Lessons From The Death of HD-DVD

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

I work for an Investment Manager firm that manages billions in personal and institutional investor's money - we use Mac's because they are more stable than windows, prone to far less security breaches, and are capable of running programs that can integrate well into any platform - Windows, Unix/Linux or Mac. It's a lot more common than you think. Windows flaws are the reason Microsoft has failed to dominate the server market the same way it has the desktop market.

My Macbook is great (and it runs Linux very well).

For the most part the decision to buy a windows based platform has less to do with the merits of windows and more to do with the barriers to changing from Windows to something else. That is changing though, as Microsoft's hold on the OS market is declining. Good thing for consumers, bad thing for MS fanboys.

It seems that everyone around me has already transitioned to the Mac. I have been a PC guy all of my life, and my work environment has always been Mac. I am now considering going Mac myself. It would make alot of sense for me to do so.

[ldgibson76]

Hello "Sir T"!

Forgive me if I sound a little presumptuous, but it seem like you are completely ignoring my post directed to you. What do I have to do?! Say something bad about Blu ray technology to get a response from you. I did in a previous post admit that your assertions and predictions regarding the demise of HD DVD was correct. I digress, already! You were right! You're the Man! I concede! (smile)

Regards!

[GMichael]

Hello "Sir T"!

Forgive me if I sound a little presumptuous, but it seem like you are completely ignoring my post directed to you. What do I have to do?! Say something bad about Blu ray technology to get a response from you. I did in a previous post admit that your assertions and predictions regarding the demise of HD DVD was correct. I digress, already! You were right! You're the Man! I concede! (smile)

Regards!

Would you snap a sleeping lion with a wet towel?

[ldgibson76]

Would you snap a sleeping lion with a wet towel?

As long as he's in his cage! Does he usually hold a grudge?! And let's not get it twisted, I'm not afraid of his insulting observations gripes and complaints! I do admit that he is a very knowledgeable guy and has a unique perspective on certain things. It's just at times his delivery leaves a lot to be desired. Kind of reminds me of a Morton's Steakhouse Fillet Mignon with all the trimmings being served on a trash can top! KnowwhatImean, Vern?!

[GMichael]

As long as he's in his cage! Does he usually hold a grudge?! And let's not get it twisted, I'm not afraid of his insulting observations gripes and complaints! I do admit that he is a very knowledgeable guy and has a unique perspective on certain things. It's just at times his delivery leaves a lot to be desired. Kind of reminds me of a Morton's Steakhouse Fillet Mignon with all the trimmings being served on a trash can top! KnowwhatImean, Vern?!

Just funnin' with ya. Sir T is a great guy.

When someone has to spend 24/7 being business-like, it's fun to get down in the dirt and fling some mud. And S.T. can fling it with the best of them.

[filecat13]

'Tis better to fling than to be flung.

'Tis better to be flung than to fling.

You decide.

[GMichael]

'Tis better to fling than to be flinged.

'Tis better to be flinged than to fling.

You decide.

Tis better to fling than to be flung, or flung at.
Better to be a flinger than a flingy.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

As long as he's in his cage! Does he usually hold a grudge?! And let's not get it twisted, I'm not afraid of his insulting observations gripes and complaints! I do admit that he is a very knowledgeable guy and has a unique perspective on certain things. It's just at times his delivery leaves a lot to be desired. Kind of reminds me of a Morton's Steakhouse Fillet Mignon with all the trimmings being served on a trash can top! KnowwhatImean, Vern?!

Ouch!! When I get up off this ground Dave.......and get this steak off my eye..........I don't know what the hell I am going to do! LOLOL

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Hello "Sir T"!

Forgive me if I sound a little presumptuous, but it seem like you are completely ignoring my post directed to you. What do I have to do?! Say something bad about Blu ray technology to get a response from you. I did in a previous post admit that your assertions and predictions regarding the demise of HD DVD was correct. I digress, already! You were right! You're the Man! I concede! (smile)

Regards!

Hey Dave, I responded, I responded!! I gotta mix to eat ya know. You are the bomb buddy, a class act. Now do you have a band aid so I can cover the whip marks you put on me!

