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No Built-in iPod Docks in the Intel Mac mini?

reallynotnick said:
I don't think we need 1080p to be coming out of this little bugger. I would be plently happy with only 480p, hell I still have regular cable. As long as it is in h.264 I will be happy, have you seen the crappy stuff tivo records? the quality sucks unless you get like a 250gb one and always record at super best quality which takes up LOADS of room.
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Analog is on the way out so it would need to record Digital to be a viable product. That means everything between 480i and 1080i. I don't think there are plans to use 1080p for broadcast, just for prerecorded media like Blu-Ray discs. With digital broadcasts it simply records the the digital stream whatever it happens to be. No need to encode it. I have a Sony HD recorder and let me tell you it is nothing like crappy analog recordings on a TiVo. It looks amazing and the recording is 100% identical to the original. It can still record analog and convert it to digital using MPEG2 but with Digital Cable and local off the air channels broadcast in Digital as well this is mostly unnecessary.
 
i don't know, i think the dock sounds like a good idea...and knowing apple, i am sure that they would design it woderfully.
 
I would have thought it silly to introduce a built-in dock after introducing the Universal dock as the final solution to the various sized iPod having different dock issue.
 
JoeG4 said:
What people want in a DVR/"media center"
*The ability to record HD
*The ability to record and watch TV at the same time (dual tuners?)..
*1080p H.264 recording (which I don't even think a dual G5 will do in realtime)
*Complete Media center system (recording of every F-ing kind, including DVDs of course)
*HDMI output (it better not, I'd be mad) and input (HDCP? No thanks).
*Some crazy wireless interface that can transfer video to other machines on the network simultaneously....

.
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No. Thats what you think people want. I want a DVR. I dont care if its HDTV, analog or whatever. I watch 50% of the shows I watch on my video ipod so image quality is not that important to me. Call me crazy.

I just want to be able to record TV shows on something other than a piece of plastic covered with rust. Im just a simple guy who wants his Law and Order, HGTV , Lost , Myth Busters and a few others. I just want to be able to record them easily and watch them when I want. I dont need to see every speck of sand on a beach or every contour of a football players butt. Especially the second one.
 
Arcus said:
I just want to be able to record TV shows on something other than a piece of plastic covered with rust. Im just a simple guy who wants his Law and Order, HGTV , Lost , Myth Busters and a few others. I just want to be able to record them easily and watch them when I want. I dont need to see every speck of sand on a beach or every contour of a football players butt. Especially the second one.
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Analog broadcasts end on Feb 17th, 2009 and lots of cable companies are pushing to end Analog Cable now as it takes up too much bandwidth. It wouldn't make sense to leave out digital recording. So at the very least it is going to have to record 480i in both analog and digital and if it's going to record digital it might as well do 720p and 1080i too. It would add little or nothing to the cost of the tuner.
 
i thought this was a bit obvious from the start. there is no reason to expend profits, size, and looks. the only upside would be what? its not like people would buy an ipod as an accessory to the mac mini.
 
dernhelm said:
I agree - but I'm not sure you could eliminate component out in a consumer box just yet. For instance, my brand-new 46" Toshiba DLP TV has one HDMI input, but that's it. It has 3 component, and 3 more s-video/composite slots. A lot of TVs still don't ship with HDMI input.
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Yeah, my 27" LCD is a Toshiba with 1 HDMI as well. I'm holding off on any HDTV for the living room until I find a unit with two or more inputs (they are out there)... Or someone makes a box like you described. Sure would have been nice if they had designed HDMI to be daisy chainable like FireWire...

IMHO Composite/Component video could still be handled by means of an external dongle just like the current mini-DVI to VGA and mini-DVI to S-video adapter cables. Even my new DVR came with an HDMI to DVI cable instead of a DVI port on the back of the unit.

B
 
No DVR

I don't see them adding DVR support. Apple wants to sell you the media. However if the new mini is supposed to be a media hub then the video portion is going to have to be higher than the current 320x240 rez.

I do think that within the year there will be a movies section on iTunes to support this and we'll see higher resolution movies for purchase.

I suspect both the new mini and the video based 'macpod' will be released at the same time at a special event similiar to the one last fall.
 
phew...

