Arriving late to this thread and won't finish it before responding ?
Quote:
Originally Posted by tribulation
The main problem I have with having my Mac + Elgato + iTV is that it seems rather pointless. For one, as I said before I don't want to leave my G5 on all the time -- it sucks up way too much electricity. Having it shut down using energy saver would be ok I guess except I never know what random show I want to record until the day of when I look. That would mean I'd have to constantly be changing the energy saver shutdown time every day to make sure it's on to get my program(s). Seems like a big hassle and kind of defeats the purpose of being 'easy'.
EyeTV software will automatically wake up a sleeping Mac a couple minutes before a scheduled recording. Works fine here, except if the "Require password to wake this computer from sleep or screen saver" Security preference is enabled the system can go back to sleep when the login dialog times out before recording has started. I work around that by FUSing to my wife's account since it'll reactivate its login without a password after sleeping. It's primarily her Mac anyway so sometimes that FUS is unnecessary, or it's become second nature to FUS back after temporarily switching to my account for doing EyeTV-related or other tasks. Sometimes I'll manually sleep it; others times I just leave it run and let it sleep whenever it feels like it (which is mysteriously unpredictable).
I'm conscious about electricity usage with rates being relatively high here. I've been surprised how little difference certain changes make on a monthly bill, and how doing nothing obviously different sometimes "causes" a significant increase/decrease. I don't over-attempt to ultra-conserve now that I've seen how it basically averages out regardless what I do. I'll reevaluate if/when I get a Mac Pro or other energy-hungry system(s).
Quote:
Also if I'm downstairs watching TV I don't want to think about having to go back up to restart my Mac, only to go back down to watch a show that's on my Mac [upstairs]...again, not worth the trouble day in and day out.
Not being able remotely wake a sleeping Mac downstairs to watch EyeTV recordings upstairs (via EyeHome) is an issue though the occasionally bit of stair exercise to do it has never bothered me; I'll often do it as quickly as possible without tripping or clobbering some body part on a wall.
I had a workaround using my old iBook to remotely log in wirelessly to my iMac that typically runs 24x7, then running wakeonlan to wake up the eMac over a wired connection. I also used to remotely control iTunes/AirTunes with that iBook before its display stopped working last year.
I'm conscious about electricity usage with rates being relatively high here. I've been surprised how little difference certain changes make on a monthly bill, and how doing nothing obviously different sometimes "causes" a significant increase/decrease. I don't over-attempt to ultra-conserve now that I've seen how it basically averages out regardless what I do. I'll reevaluate if/when I get a Mac Pro or other energy-hungry system(s).
Totally off-topic I know, but you need to determine the devices in your home that use the most energy. These are likely to be:
Cooker
Heating (if electric)
Air conditioning
Washing machine
Tumble dryer
Kettle/coffee maker
Iron
Large flat-screen TV or projector
It is the use of these items that will produce noticeable differences on a month to month basis.
I think that toasters, irons, and kettles/coffee-makers are the devices that people are most likely not to think of when trying to work out where all their electricity is going.
This is really what an AppleTV is - its a dumb terminal that isn't suppossed to do anything except provide a front end to a backend server.
[?]
I think Apple is really on to something with this dumb frontend/smart backend solution.
Whenever possible (technology and budget permitting) I've always preferred "thin" media clients in my living room and other places appropriate for audio/video reception where their media servers and permanent storage really don't belong. I'm surprised how few people seem to acknowledge that strategy, still clinging to the idea that "fat" (and sometimes noisily distracting) computers, hard drives, and other components should be tightly coupled with corresponding media viewing/listening devices.
It is the use of these items that will produce noticeable differences on a month to month basis.
Good points, but a Mac Pro might make a noticible difference though, and a Power Mac G5 machine might too. I think the number for MacPro was about 175W at idle. Assuming $0.10/kWh, that looks to be about $12.60 a month to run it constantly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sjk
Arriving late to this thread and won't finish it before responding ?
EyeTV software will automatically wake up a sleeping Mac a couple minutes before a scheduled recording.
I didn't notice that, but the manual does confirm this.
Totally off-topic I know, but you need to determine the devices in your home that use the most energy. These are likely to be:
[?]
It is the use of these items that will produce noticeable differences on a month to month basis.
I'm including those types of devices with certain usage patterns having unexpected results. For example, running my office air conditioner more frequently and expecting an increased bill, yet it drops $20. Or I've made an extra effort to converse usage and the bill jumps $30. I'm not concerned enough (yet) to fastidiously monitor the most power-hungry devices, just aware of how the payment fluctuation is more counter-intuitively unpredictable here than in previous places I've lived. I've eliminated the possibility that my wife is primarily responsible.
