Anticlimactic is good, right?

Okay, I've been using the MacBook for about two weeks now (I lost a week thanks to a rather nasty stomach virus that's been going around), and I have to say that it has been rather uneventful. As much as some may want to poo-poo Apple's tagline "It just works", there's a certain amount of verity in that simple statement.

Having done the basic poking around with the OS and applications, it was time to get to the whole point of buying the MacBook: hooking it up to the HDTV. I pretty much used the same connections as I did for the Dell. The mini-DVI to DVI adapter was connected to the MacBook, and then it was connected to the HDTV using a DVI-to-HDMI cable. I then connected the power to the MacBook, powered it on, and VOILA! I had the MacBook screen with the desktop extended to the HDTV. I changed the display mode to mirror so that the HDTV would display everything the same, put the MacBook to sleep, and then tried to wake it up using the remote.

The problem I had here was that every time I tried to wake up the MacBook, it would sense that the lid was closed, and go right back to sleep. I quickly found out that in order for the MacBook to operate in "closed clamshell" mode, three conditions must be met. 1) The MacBook must be connected to external power, not just battery, 2) there must be an external monitor, and 3) there must be an external keyboard and mouse present. After thinking about it, point 3 does make sense. So I plugged in the receiver for my PC wireless keyboard and mouse, quickly taught the MacBook about the keyboard, tried it again, and now we had everything running fine -- video on the HDTV and the MacBook in "closed clamshell" mode.

The first thing I tested was the main thing that irked me about the Dell -- video display detection thru DVI. I cycled the power on the TV, changed inputs, and switched it to tuner and back. Every time I came back to the MacBook's HDMI input, the picture came back without any problem.

And did I mention that it's quiet? Not even as loud as a whisper! It was so quiet that my wife was literally surprised at its lack of sound; so much so that she exclaimed, "Damn, there's no noise!" Nope, not a bit.

Next step was to get things set up so that I could get the MacBook running with at least the same level of functionality as the Dell. In this case, it meant running FrontRow to watch my video files. I made some aliases to the various folders whose files I wanted to view and placed them in the /Movies folder. Even though a majority of these files are TV shows, I opted not to try to get them to show up in FrontRow under the TV Shows menu, because that would have required jumping through hoops to get them to import into iTunes, which is where that particular heading looks. It was much simpler to just put all the video files under "Movies" and call it a day.

So far, everything was working beautifully. I was able to power everything on remotely, wake the MacBook remotely, launch FrontRow using the menu button on the Apple Remote, and browse my files from the Movie menu. One thing that concerned me, though, was that some of the videos seemed to stutter as they played, almost as if the framerates were too low. I copied the file locally, and it exhibited the same behavior. I verified that the CPU and network bandwidth weren't being overtaxed, which they weren't. Besides, the older Dell hardware handled it without any problems, so the MacBook was more than up to the task. I was starting to experience buyer's remorse.

Fortunately, a friend of mine has an iMac and was able to assist me with troubleshooting the issue. The long and short of the problem was this -- during my initial testing with video files from my FlipVideo digital camcorder, I installed the 3ivx codec that was originally provided with the camera. As it turns out, Perian also contains a 3ivx codec. Apparently, the two do not play well with each other. After removing the codec from the FlipVideo, all the video playback smoothed out. No more buyer's remorse.

As it turns out, Perian's codecs allow QuickTime to play Matroska container files, although it does not seem to handle the embedded subtitles. Sometimes it's okay, because the audio/subtitle defaults work out. Other times, not. Not a real big deal for now, since even on the Dell, I had to use Media Player Classic instead of the Dell Media Experience home theater application. The only difference is now I'd be using VLC.

The biggest improvement, though, is that FrontRow integrates with iPhoto and iTunes, so I get access to all my pictures and music as well. I kind of had this functionality with Dell Media Experience, but the overall feel was not nearly as well-integrated or polished as FrontRow. The biggest advantage is that FrontRow uses elements from the host applications, like iPhoto's Events or iTunes's Playlists. There's not extra step from the host apps to FrontRow.

It just works. It really does.