ITV: end of the mini ?

Question

I thought the best way to build a Home Theatre was to hook a Mac mini to an HDTV, digitally of course, and with WiFi internet connection. That's also what I did. Now what? Should I take the mini back to the "office", buy an iTV, then connect it to the mini via AirPort? What would be the advantage? Or are we mini/Home Theatre people too "good" for that, hence the iTV is for "lesser" users?

Answer 1

no, no website. it is amazing that i work in this field and i don't have a website, but it is true. we don't have a commercial product, per se, but work as a consultant for 1 off projects. mostly high end residential installations and a few commercial projects here or there.
media companies, bankers, actors, musicians, etc... you know, MTV cribs, plus the more mundane luxury apartments and dwellings.
i do think that iTV is evolutionary if not revolutionary and an important part of apple's inroads to the living room, but it is also more... it is apple's only hope of staying relevant in the arena that is now dominated by cable providers and soon verizon, with its FIOS service and FIOS tv. thanks to DVRs and on demand service, the traditional cable company is beginning to make popular the fact that TV watching does not have to be based upon "broadcast" or real time delivery. people can watch content when they want to, by either streaming an on-demand service or playing back locally recorded media. the iTunes store, if it picks up enough steam, could be a viable replacement for broadcast service in the future, and iTV the ideal portal for the end user. the questions one has to ask, is pay per download going to be viable against the $40 / month to $120 / month or so subscription services that the cable / phone companies have to offer. also is the iTV's $200 to $300 price going to be competative versus the $5 to $15 DVR lease/rental fees. right now, apple has 2 disctinct dissadvantages, it is more expensive, and the quality of the media is far inferior. right now apple has a max resolution of 640x480 where cable companies are offering on demand and DVR recording capability of true 1080i (with massive MPEG compression artifacts, unfortunately, but still better than clean 640x480).
what does apple have going for it? well, ownership. many people still like the idea that when they download something, they own a file that they can do what they want (or at least what iTunes will let them do with it). verizon will have some sort of PC management application that might allow transfer of content from a DVR to a portable media player. TIVO series 3 has the ability to transfer video too, on the PC side.
unfortunately, it looks like apple is going to miss the next coming wave of computer based DVRs. el gato is no longer allowed to sell the 500, their only box that was able to record US QAM HD signals (2nd hand info, might be rumor, just no demand?). every manufacturer is pretty much signing up with Win Vista and WMV based, encrypted / secure video technologies, which leaves apple no room to compete in this market. people are just not going to find non-HD DVR/PVRs relevant.
iTunes, as popular as it is, i think, is still in its pre-rollout stage to what it will evenutally evolve into. i have no doubt that we will see HD content from the iTunes store. i also think that the cost of downloads must decrease. first they have to prove to the studios that they are a viable portal, able to hold their own with the traditional content delivery methods. if they continue with this strategy, their hand will be forced to provide either subscription based services or lower download charges to mere pennies rather than dollars.
apple has the dissadvantage of not being a broadband vendor. verizon, time warner, comcast, and rcn are going to be duking it out in this arena. however, it looks like apple wants to be a player when it comes to the media. personally, i like the idea of signing up for Verizon FIOS with 15MBps download speed for under $50 per month. however, i don't like their DVR boxes and the closed system that it creates. i would totally sign up with iTunes and download the couple of shows that i would actually watch from the store and not pay for cable, however the 1 wildcard, is Tivo series 3, with its dual tuner HD CABLECARD capability and my local TWC service... is awfully appealing, especially if they ever get the Mac OS X version of the management software (the current version only does pictures and music, no video).