[Woochifer]

It seems that everyone around me has already transitioned to the Mac. I have been a PC guy all of my life, and my work environment has always been Mac. I am now considering going Mac myself. It would make alot of sense for me to do so.

Man, as a PC user in the entertainment industry, you must really feel like the odd man out!

I first learned programming on an Apple ][, and migrated straight over to a Mac in college. For work and collaborative projects, I was often forced to use PCs, and I grew proficient enough with the various versions of Windows to know how much of a kludge that OS has always been, especially now with their constant refinements and improvements to OS X.

Been around long enough to remember when PC guys would tell me that Macs were toys because they used graphical interfaces! Yet, all the while I was getting my spreadsheet and statistical work done so much faster on my Mac, because I didn't have to learn separate DOS command structures for every program that I was using.

With OS X and the Macs now using Intel processors, the Mac has become a pretty compelling option. If you still have Windows apps that you have to use, you can run Windows at close to full performance using a virtualization program such as VM Ware Fusion or Parallels, or at full performance by dual booting directly into Windows. And all the while, you can use native OS X apps for everything else.

For amateur video and audio editing, the Macs are great. For creating baby videos, I've been using Final Cut Express, which operates almost identically to the professional Final Cut Pro app (the Express version lacks certain features like the SMPTE time code, color correction tools, and support for some professional video formats -- things that an amateur like me won't need). And Garage Band (which comes with every Mac) is a fun tool for creating loops and mixing together audio tracks.

[kexodusc]

It seems that everyone around me has already transitioned to the Mac. I have been a PC guy all of my life, and my work environment has always been Mac. I am now considering going Mac myself. It would make alot of sense for me to do so.

I worked for an Apple Store in college and got my first experience that way. When XP came out, I finally broke down and bought a PC and gave up on Mac's. When I moved to Canada to my current job, the company I was with gave me a Macbook...man, did I realize how much I missed OS X after a few years of Windows.

Because of some ridiculous WGA issues, I made the transition on my PC to Linux. Once I got past the initial learning curve, it's been clear sailing. I prefer Linux to even OS X for a variety of reasons, and run it on my Macbook. Macs and Linux have more than common ancestry and tend to have a symbiotic relationship.

If you're bored with Windows or have an older machine that's slowing down, I'd recommend installing a Linux OS (it's free) on it to revitalize your computing experience. Heck, you can even put it on that PS3 of yours.

For an easy, out of the box computer purchasing experience, you still can't beat a Mac IMO, but damn, you still pay for it.

[Woochifer]

For an easy, out of the box computer purchasing experience, you still can't beat a Mac IMO, but damn, you still pay for it.

I would add though that the Mac pricing is not that high if you compare them with similarly configured PCs. Macs appear to come out at higher price points simply because Apple doesn't do a lot of bargain-priced configurations. In fact, if you compare the iMac with the new all-in-one models from Gateway and Dell, the iMac actually comes out cheaper if you configure all three models similarly.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Alright Kex and Wooch, you sold me. Now Rich, I want my dang steak back, I am hungry!!!

[GMichael]

Rich, I want my dang steak back, I am hungry!!!

No you don't, and you wouldn't be. Trust me.

[Rich-n-Texas]

No you don't, and you wouldn't be. Trust me.

Ha ha ha ha! Funny as a crutch GM.

L.J.! Is Sir T's steak ready yet? Hurry! PLEASE!!!

[kexodusc]

I would add though that the Mac pricing is not that high if you compare them with similarly configured PCs. Macs appear to come out at higher price points simply because Apple doesn't do a lot of bargain-priced configurations. In fact, if you compare the iMac with the new all-in-one models from Gateway and Dell, the iMac actually comes out cheaper if you configure all three models similarly.

