son and I started our own "laptop hunt", with the exception that I was going to be the one to pay for it. He was looking for portability, battery life and ease of use. From conversations with others, larger laptops (16-17") were difficult to use for note taking because of limited "desk" space in most classrooms. So, we were focused on 13-15" laptops. Also, he has been a PC gamer (WoW) for a few years, but really wants to kick the habit, so gaming was NOT a priority.

We went to Best Buy to play with the various Apple and Dell models on display. The comment on the Dell systems was ... wow, they are big and heavy (Studio 15). He played with the 13" uMBP and liked the size and battery life. So, we decided that a 13" would be the best fit. We went home and tried to configure a Dell M1330 with similar features to the 13" uMBP, but the price ended up being around the same as the Apple laptop and the extra life battery was going to stick out like a wart. Additionally, Dell was going to be unable to deliver the M1330 until mid-august ... Apple could deliver in 5-7 business days. I pointed out to him that I needed, we could configure the Apple to boot either Mac OS X or Windows XP via boot camp.

Final decision: Apple 13" MacBook Pro.
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In my co-workers case the 13" is too small and for the price of the 15" he could get an HP 17" with similar specs.
 
xbjllb said:
I went through the Amiga crash-and-burn. YOU didn't.

Talk to me in a couple of years. I stand on my experience.

In summation: No company who charged a premium for being cutting edge/having a superior product survived once it began chasing the lowest common denominator.

Not one. Apple is not, nor will it ever be, immune to history.

No matter how many are obliviously ignorant to it.

:apple:
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Just so we understand each other, you're saying if Apple doesn't implement BD by 2012, they will go under, right?

And is that by Jan 1st, 2012, or December 31st, 2012? I'm just asking because I'm setting my Google calendar and need to know for accuracy's sake. :D
 
diamond.g said:
In my co-workers case the 13" is too small and for the price of the 15" he could get an HP 17" with similar specs.
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Because of the on-campus support for Apple & Dell, there was an artificial constraint that did not allow us to consider alternatives from other manufacturers. The point was that in our case, Apple was a valid choice. I could have told my son that he would have to make do with a $500 laptop with a 2 hour battery and an extra 2-3 pounds of weight. If you want something cheap, there are plenty of alternatives, but for us, there were other factors that made the 13" uMBP a solid choice. BTW, the lack of "crapware" on the brand new 13" uMBP was great. The last HP laptop I purchased for my wife had a huge amount of crapware on it that took many hours to remove.

I do hope that Apple can lower the entry point for their products to increase their market share. Price is the number one barrier to entry for people wanting to switch from Microsoft based PC/Laptops to Apple products.
 
Tallest Skil said:
It's a deal. See you in 2012. Hope you can stand laughter.
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What experience does he have? So he bought into Amiga, got burnt, and now he's trying to funnel his past frustrations into Apple, and somehow making that into "business experience".

Amiga was passed around like a village bimbo until it finally died out. I'd like for him to explain to me how that is similar to Apple. Apple has proven to be functional even without Jobs with this current absence (unlike the late 90's) and if they do go under, it most definitely will not be singularly due to lack of a physical media.

You might as well make outlandish claims that Microsoft is going to die soon too, because that's just as ridiculous.
 
LagunaSol said:
Isn't this like the whole "Lossless vs. AAC" debate? Or perhaps even the "vinyl vs. CD" debate?

Most consumers wouldn't notice the difference between 720 and 1080, and wouldn't care if they did.
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According to some our our esteemed members many people can tell the difference between 720p and 1080p, and would most definitely care.

Having assisted with setting up many people's computers, TV's, etc most of them don't even know what the difference between 1080p and 720p is. They just know they want "HD". Obviously this is anecdotal, but I find it highly unlikely the mass majority of people are that picky.

I like Blu Ray on my LCD 1080p, but I really have no desire whatsoever to watch them on my laptop. Anyone who has traveled marginally for their job knows physical media is a pain when you're on a flight, sitting on a train, sitting in an airport/train depot, etc.