Good points, but a Mac Pro might make a noticible difference though, and a Power Mac G5 machine might too. I think the number for MacPro was about 175W at idle. Assuming $0.10/kWh, that looks to be about $12.60 a month to run it constantly.
Don't forget the 980 watt power supply. When the machine is cookin', it's REALLY cookin'.
I'm including those types of devices with certain usage patterns having unexpected results. For example, running my office air conditioner more frequently and expecting an increased bill, yet it drops $20. Or I've made an extra effort to converse usage and the bill jumps $30. I'm not concerned enough (yet) to fastidiously monitor the most power-hungry devices, just aware of how the payment fluctuation is more counter-intuitively unpredictable here than in previous places I've lived. I've eliminated the possibility that my wife is primarily responsible.
Two reasons could be responsible for that.
The first, of course, is that other devices are running more often, or at higher levels than you realise.
The second is that the power company may be changing the kilowatt/hr rates they are charging, depending on the spot pricing they are paying that month.
I'm including those types of devices with certain usage patterns having unexpected results. For example, running my office air conditioner more frequently and expecting an increased bill, yet it drops $20. Or I've made an extra effort to converse usage and the bill jumps $30. I'm not concerned enough (yet) to fastidiously monitor the most power-hungry devices, just aware of how the payment fluctuation is more counter-intuitively unpredictable here than in previous places I've lived. I've eliminated the possibility that my wife is primarily responsible.
Go by the average per day or per hour usage, not he cost as the read dates are never consistant, at least where I have lived.
Don't forget the 980 watt power supply. When the machine is cookin', it's REALLY cookin'.
Yeah, I'd hope that's running for limited periods. Counting the input conversion inefficiency, that's nearly a hair dryer assuming it is loaded all the way. The stock unit was tested to take a max 300W though, and that's the wall-socket power. I'm not sure what it would take to triple that. A couple of Clovertowns, five Raptors, two nVidia Quadros? I suppose that would get close.
Yeah, I'd hope that's running for limited periods. Counting the input conversion inefficiency, that's nearly a hair dryer assuming it is loaded all the way. The stock unit was tested to take a max 300W though, and that's the wall-socket power. I'm not sure what it would take to triple that. A couple of Clovertowns, five Raptors, two nVidia Quadros? I suppose that would get close.
Think of a weekend rendering job. That's full speed all the time. I've done it often enough over the years. It was worse though. I had to run my older machines all week just to get an hour of 3:1 compressed 601 standard video out.
wouldn't the greatest irony of all this be that intead of people buying a Mac to add DVR backend capability to their ?tv, they buy a cheapo PC to do it. A lot of people here are complaining that they don't want to buy another $3000 mac or bog down their current $3000 mac with ?tv content. Fine, build a crappy $300 PC and let its sole purpose be to Tivo, encode, and stream content to the ?tv.
On a side note, I will not be getting an ?tv until I know I can watch any codec VLC can currently use on it.
I have no trouble watching films with Quicktime (with the current codec support, of course) that I haven't used VLC on a Mac for a couple years now. Since it's apparently confirmed that AppleTV uses OS X and, presumably, Quicktime frameworks this may be a reality already.
Since it's apparently confirmed that AppleTV uses OS X and, presumably, Quicktime frameworks this may be a reality already.
I don't think it uses the QuickTime frameworks. The CPU is an under-clocked celeron, I suspect that Apple are using the hardware-decode features of the NVIDIA GPU onboard the AppleTV to do the heavy-lifting work of video-track decoding. I can't really see how the QuickTime framework running in OS X on a 1 GHz Celeron could possibly decode Main Profile 1280x720/24p H.264 in real-time.
I don't think it uses the QuickTime frameworks. The CPU is an under-clocked celeron, I suspect that Apple are using the hardware-decode features of the NVIDIA GPU onboard the AppleTV to do the heavy-lifting work of video-track decoding. I can't really see how the QuickTime framework running in OS X on a 1 GHz Celeron could possibly decode Main Profile 1280x720/24p H.264 in real-time.
When has Apple ever lowered the price on anything? They just upgrade the featues for the same price.
How about the iPod?
The cheapest iPod in 2001 was $399 and was holding about a thousand song in mp3 format. in 2007, you can get a much less bulky iPod with a color screen that holds a thousand AAC songs at $199 (second gen 4GB iPod nano).
