C'mon Steve Just Do It

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  Originally uploaded by powermostro.

A couple years ago I went out and bought a cheap dell desktop and connected it to my home stereo. I wanted to play Rhapsody through my home music system. It was pretty simple. Audio out on the dell into audio 2 on the amp.

Over time I have added music resources to that Dell. iTunes, last.fm, hype machine, napster, yahoo music, mp3 blogs, etc, etc.

When I first did that, the PC was maybe 10% of the airtime on the home stereo. It competed with the CD player, the turntable, the casette deck, the radio.

Today it's close to 90% of the airtime on the home stereo. It does more, its flexible, I can add services to it, I can customize it, I can download software to it, I can run the web on it.

So the next thing I have to do is connect a PC to my flat panel TV. I used to think I was going to use a media center PC for that. But why would I want to do that?

All I need to do is connect a mac mini, which costs all of $600, to my flat panel. I can buy TV shows on iTunes and watch them. I can subscribe to TV shows with an RSS feed and watch them. I can subscribe to videos tagged with the world "funny" in delicious and watch them. I can go to YouTube and watch stuff. With Front Row and the Apple Remote, the mac mini can easily be a living room appliance.

To start, it's going to be like it was with my audio PC. It will get used about 10% of the time. The set top box will get 90% of the airtime to start.

But mark my word. Within two years, the airtime will be reversed and the mac mini will be getting 90% of the airtime.

But of course I am a geek. I know how to do this stuff. What Steve Jobs needs to do is outfit a mac mini with the software that does this out of the box. Make it as easy to use a mac mini as a set top box compliment/replacement as it is to use an iPod out of the box.

It's trivial really. It's all there for the taking. A few UI tweaks, a few icons on the dock, a few deals with the cable channels, and he's good to go.

What's the over/under on the number of months until he does this?

Comments

[howard Lindzon]

Dear Community-

I thnk Fred has been kidnapped and replaced with someone that could care less about DRM issues when the word APPLE is discussed.

I kinda like the new, kinder, gentler, Apple Fred.

Long AAPL

[howard Lindzon]

By the way, by next MacWorld at the latest so less than 6 months

Also - by Christmas, an Ipod video with every MacBook Pro to finish the war once and for all.

A Tablet Mac for us tradeshow geeks.

[Charlie Crystle]

Free the OS! O

[Joe]

I've done a lot of downloading & viewing on a TV from several different services lately. Unfortunately, video quality isn't all that high, particularly with iTunes. Once the quality starts to come around, a lot more people will be doing this.

[Charles Smith]

I've been contemplating this and keep wondering if it makes the whole HD DVD conversation obsolete-

[Eric]

My prediction is that within 18 months we have the apple iTV solution. Whether this includes some wifi ipod device coupled with a new mac mini tv remains to be seen. I believe the FrontRow software will adapt and be the foundation of this platform. Has anyone reverse engineered the code on this software or the mac websites lateley? (Seems to happen all the time with Google and some other PC software)

[Bosko]

My single biggest frustration with my digital media is that while, as you point out, it's pretty easy to go from desktop or Powerbook to TV, it's annoying and difficult to go from PVR (at least my Scientific Atlanta) to desktop, Powerbook, or iPod. And the bit that *really* sucks is that I *paid* for this content already, so why can't I take it with me?

I haven't bought a Mac Mini yet. My problem is that I don't like lots of gear: my powerbook, PVR, smartphone, workstation, there's already too much redundancy here to add a Mini to the mix. However, should Apple build a Mini more suitable (hardware-wise [1]) to replace my PVR, I'd instantly buy one and use it to bridge the gap between the content I buy through my cable co. and that which I buy (or otherwise aquire, if it's free) on the internet.

(While I could build my own PVR, I'd love to see this made more accessible -- Apple has always been good at turning computers into care-free appliances when the context is right, and I have yet to meet a media enthusiast who didn't think a Mini already has the perfect form factor, and so is already half way there).

[1] http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2349
The Mini doesn't come with most of the stuff I'd need to replace my PVR with it, with little effort.

[Ted]

People have been speculating that Apple should merely purchase TiVo. Tivo does most of the above already, including stream webradio and podcasts and its built on a Linux core. I do not suspect that it would be too terribly difficult to migrate it to OS X and "Applesize" it.

One of my gripes has been that I cannot stream content via Airport Express (my "cheap" method of accomplishing the music portion of your system). There are some makeshift alternatives, but I would like it if they would allow streaming of all audio via Airport Express. Another reason I like this method is that my wife refuses to have a TV in our great room; the room I find that I tend to listen to the most music. So I simply use my PowerBook to control everything from there, which itself is using a shared library on my house server. Sounds complicated, but it is seamless and works great.

[Rick]

I think there are still too many technical issues that non-techy folks will have to overcome to get their computers (mac or pc) onto their plasmas.

Regardless, I think Steve is too hollywood to make it easy for regular folks to steal, er, download video like that.

[Derek]

I've got a mac mini laying around that I hardly ever use, and this would be a perfect use for it.

Can you give us some details on your setup? How did you connect the audio? I would think an RCA to Phono jack would work, but I've always liked the idea of a pure digital solution something like USB to otpical audio in? Are you using a wireless keyboard and mouse? Does Apple make upconverting CD software? Can the mini handle HD content?

As cool as this all sounds, I'm thinking the XBox 360 with HD-DVD is really cool way to go.

[John Zeratsky]

Fred -- We just canceled our cable and we're using our Mac Mini to hold and play all of our video content. Between Front Row (which does a wonderful job with saved movies/shows/etc) and a bluetooth keyboard and mouse (so we can go on the web), it's all we need.

