[Tetsuya]

My girlfriend and I are close to getting our own home, and we're going to have to buy a new TV (we dont own one of our own), furniture, and entertainment center.

I currently use my old G4 as a digital video player, but we're going to need something more capable of high-def video (which the G4, bless its old heart, isnt), that uses less power, and can, when needed, have an external Blu-ray drive and hard drives attatched to it (probably use it for Time Machine to back up our primary computers)

The new Mini is pretty appealing and may be in the budget, but ive got some questions:

does it support HDMI-out (either natively or with a converter?) - i'd like to connect it to the TV via the HDMI cable, since id be able to run it at the TV's native res (probably 720p, depending on whats on sale). We're going to be using it as our DVD player, DVP player, stereo/sound system - everything but the cable box really - and if there are converters, do they support running the sound through the HDMI too?

is the default 1GB of RAM enough, do you think? I dont know how hard it is too add ram to the Mini, but if 1GB isnt enouch, its cheap enough to get more at the moment.

any recommendations otherwise/about anything else?

well be using our iPods as remotes, primarily, if that matters.

thanks guys!

[Sneaky Snake]

What about a PS3? you get HDMI, replacable HDD, full media streaming from your mac via this $20 app, will play some slick games, and it's half the price of a mac mini

[Tetsuya]

but i dont get:

ability to run Skype through it for my "landline" phone

iTunes - its going to be the home stereo as well, with iTunes connected to both of our music libraries + Pandora

Real web browsing

BitTorrent - i always have torrents running (TV shows, mostly) - this machine will be on 24/7 doing that, Skype, and video encoding that isnt time sensitive (set it to convert a few files to iPod and go to bed..)

games i care about. I loved my PS2. Still have it. There isnt a single game i want to play for the PS3. Not one.

And media streaming just isnt as good as a large drive full of what you want to watch - and isnt controllable with my iPod.

edit: also dont get emulator support unless i decide to run Linux on the PS3, and thats just more headaches. Im computer savvy, but i hate messing with crap like Linux if i dont need to. I use SNES, Genesis, GBA, and DDR (Stepmania) emulators extensively.

The price isnt really the issue. I currently use a Mac to do all of the above, but it wont cut it anymore (cant play HD titles, wont be able to handle an external BD drive) and i want to keep that functionality.

Thanks for the thoughts though. Realized my original post came off as rather snarky. Didnt mean for it to.

[teflon]

Ok, so to answer your questions:
youll want to get a mini-DVI to DVI adapter, and then from there a DVI to HDMI cable. The only thing missing from this is the audio (since HDMI is DVI + audio), which, if you want 5.1, youd have to get an adapter for or something. Something Im not really up on Im afraid.

Aside from that, the 1gb should handle it (1gb is the minimum for BD playback in windows with PowerDVD), but Id say that its still worth getting the 2gb from the point of view of multitasking. Because the mini is a bit of a tough cookie to get into, and when its open, the new mini isnt really easy to get to the RAM slots, Im forced to say that youd want to be paying the ridiculous Apple price (or buy the more expensive mini).

one final tip would be to get the BT keyboard and mouse. Or at least a wireless keyboard. Heck, you can even get keyboards which have a little track pad where the num pad is so that you dont need to use a mouse which is one heck of an inconvenience when youre on a sofa.
Using the iPods for the main media control is a smart move though, the little white remote is so ridiculously easy to lose.

so anyway, good luck.

[Sneaky Snake]

What teflon said, but I'd do some research into the audio. I know that the ATI 4670 that I had before in my homebuild could put audio though the DVI port with a HDMI - DVI adapter and I had 5.1 audio (coulda been 7.1, I didn't test that).

Also for purchasing the mini I'd go with the expensive one unless your doing your own upgrades. The cheap one configered with 2 GB's of RAM and 320 GB HDD actually comes out to $825, $25 more then the expensive one and they have the exact same hardware . I guess the expensive one would ship faster to if that makes any difference

Also this keyboard is super slick with media computers but I dunno if it works in OS X

EDIT: I found this thing for your audio, looks like it does what you need but cost a friggen mountain of cash

[AussieMacGamer]

Why not just use a digital optical audio cable for 5.1 out of the mini? The TV should support an alternate sound input, if not, you need a smarter TV.

[teflon]

well, I was going to give a rather snide reply to that, but then It triggered a memory that you do get mini jack shaped toslink connectors. So I did a bit of searching, and you can get them.

"problem" solved.

[Tetsuya]

Microcenter is offering the previous-generation Mini for 399$.

it's the same machine except the graphics card, as far as i can tell; the old one uses the Intel Integrated, the new one uses the integrated GeForce 9400.

is the GeForce 9400 worth an extra 200$?

i'm thinking no.

[Eric5h5]

If you play games at all, I would say yes; the 9400M really is a lot faster and better than the GMA 950. It's definitely not the same machine, though--the new one has another USB port, and Firewire 800 instead of 400, and a Superdrive instead of a Combodrive, and a larger hard drive, and it's faster.

