"My Sony Xperia has been dropped more than once, and skidded across a car park like a pebble on a lake (slipped out of my hand as I closed the car door!) and there's barely a mark on it."

Well to be fair I think it's more than that. I personally don't pay much attention to things like drop tests because for all phones it depends completely how the phone hits the ground. The bottom line for ALL phones is that dropping or slamming them around just isn't a good idea.

And again to be fair I think the iphone was indeed at one point a better product. The Android software back around version 2 was pretty rough. The problem with Apple though is that it lives in its own little bubble. It didn't expand and push forward with options and flexibility. It placed a cage around its users and said, these are the confines you will work in. Meanwhile Android (and especially Samsung) was not only cleaning up its existing software to make it more reliable, but taking it a step further and offering some extreme choice and flexibility. Today Android version 4.3 is an incredibly reliable software with some amazing choice and flexibility built into it. On the other hand when Apple's new IOS7 came out just recently it was a total disappointment. It was much of the same ole, same ole with anything "google" missing in action. Stuff which was added (live wall paper for example) was all stuff that android had versions ago.

Apple had a great thing.... and they shot themselves in the foot.

"I'm not sure you understood the point I was making. The native container for video on a Mac is QuickTime. The native container for video on Windows was Audio Video Interleave (AVI) and we had lots of codecs that supported it."
Good point, and you're right... I missed it.

"So yes, you can do it all on QuickTime and only QuickTime and it includes the whole world because you only really need one container to hold your video regardless of it's format."
Nah... I don't buy that.
QT is not very audio friendly. I can't for example do DD, DTS, DTShd ma.

As far as universal containers go, I don't think MKV can be beat.... and it did not come from one of the big boys (Apple, M$)

In case anyone is interested, iFixit has done a complete teardown of the new Mac Pro. Pretty interesting industrial design, but Apple has always been very good about this.

http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Mac+Pro+Late+2013+Teardown/20778

All we need now is third party cases and parts and we can build our own for much less?

just realised there's no optical drive in it?

another peripheral to buy and hang off it.....

> Reply by: John_Cline "In case anyone is interested, iFixit has done a complete teardown of the new Mac Pro. Pretty interesting industrial design, but Apple has always been very good about this."

Also AnandTech did a comprehensive breakdown of the Mac Pro and compared it to the HP Z420 and Lenovo Thinkstation S30 and found the Mac Pro to be $1000 cheaper!:



When comparing the entry-level 3.7GHz quad-core Mac Pro with dual AMD FirePro D300s to both the similarly specced HP Z420 and the Lenovo ThinkStation S30, Anandtech found the Mac Pro to be competitively priced at $3248 (priced with AppleCare) vs. $4490 for the HP and $4373 for the Lenovo. This was my finding last time as well when I compared the price of the old Mac Pro against HP and BOXX. As I said, the entry level Mac Pro cost the same as the VideoGuys DIY 9 so it's competitively priced even for a DIY. As always, you can build your own using cheaper parts but this is true for PC's from Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc. so no surprises there.

> Posted by: ushere "just realised there's no optical drive in it?"

lol ...and you need shiny plastic rotating discs why? ;-) Of course, I'm kidding but when you think about it, if you are producing for broadcast you are delivering ProRes files to the station. If you are a hobbyist you are uploading to YouTube or publishing to your iTunes library to watch on your favorite device including your families Apple TV. See if you don't have a Mac, you don't realize that you can publish your movies to your iTunes library directly from iMovie or FCP X and watch them on any device. So after my daughters dance recitals, I do a rough edit in FCP X and publish to my iTunes library. Then we all go in the family room and watch her performance on our Apple TV. I never need to burn a disc for home movies anymore but I understand that we all need to burn discs for our clients so you do need to buy a burner. ;-)

~jr

No Mac here, and all i've ever used iTunes for is purchasing music, never for video. All my workstations are Windows-based and all my smaller devices are Android.

