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You are here: MacNN Forums > Hardware - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Consumer Hardware & Components > Apple TV vs Mac Mini as a set-top-solution

Apple TV vs Mac Mini as a set-top-solution (Page 4)
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besson3c
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Mar 23, 2007, 09:09 AM
 
Never mind...
( Last edited by besson3c; Mar 23, 2007 at 09:35 AM. )
     
wallinbl
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Mar 23, 2007, 09:11 AM
 
Originally Posted by besson3c View Post
My take on this product is that it is for the converted poster-child Mac users who use iLife just as depicted within Apple ads, and have a spare $300 lying around.

Sorry to be so negative, but the only value I see in this product is for people with Desktop Macs that use the iLife apps a lot, or perhaps people who are willing to spend $300 to play their iTunes music out of their TV's sound system...

Actually, I'm not really sure who the target market is here.
I don't have a Mac. I use iTunes. I'm buying one today. I see it as a way to save the money that I was otherwise giving to the cable company. My only reservation is the fact that the content is not in HD. If it looks like crap when playing video, I'd probably return it over that.
     
besson3c
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Mar 23, 2007, 09:19 AM
 
Okay, another question...

When I babble on about not seeing the value for laptop owners that can connect to a TV with a DVI/s-video cable, this is based on my personal usage where I end up doing this relatively seldom.

How often do you guys watch movies that you've acquired on your computer? Most of the movies I do watch are on my computer, but I just don't end up watching movies at all more than once a week or so, if that... My movie watching is pretty sporadic too.

You? How often do you watch movies?

Just wondering...
     
SciFrog
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Mar 23, 2007, 09:29 AM
 
I was on the verge to get an AppleTV, perfect for my needs. But no 5.1 support?

I am shocked, this means that you won't get full audio quality if you wanted to rip the dozen DVDs you watch the most.
Why hasn't this been more highlighted? I would trade a slightly degraded image for full 5.1 support.

I can live with the other shortcomings, but not this one.
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zerostar
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Mar 23, 2007, 09:39 AM
 
Yes this has been posted over and over, this is a total bummer.
     
shifuimam
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Mar 23, 2007, 09:44 AM
 
Originally Posted by Javizun View Post
i have both a mac mini and today i recieved the apple tv
overall i prefer mac mini over apple tv so that is why i am selling it in the marketplace
It's too bad you can't return it for a full refund - I'm assuming the Apple Store would charge you their 15% "restocking fee"?

Originally Posted by SciFrog View Post
I was on the verge to get an AppleTV, perfect for my needs.
See, that's the thing I don't get about the AppleTV. The only two things you'd ever want to SEE on your TV are photos and movies. The photos thing you can do with an iPod photo (or 5G iPod) and cable, and the movies thing you can do (in much better quality with surround sound) through a regular DVD player. Music is moot to me - I'm not turning on my TV just to play music. I have a 27" CRT HDTV, and those suckers take a LOT of electricity.

...if you wanted to rip the dozen DVDs you watch the most.
Maybe I've missed something, but the only references to movies in the AppleTV user manual is home videos and movies purchased through iTunes. Did Apple manage to convince the MPAA to finally allow SOMEONE to rip DVDs legally in the United States?
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SciFrog
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Mar 23, 2007, 09:53 AM
 
True, but still...

Also if ITMS sells HD content does this mean it will not have 5.1? Who is going to buy that, even TV shows have 5.1 now...
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mgpalma
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Mar 23, 2007, 01:20 PM
 
Wouldn't the Apple TV interface on a Macmini be awesome! I would love to see this as my Macmini (coreduo) has more capabilities then the Apple TV. Since people were able to hack Front Row onto non-supported Macs I would think it should be possible. Any thoughts?
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zerostar
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Mar 23, 2007, 01:24 PM
 
Yeah I imagine we may see it eventually, if you had an Apple TV you could clone the drive for your mini and see if it will boot... But perhaps this is not allowed conversation here so thats as far as I will go.
     
mdc
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Mar 23, 2007, 01:27 PM
 
People have access to the file system of the Apple TV and have found it to be a regular Mac OS install. I am sure someone is sitting at their desk right now going through the file system and trying to find out what makes the GUI.

One thing I read was that someone thinks that the GUI is actually the Finder for the Apple TV. I guess if the Finder.app is the Apple TV's "frontrow" then maybe it could be copied to Mac OS and played around with.
I don't want to open my Apple TV and mess around.

Steve has said that Leopard will have Frontrow built in. I was wondering whether it'll be the regular frontrow or the Apple TV version.
     
