Hi All
At boarding school, I decided to get a Mac Mini as a 'Media PC', to be able to play films through the projector. (The advantages of the Mac Mini being that it is supposedly fast enough for the job, quiet and small, and with a relatively bombproof operating system. Also, the video input quality on the projector is poor at best, and it is only worth using the RGB input on it.) However, the new Intel (core solo) chip is a pile of rubbish (compiles slower than my 3 year old AMD), and much to the amusement of my friends crashes when a DVD is paused in Front Row for over 5 minutes.
I do not know why it does this, but I certainly wish Apple never changed to Intel. It was definitely a step backwards from a modern chip (PowerPC) to one that has had extensions bodged onto it (Intel 8086) over the past 20 years since the Intel 8086. (on my PowerBook G4, I have never had problems with DVDs freezing).
I'd put up with it if it was open source, but being a commercial product, and still crashing /after/ a major system update (downloaded and installed all the patches today), but being a system that has cost a lot of money, I'd at least expect it to be able to pause a DVD without crashing.
I want to see if Linux can be installed on it, and use that and Kaffeine or Xine just to play back DVDs.
I warn anyone who wishes to rely on FrontRow. At least on the Intel series.
Regards
Dave