Still though, i haven't burned a DVD to watch a video in my living room or a CD to listen to music in years. I haven't needed iTunes to accomplish either of these feats. There are a plethora of Windows/Linux/Android tools to accomplish this as well. I merely deposit the rendered/saved output to my main workstation's shared drive, and then any playback device within range of my WiFi (which also has permission) can stream the stuff and play it.

But, alas, as recently as last week i've burned both DVDs and CDs for other people.

"Facetime is only good between iphones and won't work with other different name brand phones.... and if you think about it, it's a pretty silly concept because the chances are great at some point you will need to converse with people who have a phone such as Android."

About once a month i have a passenger on my commute and she's a confirmed Apple-only person. Every drive involves a conversation with her trying to evangelize me over to the Apple way, explaining all the wonderful things you can do with iMac/iPad/iPod/iPhone that just aren't available anywhere else. Last week's conversation hit upon Facetime and all of it's amazing wonders. I said "i use Skype for that." In utter disgust she enumerated all the reasons why Skype is worthless and bad, such as only working with other Skype users, costing money for every single call, not supporting video calls, only working on a very small portion of hardware ... and every single reason she gave was completely wrong. When i countered with the fact that Facetime only worked between Apple devices she indignantly said that it worked fine with every person she's ever communicated with. Well, of course, all her family and cow-orkers have iPhones.

Both she and her fiance work for companies that won't allow their employees to bring to the office or do any work related activities (even remotely) on anything other than iStuff. She once gave me a list of reasons why their employers have those rules, and once again, every single reason was bupkis.

" See if you don't have a Mac, you don't realize that you can publish your movies to your iTunes library directly from iMovie or FCP X and watch them on any device. So after my daughters dance recitals, I do a rough edit in FCP X and publish to my iTunes library. Then we all go in the family room and watch her performance on our Apple TV."

LOL!
Jonny... come on.
Your problem is that you're so deep into the Apple kool aid that you forget to lift the head and have a peek at the rest of the world! :)
I do all that just fine and not one of my devices has an Apple name on it. I can push it to sky drive, or google drive, or one of a few network drives I have... which ever is more convenient at the time. It can be seen on any tv in the house. If I have it on google or sky drive then it can also be viewed anywhere, anytime on a cell phone, tablet, laptop, remote computer... etc. Personally speaking, I don't really use discs myself anymore either, but that doesn't mean the disc is dead (yet). There are millions of people out there still using it... so just like FACETIME, your mac is one step closer to alienating you from them, and that's not what this world is about. It's about universal communication. It's about being able to shift gears on the fly and communicate in any manner required. Apple is attempting to kill that concept on several different levels..... and that's not exactly what advancement is all about.

> Reply by: Chienworks "I haven't needed iTunes to accomplish either of these feats. There are a plethora of Windows/Linux/Android tools to accomplish this as well. I merely deposit the rendered/saved output to my main workstation's shared drive, and then any playback device within range of my WiFi (which also has permission) can stream the stuff and play it."

What WiFi device do you use to service up the video files? What clients can consume it? I tried to get this working before I had a Mac and was unsuccessful.

> Posted by: Rob Franks "Your problem is that you're so deep into the Apple kool aid that you forget to lift the head and have a peek at the rest of the world! :)"

The rest of the word did not look like that when I was using Windows and I have a collection of useless media devices and wasted money to prove it. Wanna buy a D-Link HD Media Player? I'll sell you one cheap. How about a Linkstation DLNA media server? I'm having a special on those today. All useless junk that claims to "work together".

> Posted by: Rob Franks "I can push it to sky drive, or google drive, or one of a few network drives I have... which ever is more convenient at the time. It can be seen on any tv in the house. "

What do you use to have it display on your TV? I would love to see this working.

> Posted by: Rob Franks "...so just like FACETIME, your mac is one step closer to alienating you from them, and that's not what this world is about. It's about universal communication. It's about being able to shift gears on the fly and communicate in any manner required."

