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I Take Back All the Mean Things I Said About Crapple

Discussion in 'Fred's House of Pancakes' started by boulder_bum, Jan 17, 2008.

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  1. Alric

    Alric New Member

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    24fps is the standard framerate of 70 mm cinema video. It is ideal for movie material.
     
    #61 Alric, Jan 21, 2008
  2. apriusfan

    apriusfan New Member

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    Interesting. There may be an Apple TV in my very near term future....
     
    #62 apriusfan, Jan 21, 2008
  3. boulder_bum

    boulder_bum Senior Member

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    I've read analysts opinions that the effect of Apple downloads on Blockbuster is overblown, but with Redbox offering DVD's for $1 a day, and Apple offering a selection of any rental you could possibly want from every studio, I think Blockbuster has a very real reason to worry.

    If Apple is successful at getting a lot of Apple TV's into homes, I think many people, like me, may never rent a physical movie again.

    If you get one soon, just make sure to take advantage of the price drop to $229. Not everyone was quick to respond to the price drop, so there are still some people selling them for $299. MacMall and the Apple store both reflect the latest price.

    I ordered mine from the Apple store (online) and, to my surprise, it was delivered two days later, despite the free shipping.
     
    #63 boulder_bum, Jan 21, 2008
  4. Godiva

    Godiva AmeriKan Citizen

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    I don't go to Blockbuster to rent movies. I don't go anywhere so I just don't rent. I watch what's on TV. And I own a few DVDs.

    BUT.....if I can just go online and rent any movie I want from a huge selection....I just might start doing that. And if it requires an Apple TV box? Well, that's not that much more than the cost of when Video Players first came out or when DVD players first came out. I imagine the cost of the Apple TV will eventually drop below the $200.00 mark. When it does, that's probably when I'll buy.

    I have a nice Apple flat screen monitor. I'd like to see if that could be used as a TV monitor to replace my current analog TV. I've got cable but no box. I run everything through the VCR right now and use that to change channels. I've got the sound running through the stereo system. If there was a way to just use the monitor as a TV I'd buy the Apple TV tomorrow if that's what it took.

    I'm going to have to look into this.
     
    #64 Godiva, Jan 21, 2008
  5. apriusfan

    apriusfan New Member

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    $229 is pretty close to $200. You are almost at your decision point.
     
    #65 apriusfan, Jan 21, 2008
  6. BubbaVO

    BubbaVO New Member

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    Lessee...I've owned an Apple II, MacIntosh SE, Quadra, Newton, IMac and an E-Mac and an I-pod nano and classic. Long time Apple user. I guess I feel comfortable weighing in ...

    I love Apple's technical execution. I love their design. But they absolutely suck when it comes to being customer friendly. For example, why is it that a long time Windows user wants to buy a new IPod, they can do so and hook it up right away. But if you're an Apple customer running OS X Jaguar, you're SOL and must upgrade to OS X Leopard before you can even charge the batteries on the IPod.

    Kind of like dating a supermodel and realizing that she's just as selfish as a ... supermodel. :mad:
     
    #66 BubbaVO, Jan 21, 2008
  7. boulder_bum

    boulder_bum Senior Member

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    What about a SlingBox? It can send a TV signal to your computer.

    As for iTunes rentals, you wouldn't even need an Apple TV with your setup, you just need iTunes on the computer whose monitor you use.

    That said, if you had a PC, the setup would be even simpler. We in PC land have the ability for something called "expansion", which is a little bit of a bizarre concept for Mac users.

    My computer has an aftermarket Haupage TV tuner card and Vista Ultimate, so I can both watch and record TV with my PC. My tuner only supports analog cable (though there are digital cable tuners out there), but it's nice to flip through the downloaded TV guide with my Windows remote and schedule a recording of every episode of *fill in the blank*.
     
    #67 boulder_bum, Jan 21, 2008
  8. Alric

    Alric New Member

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    You mean like this?

    As usual it works better in the mac than in the PC...
     
    #68 Alric, Jan 22, 2008
  9. Jonnycat26

    Jonnycat26 New Member

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    Does USB have the bandwidth for HDTV?
     
    #69 Jonnycat26, Jan 22, 2008
  10. Alric

    Alric New Member

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    Yes. Comfortably. I record HD shows daily.
     