I'd like to be able to rip my movies to watch on my laptop just as I rip my CD's to be listened to on my computer or iPod. I bought them, I should be able to view/listen to my media as I please. For this reason a BD player on a laptop would be nice (though an external one would be perfectly fine).

Unfortunately I am not able to do that with BD (or DVD) legally because of their draconian DRM crap. To me that's unacceptable.

Unlike some of the tinfoil hat wearing folks in this thread that think DRM is good, there are honest people like me out there who purchase the movie media, and would like to use it as they please, just as they do their music.

Luckily Apple has made progress with removing DRM from music, but I doubt they'll succeed with TV/movies, because of the studios continuing desire to live in the last century.
 
polaris20 said:
Unfortunately I am not able to do that with BD (or DVD) legally because of their draconian DRM crap. To me that's unacceptable.
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You can with BD. It is apart of the specification, called Managed Copy.
The problem is so far no players support it. Chalk it up to the content owners looking for ways to screw the customer. The rumor mill is thinking that it won't be free to do the conversion. Which is opposite of the trend of including a digital copy for free...
 
Oh I can definitely tell the difference between 720p and 1080i/p, but the simple fact is they are both considered viable "HD" signals; so it kind of burns me when ignorant market following fanbois of everyone's "Full HD" ******** marketing fluff spout off. :D Carry on.

I doubt Apple will go the way of Amiga; even though I credit Amiga forcing Wintel and Apple to get off their lazy asses and make decent computers. When Amiga was released it wiped the floor of both of them hands down.

-mark
 
polaris20 said:
Just so we understand each other, you're saying if Apple doesn't implement BD by 2012, they will go under, right?

And is that by Jan 1st, 2012, or December 31st, 2012? I'm just asking because I'm setting my Google calendar and need to know for accuracy's sake. :D
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Set your calendar to the end of the Mayan Calendar. Either argued date for it will do.

IF Apple hasn't added Blu-ray by then.

:apple:
 
avkills said:
Oh I can definitely tell the difference between 720p and 1080i/p, but the simple fact is they are both considered viable "HD" signals; so it kind of burns me when ignorant market following fanbois of everyone's "Full HD" ******** marketing fluff spout off. :D Carry on.

I doubt Apple will go the way of Amiga; even though I credit Amiga forcing Wintel and Apple to get off their lazy asses and make decent computers. When Amiga was released it wiped the floor of both of them hands down.

-mark
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Thanks. Finally someone who was REALLY there. And Amiga never forsaked the cutting edge for iCrap either, and thereby crapping on their high end video content creator base.

:apple:
 
polaris20 said:
Just so we understand each other, you're saying if Apple doesn't implement BD by 2012, they will go under, right?

And is that by Jan 1st, 2012, or December 31st, 2012? I'm just asking because I'm setting my Google calendar and need to know for accuracy's sake. :D
Click to expand...

xbjllib has a safe bet - Apple will introduce Blu-ray within a year, and they won't go down in 2012.

You realize, of course, that as soon as Apple supports Blu-ray (which it must) - you lose the bet?
 
Refurbished with a 90-day warranty. That explains the price.
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Good job ignoring the rest of the post you quoted. Including the Lite-On drive thats out there for $120, new.

The 3200 is the M780G.
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Point being? It's still a GPU capable of playing blu-ray discs, and not just half assing it the way Intel's 4500MHD does. It's been around in notebooks since well before Apple went nvidia.

You didn't get full bitstream decoding until the Radeon HD 2xxx or GeForce 8 Series (post-G80).
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The manufacturer sites beg to differ.

The G80 used the original VP1. You had to wait until April 2007 to get VP2 on the G84/G86 and then later on the G92.
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Again, nvidia begs to differ. But this is macrumors, and people here have a tendency to argue against what manufacturers say, even when its the manufacturer's product in question.