Please explain to me exactly how this works because I bought DLNA compliant media servers and DLNA compliant media players connected to my TV and I now have a collection of useless hardware that doesn't talk to each other and I spent hours and hours on forums and each manufacturer blames the other for not being compliant with the "industry standard" DLNA spec. It's all worthless junk and wasted money. Until I started buying Apple products and now everything works. So please be very specific about how to do this because I really want to know.

> Posted by: Rob Franks "Apple is attempting to kill that concept on several different levels..... and that's not exactly what advancement is all about. "

Apple is the only platform when this all worked for me. I tried to get it to work with Windows technology. It didn't! So I'm not quoting some glossy brochure while sipping Kool-Aid. I have personally experienced the frustration of trying to get different vendors products to talk to each other and I've come to the conclusion that this "open" world of which you speak where everything just works, doesn't exist. It was only when I selected one vendor (Apple) that all of my technologies came together seamlessly. That, in my book, was a huge advancement over what I had.

So please, please, please explain to me what make and model number devices I should buy to have this all work without Apple. Because I was unable to crack the code and I wasted far too much time trying to get Windows based stuff to work. I have wasted no time with Apple. Anyone can get this to work. You don't have to be a computer scientist.

I'm really serious about learning how this could have worked.

~jr

"What WiFi device do you use to service up the video files? What clients can consume it? I tried to get this working before I had a Mac and was unsuccessful."

Just a plain old $55 LinkSys wifi router, off the shelf from Walmart. Note that it's not the wifi router that's serving. It merely provides the connection. For that matter my desktops and one laptop are cabled rather than using wireless. It's the main desktop workstation that is doing the file serving. Heck, even my tablet or phone could serve the files to the other devices, but it's the workstation that has 7TB of drive space, so it gets the honor.

Clients? The Windows boxen usually use Windows Media Player, although for some formats on some Windows versions VLC works better. The tablet and the phone use MX video Player.

"I bought DLNA compliant media servers and DLNA compliant media players connected to my TV and I now have a collection of useless hardware that doesn't talk to each other"

I played around with DLNA a bit and it just seemed like a useless and unnecessary abstraction layer. If devices can share data between them, that's all that is needed. I serve up everything locally over SMB shares (what Windows calls 'sharing'), and over a wider network usually through HTTP from my Linux web server. Pretty much every device i've bought in the last nearly 10 years is capable of connecting to these sources mostly "out of the box", with no configuration or setup necessary. The only addition i had to make to my Android devices was to install the free ES File Explorer app, which allows them to join SMB share networks.

> Posted by: Chienworks "It's the main desktop workstation that is doing the file serving."

OK so you're just doing file sharing and using a variety of media players and you have no way to watch on TV. I've been doing that forever. That's not the kind of integration I'm talking about but I appreciate that you are happy with it. I am not.

> Posted by: Chienworks "I played around with DLNA a bit and it just seemed like a useless and unnecessary abstraction layer. "

My experience exactly. DLNA is a huge failure. There doesn't seem to be a common media sharing protocol for Windows that actually works consistently.

~jr

"What do you use to have it display on your TV? I would love to see this working."

There are MANY streaming devices out there right now. The ones in particular that I use Are Boxee Box and WD TV Live, both of which fully support dts, and dts hd ma pass which apple tv does not (at least not in 2012 when I tried it). I don't believe Apple tv supports MKV either but hey... one container fits all, right ;)

"What WiFi device do you use to service up the video files?"
I can wifi my video files DIRECTLY from my Sony cam to google drive and anybody with a password can view it... unless of course you have a mac in which case you'll have to jump some hoops because apple for what ever chooses to ignore the existence of MTS files to the best of its ability.

