I have LD, DVD, BD, Mini. All separate. Why wouldn't you if you have a real theater and a real desire for quality?
We're on the same side here, but I'll step up.
Why on Earth would anybody still have a LD player hooked up? I have two, and still have LDs but LONG AGO transferred anything I wanted to DVD. And yes, I have a scaler, but revisiting letterboxed analog LaserDiscs that need an FM modulator for digital surround is something I can let go of. You don't still have a VCR hooked up, do you?
My DVDp still beats the BDp for DVDs, so there's no reason to retire it.
I challenge that. If anything, Blu-Ray players have built in upscaling for DVDs and feature newer interconnects and more advanced DACs. This is coming from someone who bought a $1000 Sony 7700 reference quality DVD player. If you have an old DVD player, it's got older DACs and you're undergoing unneccessary D->A and back to A->D by your TV. Oh, did you not know component video is analog? Unless you have an analog display in that "Theater" of yours. If you have a newer DVD player with HDMI, why bother with it when the Blu-Ray player does the same?
Not to mention, if you have a "
real desire for quality", you wouldn't be messing around with DVD anymore in the first place.
I have LD, DVD, BD, Mini. All separate. Why wouldn't you if you have a real theater and a real desire for quality?
Because you don't need them and it's unnecessary complexity, clutter, and confusion when a HTPC can do it all, better, in one unified place.
The HTPC is the crossroads of the media world, the only thing that does it all.
CD player, really? Rip those suckers into iTunes losslessly and stop flipping discs -- AND get album art, metadata, and searchability in the process.
DVD player? Rip them and put them on the mini -- or use a PC based player and get
great features that you can't get on a set-top box such as
region code busting and ability to skip unskippable ads. You can even rip to ISO so you don't lose a thing.
Blu-Ray player? Your HTPC can do that too. Well, if it isn't a Mac, it can. You can still rip to MKV or make an ISO.
HD-DVD player? Yep, your HTPC can play them too.
Got Vinyl? Me too. But no need to play disc jockey -- rip it to 96/24 and put it in your media server. And fix pops and clicks with ClickRepair -- and get album art, metadata, and searchability on top of it.
Got a DVD-Audio player and a SACD player? I do. Separate ones, and I have a combo player for good measure. Gone -- ripped to my HTPC so I can listen to anything regardless of source -- without switching inputs and flipping discs. Two players eliminated, two sets of 6 channel analog cables eliminated. Jewel cases eliminated. Spinning plastic eliminated. Scratches eliminated. Album art, metadata, and random access added. Same reason you rip your CDs. Why should your better-than-CD music have to live in a physical disc ghetto?
Like hi-res music like you can get on
HDTracks, such as the new
96/24 remaster of Moving Pictures or the
Stones back catalog in 176/24? I suppose you could burn a PCM DVD in 96/24if you want to hear it on a stand-alone player for some reason. Of you could just, you know, play it on your HTPC.
Want to catch something on Hulu or Youtube? Or did your DVR miss an episode of your favorite show but you can catch it on the network website in HD? No problem, HTPC.
I suppose I could buy a combo player like the
Oppo 95, which plays CD, HDCD, DVD, DVD-A, SACD, Blu-Ray, FLAC, Netflix, and Blockbuster -- but still doesn't do everything and costs as much as a PC, and you still have to play disc jockey. Or you could buy an all-in-one media player like
Popcorn Hour, but that still requires a PC to create the content and set-top boxes always get left behind when the next big format comes along.
That's the point of an HTPC -- enjoy all your media, from any source, at your fingertips. And get rid of bookcases full of jewel cases. And the record player. And the DVD-Audio player. And the SACD player. And the minidisc player. And the DAT deck. And the CD player. And the DVD player. And the Blu-Ray player. And the HD-DVD player. And the LD player and its separate FM modulator for DTS (and only DTS). And the VCR. And the tape deck. And the DVR. And the DLNA media player. And the SiriusXM tuner. And the game console.
Home Theater is great -- even greater to have all your media plus the streaming media of the internet at your fingertips on a HTPC and media server instead of running into a server closet and flipping discs and turning on one of a half-dozen players depending on what you want.
Want to listen to one song from Vinyl, then one from a DVD-A, then one from an SACD, then one from a Blu-Ray? Trivial on a HTPC, a daunting drudgery with separate components. See, that's the point -- quality being equal, it's the CONTENT that matters, not the vessel that contains it. THAT's why you don't need separate players even if you care about quality.
Unless you just like showing off your five foot tall rack of piano black plastic with little red lights in different places and a chamber pot filled with remote controls... At one point I guess I liked confusing visitors with the unnecessary tower of complexity. Now I like simplicity and power. That's why I'd love to see a Blu-Ray equipped Mac Mini.
$3000 Mac Mini? I guess I can just assume you were mixing your models when you typed that.
Yes, buying a good 15" MacBook Pro or a Mac Pro will cost $3k. And neither has HDMI, multichannel audio, or Blu-Ray.
Form factor sexiness aside, I wouldn't consider a Mac Mini to be the best HTPC because of its outdated processor and underwhelming video card, as well as its other overall slow laptop-sourced components.
Not everybody uses terms correctly. HT is a real term, use it correctly. When I find I'm talking to people that have an entire TV/speakers/DVD/BD setup that costs less than my subwoofer, I begin ignoring them.
Not sure if you're implying that's me, but since linux2mac is always dropping names, I'll follow suit; my setup costs north of $15k (65" Panny THX Plasma, Yamaha THX receiver, Definitive 6.1 speakers, 3 powered subs, HTPC, 3D Blu-Ray, DVDO scaler, and more not including equipment that's been replaced by the HTPC, the Boltz stainless steel media racks and the lay-z boys and custom room decoration and seating platform). There is a graveyard of banished equipment and physical media in my basement. If you have a $15k subwoofer I'd like to visit your HT setup. A HTPC is a great choice for unifying all media sources (and adding more that you can't even get in a set-top player) -- which is why it's sad that a Mac can't be the ultimate HTPC because it doesn't support Blu-Ray, or (aside from the latest Mini) HDMI or multichannel audio.
Interestingly, you and Linux2Mac reach the same conclusion from two different starting points. You agree that a PC has no place in a home theater, for vastly different reasons.