Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Much Smaller Mac Mini Coming?
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
American enlgish
There is no such thing as "US English". I'll let microsoft know on your behalf.
There is no such thing as "US English". I'll let microsoft know on your behalf.
A friend of mine has an LCD HD TV set, 47" with HD service. We compared several channels, both HD and SD, showing the same programs in HD and SD, and three of us could not see any difference in picture quality. What gives? I do not know if we were watching 720p, 1080i or 1080p.
I have a 40 inch Sony tube HDTV (1080i), and the difference between SD and HD is obvious.
There are a lot of factors here though, I think the most important would be compression (of both HD and SD signals.) Some of my HD channels look better than others (Discovery HD in particular always looks great), many of my SD channels are really badly compressed too.
Most DVD's look a lot better on my TV than my SD cable. OTOH a nice Blu-Ray disk should look better than my HD cable as well.
Probably getting way off topic for this thread, but ....
I agree.... I can usually see an obvious difference in picture quality coming from a "pure" source like a Blu-Ray disc player, playing a well produced movie title in Blu-Ray format, vs. regular old SD signals.
But I'm using a 50" plasma TV. And also having a digital DLP projector with about a 120" screen downstairs to compare it to - I've noticed that HD content *really* shines when you have larger screens. I suspect a 40" set is still small enough, relatively-speaking, so individual pixels aren't "zoomed up" big enough to make lower-resolution "SD" programming look that "grainy", compared to something like my projector.
I agree.... I can usually see an obvious difference in picture quality coming from a "pure" source like a Blu-Ray disc player, playing a well produced movie title in Blu-Ray format, vs. regular old SD signals.
But I'm using a 50" plasma TV. And also having a digital DLP projector with about a 120" screen downstairs to compare it to - I've noticed that HD content *really* shines when you have larger screens. I suspect a 40" set is still small enough, relatively-speaking, so individual pixels aren't "zoomed up" big enough to make lower-resolution "SD" programming look that "grainy", compared to something like my projector.
What's interesting is that I used to have the 32" version (Sony HD tube), good cable 1080i content looked amazingly sharp, like looking at great photographs on a good computer monitor. So even smaller screens can benefit from HD content, although SD content doesn't look as blurry.
When I first got the 40" TV, I noticed that the same HD content was just slightly less sharp. I certainly wouldn't have noticed it had I not been used to the 32" picture for a few months.
All the same, I don't have a Blu-Ray player and am not racing to get one anytime soon. DVD's still look excellent on my set (although poorly mastered DVD's don't look so great). I love sports and nature documentaries in HD, but with movies I'm much more concerned about the content than the picture quality. Same goes for music- I listen to a lot of old soul and blues music, so that sort of precludes spending too much money on hifi equipment.
Yep.....
Your experience reinforces what I was saying, actually. (The bigger the screen, the more "fuzzy" or "blurry" given content tends to look on it, as a general rule. Obviously, quality differences between products can offset this to some extent ... but still, this is why regular old "standard def" content can look pretty darn good on someone's 19" LCD TV in their bedroom, but the same content looks horribly "pixelated and grainy" on a big 67" plasma set.)
As a general rule of thumb, the larger you intend to zoom up a given TV show or movie, the more beneficial a high-resolution source image will be.
The *other* big factor that can complicate all of this is "upscaling". Many newer TV sets and standard DVD players support "upscaling" of SD content. That means, if the TV is capable of displaying HD quality images, but the source is lacking enough information to fill all those pixels, it will go about a digital process of intelligently filling in the extra pixels with image data it generates, based on what IS there in the SD images. It won't make SD into HD, but it can make SD look a LOT better on an HD capable TV than it'd look otherwise.
I have AT&T's U-Verse television service at home myself, and I notice the SD channels look far better on my TV with it than they look if you're watching one over the air with an antenna. By contrast, their HD channels usually don't look as good as HD channels received over the air with an antenna. That's because they do upscaling on all their SD content, but their HD content is heavily compressed.
Your experience reinforces what I was saying, actually. (The bigger the screen, the more "fuzzy" or "blurry" given content tends to look on it, as a general rule. Obviously, quality differences between products can offset this to some extent ... but still, this is why regular old "standard def" content can look pretty darn good on someone's 19" LCD TV in their bedroom, but the same content looks horribly "pixelated and grainy" on a big 67" plasma set.)
As a general rule of thumb, the larger you intend to zoom up a given TV show or movie, the more beneficial a high-resolution source image will be.
The *other* big factor that can complicate all of this is "upscaling". Many newer TV sets and standard DVD players support "upscaling" of SD content. That means, if the TV is capable of displaying HD quality images, but the source is lacking enough information to fill all those pixels, it will go about a digital process of intelligently filling in the extra pixels with image data it generates, based on what IS there in the SD images. It won't make SD into HD, but it can make SD look a LOT better on an HD capable TV than it'd look otherwise.
I have AT&T's U-Verse television service at home myself, and I notice the SD channels look far better on my TV with it than they look if you're watching one over the air with an antenna. By contrast, their HD channels usually don't look as good as HD channels received over the air with an antenna. That's because they do upscaling on all their SD content, but their HD content is heavily compressed.
Yeah, I think I'm at that sweet spot where HD content definitely looks great (better), but well-mastered DVD's still look good too.
At one point I considered getting an HD-DVD player on the cheap, just for a few select movies and the Planet Earth HD-DVD set. I will eventually get a PS3 when the price drops far enough (which looks like it may not be for awhile...)
At one point I considered getting an HD-DVD player on the cheap, just for a few select movies and the Planet Earth HD-DVD set. I will eventually get a PS3 when the price drops far enough (which looks like it may not be for awhile...)
no dvd player perhaps? maybe because the appleTv only plays certain formats (correct?)..... the mac mini is much more versatile.
Some want a functioning computer with some style. Some want a science experiment in how much stuff you can stuff into a given volume.
How about positioning ideas?
Uhm, smaller (size) would be cool, to be able to fit on a small desk, shelf, and have room for other stuff.
Also if it were able to go on it's "side" either only or with a stand, may be alright.
Though, being able to "stack"/chain these mac minis to make cluster-type systems would be pretty nice, it would be nice to be able to plug things into it more easily. Think ports on back, side and even top and bottom.
Would depend on use and design of internals. But maybe they'll be different versions for different situations?!
Uhm, smaller (size) would be cool, to be able to fit on a small desk, shelf, and have room for other stuff.
Also if it were able to go on it's "side" either only or with a stand, may be alright.
Though, being able to "stack"/chain these mac minis to make cluster-type systems would be pretty nice, it would be nice to be able to plug things into it more easily. Think ports on back, side and even top and bottom.
Would depend on use and design of internals. But maybe they'll be different versions for different situations?!
SMALLER size = higher component costs = higher cost Mini
People already complain about the cost of the Mini.
Hopefully, if they do bring a revision out, they will use the whole aluminum & black style of design. Something like this maybe...
This is the best Mini mockup I have seen.
too small IMO, costs would be too much. i want something a bit bigger for basic expandability
It also usually means less performance. You could use the chipset and smaller package cpu from the MBA, soldered on memory, 1.8" hard drive, and forgo the optical drive and you'll have a very small and cooling looking computer. Unfortunately it would be pretty slow, expensive, and completely impractical for all but a very slim group.
will most likely have the performance of that new ASUS thing that is meant to rival the mini.. (its bad)