"Please explain to me exactly how this works because I bought DLNA compliant media servers and DLNA compliant media players connected to my TV and I now have a collection of useless hardware that doesn't talk to each other and I spent hours and hours on forums and each manufacturer blames the other for not being compliant with the "industry standard" DLNA spec"
Jonny... I honestly can't answer that because I just don't seem to have the issues you are having. No doubt there is some crap out there which does not live up to what it says. But I find that happening on BOTH sides of the fence... I mean when they say "it just works" my personal experience finds it hard to believe they include the iphone under that statement.

"Apple is the only platform when this all worked for me."
That's not very good justification for trying to kill alternate lines of communication.
Look.... guarantied this would be a much simpler world if we abolish all languages except English... but it hasn't happened yet, and it won't. It's unrealistic to even think of such a thing, yet this is basically what Apple is trying to do and it is just as unrealistic as FACETIME itself.

i don't understand a lot of the terminology (dnla, etc.,), but i can watch anything on anything here. stick a dvd in my laptop and 'play to' bravia tv. use search on tv to look at media files on desktop / laptop, use tablet / mobile to play to tv, etc., still have old media player connected to old sony plasma for the kids to watch, and even that media player has lan / wi fi options.

wonderful age this 21st century. no cables.

"you have no way to watch on TV"

Not really sure how to respond to that one, since the last time i turned my "TV" on was probably 6 years ago, and i took it to the dump 3 years ago. These days i do most of my "TV" watching on the 2nd 20" monitor on my main workstation which has cable coming in through a tuner and DV converter feeding it. For larger crowds i use the XGA LCD projector in the living room on an 84" screen.

But, even when i did have a TV, i'd feed it through the DV->A/V converter from desktop or laptop to watch digital media. If i had a new TV these days i'd probably feed it VGA from the living room laptop, which of course would put anything on the TV in the same way and just as easily as it can be played on the laptop's own display.

So, yes, my system allows for watching on the TV (if i had one).

> Posted by: Rob Franks "The ones in particular that I use Are Boxee Box and WD TV Live, both of which fully support dts, and dts hd ma pass which apple tv does not"

I have a WD TV but not the Live version. Perhaps that makes a difference. As I said, I have an earlier D-Link media player and it was a bust. Perhaps I was too far ahead of the curve at the time because nothing seemed to work and I wasn't alone. There were lots of frustrated customers on the forums.

I'll have to look into Boxee Box although it's twice the price of Apple TV.

Can that stream from mobile devices? My son just came home from his New Years trip and wanted to show my wife and I his pictures so we turned on the Apple TV, sat on the couch, and he opened his iPhone and just pressed slide show and we watched the pictures from his phone with no need to download to a media server. Can Boxee Box or WD TV Live do that? I didn't see that capability on their web site.

I also use my Apple TV as a secondary monitor for my MacBook Pro. Can WD TV Live or Boxee Box enable your HD TV to act wirelessly as a secondary monitor for your Windows computer?

Sometimes when I'm watching a video from a web site on my MacBook Pro laptop I just send the output to Apple TV right from the web page and watch it on my HD TV. Can WD TV Live or Boxee Box stream to your HD TV wirelessly from a video playing on your computer in a browser?

Oh... and I'm pretty sure these boxes can't handle a slide show with music on-the-fly like I'm doing. They only handle video that's been rendered.

The integration between iOS, OS X and Apple TV with AirPlay is pretty tight. I'm pretty sure Windows has nothing like it but I could be wrong.

> Posted by: Rob Franks "That's not very good justification for trying to kill alternate lines of communication. "

I'm not trying to kill anything that works. I stopped looking once all of the Apple stuff was working for me. If there are other solutions that don't require you to be an IT specialist to get working then that's great.

~jr

"I have a WD TV but not the Live version. Perhaps that makes a difference. As I said, I have an earlier D-Link media player and it was a bust. Perhaps I was too far ahead of the curve at the time because nothing seemed to work and I wasn't alone. There were lots of frustrated customers on the forums."
Oh come on now.... I can do a google search for frustrated apple tv users and you don't think I'm going to find any??

