Go Build Your STUPID "Media Centres" Already !!
Hey, before you Flame On, that's the signature of a particular poster I read, not mine.
In the spirit of clarification, why this obsession with Media Centres?
Is there something that a certain segment of AppleInsiders or Apple users know that the rest of us are unaware of?
Am I, the poster with that above signature (not me), or the general populace behind the 8 ball on this or what?
Bonus points for anyone that can quote some market research informatzi.
GO BUILD YOUR STUPID MEDIA CENTRES ALREADY AND STOP TALKING ABOUT IT !!!
PS. Please don't hijack this thread by talking about whether that should be Centre or Center!! Whatever !!
In the spirit of clarification, why this obsession with Media Centres?
Is there something that a certain segment of AppleInsiders or Apple users know that the rest of us are unaware of?
Am I, the poster with that above signature (not me), or the general populace behind the 8 ball on this or what?
Bonus points for anyone that can quote some market research informatzi.
GO BUILD YOUR STUPID MEDIA CENTRES ALREADY AND STOP TALKING ABOUT IT !!!
PS. Please don't hijack this thread by talking about whether that should be Centre or Center!! Whatever !!
Comments
Originally posted by sunilraman
Hey, before you Flame On, that's the signature of a particular poster I read, not mine.
In the spirit of clarification, why this obsession with Media Centres?
Is there something that a certain segment of AppleInsiders or Apple users know that the rest of us are unaware of?
Am I, the poster with that above signature (not me), or the general populace behind the 8 ball on this or what?
Bonus points for anyone that can quote some market research informatzi.
GO BUILD YOUR STUPID MEDIA CENTRES ALREADY AND STOP TALKING ABOUT IT !!!
PS. Please don't hijack this thread by talking about whether that should be Centre or Center!! Whatever !!
Do what now?
Originally posted by addabox
Do what now?
Dear AppleInsiders that are very enthusiastic about Mac as a Home Theatre or Media Center,
Please share what drives your enthusiasm, why you really want to see the Mac become a Home Theatre or Media Center kind of Device
Originally posted by sunilraman
In the spirit of clarification, why this obsession with Media Centres?
Is there something that a certain segment of AppleInsiders or Apple users know that the rest of us are unaware of?
Am I, the poster with that above signature (not me), or the general populace behind the 8 ball on this or what?
Bonus points for anyone that can quote some market research informatzi.
Well, with all the nifty content - music, videos, pictures that we all now have nicely organized thanks to Apple, right down to slideshows with soundtracks and double-helpings of Ken Burns effects, it'd be nice when the whole family is over for thanksgiving to not have to get them to crowd around the iBook to see your stuff.
Further, we've all had a chance to play with a TiVo but want to save the recordings. We like our DVDs and access to content that our cable companies don't permit us. We want to tie it all together and make it work well.
MS sold 400,000 copies of Media Center 2005 last quarter. That's laughable sales to MS, but it's better than what Apple is pulling with the iMac. And let's face it - who do you expect will do the better job of getting it all right?
The general populace is behind the 8 ball on everything - that's why they're 'general'. But the general populace was behind the 8 ball on MP3 players, on PVRs, but also on things that flopped. I don't think the media center PC will take off until it's, well, until it's like plugging in a TiVo. Of course, that's what probably only Apple can succeed at, but that's the end goal.
Now, a lot of users are willing to pull the pieces together themselves and haul through a difficult experience to get the results they want. Their efforts will be packaged up and made neat and tidy so that down the road anybody can buy such a thing. Remember, taking music off of a CD was pretty high-tech hocus-pocus kinds of stuff. iTunes made is a piece of cake - handling the CDDB lookup, organizing the collection, etc. iPod made it just as easy to carry around - anyone can do it without knowing what codec means, what bitrates are for, and so on.
The overall iPod experience but for TV and other media is the goal.
The reason the mini has so much action around it is that the form factor is right and the hardware doesn't *prevent* it from being a HTPC. The add-on bits aren't all there, and the software is mostly missing, and the content source is largely missing as well, but then that's where we were a few years ago with music. You couldn't get the digital media directly (no iTMS), you couldn't manage it well (iTunes) and the hardware bits were possible but not readily available (iPod & Airport Express).
Look at that formula and fill in the equivalents for video and when you see them gathering, Apple will give you a media center system.
I am currently in a Tivo-less land and
In this case, we've got a good pipe of source video -- except for Nick! No SpongeBob for me
If Apple made a MediaCenter that is about the cost of a DVD/HardDisk recorder, 40hours of space, great management interface (and just on the TV, no separate screen required), seamless integration with the Sat TV provider (their set top box says "DVB compliant"), and wifi+ interaction with your other Apple hardware, he'd be sold
then to convince him to sign up for Nick and CartoonNetwork...
What are the possibilities of Apple getting involved in this within 2 years?
