Should I buy a Mac to play vob files from my WinXP Machine?

[hottyson]

Greetings,
I have my mentally disabled uncle living under my care in my home. He is unable to operate video devices so we have put each of his movies onto my computer with dvdDecrypter in a VOB file format. This way we can play his movies with a cheap/slow computer in his room over a ethernet network. This has worked out very well for him.

I am contemplating purchasing a second computer for my own personal use. I am thinking that it might be nice to try a Mac and learn to use its OS X operating system since I already own a bunch of Win XP machines. However, I have never used a Mac and I am not sure if it will play my VOB files that I have ripped with dvdDycrypter once I buy it and hook it up to my ethernet network. If it will then I would like to buy a Mac. If it wont then I will just get another Win XP Machine. Can anyone tell me if these dvdDycrypter VOB files will play over my network on a Mac computer?

Thank you

[davefx]

the mac dvd player will play video_ts files. however even being a mac user myself, i see no great benefit for using a mac over xp to do this. i find they both play dvd's equally well given similar video hardware.

[WiseWeasel]

They will play fine. There's even a nice program called Matinee which makes it easy to select movies to play from the hard drive (not that using Apple DVD Player is that hard to do). If you share the windows SAMBA share over the network and mount it on the Mac, you can easily play it over the network as if it was on a local hard drive. I'm also part of the development team for MacTheRipper, which is like DVDDecrypter, but with a much nicer interface.

[Soopafresh]

Not a bad idea, considering the new $500 model is a good deal for a basic machine.

The question you need to ask yourself is whether you'll be willing to go through the initial learning curve to network your Uncle's PC to the Mac. It isn't hard after you've done it a few times, but the first time is like building IKEA furniture - lots of little bits and pieces to put together (in the software, obviously). Still, it's a great thing to know, and if you're into it, right on brutha....

[hottyson]

Thank you all for the quick replies and helpful information. I think that it looks like I will be fine getting a Mac computer. This is great since I have always wanted to try the Mac OS X.
Thanks again,
hotty