"Can that stream from mobile devices? My son just came home from his New Years trip and wanted to show my wife and I his pictures so we turned on the Apple TV, sat on the couch, and he opened his iPhone and just pressed slide show and we watched the pictures from his phone with no need to download to a media server. Can Boxee Box or WD TV Live do that? I didn't see that capability on their web site."
Don't know to be honest. I've never really tried. I have never seen any reason or need to bypass my main wireless server. Everything is programmed into it so it all automatically connects as I enter the door. That way I don't have to fiddle around disconnecting from one hardware to connect to another. Once it's on the main line then it's common between the tv's... the computer.. the other cell phones... etc. Of course if you show me some kind of advantage to connecting up to only one device as I enter the home......
The question I would have to ask though is what would happen if your son didn't have an iphone. What if he owned a Galaxy, or a Nokia? You see... my main wireless server doesn't really care what make your phone is.

"I also use my Apple TV as a secondary monitor for my MacBook Pro"
Because your mac pro hasn't got the ability on its own? I'm sorry.. I just don't know why you would do such a thing. I have a HDMI output on my computer and an HDMI input on my tv so I just use an HDMI cable and BANG... they're connected!

"Can WD TV Live or Boxee Box stream to your HD TV wirelessly from a video playing on your computer in a browser?"
Most if not all streaming devices now come with web browsers built directly in. There is no need to use an indirect method when it can be had in a more direct fashion. I can in fact bring up the vegas pro website directly within boxee and use the built in keyboard on the back of the boxee remote to converse with you if you wish.

"I'm not trying to kill anything that works. I stopped looking once all of the Apple stuff was working for me. "
So you're saying you CAN watch a movie with DTS HD MA sound?
The point I'm trying to make of course is that Apple may satisfy you, but it's a tad too simplistic and basic for me. I simply cannot live with the restrictions imposed.

Rob, you will never change the mind of a rusted-on Apple believer. They are conditioned to believe that nothing is as Good as anything Steve put his stamp upon.

> Posted by: Rob Franks "I have never seen any reason or need to bypass my main wireless server."

Because the content you want to share is one someone's phone. Not your server.

> Posted by: Rob Franks "Everything is programmed into it so it all automatically connects as I enter the door. That way I don't have to fiddle around disconnecting from one hardware to connect to another."

There is no fiddling around or disconnecting. Any device can instantly be the source, it doesn't have to be a specific server.

> Posted by: Rob Franks "Of course if you show me some kind of advantage to connecting up to only one device as I enter the home.."

Because my son shot some pictures on his phone while he was away and wants to share them on my TV. He doesn't want to place them on my server (they are already on his phone).

> Posted by: Rob Franks "The question I would have to ask though is what would happen if your son didn't have an iphone. What if he owned a Galaxy, or a Nokia?"

That is exactly what this entire thread has been about. I said in one of my first posts that you will never get the tight integration that a single vendor that controls both the hardware and software can give. I used Apple as the example but it could have been Sony. I only buy Sony cameras because I use Sony software to edit my video. I could care less if Panasonic made a better camera than Sony, I wouldn't buy it. While Panasonic camera owners were complaining that they couldn't edit their P2 footage in Vegas Pro I was happily editing my HDV and AVCHD footage from my Sony cameras. Because my philosophy is very different than yours. My philosophy is, just tell me what works and I'll use it. I don't have time to debug why two manufacturers products don't work together. I have more important things to do with my time.

The answer to your question is, "He bought an iPhone because it works with all the other Apple products that we have". That was also one of my original statements: I am happy to limit myself to one vendor if it means tight seamless integration of products. You have been trying to convince me that you can get the same integration using multiple products from multiple vendors and I'm telling you that I've been there, I've done that, and it's not the same level of integration. And as others have already said, until you try it and experience it, you will never understand. I am not a long time Apple user. I'm a 30 year PC veteran who in the last year started using Apple products and realize now what Apple users already knew.