OAW
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Mar 23, 2007, 02:12 PM
 
Originally Posted by shifuimam View Post
See, that's the thing I don't get about the AppleTV. The only two things you'd ever want to SEE on your TV are photos and movies.
Well that may be all that you want to do on a TV, but believe me there are others who disagree. When you have a music collection with thousands upon thousands of tracks, organized and categorized to the Nth degree iTunes ... it would be nice to be able to navigate one's collection visually on one's home theater system. I want to be able to hear it on the audio equipment, but I want to be able to select the track, album, playlist I want to listen to with a remote while I sit on my ass on the couch. Sure i could get up and walk across the living room and navigate an iPod tethered to my home stereo. But that's not nearly as elegant or convenient.

The primary reason I want an Apple TV is for the music. Photos are next. Movies are last since I'll probably utilize the DVD player and its 5.1 support most of the time for that.

OAW
     
Salsa
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Mar 23, 2007, 02:28 PM
 
I beginning to think that there are enough iTunes users for Apple to sell around a million Apple TV units primarily for music. These buyers will probably throw in some DVD's that the kids watch repeatedly, some porn ripped from DVD, and home movies (or at least some highlights from iMovie). That's enough for people to decide that they like using Apple TV for watching videos and open the door for Apple to sell more content to them once iTunes has more choices. The next step is making Apple TV work better with ATCS tuners and optimize the iPod for HD video.

Even though the buy rather than rent model has worked well for Apple in music, I think most people only watch movies once. The exceptions are noted above, ie. children's movies, porn, and home movies.
     
Salsa
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Mar 23, 2007, 02:32 PM
 
Originally Posted by mgpalma View Post
Wouldn't the Apple TV interface on a Macmini be awesome! I would love to see this as my Macmini (coreduo) has more capabilities then the Apple TV. Since people were able to hack Front Row onto non-supported Macs I would think it should be possible. Any thoughts?
The problem with the Mini is that it doesn't have a video card and lacks the power for HD h264 (unless you run Windows MCE). I hope the next revision of the Mini brings us better video playback.
     
iDaver
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Mar 23, 2007, 03:36 PM
 
Originally Posted by Salsa View Post
The problem with the Mini is that it doesn't have a video card and lacks the power for HD h264 (unless you run Windows MCE).
I'm not sure that's correct. HD trailers seem to work just fine, although they do rev up the fans quite a bit.
     
SciFrog
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Mar 23, 2007, 03:49 PM
 
Apple TV user reports/tips/issues

A guy claims to have 5.1 from QT pro and AAC 5.1 (no AC3 pass through though).
That would be good enough for me...
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Scarpad
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Mar 23, 2007, 04:02 PM
 
Originally Posted by mgpalma View Post
Wouldn't the Apple TV interface on a Macmini be awesome! I would love to see this as my Macmini (coreduo) has more capabilities then the Apple TV. Since people were able to hack Front Row onto non-supported Macs I would think it should be possible. Any thoughts?
I would'nt be surprised to see this happenning, maybe thru a hack but happening never the less.
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Scarpad
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Mar 23, 2007, 04:03 PM
 
Originally Posted by Salsa View Post
The problem with the Mini is that it doesn't have a video card and lacks the power for HD h264 (unless you run Windows MCE). I hope the next revision of the Mini brings us better video playback.
I have a G4 PPC mini and I've played H264 vids without a problem so I'm not sure what your takling about a Intel Duo mini certainly could
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Salsa
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Mar 23, 2007, 04:38 PM
 
Originally Posted by iDaver View Post
I'm not sure that's correct. HD trailers seem to work just fine, although they do rev up the fans quite a bit.
It depends on what settings you use in encoding the video. HD movie trailers play fine on my dual G5 too, but I tried one video I encoded myself and many others that I downloaded from file sharing sites and I can't get any to play smoothly even though they play fine Windows PC's and more powerful Macs.
     
Salsa
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Mar 23, 2007, 04:40 PM
 
Originally Posted by Scarpad View Post
I have a G4 PPC mini and I've played H264 vids without a problem so I'm not sure what your takling about a Intel Duo mini certainly could
We're talking about high definition (at least 720p) videos. I doubt you can play those on a G4. By the way, does the G4 Mini have a video card?
     
SciFrog
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Mar 23, 2007, 09:02 PM
 
Originally Posted by SciFrog View Post
Apple TV user reports/tips/issues

A guy claims to have 5.1 from QT pro and AAC 5.1 (no AC3 pass through though).
That would be good enough for me...
Actually the file was in iTunes as 5.1, but the AppleTV output is not 5.1. Similar to the trailers on Apple's website.

