FRUSTRATION! streaming video with Mac Mini

I really need a solution here... very frustrating issue. We just bought a refurbished Mac Mini to stream video onto our HD TV. The Mini will be dedicated to this use and will have very little need of any other application.

The Specs:

1.83 GHZ Intel Core Duo
1 GB 667 MHZ DDR2 SDRAM
BUS 667 MHZ
54.78 GB in the hard drive

Running MAC OSX 10.5.8

Using Safari ver 4.0.5

The issue: streaming video sucks using Hulu, ABC, CBS... choppy, stopping, etc. It will stop almost every second

We have 1.5 DSL speed (and the speed checks are excellent) and that's all we can get out here in the sticks. But I'm led to believe it might be more of a hardware issue.

I've tried resetting Safari, emptying cache, etc... but the computer hardly gets used anyway.

I'm currently uninstalling Flash and am gonna try re-installing the latest version.

So what else can I do??? Is there anything I should do to free up more RAM or something like that???

I did notice that when I'm offered the choice between HD and standard res... the standard res is watchable.... but still not perfect.

I do have an upgrade for the OS I can use... But I'm not sure if that would help. Thoughts on that??

Anyway... Am I doomed or what?

Thank you very much... I've done a ton of searching on this, and I just can't get a workable solution....

I would suggest an upgrade to 3GB of RAM, that might greatly help in general performance and might alleviate the lagging.

Also, if you have local media that you can stream to the TV, you should try that to see if it is indeed your Internet connection or the Mac Mini itself..

Regards

Thank you....

What do you mean by local media exactly??? Do you mean some of my own digital video or something to that effect??

But what about re-allocating the RAM that is has since I won't be using this for anything else???

Yeah local media on the Mini's HDD itself or an external drive. Basically take the network out of the equation and see how things go. A lot of people use the Mini as an HTPC to deliver video to their TV's from over the air broadcast to streaming online content. Some even use Boxee to do that..

The RAM that's available right now will be used by the OS for whatever applications that you run, you can't manually allocate it for a specific purpose.

You might want to install iStat Menus and keep an eye on the RAM usage and if you see it spiking pretty high, an upgrade might ease things out..

Regards

Just thought of something... I've been playing Netflix movies through a bluray player with no problems at all. Doesn't this suggest that it is indeed NOT an internet issue???

I would guess it's the lack of RAM on your mini. Open up Activity Monitor and see how much RAM you have free and watch it as you stream some video off the internet. Are you maxing out your RAM? Most of those sites you have listed are Flash based and Flash is a resource hog on Macs.

Flash works better on faster Macs but on slower Macs it's going to lag. Increasing your RAM might solve the problem.