Also, the first gen 2GB nano was $199, it's now $149. Sure you'll say "they just upgraded the 1GB model", but the 1GB was a late addition anyway that brought the entry level price for an iPod with screen to $149.
And if you don't consider the nano in the same league as the original iPod because of its smaller screen, then consider comparing the $249 current HDD iPod video vs. the $399 original iPod. Not only it has much more capacity and features, but it's ALSO a lot cheaper.
The iPod shuffle was introduced at $99 for the 512MB model. The second gen shuffle is $79, is much smaller and has twice the storage.
A small 1000 songs audio player is good enough for the majority people, and that'll be true for years to come, Apple would've been stupid to keep the cheapest iPod at $399 and only add features. For an audio player, there's no equivalent to the increasing requirements of computer software.
Apple also tries to bring down the prices of Macs, but the situation is more complicated there. Over the years, software has been more demanding (thanks to bloatware) and Macs only recently reached a point in performance where almost everything in OS X is snappy on every new machines. Apple could've released a $300 500Mhz G4 Mac Mini with 128 MB of RAM in 2005, but it would've been a crappy user experience. Also, the intel transition forced them to bring up the price of the mini, but I bet it'll eventually get back at $499. And if you think about it, the $599 intel Mac mini is still a lot cheaper than the $1799 PowerMac cube...
The AppleTV can play HD video content, and that will be enough for years to come, no need to upgrade the hardware for that in the meantime. Even if there might be some upgrades to the HDD I bet that the price will come down eventually. And even with only a 40GB HDD, the AppleTV is perfectly useable for streaming from a large collection of movies and TV shows.
I wouldn't be surprised to see the base AppleTV sell for $199/$249 in 2008, I don't see what killer feature they could add to justify keeping the price at $299.
And please guys, stop asking for a DVR feature in the AppleTV, it won't happen, end of story.
Comments
The main problem I have with having my Mac + Elgato + iTV is that it seems rather pointless. For one, as I said before I don't want to leave my G5 on all the time -- it sucks up way too much electricity. Having it shut down using energy saver would be ok I guess except I never know what random show I want to record until the day of when I look. That would mean I'd have to constantly be changing the energy saver shutdown time every day to make sure it's on to get my program(s). Seems like a big hassle and kind of defeats the purpose of being 'easy'.
EyeTV software will automatically wake up a sleeping Mac a couple minutes before a scheduled recording. Works fine here, except if the "Require password to wake this computer from sleep or screen saver" Security preference is enabled the system can go back to sleep when the login dialog times out before recording has started. I work around that by FUSing to my wife's account since it'll reactivate its login without a password after sleeping. It's primarily her Mac anyway so sometimes that FUS is unnecessary, or it's become second nature to FUS back after temporarily switching to my account for doing EyeTV-related or other tasks. Sometimes I'll manually sleep it; others times I just leave it run and let it sleep whenever it feels like it (which is mysteriously unpredictable).
I'm conscious about electricity usage with rates being relatively high here. I've been surprised how little difference certain changes make on a monthly bill, and how doing nothing obviously different sometimes "causes" a significant increase/decrease. I don't over-attempt to ultra-conserve now that I've seen how it basically averages out regardless what I do. I'll reevaluate if/when I get a Mac Pro or other energy-hungry system(s).
Also if I'm downstairs watching TV I don't want to think about having to go back up to restart my Mac, only to go back down to watch a show that's on my Mac [upstairs]...again, not worth the trouble day in and day out.
Not being able remotely wake a sleeping Mac downstairs to watch EyeTV recordings upstairs (via EyeHome) is an issue though the occasionally bit of stair exercise to do it has never bothered me; I'll often do it as quickly as possible without tripping or clobbering some body part on a wall.
I had a workaround using my old iBook to remotely log in wirelessly to my iMac that typically runs 24x7, then running wakeonlan to wake up the eMac over a wired connection. I also used to remotely control iTunes/AirTunes with that iBook before its display stopped working last year.
I'm conscious about electricity usage with rates being relatively high here. I've been surprised how little difference certain changes make on a monthly bill, and how doing nothing obviously different sometimes "causes" a significant increase/decrease. I don't over-attempt to ultra-conserve now that I've seen how it basically averages out regardless what I do. I'll reevaluate if/when I get a Mac Pro or other energy-hungry system(s).
