DVD Player
I ranted about Panther's DVD player quite a bit in a previous article on the mini, and just as I expected, the issues I raised in that article have not been addressed by Tiger. Tiger's de-interlacer and scaler are absolutely horrible and unacceptable by today's standards. While I didn't conduct the same level of tests that I did for my review of the DVD player with the mini, all tests that I did run exhibited the same combing artifacts and poor scaler quality as I had seen in Panther. Given the fact that apparently many Mac users had complained about Panther's DVD player in the past, I'm quite surprised that it wasn't fixed in Tiger.CPU utilization doesn't appear to be fixed either; DVD playback on the Mac mini continues to eat up a minimum of 40% of the machine's CPU time. Although, I haven't seen it peak at 65% since the upgrade to Tiger.
iChat AV 3 & Quicktime 7
Both of these applications do receive extensive updates, but honestly, I've not used either enough to even begin to feel comfortable with posting my opinions of them. The support for the H.264 codec is extremely important and I'm hoping that it will live up to its hype in future usage models.iChat finally supports the display of multiple groups at the same time, instead of having to switch between groups to make them visible, which makes it a much more reasonable IM client.
I will do my best, if the desire is still there, to comment on these applications more in a future Mac article.
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Brian23 - Saturday, April 30, 2005 - link
Does Tiger Direct carry tiger?JarredWalton - Saturday, April 30, 2005 - link
11 - The Windows XP-64 write-up is in progress, as indicated on page 3. While I can't speak for Anand, the stuff I saw at WinHEC didn't give me any reason to upgrade just yet. Those pesky drivers still seem to have issues, and there are software applications that don't work properly right now. (Benchmarking apps in particular.)Unlike Panther to Tiger, the change from XP to XP-64 is literally just a change of architecture. Unless you're doing high-end computing or running servers and workstations, I think waiting for a few months is probably the best case scenario.
daniel1113 - Friday, April 29, 2005 - link
Check out the PearPC site for speed comparisons. Basically, PearPC runs at about 1/40th the speed of the host processor, so there is no comparison between native Mac hardware and and AMD or Intel equivalent.vailr - Friday, April 29, 2005 - link
Any comments on using Tiger 10.4 with the PearPC? Comparing speed on, for example, an AMD FX55 vs. speed on native Mac hardware?Thanks.
chennhui - Friday, April 29, 2005 - link
Why as a hardware review site doing a software review? May be include a windows 64bits in future? Mac to me is nothing but an expensive system full of eye candy that does run game well. A Powerbook G4 can't even run DOOM3. Lolslashbinslashbash - Friday, April 29, 2005 - link
You forgot to mention that there's a Family Pack of Tiger for $199. It's 5 licenses. Even with only 2 Macs (say, a desktop and a laptop), you're looking at a ~25% discount. Great for those who aren't students. With 3 Macs, you're already doing better than the student discount.Cygni - Friday, April 29, 2005 - link
Good piece, for sure. I think im gonna hold off on Tiger for my 15in Powerbook, even though i can get the student discount. The bugs and such kinda un-nerve me, and i cant really see myself using alot of the new features. Maybe after a few patches, i will move on up.Netopia - Friday, April 29, 2005 - link
Great job and interesting article Anand.You might want to correct the following typo though:
Like it or not, there is a lot that has changed in Tiger but obviously the question is whether or not it is worth the $129 entry [b]free.[/b]
I think you menat FEE.
Glad to see any review from YOU!
Joe
Atropine - Friday, April 29, 2005 - link
Yeah Jbog me too, don't want the wife seeing my porn browsing..........................Jbog - Friday, April 29, 2005 - link
"...Safari has grown old and now complains about those darn kids and their programs that they are downloading these days."Ha ha :)
"Private Browsing" -
If this feature is exclusive to Safari, how come no other browsers have thought of this before, I wonder. As a Firefox user, I find myself cleaning history, cache and other junk every so often.
* In second paragraph of Page 4 - Tiger: The Overprotective Parent?
"... to protect the user from him/her actions -"
should read "his/her"