Mac Mini Delusions

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20050127.html' target='_blank'>http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20050127.html</a><br /><br /></div><i>"You do realize that the MiniMac is the Netflix killer, and the next wave of the "digital content" revolution? With the MiniMac, a decent set of HD movies as well as old content, an iFlix client connecting to legal content and BitTorrent to transmit, Apple has eliminated the most costly part of the NetFlix model while maintaining all of the good pieces. When you examine the NetFlix annual reports you can pull out the fact that one of their most expensive costs is the handling of physical media. The man power, physical shipping, and multiple location warehousing is much greater than the cost of getting the content."</i><br /><br />The above quote is from Robert X. Cringely's latest article, but the text is from a reader - in fact, most of the article is from this reader. It's so "pie in the sky" it's actually comical. People want so badly to believe that Apple will deliver us to digital nirvana that they'll come up with no end dreams as to how it will happen. Give the article a read and weigh in.

[Macguy59]

Like you said it was a readers response but an over the top one. I did find something useful in all that . . .

"The processing power is there, if just barely. Apple's web site coyly says that a dual G5 is "more than enough" to decode a 1920-by-1080 HD video stream. How much more than enough is anyone's guess. But I think this is Apple trying to obscure the truth. The HD video stream they described is 1080i and runs at 30 frames per second (fps). But movies don't run at 30 fps, they run at 24 fps. And there is a second HD video standard, called 720p, that uses a 1280-by-720 screen. Comparing 1080i-30 to 720p-24 we see that the former standard requires 7-8 megabits-per-second (mbps) to carry an H.264 video stream while the latter requires half that -- 3.5-4 mbps. So 720p-24 requires half the bandwidth AND (because of the lower resolution) half of the processing power, which means, according to Apple, that a single G5 would do. Yeah, but the Mac Mini uses a G4 processor, remember? But H.264 decoding performance is almost entirely dependent on the speed of the processor's Altivec unit, which benchmarks show to be comparable in both chips at similar clock speeds. So if a 1.25 GHz G5 has enough grunt to decode a 720p-24 stream, then so does a Mac Mini."

[klinux]

Anyone who has used BitTorrent to move a DVD-quality sized file will realize that is not the best method for B2C content distribution.

And as others have said, Mini cannot decode HD smoothly. Apple does not make it easy for others to utilize the GPU to do the video decoding.

[Neil Enns]

I have a co-worker who has around 400 DVDs and was planning on turning his PC into a media center with all the DVDs digitally ripped to harddrives. He calculated that he would need 4TB of storage (minimum!) to hold the DVDs, and that didn't include any kind of redundancy for the drive failures that were bound to happen.

Instead he bought a $400 Sony DVD changer that can hold 400 DVDs and can be connected to his PC via serial, and $49 worth of software from the web to drive it.

We're a long way from the days when all the media can just drive off a mac mini :)

Neil

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

Anyone who has used BitTorrent to move a DVD-quality sized file will realize that is not the best method for B2C content distribution.

And as others have said, Mini cannot decode HD smoothly. Apple does not make it easy for others to utilize the GPU to do the video decoding.

Why not? (to both)

[bdegroodt]

Anyone who has used BitTorrent to move a DVD-quality sized file will realize that is not the best method for B2C content distribution.
I think this is a fair statement if you assume no advancement in the UI, but (and I don't have an opinion on Apples intention here at all), if Apple were to do as they did with ITMS and embrace/advance an existing technology to the level of "lowest-common-denominator-usability" I could see BT being a great way to move B2C product. Lot of work, but possible easily.

[jeffd]

Yea.. BT isnt the greatest for 4 gig files.. it can still take a day or 2 to download, more if its not a popular movie. Also there IS no suitable DRM for it. If a DRM was that easy to make up for BT.. it would have been done.

A mini mac is no more a "netflix" killer then my cheap movie PC I built for my entertainment center.

[gry]

With the decline of religious cults, these wackos have to believe in something...APPLE.

[Macguy59]

With the decline of religious cults, these wackos have to believe in something...APPLE.

I guess an IQ higher then your shoe size is to much to ask for :roll:

[Jason Dunn]

People - be polite to each other or I'll start deleting posts.

[Macguy59]

People - be polite to each other or I'll start deleting posts.

Apologies

[Felix Torres]

The funny thing about the idea of the miniMac being a Netflix killer (of all things to fixate on!) is that the Netflix killer is...
...Netflix...
If they had bothered to research the company in question they would know that mail delivery of movie rentals is and always has been an interim step for Netflix to establish the brand and build customer relations while waiting for technology (broadband penetration, DRM, etc) and studio licensing to catch up with the vision of online rental *and* distribution of content.
As their CEO said in an interview last year "why do you think the company is called *NET*-flix?"
The strategy is not unlike that of AMAZON.COM who spent years losing money to build up name recognition and their product and customer-buying databases while waiting for online shopping to become mainstream.

Of course, given the likelihood that whatever vehicle Netflix (and Blockbusters and Disney, who are also targetting online movie distribution) end up using, will *not* run on the MAC, mini or otherwise, it is probably a good thing that the MacPeople are looking for ways to get their jollies on their own...

Oh, and as for moving 4gb files online to watch DVD-quality movies, it is worth remembering that WMV can deliver a 2 hour ED movie in 500-700Mb and DiVX can do almost as well. Presumably, the advanced versions of MPEG4 will get there by next year so Apple can probably cook up a Quicktime/MPEG 4 version by 07 at the latest. So you really don't need that much bandwidth.

What is really needed is a change in studio licensing practices, not new technology.

[gry]

The interesting part in talking about MAC vs Linus vs Windows is the fanatacism to the operating system.

Hopefully in a few years all of this is moot when OS emulators (similar to GBA) really take a hold.

I run VMWare and run FreeBSD (MAC OS X), Linux, and Windows.

I wish people were more agnostic when it came to hardware and operating systems.

Sun has a proprietary CPU, just like Apple, and they are being challenged and beaten by x86 and Linux and Windows. I see Apple also losing this battle...No matter how many [or little] "fans" Apple has.

[Tim Adams]

I'm certainly not a Mac/Apple fanatic (not a single Apple product do I own), but this is certainly coming down the tracks.

Think of it this way: In 6 months, after all the fanboys have purchased the mini for $400+, they introduce a slightly better model and drop the price on the current offering to $250. Then you offer for say $60, an accessory that either A) helps with the vid processing or B) helps with the audio/video conversion (so you have more in/out ports).

Don't fret over file sizes, that will be easily taken care of either by lossless compression or additional bandwidth. If they can distribute content to cell phones, they can just as easily get content to a computer. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Netflix teamed up with Apple to deliver the goods.

Concerning storing the vids: This won't really matter either. My guess is that you won't be able to keep all the movies and TV episodes you'll be able to burn and save (with the DRM still attached).

At $250, I would buy one of these minis in a moment - and S.J. knows it. While it wouldn't necessarily replace my DTivo or PCs, it would be a useful addition.