Even more exciting then the tens-of-thousands of possibilities this technology can utilize is the power/control it can give you over your digital life. Perhaps there is even a bit of a thrill in the sense in breaking some, ahem, newer laws that were passed to prohibit/prevent exactly this kind of technology on behalf of certain media "associations" in order to maximize profits.
Originally posted by Ebby
For me, it is the hope/fascination/dream of having a synchronized, do-anything, access anything, from anywhere, anytime, home-based computer network.
Even more exciting than the tens-of-thousands of possibilities this technology can utilize is the power/control it can give you over your life. Perhaps even a bit of a thrill in the sense that some newer laws were passed to prohibit/prevent this kind of technology on behalf of certain "associations" in order to maximize profits.
just like iTMS, when these evill conglomerates realise that consumers are demanding more robust and cost-effective delivery channels, they'll come to the party.
like right now, if i had a job
Its all about timing and 'Appleness'. The Appleness is the easy bit, it just takes hundreds of incredibly talented people working together under the direction of the world most 'charismatic' CEO. The timing is the thing. With the iPod/Apple brand on an upward curve they know that if the product is right then Apple could OWN this market. But the product has to be released just as the general acceptance curve starts to take off; just at the point where water cooler conversations are about ".. I've this new Media Center thing which is great but I can't work out how to...."
12 months?
Originally posted by vinney57
Apple's public stance on this is interesting, and a complete smokescreen of course. Apple's R&D will be running around like demented pixies creating endless prototypes for an Apple Home Entertainment Centre
Considering that Apple has been building these things for upwards of 10 years, I think this goes without saying. But there's no point releasing it until it worth releasing. Few companies are as good at determining that moment as Apple.
Originally posted by sunilraman
Hey, before you Flame On, that's the signature of a particular poster I read, not mine.
who on earth would write such a thing in their signature?!?!
Originally posted by ipodandimac
who on earth would write such a thing in their signature?!?!
ah... you de man...
Originally posted by vinney57
"..well YOU decide what colour it should be then"
I hope they dont just have hair stylists and telephone sanitizers working at apple.hq
Originally posted by gsxrboy
I hope they dont just have hair stylists and telephone sanitizers working at apple.hq
Nope...they're all flight attendants
Originally posted by gsxrboy
Ah sorry, I thought you were originally talking about golgafrinhans !
Aren't we all?
Ultimate TV had dual tuners and was their version of Tivo a couple of years ago when there were only 3 players, Tivo, Ultimate TV and Replay TV.
Since then, they pull ultimate TV opting for Media Center PC and Replay goes through 3 mgmt changes and is barely ever talked about since the market is about to explode with PVR options coming from everyone.
Fast forward to today, MCE has brought the PVR forward, from a MS perspective, and they have Xbox.
MS needs to revisit their lessons learned. If they rebuild the Ultimate TV and combine it with xBox, give it HD recording and Wireless connectivity, they would have something. Poor interfaces aside, the components are there.
It wouldn't be to far fetched for MS to buy Tivo and make it their OS. Microsoft want's to control every OS experience out there and currently there are only 4 main stream OS's besides Windows. They are Palm, OSX, Tivo and Unix. They cannot control Unix, the Government isn't going to let them buy Apple so that leaves only Tivo. With the Living Room being the next battle ground and the idea that the MCE's Computer Tower is unactractive and unwelcome next to a TV, this make sense.
All this aside, the G4 Cube was a great computer, but the price was WRONG for the components it had. If Apple can make the MacMini in such a small size, then they can make the next version larger, still remain below Cube size, and add the funtions of PVR. It would look good, remain small and do the work of Tivo plus the extra's we know Apple has stashed away in R&D for the PVR market.
Why is Apple waiting? This market is about to pop with 12 new players in the hardware market and they know this. The MacMini proves they can build small, why are they thinking Small Too?
Originally posted by geobe
Why is Apple waiting? This market is about to pop with 12 new players in the hardware market and they know this. The MacMini proves they can build small, why are they thinking Small Too?
Why do you think they're thinking small?
Markets are a funny thing. They change.
TiVo made the PVR market. Not much point competing with them, they got the hardware and software dialed in just right. Doing that with a PC would have been cost ineffective until recently. So how much money do you think MS is making on their 400,000 copies of media center last quarter? How big do you think the market will get when the software costs as much as a TiVo + lifetime subscription?
The market for online music didn't really come together until the market for portable digital music could be created. The iPod couldn't have happened much earlier than it did, nor could the iTMS.
There's a lot of haste around the media center. It's kind of getting there, but not as quickly as it might seem. I think Apple is waiting for the pieces to all really come together the right way and then they'll jump in and blow everyone away. It'll be as plug-in simple as all of their stuff. It'll do HD (year of HD). It will solve a problem nobody is solving (mass on-demand access to programming, ala iTMS, but not movies)
Remember, the iPod was late to the game as well. But Apple needed the little hard drive, the software, the market to have matured enough, and the iTMS concept to reveal itself. Look where they went with it all.