Totally off-topic I know, but you need to determine the devices in your home that use the most energy. These are likely to be:
- Cooker
- Heating (if electric)
- Air conditioning
- Washing machine
- Tumble dryer
- Kettle/coffee maker
- Iron
- Large flat-screen TV or projector
It is the use of these items that will produce noticeable differences on a month to month basis.Totally off-topic I know, but you need to determine the devices in your home that use the most energy. These are likely to be:
- Cooker
- Heating (if electric)
- Air conditioning
- Washing machine
- Tumble dryer
- Kettle/coffee maker
- Iron
- Large flat-screen TV or projector
It is the use of these items that will produce noticeable differences on a month to month basis.To that you can add:
Dishwasher, mine heats the water itself.
Toaster, if it's used every day.
Microwave, for the same reason.
To that you can add:
Dishwasher, mine heats the water itself.
Toaster, if it's used every day.
Microwave, for the same reason.
Ooo, good ones.
I think that toasters, irons, and kettles/coffee-makers are the devices that people are most likely not to think of when trying to work out where all their electricity is going.
This is really what an AppleTV is - its a dumb terminal that isn't suppossed to do anything except provide a front end to a backend server.
[?]
I think Apple is really on to something with this dumb frontend/smart backend solution.
Whenever possible (technology and budget permitting) I've always preferred "thin" media clients in my living room and other places appropriate for audio/video reception where their media servers and permanent storage really don't belong. I'm surprised how few people seem to acknowledge that strategy, still clinging to the idea that "fat" (and sometimes noisily distracting) computers, hard drives, and other components should be tightly coupled with corresponding media viewing/listening devices.
A few months ago someone would have said "apple-tv.com" was worthless, but not now - I own that one too.
Who are you expecting to buy such a domain name?
You don't own or buy domain names, you're only renting them.
It is the use of these items that will produce noticeable differences on a month to month basis.
Good points, but a Mac Pro might make a noticible difference though, and a Power Mac G5 machine might too. I think the number for MacPro was about 175W at idle. Assuming $0.10/kWh, that looks to be about $12.60 a month to run it constantly.
Arriving late to this thread and won't finish it before responding ?
EyeTV software will automatically wake up a sleeping Mac a couple minutes before a scheduled recording.
I didn't notice that, but the manual does confirm this.
Totally off-topic I know, but you need to determine the devices in your home that use the most energy. These are likely to be:
[?]
It is the use of these items that will produce noticeable differences on a month to month basis.
I'm including those types of devices with certain usage patterns having unexpected results. For example, running my office air conditioner more frequently and expecting an increased bill, yet it drops $20. Or I've made an extra effort to converse usage and the bill jumps $30. I'm not concerned enough (yet) to fastidiously monitor the most power-hungry devices, just aware of how the payment fluctuation is more counter-intuitively unpredictable here than in previous places I've lived. I've eliminated the possibility that my wife is primarily responsible.
You don't own or buy domain names, you're only renting them.
And cyber squatters are often kicked out if a court rules they are infringing on someone's right to their Trademarked Marks.
Good points, but a Mac Pro might make a noticible difference though, and a Power Mac G5 machine might too. I think the number for MacPro was about 175W at idle. Assuming $0.10/kWh, that looks to be about $12.60 a month to run it constantly.
Don't forget the 980 watt power supply. When the machine is cookin', it's REALLY cookin'.
I'm including those types of devices with certain usage patterns having unexpected results. For example, running my office air conditioner more frequently and expecting an increased bill, yet it drops $20. Or I've made an extra effort to converse usage and the bill jumps $30. I'm not concerned enough (yet) to fastidiously monitor the most power-hungry devices, just aware of how the payment fluctuation is more counter-intuitively unpredictable here than in previous places I've lived. I've eliminated the possibility that my wife is primarily responsible.
Two reasons could be responsible for that.
The first, of course, is that other devices are running more often, or at higher levels than you realise.
The second is that the power company may be changing the kilowatt/hr rates they are charging, depending on the spot pricing they are paying that month.
I'm including those types of devices with certain usage patterns having unexpected results. For example, running my office air conditioner more frequently and expecting an increased bill, yet it drops $20. Or I've made an extra effort to converse usage and the bill jumps $30. I'm not concerned enough (yet) to fastidiously monitor the most power-hungry devices, just aware of how the payment fluctuation is more counter-intuitively unpredictable here than in previous places I've lived. I've eliminated the possibility that my wife is primarily responsible.
Go by the average per day or per hour usage, not he cost as the read dates are never consistant, at least where I have lived.
