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[escaflo]

Hi all,

Just thinking that I might be switching over to OS X soon.. and I want to know whether you guys got any idea for a player that's like Media Center.. and not iTunes. I was thinking that perhaps I would most probably be running Media Center via Parallels or VMWare Fusion if I can't find a suitable replacement that I would like. But I am not sure how good that would be.

Just hoping that maybe there's some Mac users here that can point me at the right way.

Thanks a lot!

[hit_ny]

There ain't one!

use RDP on the mac.

[escaflo]

Lol.. RDP would work if I got a Windows desktop.. but I am more or less abandoning all the Windows for Mac...

Anybody using Media Center with VMWare Fusion or Parallels? Any performance issue?

Cheers!

[hit_ny]

no windows 

..u got to be kidding.

[escaflo]

Haha actually I am not.. I am planning to survive.. on either Bootcamp or Parallels for all my Windows need. Just that I want to try Mac OS X for a while first and am looking for some equivalent to Media Center or some workaround to use Media Center on Mac OS X. Got a little bit sick of Vista and while XP is nice, I just wanted to give OS X a try.

Hopefully I won't regret my decision to change to Mac...

[hit_ny]

And you wont, so long as you keep win box, and use like below

[benn600]

Isn't that an Apple logo?

[Alex B]

That's definitely a Mac - one of the Macintosh II series from the late 80's to early 90's.

If it is the best model, IIfx, its price was about $10000 without a monitor.

[craft]

null

[GHammer]

pretty expensive flowerpot

Most Macs outside specialty groups are just that.

I have a niece who would happily take her $3200 mistake back if it were allowed. She listened to friends who told her how a Mac would fix all her computing problems and do everything her Vista box did. I guess if you consider running Windows on your Mac hardware using a Mac it was true...

[escaflo]

Haha somehow I agree with u.

Just that I really wanted to give Mac a chance and see how things goes. I am pretty sure if it worst come to worst, I can just install XP on it. I am just not too sure about Vista. I tried to use Vista for 3 months and it was just too much hassle and problem for me that I've now switch back to XP. I am very disappointed with Vista and to think that I've been waiting for it ever since it was announce.

Anyway, I hope that I will like OS X and if there's anything, at least it helps with my work.. it being BSD based.

[glynor]

I've used MC with Parallels and was left somewhat wanting.  Running MC inside the VM works just fine, but Parallels choked on MC in its "Coherence Mode" (which is the mode where Windows apps look, feel, and run like OSX native apps).  Other people have used it this way successfully, and have even used Theater View with the new DirectDraw acceleration built into the VM software turned on (it isn't by default).  It seems to have something to do with the hardware.  The Intel Macs with Intel graphics (the cheap, non-pro, ones) seem to work well.  The MacBook Pro and MacPro with ATI graphics hardware seem to have more issues.  This is likely just because most development has gone towards the more popular platforms, but it was quite buggy in my experience.

I personally was VERY disappointed with Parallels.  It just felt very beta and unfinished, and for something that digs so deeply into the OS it really needs a better uninstaller.  You might very well have better luck running it with a "real" guest OS image -- I was using my BootCamp partition as the guest OS partition -- but I was left unhappy.  Their user support is terrible -- if you asked questions the answers all seemed to be "don't do that" or "your stuff is broken" -- and the help was extremely difficult to find.  The worst part was that it was impossible to uninstall the "hooks" that Parallels puts into your BootCamp partition unless you do it from inside the VM engine.  Of course, I didn't know this and the trial expired.  Opening Add/Remove Programs and choosing Uninstall on Parallels Tools from inside BootCamp, just responds that you must do it from inside the VM (which you can't if the trial is over).

That said... I haven't tried it yet, but I've heard MUCH better things about VMWare Fusion.  One of these days I'm going to take the plunge, but I'm waiting a bit right now... Too busy and too much to do to mess with it right now.

I should say... Using BootCamp IS windows, and works perfectly well on my Mac Pro.  On my MacBook Pro I do have some weird issues in BootCamp, but nothing too serious.  I actually use it in Windows about 1/2 the time, and it works great.

[escaflo]

Thanks for the great information. I guess I would be looking more towards VMWare fusion. I also heard that Fusion got better support for USB 2.0 which is what I need.

I do know about Bootcamp but I just want to avoid using Windows as the main operating system as much as possible. I am basically forcing myself to learn a new OS but I just want to be able to use Media Center while learning it. I just can't live without Media Center.

I am looking at getting the new Macbook Pro which comes with Nvidia graphics card instead of the old ATi. Hopefully it would be better than ATi. Somehow, I never really like ATi drivers even in Windows. Hopefully it would not present that much problem.

Anyway, thanks a lot for the information.

[escaflo]

Just bit the bullet and order the MacBook Pro. Guess there's no turning back.

[bbrip]

I've got a MacBook Pro too sonce a few months. A wonderfully designed machine. Was fiddling around with Mac OS a bit a well but must admit that I mostly run it on Windows using Bootcamp (version 1.4 of bootcamp being very stable now).

I do like Mac OS but be it only for media playback, I feel far too much restricted by the media software that runs on OSX. The latest version of iTunes got a lot better but it still lacks some basic functionality, grouping, sorting etc etc

What I DO LIKE is the ALAC lossless format. This allows me loading files dirctly to the ipod. I would convert my entire library to ALAC (today its in APE) if it would not be for the lack of a well working conversion tool...

For me, moving to OSX is still not entirely written off, but as per today there are too may pieces missing to make the puzzle add up.