[WelMac] FreeView and TubeStick

[David Empson]

At 3:01 PM +1200 5/06/2007, John Crook wrote:
>Having a tuner such as the Tube-Stick and/or Eye-TV that can be 
>readily controlled by a computer would be a useful ingredient in such 
>a set-up.  And I agree wholeheartedly with your remarks about the 
>hard-drive recorders that are out there now.

It is unfortunate that Apple doesn't want to get into the personal 
video recorder market: the Apple TV with a suitable tuner, big enough 
hard drive and decent user interface would be an almost perfect 
solution. I doubt this will happen as it doesn't fit with their 
business model of selling TV shows via the iTunes store (in the USA, 
at least). They have already released an updated AppleTV with a 
larger hard drive (160 GB).

The Apple TV is not well suited to legacy TV sets - it requires a TV 
with component video inputs (or better). My new flat screen monitor 
would work with one, but the fifteen year old TV in my living room 
won't and I don't want to replace it just yet.

A PVR can be done with a combination like a Mac Mini plus Eye TV, but 
that is getting too expensive just for a TV box, plus you'd really 
need an external hard drive to have enough storage space. It can be 
done a little cheaper with dedicated "embedded PC" boxes based on 
Linux, but they tend to be large, ugly and noisy, and aren't as well 
designed as something like Apple's Front Row (or the equivalent on 
AppleTV).

I'd be happy to completely ditch broadcast TV in favour of Internet 
downloads of my favourite TV programmes (even if I have to pay for 
each episode). I recently got Saturn TV (TelstraClear cable), purely 
so I could get good reception. I don't bother watching the extra 
channels so I'll get rid of it once something better comes along (or 
they stop doing analog TV transmission over the cable).

Let's see what Apple comes up with over the next few weeks.

There are rumours of an updated MacBook Pro model being released 
tomorrow, and WWDC is a week later, with hints of revamped desktop 
models. This is likely to include updates to the iMac and Mac Mini.

There have also been rumours that the Mac Mini will be discontinued, 
but I find that hard to believe unless it is being superseded by a 
similar low cost desktop Mac (perhaps a little larger with more 
storage capacity and user expansion options). If so, that might be my 
ideal "media centre" computer.

My Apple shopping list is growing - I need a new laptop as my current 
one is misbehaving, maybe a new desktop computer as well (if they 
release one which matches what I want), maybe an Apple TV (once it 
does enough) and a new Airport Extreme base station so I have a fast 
enough wireless network to connect them all. Leopard just around the 
corner, and iLife and iWork at some stage. Those family packs are 
looking even more tempting.

-- 
David Empson
dempson at actrix.gen.nz
Snail mail: P.O. Box 27-103, Wellington, New Zealand