Don't forget the 980 watt power supply. When the machine is cookin', it's REALLY cookin'.
Yeah, I'd hope that's running for limited periods. Counting the input conversion inefficiency, that's nearly a hair dryer assuming it is loaded all the way. The stock unit was tested to take a max 300W though, and that's the wall-socket power. I'm not sure what it would take to triple that. A couple of Clovertowns, five Raptors, two nVidia Quadros? I suppose that would get close.
Yeah, I'd hope that's running for limited periods. Counting the input conversion inefficiency, that's nearly a hair dryer assuming it is loaded all the way. The stock unit was tested to take a max 300W though, and that's the wall-socket power. I'm not sure what it would take to triple that. A couple of Clovertowns, five Raptors, two nVidia Quadros? I suppose that would get close.
Think of a weekend rendering job. That's full speed all the time. I've done it often enough over the years. It was worse though. I had to run my older machines all week just to get an hour of 3:1 compressed 601 standard video out.
On a side note, I will not be getting an ?tv until I know I can watch any codec VLC can currently use on it.
On a side note, I will not be getting an ?tv until I know I can watch any codec VLC can currently use on it.
Do you seriously think that'll ever happen?
Do you seriously think that'll ever happen?
I have no trouble watching films with Quicktime (with the current codec support, of course) that I haven't used VLC on a Mac for a couple years now. Since it's apparently confirmed that AppleTV uses OS X and, presumably, Quicktime frameworks this may be a reality already.
Since it's apparently confirmed that AppleTV uses OS X and, presumably, Quicktime frameworks this may be a reality already.
I don't think it uses the QuickTime frameworks. The CPU is an under-clocked celeron, I suspect that Apple are using the hardware-decode features of the NVIDIA GPU onboard the AppleTV to do the heavy-lifting work of video-track decoding. I can't really see how the QuickTime framework running in OS X on a 1 GHz Celeron could possibly decode Main Profile 1280x720/24p H.264 in real-time.
I don't think it uses the QuickTime frameworks. The CPU is an under-clocked celeron, I suspect that Apple are using the hardware-decode features of the NVIDIA GPU onboard the AppleTV to do the heavy-lifting work of video-track decoding. I can't really see how the QuickTime framework running in OS X on a 1 GHz Celeron could possibly decode Main Profile 1280x720/24p H.264 in real-time.
Bingo!
When has Apple ever lowered the price on anything? They just upgrade the featues for the same price.
How about the iPod?
The cheapest iPod in 2001 was $399 and was holding about a thousand song in mp3 format. in 2007, you can get a much less bulky iPod with a color screen that holds a thousand AAC songs at $199 (second gen 4GB iPod nano).
Also, the first gen 2GB nano was $199, it's now $149. Sure you'll say "they just upgraded the 1GB model", but the 1GB was a late addition anyway that brought the entry level price for an iPod with screen to $149.
And if you don't consider the nano in the same league as the original iPod because of its smaller screen, then consider comparing the $249 current HDD iPod video vs. the $399 original iPod. Not only it has much more capacity and features, but it's ALSO a lot cheaper.
The iPod shuffle was introduced at $99 for the 512MB model. The second gen shuffle is $79, is much smaller and has twice the storage.
A small 1000 songs audio player is good enough for the majority people, and that'll be true for years to come, Apple would've been stupid to keep the cheapest iPod at $399 and only add features. For an audio player, there's no equivalent to the increasing requirements of computer software.
Apple also tries to bring down the prices of Macs, but the situation is more complicated there. Over the years, software has been more demanding (thanks to bloatware) and Macs only recently reached a point in performance where almost everything in OS X is snappy on every new machines. Apple could've released a $300 500Mhz G4 Mac Mini with 128 MB of RAM in 2005, but it would've been a crappy user experience. Also, the intel transition forced them to bring up the price of the mini, but I bet it'll eventually get back at $499. And if you think about it, the $599 intel Mac mini is still a lot cheaper than the $1799 PowerMac cube...
The AppleTV can play HD video content, and that will be enough for years to come, no need to upgrade the hardware for that in the meantime. Even if there might be some upgrades to the HDD I bet that the price will come down eventually. And even with only a 40GB HDD, the AppleTV is perfectly useable for streaming from a large collection of movies and TV shows.
I wouldn't be surprised to see the base AppleTV sell for $199/$249 in 2008, I don't see what killer feature they could add to justify keeping the price at $299.
And please guys, stop asking for a DVR feature in the AppleTV, it won't happen, end of story.