> Posted by: Rob Franks "Because your mac pro hasn't got the ability on its own? I'm sorry.. I just don't know why you would do such a thing."

Because the MacBook Pro is a laptop. I carry it with me from room to room. I don't want a cable stretching across my family room to my TV. I simply press one button and any Apple device in any room can be my secondary monitor including my Apple TV. I certainly could have attached a second monitor with a cable. That's how I use my MacBook Pro when I'm in the office. When I'm home I mostly just use one monitor but when I need to quickly check something on a secondary monitor or show something on a large display, it's only a button push away. No cables. Very convenient.

> Posted by: Rob Franks "Most if not all streaming devices now come with web browsers built directly in. There is no need to use an indirect method when it can be had in a more direct fashion. "

Actually, yours would be the indirect method. In my scenario I'm already on my laptop. I've already found a web page and I'm viewing a video and I want to display that video on my TV. Why would I want to now go use another browser on another device and find the same page just so I can watch it on my TV? That's very indirect. I push one button and the video I'm already watching on my laptop, or iPhone, or iPad is instantly on my HD TV. Nothing indirect about it at all. It's called AirPlay and it rocks!

I believe you when you say, "I can't imagine..." because you really can't imagine it until you experience it. It's like people who don't own a tablet and can't imagine what they would use it for. That's exactly what the people who do own tablets said before they bought one and now can't imagine how they could live without their tablets. It's a whole new way of working that you can't imagine until you experience it.

> Posted by: Rob Franks "The point I'm trying to make of course is that Apple may satisfy you, but it's a tad too simplistic and basic for me. I simply cannot live with the restrictions imposed."

Yes, it's insanely simple. And the point that I'm trying to make is that I'm willing to live with restrictions if something solves a problem for me. I'm willing to only buy Sony cameras because I know their formats will always be supported by Sony Vegas Pro software. I'm willing to only buy Apple hardware and software because it is seamlessly integrated and improves my personal productivity. And to get back to the topic of this thread... I'm willing to buy a computer (the new Mac Pro) that only comes with a selection of 3 GPU's because I know that all of the software written for it, will be tested by the developer with exactly the same GPU as the one in my computer and therefore I have the greatest chance of the software working exactly as the developer had intended it. Will it be bug free? No software is. Will it have less undesirable behavior than software that needs to support 100 different GPU's? The math says that it will.

See... we've come full circle as to why I'm buying a new Mac Pro... and you're not. ;-) (peace)

~jr

"Yes, it's insanely simple. And the point that I'm trying to make is that I'm willing to live with restrictions if something solves a problem for me"

You missed my meaning. I didn't mean simple as in easy. I meant simple as in limited. Apple doesn't do MKV. It doesn't do DTS. It doesn't do DTS HD MA, It doesn't do MTS files directly. It doesn't work directly with M2TS (I can go on with this... but the point is made)

Now admittedly what (little) Apple does, it does pretty well and if you can live in that rather limited world then hats off to ya, but from my point of view it's a lot like trying to cut and eat a steak with one hand.... completely unnecessary when you have 2 hands, and the taste is overshadowed by all the work trying to get it in your mouth.

> Posted by: Rob Franks "You missed my meaning. I didn't mean simple as in easy. I meant simple as in limited. "

Actually, I cheated. ;-) (sorry) I did get your meaning... and i twisted it around bit to show you that one man's "simplistic" is another man's "easy-peasy". I also specifically used the term "insanely simple" because it's the name of a book by Ken Segall called Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple's Success which documents how hard it really is to make something simple. I learned a LOT from reading that book and I subscribe to "simple is better" and "too many choices only leads to confusion".

> Posted by: Rob Franks "It doesn't do DTS. It doesn't do DTS HD MA,"

What about DTS Express, DTS 96/24, DTS-ES Discrete, DTS-EX Matrix, DTS Neo:6, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TruHD, Dolby Pro Logic IIz, Dolby PLII/IIz, Dolby EX, !!!???!!!