Piracy sold millions of iPods; piracy and iPod sales created the iTunes store, creating more revenue for Apple as it "solved" the problem they themselves had created (Create problem, then solution, profiting from both).
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Thats actually quite true. But nobody around here will admit that;)
 
It is not like it would be hard for Apple to support BluRay. They probably already have it ready to go; but are waiting to see if it dies. Since there are so many movie on demand services that I myself am not putting my bets on BluRay being around much longer, as far as entertainment purposes are concerned.

Besides, holographic storage crystals are waaayyy coooler!! :cool:

-mark
 
mosx said:
Good job ignoring the rest of the post you quoted. Including the Lite-On drive thats out there for $120, new.
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A link please.


mosx said:
The manufacturer sites beg to differ.

Again, nvidia begs to differ. But this is macrumors, and people here have a tendency to argue against what manufacturers say, even when its the manufacturer's product in question.
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Please show me where the G80 or RV600 supported full h.264/VC-1 hardware acceleration. You had to wait until the G84/86 or RV610/630 for it. This is a wonderful trip back to late 2006 and 2007 for facts that are burned into my memory over this one little thing.
 
Eidorian said:
A link please.


Please show me where the G80 or RV600 supported full h.264/VC-1 hardware acceleration. You had to wait until the G84/86 or RV610/630 for it. This is a wonderful trip back to late 2006 and 2007 for facts that are burned into my memory over this one little thing.
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I thought they only had partial h.264/VC-1 acceleration. I believe the IDTC and CABAC/CAVLC acceleration is missing. See PDF from Nvidia. It seems to be an Apple standard to not support all the features of a GPU out of the box. I guess cause it makes it harder for them to show how awesome the CPU upgrades are.
 
Eidorian said:
A link please.
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http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...chResult=True&FieldChange=Y&FieldChoose=16,14
LITE-ON Black Blu-ray Disc Combo SATA Model iHES208-08 - Retail
Model #: iHES208-08
Your Price: $119.99

LITE-ON Black 4X Blu-ray Reader SATA Model iHOS104-06 - OEM
Model #: iHOS104-06
Free Shipping
Your Price: $69.99

LITE-ON Black 6X Blu-Ray DVD ROM & 16X DVD±R DVD Burner SATA Model iHES106-29 - OEM
Model #: iHES106-29
Your Price: $99.99

LITE-ON Black BD-COMBO SATA Model ihes108-29 - OEM
Model #: ihes108-29
Your Price: $99.99

LITE-ON Black 4X Blu-ray Disc Reader SATA Model iHOS104-08 - Retail
Model #: iHOS104-08
Free Shipping
Your Price: $69.99

LITE-ON Black Blu-Ray DVD Drive & DVD Burner with LightScribe SATA Model iHES206-08 - Retail
Model #: iHES206-08
Free Shipping
Your Price: $99.99
Click to expand...
 
diamond.g said:
I thought they only had partial h.264/VC-1 acceleration. I believe the IDTC and CABAC/CAVLC acceleration is missing. See PDF from Nvidia. It seems to be an Apple standard to not support all the features of a GPU out of the box. I guess cause it makes it harder for them to show how awesome the CPU upgrades are.
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My point exactly. You had partial support.

AidenShaw said:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...chResult=True&FieldChange=Y&FieldChoose=16,14
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Those are 5.25" drives though.
 
AidenShaw said:
xbjllib has a safe bet - Apple will introduce Blu-ray within a year, and they won't go down in 2012.

You realize, of course, that as soon as Apple supports Blu-ray (which it must) - you lose the bet?
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The bet is that if Apple does NOT implement BD by 2012 (Dec. 23rd now, according to xbjllib) it will go out of business, according to xbjllib. I say that if by that time they still have not implemented BD, they will NOT go out of business due to this.

If they do implement it, then obviously the bet is void; neither one of us "win".
 
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