Fair enough, and I would also add Mac users tend to get more life out of their Macs than PC owners too, which supports the low cost-of-ownership argument.
But I can't help but think if Apple ever came out with a low-ball $300-$400 unit that they'd take the world by storm. I'm thinking of my poor mom and dad, who had to buy a new PC this winter to do the same thing they've been doing the last 10 years...surf the web, chat, and check e-mail, with the odd bit of word processing and music/DVD playback. What they ended up with wasn't a low-quality unit, just one composed of a bunch of dated components. The same configuration was probably sold for triple the price a year or two ago.
If there was a Mac in that range it would have been a no brainer. Mom and dad find my laptop far more intuitive and even "fun" than Vista which has added too much complexity and bother. I've always felt the power of a Mac was in the interface and software rather than the hardware, but maybe I'm in the minority camp on that one.

[Woochifer]

Fair enough, and I would also add Mac users tend to get more life out of their Macs than PC owners too, which supports the low cost-of-ownership argument.

Very true. OS X Tiger can actually run fine on every Mac dating back to the slot-loading G3 iMac, which came out in 1999. OS X Leopard though seems to have upped the ante on hardware requirements significantly. But, it can still run on Macs dating back as far as 5 years, and that's far more inclusive of upgraders than Vista, which can't even run on most two-year old PCs.

But I can't help but think if Apple ever came out with a low-ball $300-$400 unit that they'd take the world by storm.

They would definitely sell a lot of units, but they could also see their profitability nosedive the way that Dell's price wars and emphasis on low-margin models have stripmined its business model. Apple is unique in that they develop the hardware and the operating system, and I'm not so sure how well that would work if they go to a high-volume, low margin strategy. Apple already markets the $600 Mac Mini (precisely for consumers like your parents who already have a monitor, keyboard, and mouse), and I could see them returning with a mid-level expandable model situated between the iMac (which sells for between $1,200 and $2,200) and the Mac Pro (which starts at $2,800 and only comes in a dual quad-core configuration).

If there was a Mac in that range it would have been a no brainer. Mom and dad find my laptop far more intuitive and even "fun" than Vista which has added too much complexity and bother. I've always felt the power of a Mac was in the interface and software rather than the hardware, but maybe I'm in the minority camp on that one.

I agree that all of the high value thinking on the Mac is in the user interface. But, when I think about it, OS X and their corporate emphasis on sleek industrial design together function as an enticement to have consumers step up to a higher price point when shopping for a computer. My understanding is that Apple doesn't make all that much from selling OS X upgrades, and the role of OS X is more to sell the hardware. I think first and foremost Apple is a hardware company, and their business model is built around moving higher margins through their hardware sales.

In general, for their computer hardware at least, they do not lower their price points, but rather bump up the specs. The only time that they do lower the price points is when they are on the final revision for a particular product lineup. For example, the price point on the 17" white iMac got bumped down from $1,200 to $1,000 when it was revised in September 2006. Nine months later, the aluminum iMac was introduced with a base price of $1,200, but Apple eliminated the 17" screen size and slotted a 20" screen at that price point instead.

[Rich-n-Texas]

I can't speak to the Mac marketing model, their OS or anything like that, but if Apple did introduce a $300 - $400 system and it did take the world by storm, then you'd probably find their systems in the same boat as Window's PC's as far as OS resource hogging is concerned. When I want to remove a program, I see an extremely long list of security updates, most of which are intended to prevent malicious invasion. These updates of course are code that requires resident memory. If there are a million Mac's out there, don't you think they'd fall equally prey to what Windows boxes are susceptible to? I don't think they'd be able to sell that aspect anymore.

[Woochifer]

I can't speak to the Mac marketing model, their OS or anything like that, but if Apple did introduce a $300 - $400 system and it did take the world by storm, then you'd probably find their systems in the same boat as Window's PC's as far as OS resource hogging is concerned. When I want to remove a program, I see an extremely long list of security updates, most of which are intended to prevent malicious invasion. These updates of course are code that requires resident memory.

I think you need to open yourself up to the possibility that not all OS' are designed like Windows!

Apple updates the core of the OS far more frequently than MS. OS X Tiger had 11 major updates over the course of just over two years. Since OS X Leopard was introduced in late-October, there have been two major updates. The OS X updates are much more extensive than MS' "patch Tuesday" updates, and maybe just a step less extensive than a Windows service pack (but pretty close because the OS X updates introduce new features, bug fixes, performance tweaks, and security updates). And in between these updates, Apple will issue security patches on an as-needed basis.

