Windows Media High Definition Video

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Robert X. Cringely has an interested article where he guesses that the Mac Mini is going to be a device for downloading and watching movies in High Definition (HD), and make it proprietary like the iPod. Sounds pretty cool to me, but I already download and watch HD stuff on my PC running Windows XP Media Center Edition. So far, I have only watched the sample HD videos from the Windows Media High Definition Video (WMV HD) site and a few others from the Microsoft.com site, but that's mainly because I don't watch much TV.

What would make a Mac Mini that is seen as an HD movie device cooler than my Windows PC that can also play music, photos, TV, DVDs, plus everything else that a Windows PC can do? Keep in mind that it is pretty cool that I can have a variety of PlaysForSure devices to easily sync my digital content, including the very cool Portable Media Centers. So the Mac Mini would be competing with that, which to me, is already pretty impressive.

Is it the slick look of the Mac Mini that would make Cringely’s proposed HD Movie device so cool? I'm curious.

And yes, this is only my opinion, I don't work on Windows or any of the Media-related products.