Why did hey leave out 5.1? Divx and such, I understand. Oh well, no AppleTV for me then.
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Simon
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Mar 24, 2007, 02:45 AM
 
Originally Posted by Salsa View Post
By the way, does the G4 Mini have a video card?
It has a dedicated GPU with its own VRAM. It's a Radeon 9200 with 32MB (or 64MB if you got one of the stealth upgrades).
     
torifile
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Mar 24, 2007, 08:01 AM
 
Getting back to the original point of this thread: which is a better set-top box solution - the mini or the AppleTV? I've got to say that I'm torn. I bought a Mac mini for my HTPC thinking that an AppleTV wouldn't be sufficient for my needs. To a certain extent, that's true.

The mini has replaced my DVD player in addition to being my video and iTunes music player. It does the job very capably. But I've run into the problem of keeping my playlists on my iMac in sync as well as the issue of syncing my iPods. I've decided to store my media on an external HD connected to the mini and networking my other computers to that drive and aliasing my music folders to that drive. Syncing my iPods has been slow over the network.

The AppleTV would obviate the need for that complicated setup at the expense of limited format options and no DVD playback. Is it worth it? I have no idea. I second (or third) the notion that the Frontrow we see on the AppleTV would be awesome on other computers.
     
icruise
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Mar 24, 2007, 11:10 AM
 
I still don't understand why people are so hung up on the Apple TV not playing DVDs. DVD players are very cheap and generally better suited to use on a big screen TV than the OS X player anyway (from the standpoint of the controls, etc).
     
iDaver
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Mar 24, 2007, 11:15 AM
 
Originally Posted by icruise View Post
I still don't understand why people are so hung up on the Apple TV not playing DVDs. DVD players are very cheap and generally better suited to use on a big screen TV than the OS X player anyway (from the standpoint of the controls, etc).
I think it's that they want to eliminate (reduce) the box clutter. A DVD player, cable box, game box and AppleTV starts to get pretty boxy.
     
OAW
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Mar 24, 2007, 03:39 PM
 
Originally Posted by Salsa View Post
I beginning to think that there are enough iTunes users for Apple to sell around a million Apple TV units primarily for music. These buyers will probably throw in some DVD's that the kids watch repeatedly, some porn ripped from DVD, and home movies (or at least some highlights from iMovie). That's enough for people to decide that they like using Apple TV for watching videos and open the door for Apple to sell more content to them once iTunes has more choices. The next step is making Apple TV work better with ATCS tuners and optimize the iPod for HD video.

Even though the buy rather than rent model has worked well for Apple in music, I think most people only watch movies once. The exceptions are noted above, ie. children's movies, porn, and home movies.
Good points. But somehow I don't think the users that are going to load up the Apple TV with children's movies are also going to load it up with porn. No way to keep the two "separated" if you know what I mean! Would be nice to be able to setup a password protected "Late Night Entertainment" video playlist, but oh well.

OAW
     
torifile
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Mar 24, 2007, 04:16 PM
 
Originally Posted by icruise View Post
I still don't understand why people are so hung up on the Apple TV not playing DVDs. DVD players are very cheap and generally better suited to use on a big screen TV than the OS X player anyway (from the standpoint of the controls, etc).
Not when you've got a universal remote control that can do much more than just play and pause. And, really, how often do you use all that other stuff on your DVD player remote?
     
Salsa
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Mar 24, 2007, 06:57 PM
 
Originally Posted by OAW View Post
Good points. But somehow I don't think the users that are going to load up the Apple TV with children's movies are also going to load it up with porn. No way to keep the two "separated" if you know what I mean! Would be nice to be able to setup a password protected "Late Night Entertainment" video playlist, but oh well.

OAW
Yeah, those are two totally different groups. People who have kids don't have any time for porn. ;-)
     
besson3c
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Mar 24, 2007, 07:00 PM
 
Well, there is porn for kids - kiddie porn, but it is illegal.
     
icruise
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Mar 24, 2007, 08:53 PM
 
Um, kiddie porn is porn *starring kids* not *for* kids. Anyway, I think we're veering dangerously off subject.
     
Hawkeye_a  (op)
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Mar 25, 2007, 12:17 AM
 
We just got xvid working on the Apple TV - The Something Awful Forums

AppleTV hacked to run XviD videos. DivX to follow.

The hack involves removing the HDD mounting it and doing some magic. Once they figure out how to do it without opening it i'm in.
     
icruise
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Mar 25, 2007, 12:49 AM
 
It apparently breaks syncing, though, which is a pretty major downside.
     
 
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