A key difference between OS X and Windows is that the OS X updates do not diminish the system performance or increase the resource load. When I updated my system from OS X 10.4.11 to 10.5.0, the benchmark scores went up. When I updated to 10.5.1, the scores went up again, and the memory and CPU loads (with no apps running) went down. Running benchmarks on my Windows system, the scores have successively gone down with every service pack installation, with higher memory allocations.

Also, the procedure for uninstalling an application in OS X is simply dragging the icon into the trash -- the files in Mac apps are gathered into self-contained bundles, with nothing like the typical Windows mess of spreading hundreds of files across program directories, shared directories, and system directories. Mac application settings are kept in separate user library directories, rather than lumped into a monolithic registry file.

If there are a million Mac's out there, don't you think they'd fall equally prey to what Windows boxes are susceptible to? I don't think they'd be able to sell that aspect anymore.

The difference between Windows and OS X is the sheer number of real world exploits. I doubt that OS X is going to go from zero all the up into the thousands. Will there be exploits out there as Mac market share increases? Probably. But, I don't think that you can totally discount the OS' role in the greater security (so far) enjoyed by Mac owners. The system core, application frameworks, user libraries, and applications themselves, are kept pretty well separated in OS X. Any function that digs into the OS requires a password. You won't frok your system just by opening an e-mail attachment.

I know that a lot of MS' default settings alone made their OS and apps susceptible to attacks. In my earlier example, it took two service packs before MS finally wised up and switched off the spam-magnet Messenger service by default. And it took years before MS changed some of the default functions in Outlook that were responsible for enabling and spreading various forms of malware. I think part of the problem is with how deeply MS embeds applications like IE into the OS itself. Works great for keeping competitors at bay and forcing consumers to use MS apps (e.g., if I disable IE, I can no longer receive system updates), but it creates security holes galore.

[Rich-n-Texas]

I would add though that the Mac pricing is not that high if you compare them with similarly configured PCs. Macs appear to come out at higher price points simply because Apple doesn't do a lot of bargain-priced configurations. In fact, if you compare the iMac with the new all-in-one models from Gateway and Dell, the iMac actually comes out cheaper if you configure all three models similarly.

My boss purchased a Dell recently. He was happy with it (so he said just as an attempt to prove me wrong... tell ya later), until he tried watching vidoe from his camcorder. Frame rates sucked. He's also into RC helicopter flying, and because he was spending so much money on it after constantly crashing it... ... he bought a simulator to run on the PC. Uhhhh... 9 fps. Long story short, he just purchased a "low profile" nVidia 8600 graphics card that comes from some unheard of manufacturer and distributor. I told him I'd never purchase a Dell because of all the built-in proprietarines (don't know if that's a word, but you get the gist) that forces you to upgrade with their marked up components. Every time I tell him... and this is what I was eluding to... you should've built your own, I get a dirty look and a stern "shut up".

I challenge anybody to prove to me that I can get a Mac cheaper than I can when I build my own with comparable characteristics.

[kexodusc]

I challenge anybody to prove to me that I can get a Mac cheaper than I can when I build my own with comparable characteristics.

I build my own PC's too Rich, but that's not really all that relevant here. There isn't much in life you can't do cheaper via the DIY route, and Apple simply isn't in that business, and has never showed interest in competing there. Some would argue the performance gains you make on the hardware are offset by the resource hog that is Windows though.
Macs don't dominate the multimedia world because their more expensive and perform worse.

Still - I've found some PC's sold at price points with OS and software pre-loaded that would be tough to build yourself ready to go as cheap, so maybe that's changing a bit too.

[Rich-n-Texas]

I build my own PC's too Rich, but that's not really all that relevant here. There isn't much in life you can't do cheaper via the DIY route, and Apple simply isn't in that business, and has never showed interest in competing there.

I must have wandered off from the original path this thread was on. Not my intention but I am biased, and IMO with good reason.