Hey all,

First time poster, long time reader...

I agree with those of you who feel comforted by the knowledge that there won't be an iPod dock on the new mini. Even though I'm sure that Apple would come up with a clean way of throwing it in there, I think the mini is better left in it's current, sexy form.

Also, I think that the media center may be just a bit outside the scope of the original mini, but a special edition may not be all that bad for those who are looking for that type of functionality.

I can't wait to see what they're going to come up with for the new mini, though...I've been dying to get one and it's soooo hard to not break down and buy one right now...=/
 
zap2 said:
looks good! might pick one up, based on speed reports of it vs iMac G5
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Based on what speed reports - Apple's promotional SPEC results comparing the Core Duo MBP with the 1.67 GHz G4 Powerbook? In RW apps, the speed increase of the Core Duo iMac is an average of 25% over the iMac G5, and that's with 2 cores! A Core Solo chip will offer little or no speed increase over the G4, especially under Rosetta. Thankfully, iLife is already a Universal Binary.
 
I agree with the majority here in regards to the integrated dock, It would take away too much from the elegant design of the mini.

I'm torn on the idea of the mini having DVR capabilities. I really don't see Apple doing this right now because of the video content on iTunes. I do think a mini DVR would cut in to the video sales a little bit. I've been waiting for a new Mac Mini for a long time so I'll probably buy it and use it along with Front Row as a media center regardless of whether or not it's a DVR.

Speaking of Front Row, does anyone know if you can play shared iTunes libraries over a network through Front Row?
 
Jovian9 said:
Apple should release an external DVR component for the Mini, not include it in the Mini, b/c that would most likely drive up price. They could release something with similar form factor that sits on top or below the Mac Mini (like a lot of the add-ons for the Mini's do now). Something like the MiniStacks but with DVR functionality (pictured):
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external DVR component? yeah, it's called eyetv.

look, if apple's going to come out with a stand-alone DVR, it has to do something different than what eyetv already does. or, it has to do it better...i suppose it will have integration with frontrow and with ilife...but other than that, how much different could it be from eyetv? the nice thing about eyetv is that they produce different hardware for different countries...is apple going to do that with their DVR?
 
MacinDoc said:
Based on what speed reports - Apple's promotional SPEC results comparing the Core Duo MBP with the 1.67 GHz G4 Powerbook? In RW apps, the speed increase of the Core Duo iMac is an average of 25% over the iMac G5, and that's with 2 cores! A Core Solo chip will offer little or no speed increase over the G4, especially under Rosetta. Thankfully, iLife is already a Universal Binary.
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Ouch...if this is true than what's the point? Where is this speed report from? I'm with Stridder44...I'd definitely like to hear more from everyone regarding the performance comparison. If the core solo doesn't do much over the G4, than it begins to appear as if the current 1.5GHz G4 mini is probably better off than any one they'll come up with in the next year...at least on the basis of it being tried/true techonology...imho, heritage>all. Am I on the right track?
 
What's faster?

A 1.6Ghz G4 or a 1.6Ghz Core Solo? Is the core solo much more powerful than the G4?

I would consider buying one of these!
 
Spanky Deluxe said:
I for one don't give a damn about DVR functions. Over here in the UK if you want all the channels you get satellite and the only way to record all of the channels is to use a special Sky+ box provided by the satellite network. PVR functions would be useless and would drive up the cost.
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For anyone not in the UK, note that this is totally incorrect. We have several ways of receiving multiple channels - Sky being just one. Cable and Digital Terrestrial are both extremely popular.

As for PVR/DVR's, well Sky+ is a reasonable DVR but only works with Sky. There are many Freeview (Digital Terrestrial) DVR's on the market but they are all fairly limiting at the moment and only work with Freeview. The only PVR (not DVR) on the market is TiVo which works well with all sources. It is also brilliantly supported on the Mac by projects such as TivoTool. Unfortunately it isn't actively being sold anymore, although the TiVo service still is.

The UK has gone for calling everything a PVR when in fact most product are simple DVR's. That's marketing for you.

So, yes please - I want a Mac mini with PVR functionality. Freeview only would do but a video in and ability to control a satellite/cable box would be better - but I fear unlikely.
 
