Comments on: This New Mac Pro Sounds Kick ASS!

By: Joe Pennant

Joe Pennant — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 22:42:00 +0000

Look into Ubuntu. I did for professional reasons, but within 2 days I could find no good reason to buy an OSX Intel over a Duo or Quad Core. I feel like I am leaving the Dark Ages behind in OSX.

I am agreeing with Mark Pilgrim.

http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2006/06/15/Switch-From-Mac

By: alex

alex — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 07:01:00 +0000

haha... classic mac. Amazing 8 cores! 32 GB of RAM!

...

and a piece of crap GPU from last year.

Way to go Apple.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 13:15:00 +0000

i would definitely recommend VMWare Fusion over Parallels.

By: Steve M.

Steve M. — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 17:39:00 +0000

With the news about the potential DirecTV PC device (HDPC-20), the question may soon be whether or not you replace your HR10-250 TiVo with a Media Center PC. A quiet Media Center PC in the living room, with extenders in the bedrooms, and a Mac Pro for working at a desktop. It’s something I’ll need to consider, if I can budget the few thousand for the upgrade, and if I can step away from TiVo.

By: Allan Haggett

Allan Haggett — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 16:18:00 +0000

Why not just keep the PC you’re using now as a media server, and use the Mac Pro for everything else?

By: Carl

Carl — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 12:03:00 +0000

If you’re considering Windows and Parallels, you really ought to try JRiver Media Center. It works really well with large libraries, synchs with iPods (though I’m not sure about the iPhone and iPod touch) and is an excellent and flexible music player. I’ve got no financial connection to the company – just a happy customer. Note that I only use it for music, not for photos, videos, etc.

By: Wes Kroesbergen

Wes Kroesbergen — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 11:30:00 +0000

I definitely recommend Connect360. It’s worked seamlessly with my girlfriend’s dad’s 360 whenever we wanted to listen to music or view photos. I haven’t tried movies though.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 11:08:00 +0000

Connect 360 works very well to send content to the xbox 360. It’s pretty seamless.

As for a HD-DVR Elgato make one that works with the mac. See http://www.elgato.com/elgato/na/mainmenu/products/compare.en.html there are two HD options as far as I can tell. Hope this helps.

By: Trevor Carpenter

Trevor Carpenter — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 10:57:00 +0000

Connect360 works great! I’ve been using it to make my Mac and my Xbox360 play well for some time. All it does it make your Xbox360 think you have a compatible computer.

Oh, and Mike Dunn works for VMware…I’m sure he could help you understand if it’s really possible.

By: Thomas Hawk

Thomas Hawk — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 09:16:00 +0000

I've used a variety of virtual machine software on my Mac (including Paralells) and none of them perform as well on the Mac in regards to Windows Media Center. We don't recommend you run Windows Media Center in a virtual machine and neither do we test in same.

Charlie, more just speculating here than anything. As much trouble as I have with my media library with both Microsoft and Apple I don't think I'd ever seriously consider this.

The way I see it though it would be nice if you could somehow get the best of both worlds.

Apple = rock solid consistent computing experience, great especially for photo editing, but lacks seriously in the home media space (no DVR, no extenders, etc.)

Microsoft = great home media strategy (Media Center, XBox Extender), sub par computing experience.

Neither of the two's primary music players WMP11 or iTunes seem to do a very good job with large digital media collections.

It would be nice to take the Media Center strategies of Microsoft and combine them with the rock solid stability of Apple and then top it all off with a first rate music player capable of effectively handling large media libraries.

Now that would be something!

My own strategy is probably to continue to circle the airport in my holding pattern until something compelling enough to plunk down some money comes along and to continue to try to make my current set up better -- even if just incrementally.

You could also give Connect360 a go on the mac for connecting to your 360s.

I'm unfamiliar with this software would this give you a Media Center experience on your XBox 360 as an extender?