Some would argue the performance gains you make on the hardware are offset by the resource hog that is Windows though.

Naaa... just throw more memory at it.

I was going to go into detail in response to your post Kex, but everything I came up with made me sound like an MS fanboy, and that just ain't me. Suffice to say, I love the fact that I can play some really neat video games, spend hours upon hours on message boards, send/receive e-mail, manage my finances, buy all sorts of A/V goodies, and download some really HOT porn all from one small room in my house. And it didn't cost me an arm and a leg to enable all those possibilities.

[kexodusc]

I must have wandered off from the original path this thread was on. Not my intention but I am biased, and IMO with good reason.

I think we're waaaay off topic now Rich so fire away.

I was going to go into detail in response to your post Kex, but everything I came up with made me sound like an MS fanboy, and that just ain't me. Suffice to say, I love the fact that I can play some really neat video games, spend hours upon hours on message boards, send/receive e-mail, manage my finances, buy all sorts of A/V goodies, and download some really HOT porn all from one small room in my house. And it didn't cost me an arm and a leg to enable all those possibilities.

I can do all those things on the PC I built without Windows . Could do it on my Mac too if I wanted.

[Woochifer]

My boss purchased a Dell recently. He was happy with it (so he said just as an attempt to prove me wrong... tell ya later), until he tried watching vidoe from his camcorder. Frame rates sucked. He's also into RC helicopter flying, and because he was spending so much money on it after constantly crashing it... ... he bought a simulator to run on the PC. Uhhhh... 9 fps. Long story short, he just purchased a "low profile" nVidia 8600 graphics card that comes from some unheard of manufacturer and distributor. I told him I'd never purchase a Dell because of all the built-in proprietarines (don't know if that's a word, but you get the gist) that forces you to upgrade with their marked up components. Every time I tell him... and this is what I was eluding to... you should've built your own, I get a dirty look and a stern "shut up".

I guess that would depend on the model in question. I work on the Dells around my office all the time, and I don't recall not being able to swap out the graphics adaptor with one not supplied by Dell. Dell supplies its own updated drivers through their website, and indeed they aren't updated all that frequently. But, I've also found that the more frequently updated drivers on the chipset manufacturers' websites will usually work fine. The Dell motherboards do limit what you can change through the BIOS settings, but since I'm not into overclocking or other performance gaming hacks, that's not an issue for what I do.

I challenge anybody to prove to me that I can get a Mac cheaper than I can when I build my own with comparable characteristics.

You can't, but that's not the point. A Mac is not an open DIY box with a decentralized architecture. It's a custom configured unit that's specifically tailored to the OS. Not having to account for an exponential number of legacy configurations is one reason why a Mac will run faster every time you upgrade to a new version of OS X.

But, compared to the PowerPC/System 7/ADB/SCSI era, Macs are now more comparable to DIY PCs than before, since they now use Intel processors and share the basic peripheral protocols (SATA, USB 2.0, 802.11b/g/n, PCI Express, etc.). One key difference though is that the Mac motherboards and OS X uses EFI firmware (a more advanced hardware interface spec originally developed by Intel), while DIY motherboards use BIOS firmware. That makes it difficult to try running OS X using DIY hardware, but that hasn't stopped hackers from trying, especially since OS X can now run natively on Intel processors.

The OSx86 project is one of those community-driven efforts to hack OS X so that it can install onto DIY boxes that use a BIOS motherboard. Supposedly, they've gotten OS X Tiger to work pretty well with a DIY PC. But, my understanding is that the further your PC configuration gets away from Apple's Mac configurations, the buggier and less stable things get. Also, keep in mind that a retail copy of OS X (which BTW does not have annoying activation nags like WGA) lists for $129 ($199 for a "family pack" of five OS licenses), while Windows Vista can cost upwards of $399 for the "Ultimate" version.

Now comparing Macs with DIY PCs is one thing, but taking comparable retail configurations is another. As I mentioned to Kex, Dell and Gateway have both introduced their own all-in-one models to compete with the iMac. But, when you configure the Dell and Gateway models similarly to the iMac, then their prices are actually higher.