Evan_11 said:
I don't see them adding DVR support. Apple wants to sell you the media.
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Apple couldn't care less about the media. It is only a means to make the iPod more attractive. Apple sold more than 40 million iPods. Compare that to a few million TV shows, sold for $1.99 each, and most of that money goes straight to the TV companies.
 
Arcus said:
No. Thats what you think people want. I want a DVR. I dont care if its HDTV, analog or whatever. I watch 50% of the shows I watch on my video ipod so image quality is not that important to me. Call me crazy.

I just want to be able to record TV shows on something other than a piece of plastic covered with rust. Im just a simple guy who wants his Law and Order, HGTV , Lost , Myth Busters and a few others. I just want to be able to record them easily and watch them when I want. I dont need to see every speck of sand on a beach or every contour of a football players butt. Especially the second one.
Click to expand...

What about a simple DVD-R unit with firewire? Here in EU they cost €150 with no HD and about €350 with HD. This way you can record your favorite show and surf the internet at the same time. There wont be any problems with video standards because and each will get the features they need/want. This way there is no real need for paying the extra $100 for a DVD burner inside the Mini as it iLife06 should support external recorders
 
MacinDoc said:
Based on what speed reports - Apple's promotional SPEC results comparing the Core Duo MBP with the 1.67 GHz G4 Powerbook? In RW apps, the speed increase of the Core Duo iMac is an average of 25% over the iMac G5, and that's with 2 cores! A Core Solo chip will offer little or no speed increase over the G4, especially under Rosetta. Thankfully
Click to expand...

That "real world" test that you refer to carefully compared applications that don't use multiple processors, so a Core Duo iMac with one processor twiddling its thumbs was only 25 percent faster that an iMac G5. On the other hand, it has been found that a Core Duo iMac also compares very well to a Quad G5 for applications that don't use multiple processors...

A single processor Celeron M at same clockspeed runs circles around a G4. It will compare quite well to a single G5.
 
applekid said:
I think the new form factor should go back to the LC days... Pizza boxes! Not so long and wide as the LC's, but something wide as two Mac Mini, but high has only half a Mac Mini. Get some ports front and back, add some additional video and audio output ports.
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If Apple wants to sell a media center Macintosh, the obvious form factor would be that of an ordinary DVD player. Relatively wide, can be quite deep, shouldn't be too high. It could easily have four times as much volume as a Mac Mini. At that size you have plenty of space for a 3.5 inch harddisk (you get a huge 3.5 inch harddisk for the price of 80 GB 2.5 inch), full size DVD recorder, lots of space for memory slots, a nice processor and digital TV tuner.

For the money you get: A huge digital video recorder, a music jukebox with a decent interface, a machine that can record all your DVDs so you never need to get them out of the box again, a DVD recorder, a decent gaming machine, internet access, AND a complete Macintosh computer.
 
MacSA said:
HAAAAA :eek: :eek: :eek: A 1.6ghz single core Mini with 512MB ram running Rosetta lol
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Apps which aren't dual-core aware in the first place will not magically support dual-cores on Intel. So in theory, if it had a 1.6Ghz Core Solo and the same graphics card etc. as an MBP, apps that aren't dual-core aware will run at roughly the same performance.

Quartz Extreme said:
single core - 1.66GHz - $209
dual core - 1.66GHz - $241
dual core - 1.83GHz - $294
dual core - 2.00GHz - $423
dual core - 2.16GHz - $637

It's only $32 more to get a whole 'nother processor core...

I think they'll go with a 1.66GHz Core Duo.
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MBP/ iMac sales would be slaughtered. Even if you did bump up the MBP/ iMac, look at the price hikes for 2Ghz and 2.16Ghz.
 
No dock on mini?

Why put a dock on the mini? What about other systems? Different idea - how about a Bluetooth IPod? Mini has BT - so do other systems......
 
BlizzardBomb said:
Apps which aren't dual-core aware in the first place will not magically support dual-cores on Intel. So in theory, if it had a 1.6Ghz Core Solo and the same graphics card etc. as an MBP, apps that aren't dual-core aware will run at roughly the same performance.
Click to expand...

Hmmm, so you're saying one of these Intel minis would perform in exactly the same way as a dual core iMac? :confused:
 
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