[Peter Bowen]

I've scrapped TV for myth (www.mythtv.org) It's a nightmare to get set up, but I have all of my tuners in the basement, and the server streams video across the house. SDTV runs on X-Boxes and I'm seriously thinking of running the HD from a Mini. As a bonus, there are clients for Windows, Linux, and Mac as well as a web interface. It's what I wish TIVO would have been.

At this point, I don't have any of the SD TVs connected to cable... they're all on the network. Really cool!

-Peter

[Geof F. Morris]

Fred: You really should check out Tom Coates's thoughs on an Apple media hub. He's a bit ahead of you on this. :)

[Derek]

John -- Any recommendations as far as the bluetooth cable and mouse are concerned?

[1introvert]

another cool route could be for Steve to finally pony up and buy Sonos, and then extrapolate their phenomenal, super-easy-to-use mesh wireless and interface technology into video. One hub CPU/hard drive, piped wirelessly around the house to your various monitors and sets of speakers.

[chris robison]

So I'm doing the same thing with the Mac Mini, wireless keyboard/mouse, and a Sonos system. But.....

I'm still trying to figure out what to do about Rhapsody. Since it doesn't run on OS X, I was thinking that I would have to run Parallels with Windows XP virutally in order to have the best of all worlds. But I don't think that the situation is ideal. Has anyone else done this? Other suggesions?

[John Zeratsky]

Derek -- I'm using the Apple Wireless Keyboard and Mouse. Works fine from about 15 feet away.

[Rick]

The problem with the mini mac is that it just comes with a 'headphone jack' as the audio out. That's not ideal for powering a good stereo - but it works.

Then get a $30 DVI to HDMI converter and you can get a nice picture from the Apple (except if you have my G4 which puts out a blank picture out of the DVI).

[Rick]

A couple people have mentioned Xbox on the entertainment center.

Xbox 360 does an AWESOME job of showing jpegs and playing MP3s (and playing DVDs). You can network it using MSFT's Media Center so you can find all the photos and music on all your networked computers.

However, MSFT left off any way to play video files via the Xbox 360. I'm sure there's a way around it - but the average person will not be able to download video and then play them on their plasma.

Also, DRMed music doesn't work.

Xbox is like the potential trojan horse - they just let you play any video files - at very least WMAs!

[BenN]

Why would you want to connect a Media Center PC to the TV? How about...
1) Everything Front Row has through your TV.
2) Everything Media Center is missing that Front Row has, easily available through a Media Center add-on (as a bit of self-publicity, www.benshouse.net has quite a nice list of the add-ons available).
3) TV and PVR functionality - this is a something major that's missing from Front Row and I'd kill to see Apple implement it.
4) The PVR functionality would mean that you'd never again miss an episode of The Simpsons, 24, Lost or any other series you set it to record.
5) As an extension to 5, you could record anything that has any keyword you set in it's title or description.
6) Windows Media Center 2005 would probaly work on your Dell PC given the right TV card. A lot cheaper than purchasing a Mac Mini and the remote is quite nifty too (no matter how many buttons it has).
7) With a Vista Media Center PC (if Vista is ever released) there's a lot more. The music collection is better organised, the TV guide functionality has been improved with the addition of a mini-guide to scroll through, the video library is easier to use and the graphics in general are more flashy and impressive. Admittedly the PC needed to run this will be a beast...
8) Media Center Extender functionality. PC too noisy for the living room? Buy yourself an XBox 360 or dedicated Media Center Extender and watch everything from your PC, on your TV.
9) Move around a lot? Portable Media Centers help you to access your media on the move.
10) Gone round to a friend's house and forgotten to set something to record? Log onto MSN TV (or Orb, www.orb.com) and set your Media Center PC recording something from any other internet enabled device in the world.

And they're just my top 10 reasons...

[Derek]

Where can I find a $30 DVI to HDMI cable? Certainly not Best Buy, the only thing I saw there was $150!

[John mahoney]

I believe apple will do something different and interesting with Front Row to plug the DVR hole - something that aligns with the content providers own build-out of internet based video content delivery.

I did a post in April with more details on it:

http://web.mac.com/digitalpodium/iWeb/TheDigitalEdge/Blog/8EA35D7D-032E-4E7C-843C-7C5AF3D586C2.html

At the end of the day, what is important is access to the content that you want, not where it lives. If I 'record' something, does it matter if it is on my local hard drive or a server in my basement? No. And if that 'server in my basement' is actually a server at CBS or FOX, I still shouldn't care.

A DVR that simply 'bookmarks' shows I want to view later could work very well in a Front Row/iTunes model.

It's almost like an RSS/Tivo mashup...

-john

[Erik Schwartz]

Fred - have you ever watched a TV show from iTunes at a scale that would be appropriate for even a 27 inch TV? They aren't even high enough resolution to blow them up full size on my 15 inch laptop, looking at them on a 42 inch high def TV would be truly painful.

[Jason]

Fred,

My friend and I occasionally do custom home theater installs for people, so I know a little bit about this sort of stuff.

Something you might want to keep in mind is that there are options for PCs outside of Windows Media Center.

I just built myself a box for around $300 by purchasing a "bare bones" system and installing a TV tuner card (I recommend Hauppauge) and a program called SageTV.

The advantage of doing it this way, in my mind, is that SageTV records DRM-free in standard mpeg formats. I have my cable and my audio hooked in through this system to my projector, so everything is DRM free for me, which is *great*.

I'm happy help you out if you have any questions getting yourself set up (with Mac Mini or PC). Just drop me a line.

As to the the over-under? I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet, especially since this market is essentially made up of just the pre-packaged "media center PCs" that PC makers sell, and Apple could most likely sell under the average MCE price point.

[Derek]

I've seen some things on the internet that indicate the mac-mini has an optical mini-TOSlink connection. Can anyone confirm this?