--Eric

[teflon]

Id say go for the new one unless you want to pinch pennies.
Itll pay better dividends when it comes to being able to watch Blu-Rays in the future. Im not 100%, but I think the old minis are only able to handle 720p from a BD thanks to the sucky integrated GPU and not having an uber fast CPU to compensate

[Tetsuya]

Eric5h5, on April 1st 2009, 03:14 PM, said:

If you play games at all, I would say yes; the 9400M really is a lot faster and better than the GMA 950. It's definitely not the same machine, though--the new one has another USB port, and Firewire 800 instead of 400, and a Superdrive instead of a Combodrive, and a larger hard drive, and it's faster.

--Eric

The machine they're offering is the previou generation 2.0 ghz with a Superdrive and 1gb of RAM

original post was from my iPod; (and was therefore sparse)

the model that Microcenter is offering for 399 is:

2.0 Ghz Core 2 Duo
1 GB RAM (DDR2 - PC5300)
Superdrive (Dual Layer)
120GB HD

the current bottom-end machine that was just released is nearly identical, though it has DDR3 RAM, and the 9400 (but has the same size HD, same amount of RAM, same Superdrive, and same speed CPU).

given that it will never play games, (it is merely replacing my G4 as a digitial media center for our TV + emulators for 8-32 bit consoles) is it really worth it to shell out 650$ for the new machine? (vs ~400 for this one)

someone brought up that the older machine with the GMA-950 may not be able to output 1080p for some reason... if that is true it may impact my decision, but otherwise im not really sure. Blu-ray in the future (though i dont know that well bother anytime in the next 2-4 years with Blu-ray) may also be a consideration if the GMA has issues with Blu-ray (though everything ive seen says that the 2.0 Ghz C2 should be able to handle full HD Blu-ray with just about any GPU)

hate to seem impatient but my girlfriend would be going to get the thing tomorrow afternoon, so if we can get an answer before then, that would be awesome.

[teflon]

depending on how the 1080p is encoded you could have a little difficulty with it. Even my MBP has the occasional judder or loos of sync, using VLC. But Apple seems to say itll be fine in quicktime at least.

OK, so I went to the powerDVD website to check their own minimum specs, and apparently the 950 isnt supported there (since its basically not a GPU at all). Of course, well have to wait and see what Apple manages to produce for BR playback, but its not too encouraging on that front.

But then again, in 2 years time Blu Ray drives will be much cheaper again, and so will stand alone players. Since itll just be a single element, and youd need an external drive anyway, you can probably ignore this for the time being.

So it really just hinged on how important Blu Ray is to you in the future.

[Tetsuya]

so far so good. for day-to-day tasks (browsing the web, dinking around in OSX, and the like) i cant even tell the difference from my Pro.

installing media software the codecs and the like as we speak.

honestly, for the "average" dumb american user, this thing would be a dream.

on the Audio issue:

the machine only has stereo out (to my eyes).

help the stupid (me) - didnt someone mention that there was a way to get thing to output audio diferently?

[digt]

Hey Tetsuya, I think the current Mac Mini only has a minijack (1/8" jack, what you plug normal headphones into).

That said there are lots of ways to use that minijack, like sending video, digital audio, power, etc, but I don't know the capabilities of the one in the Mac Mini.

[Hansi]

digt, on April 3rd 2009, 03:01 AM, said:

Hey Tetsuya, I think the current Mac Mini only has a minijack (1/8" jack, what you plug normal headphones into).

That said there are lots of ways to use that minijack, like sending video, digital audio, power, etc, but I don't know the capabilities of the one in the Mac Mini.

All Intel Mac have a analog/digital 3,5mm jack which you can plug in either a old normal headphone type plug or TOS-link via a plugin adapter.

[Tetsuya]

Hansi, on April 3rd 2009, 04:17 AM, said:

All Intel Mac have a analog/digital 3,5mm jack which you can plug in either a old normal headphone type plug or TOS-link via a plugin adapter.

yeah i just found that out myself.

thanks!

[charmin]

re: the performance thing, which I don't think anyone has commented on:

a 2.0 Core 2 Duo is fine for a lot of the 1080p kicking around at the moment. Most apps aren't yet using multithreaded decoders, so by default you may see slow performance. I'm running a git build of mplayer with multithreading, and I don't get any skipping on a 2.16.

Also consider the fact that some players are beginning to support GPU processing, and Snow Leopard looks set to continue this, so check which cards are supported.

[Tetsuya]

couple of new questions:

is this: clicky the correct kind of cable for the digital out on the Mini?

I think it is, since other people report using it on a MacBook Pro...

and looking at this page of stuff... Click Me!

is rather confusing; some of those are very cheap, and some arent - i just want to run the DVI out of the mini into a TV... which one of those am i going to need? I cant really believe that the price can vary that much.

I'm also looking for a good set of computer speakers (5.1 is good) that support a digital input of some form that is compatible with the Mini, if anyone has suggestions.

[Janichsan]

Tetsuya, on April 24th 2009, 09:04 PM, said:

I cant really believe that the price can vary that much.

Believe it. That's the same kind of cable voodoo that audiophiles celebrate with their extra shielded speaker cables with gold-plated plugs.

[Tetsuya]

Janichsan, on April 24th 2009, 12:27 PM, said:

Believe it. That's the same kind of cable voodoo that audiophiles celebrate with their extra shielded speaker cables with gold-plated plugs.

quality difference that an average person would recogize though? Otherwise ill be taking the 15$ DVI-HDMI cable that doesnt require a converter.