After I ran across this article over at Think Secret, about recent Apple patent applications one in particular caught me eye. Specifically patent #20050021478, which has a general description of “a method and system for network-based purchase and distribution of media”, interesting, could this be part of the much speculated Apple ‘on-line movie store’. Navigating [...]

Engadget has a new weekly feature called The Clicker which this week covers the litany of HDTV formats… First, to be technical, there are eighteen different ‘ATSC DTV (digital television) formats’ of which only six are actually High-Definition. Of the six HDTV formats only two are used frequently, 720p and 1080i. That doesn’t really answer [...]

You know the more and more I dig into Mac’s as entertainment centers, I see evidence of something bigger on the horizon, I mean most ‘trends’ or ‘hot new things’ that don’t turn out to be a flash in the pan, have one thing in common, someone was already doing it or something similar months [...]

The previous installment of this series introduced Salling Clicker for remote controlling and management of iTunes. Second Stop – Video If you like, you can just pop a DVD in the drive and begin to watch. By setting the preference to both play the disc and activate in full-screen by default you get going within [...]

Since there is no media center application or interface to speak of other than some very early pieces that can handle a task or two, I’ve begun my own work to get the mini working via remote control to launch as well as manage my media. First Stop – Music iTunes is the clear weapon [...]

As I mentioned yesterday, I went out and picked up a Mac mini at a local store instead of waiting on my BTO order from Apple. My configuration is based on the faster 1.4GHz model with 512MB RAM, SuperDrive and Bluetooth. I may upgrade to Airport Extreme in the future and adjust the RAM as [...]

The Mac Media System is bound to be a “Solar System” of components until the day there is an integrated solution from Apple or from a likely partner. Jim Louderback writes about the connection and integration issues in his latest column for PC Magazine, The Role of the Media Center. Jim attempts to integrate several [...]

John Markoff reports on the potential of an Apple set-top box following the MacWorld Keynote and a subsequent interview with Steve Jobs . As we’ve already discussed, a few modifications or simple add-ons and the Mac Mini becomes much more. Trojan Horse, or just a simple computer… you decide. Our hopes are set high! But [...]