    #70 Alric, Jan 22, 2008
  11. Jonnycat26

    Jonnycat26 New Member

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    Apparently so... I just googled and found several favorable reviews. As a former Mac owner (G4 tower and a Cube*), I found this line the most telling:

    Yep, that was Apple ownership in a nutshell... spend more to get devices that struggle to implement the same functionality available on other platforms.



    * As a former Cube owner, I feel comfortable saying the same insanity that drove Apple to release a not very well thought out Cube is the same insanity responsible for the MacBook Air.
     
    #71 Jonnycat26, Jan 22, 2008
  12. boulder_bum

    boulder_bum Senior Member

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    Meh, my TV tuner didn't take up a USB port. Hey, if your Mac has a few more spare USB ports, you might be able to update the sound and graphics card, too!

    That's actually cool that you can get a Mac tuner, though. The one thing I'd note is that the alternative I mentioned (SlingBox) would let you watch TV on your computer without taking up a port, you could watch TV from ANY computer, and you can even stream it over the internet.

    The drawback vs. the USB tuner is that I don't think SlingBox's have any built-in DVR capabilities, whereas the tuner would come with DVR software.

    I've actually been told that you can squeeze an HDTV signal onto WiFi, which would mean USB 2.0+ would have more than enough bandwidth.
     
    #72 boulder_bum, Jan 22, 2008
  13. Alric

    Alric New Member

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    Just a clarification. The EyeTV hybrid is less than $150.

    BTW, wouldn't you rather take an USB port than a PCI port?
     
    #73 Alric, Jan 22, 2008
  14. Jonnycat26

    Jonnycat26 New Member

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    No, absolutely not. If I'm building a dedicated media machine, I'd want that card in a PCI slot. Better bandwidth, and I can use the machine's internal fans/airflow to cool it.
     
    #74 Jonnycat26, Jan 22, 2008
  15. boulder_bum

    boulder_bum Senior Member

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    Ditto. A USB device with a coax cable connected to it is just begging to get yanked out. I'm also the kind of guy that buys Bluetooth mice/keyboards because I hate having even wireless receivers plugged into the USB ports.

    Come to think of it, I'm still waiting for the iPod that I can synch wirelessly, too.
     
    #75 boulder_bum, Jan 22, 2008
  16. tleonhar

    tleonhar Senior Member

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    I suspect you would need USB 2.0 as I would doubt the old ver 1.1 at 12MHz would cut it. A co-worker of mine has an ATSC tuner for his laptop running Vista and the quality is quite outstanding. His tuner BTW also connects through one of his USB parts.
     
    #76 tleonhar, Jan 22, 2008
  17. vtie

    vtie New Member

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    You can send a HDTV signal over anything, as long as you apply enough (lossy) compression. Resolution/frame rate is one thing, and that's what everybody is looking at. But compression artifacts can really spoil the viewing experience, although it would technically still be called a HTDV signal.
    I know from first hand experience that HDTV over Wifi is absolutely not of the same quality as over a normal HDMI cable. USB 2.0 should be better, but the codecs may still affect the signal quality.
     
    #77 vtie, Jan 22, 2008
  18. Alric

    Alric New Member

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    I mean. At most you have 5 PCI slots as opposed to 200 USB devices that can be attached to the USB chain..

    Oh well. To each his own.
     
    #78 Alric, Jan 22, 2008
  19. Alric

    Alric New Member

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    My El Gato Hybrid captures uncompressed over-the-air and unencrypted QAM streams. The capture is a 6.6 GB file/hour of TV. When I play them back on my widescreen TV they are indistinguishable from the original. Some people will argue that using a compression scheme under a certain kbps would not be HD anymore.

    The captured file can be encoded later for playback on any other device. I can compress 1 hr of TV to about 250 MB. Having an HD source, the encodes look very good at small file sizes.
     
    #79 Alric, Jan 22, 2008
  20. Jonnycat26

    Jonnycat26 New Member

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    Would you hook your video card up to a USB port? Your primary IDE controller?

    Internal slots have a place, and heavy/bandwidth intensive work is it. At least I'm not the only one here that feels that way.

    EDIT: BTW -- go ahead and hook 200 USB devices up to the chain and let me know how that works out. Or, hell, try doing a backup to an external USB hard drive while watching some HDTV via the device. :)
     
    #80 Jonnycat26, Jan 22, 2008
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