Originally posted by: Hardcore
Originally posted by: t3hmuffinman
Originally posted by: Hardcore
The result is that Apple once again gets to market early and has a chance to become the de facto standard, just like iTunes did.
So iTunes is the industry standard now?
How much money is iTunes really making? Maybe it's just the people i know, but i don't know a single person using iTunes to buy music... i'm not saying they're not out there, but how common is it really?
just about everyone i know uses it (though not necessarily to buy music, just to listen), though most of them aren't adept at computer usage. also, tons of people have ipods, so obviously they use itunes as well (ephpod isn't very well known amongst most ipod users).
i don't mean the player, i mean the service (to buy music)
Originally posted by: Tom
maybe it can stream movies while it downloads them, then you back them up to a dvd.
solves the issues y'all raise about time to download and storage space on the hard drive.
Originally posted by: Trevelyan
Perhaps the same kind of protection iTunes has with the AAC music you can download? You can only burn a few copies...
Plus the new video standard they are going to introduce has incredibly good quality/compression ratios. So I don't doubt that streaming movies will be possible. I'm sure the ease of use of the new software will be outstanding just as with iTunes.
what scares me is the "dual-processor Power Mac G5 part....they CANT mean that that's what it will take to decode HD!?!? i mean, it takes a ~3GHz P4 (or amd equiv.) to do WM9 HD w/o dropped frames, so im pretty sure a 2GHz powermac g5 could decode hi def w/o a problem. no one really knows though.Not only is H.264 very efficient, providing extremely high quality in smaller files, but H.264 is also scalable, producing video for everything from 3G for mobile phones to iChat AV to High Definition (HD) DVDs. H.264 can create great-looking 3G mobile content at 50-160 Kbps, excellent Standard Definition (SD) video at 800-1500 Kbps, beautiful HD video (1280x720, 24p) at 5-7 Mbps and full HD video (1920x1080, 24p) at 7-9 Mbps. So at today?s SD DVD data rates, H.264 can deliver full HD. In fact, H.264 was ratified by both the DVD Forum and the Blu-ray Disc Association for inclusion in their next-generation high-definition DVD specifications. Adopted worldwide as the next-generation standard HD H.264 video plays back on today?s desktop computers. So with QuickTime 7, a Cinema HD Display and a dual-processor Power Mac G5, the home office becomes home theater.
How does H.264 compare with MPEG-2?
HD MPEG-2 content at 1920x1080 traditionally runs at 12-20 Mbps, while H.264 can deliver 1920x1080 content at 7-8 Mbps at the same or better quality. H.264 provides DVD quality at about half the data rate of MPEG-2. Because of this efficiency, H.264, an ISO standard, stands to be the likely successor to MPEG-2 in the professional media industry.
Originally posted by: Hardcore
The result is that Apple once again gets to market early and has a chance to become the de facto standard, just like iTunes did.
So iTunes is the industry standard now?
How much money is iTunes really making? Maybe it's just the people i know, but i don't know a single person using iTunes to buy music... i'm not saying they're not out there, but how common is it really?
Originally posted by: Rogue
mac mini = downloaded HDTV content platform with Sony as a display partner
One caveat to this is storage space. I don't think you're gonna fit too many HD movies on a 40GB hard drive.
Not only would the mini be a great 'Media Center', but it can allow Apple to test the waters in this space before offering an iPod Video Player.I think it'd be interesting to see how the Mac mini works as Apple's initial entry into the personal media server market. I understand the 80GB drive of the top-end model is small by today's standards, but it compares favorably to Tivo, and with H.264 compression it should be adequate (don't know if the GPU can handle it though?)
But imagine if Apple could build a unit with G5, 512mb RAM, built-in wireless/bluetooth, dual-layer SuperDrive, HD multichannel audio and HDMI output with a "Media Center" version of Tiger. I think that would be an instant hit and the machine to beat in the Media Center market.