Don't get me started with the audio world... what another MESS of formats. I don't know if Apple does DTS because I don't have any 5.1 equipment because the audio world is such a mess that I have no idea what to buy, or what formats need to be support, so I just dismiss the whole thing. My TV has two speakers. I really don't care about DTS. The audio industry needs to get their act together and agree on a standard format. Until then, they will get no money from me and I've tried to buy a 5.1 systems several times and given up with the overwhelming choices.

> Posted by: Rob Franks "doesn't do MTS files directly"

So what? Windows doesn't do MXF files directly. I play MTS files on my Mac all the time with VLC. Oh, it's OK for you to have to use 3 different media players on Windows but if Mac doesn't support a format directly it's bad? Come on!

> Posted by: Rob Franks "Now admittedly what (little) Apple does, it does pretty well and if you can live in that rather limited world then hats off to ya"

I agree that what Apple does it does extremely well and I have no problems living within that world. You should read Insanely Simple and understand what drives Apple. It's really interesting reading, at least for a software developer like myself.

Here is real world example of simple vs complex:

Pretend that you're not the IT Guru that you are. Pretend you're just a consumer looking for a laptop. So you go to the Lenovo web site to buy a laptop. Do you want a Thinkpad Laptop? You can pick from the T Series, X Series, Thinkpad Yoga, E Series, S Series, Thinkpad Helix, Thinkpad Twist, L Series, or W Series. Or perhaps you want an Ideapad Laptop? You can select from the Y Series, Z Series, U Series, Flex Series, or Yoga Series. Or maybe you just want the Essential Laptop in which case you have the G Series. Which one should you choose? I don't think Lenovo could even tell you!!! You can't make this stuff up... here is the product drop down from their web site to prove it:



Now you visit the Apple web site and want to buy a laptop. You can get a MacBook Air or a MacBook Pro. Which should use choose? Easy-peasy! They have one consumer line and one pro line, two different screen sizes and you're done. No confusion. Insanely Simple.

Actually, we should start two new threads to continue two topics we've brought up here but don't really pertain to the Mac Pro announcement that this thread is about.

(1) I would be interested to know how many Vegas Pro editors stream video from media servers in their homes and what they use.

(2) I would be interested to know how many Vegas Pro editors have 5.1 surround setups in their homes and what they use.

~jr

"What about DTS Express, DTS 96/24, DTS-ES Discrete, DTS-EX Matrix, DTS Neo:6, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TruHD, Dolby Pro Logic IIz, Dolby PLII/IIz, Dolby EX, !!!???!!!""

I have no issues with any one of those. In fact my system actually states in the front panel EXACTLY what audio type it is. If Boxee doesn't understand it then it is simply bitstreamed to my receiver... which understands, states, and plays back ALL officially recognized audio types. (A perfect example BTW of non apple hardware working seamlessly together).

"My TV has two speakers. I really don't care about DTS. "
Exactly. Like I said... if you're willing to live within these sorts of crudely basic parameters then Apple is fine!

"I play MTS files on my Mac all the time with VLC."
VLC isn't Apple is it... and you have now had to go outside the confines of Apple's limits to achieve your goal which makes it no longer "insanely simple"
I thought you said QT does it all?
Oh... and WMP does understand MTS

"You should read Insanely Simple and understand what drives Apple"
I KNOW what drives Apple. I don't need to read anything. PROFIT drives Apple. That's why Apple is now starting to enter such things onto the market as cheaper plastic iphones and ipad minis. The competition is beginning to swallow Apple. Apple also knows it can make more money by NOT offering such flexibilities as expandable memory in their portable equipment. If you want more memory... you've got to buy the whole thing all over again.

"(2) I would be interested to know how many Vegas Pro editors have 5.1 surround setups in their homes and what they use."
HUH??
I don't get what you're trying to prove here. You're all of a sudden interested in playing a numbers game in an attempt to justify Apple's lack of abilities in universality?
What difference does it make, how many?