Mac Mini as media center PC

wouldn't it make more sense to have the Mac Mini become the media center device rather than the iMac? the iMac has a screen. i think it would make more sense to have the Mac Mini be the media center device so you can store it nicely under your TV and use the TV as your monitor. just add a really expensive media center Mac Mini to the product line while also keeping the cheaper ones around. what do you guys think?

i would buy one instantly

dont think it would work really though as the limiting factor of the mini is the size so at the moment you limited to a 100Gb hard drive which isnt massive for a media centre PC is it?

I plan of gettin a mini and using for this purpose as i can hook up the DVB tuner to it and the free DVB is pretty good in the UK, id just get the external drive that sits below it

inflexion said:

dont think it would work really though as the limiting factor of the mini is the size so at the moment you limited to a 100Gb hard drive which isnt massive for a media centre PC is it?

I plan of gettin a mini and using for this purpose as i can hook up the DVB tuner to it and the free DVB is pretty good in the UK, id just get the external drive that sits below it

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I know in the PC world, that many folks store their media on a server, and then have a front end computer running WMC2005, or SAGE, or whatever other front end, then just have a small hard drive in this computer, and stream the media from the server. This would work perfectly with the mini, as long as you have a server or other computer in the background.

I have a similar dream.

I currently have an old PC hooked up to the TV used for photos, internet music and dvds and it has all my backed up files. I have a usb tv tuner and planned to use it to record tv but it want schedule. I have pc laptop in the office and two satilite ibooks for surfing and working on the couch. (I love my couch)

The dream; imac in the office for work and file storage, keep the two ibooks for the couch. A mac mini hooked to a 30 inch lcd. the mac mini and tv will access the itunes and iphoto libraries on the imac. the mac mini will also act as a dvd player and once technology catches up it will also record tv. (Canada does not have Tivo). Down the road I would love to see 15 inch lcd monitors that can network to the other computer for the bedroom and kitchen. An all in one unit that has a simple processor and no hard drive that can bring content to those rooms were you don't need a full blown computer. Oh ya, the 15 inch monitors would have to have a remote and a touch screen.

A guy can dream of a digital home.

bone

hondagus87 said:

I know in the PC world, that many folks store their media on a server, and then have a front end computer running WMC2005, or SAGE, or whatever other front end, then just have a small hard drive in this computer, and stream the media from the server. This would work perfectly with the mini, as long as you have a server or other computer in the background.

Click to expand...

Yea i know what your saying and thats what id prob like to do, hence me wanting a G4 Cube as it can take a full size hard drive and then i can use it as a back up server as well but that means yet another computer turned on 24/7

If you check websites like Hack-a-Day or Engadget they (Windows users) present and think about the MacMini as the ideal MediaCenter computer. They even have some (links to) videos of the MacMini running FrontRow. I'll try to post some links later, unless Moderators think is not a good idea to encourage the use of the hacked FrontRow.

From TUAW...
http://www.tuaw.com/2005/10/24/reader-video-front-row-on-a-mac-mini/

maybe apple should launch a new product to cater to this
G5
big HD
No screen
Good GPU
Front row
built in eye TV
IR Or bluetooth remote it bit more functional than the iMac one
DVD Player type form factor

the_New_guy said:

maybe apple should launch a new product to cater to this
G5
big HD
No screen
Good GPU
Front row
built in eye TV
IR Or bluetooth remote it bit more functional than the iMac one
DVD Player type form factor

Click to expand...

I think apple should have done this instead of launching a new imac with frontrow. Take everything they put into frontrow, and add a tv tuner card to the mac, and add a tv watching option in frontrow, and I bet a lot of people would buy it. I know I would.

Steve Jobs doesn't like to watch tv. Also having a tv tuner would have gone against the new iTunes video store. Who would buy the last episode of [insert here one of those 2 series] the next day if they can record it? In my opinion having this new iMac working with FrontRow is a good experiment to see wich way the company should go in this matter, also they should think about the possibilities of selling videos and how would having a Mac with tv tuner incorporated would affect them. Apple say they have sold 1 million videos in 20 days, that's a lot of money, more than they could get in 20 days for selling new computers.

MythTV is probably the most popular Open Source PVR/HTPC software. This site has assembled the front of it to run on any Mac running OS-X. However, it requires a linux computer to run the backend/server portion of the software:
http://www.mythtv.info/moin.cgi/MythOnMacOsx

This article may addresses the issues of using the Mini as an HTPV/PVR:
http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2349

mraya said:

Apple say they have sold 1 million videos in 20 days, that's a lot of money, more than they could get in 20 days for selling new computers.

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I really doubt that.

According to this website, Apple makes $1.69 for each $1.99 video sold. http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20051013.html
That works out to $1,690,000 for the 1 million videos sold in 20 days.

According to this website, Apple sells 3,507,000 Mac's per year (2004). http://www.pegasus3d.com/total_share.html That works out to about 192,000 computers sold in an average 20 day period. So, Apple would only have to make a profit of $8.81 per Mac to make more money selling computers than it does selling videos.

While the profit margin of selling videos is higher than computers, the overall income is lower, much lower.

I hate statistics, but i'm really impressed with those numbers, yet i shouldn't be.

Does the Mini come with 64mb vram or 32? It is advertised as 32 but I have heard they ship with 64, is this true?

sursuciofla said:

Does the Mini come with 64mb vram or 32? It is advertised as 32 but I have heard they ship with 64, is this true?

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Check out this thread. It seems as though the new mini's do, but it is not advertised. Also, it seems to be possible that you could end up with one of the 32MB models. It's a "luck of the draw" type of thing...
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=151676

Also, just be aware that video RAM is not necessarily going to improve performance. For example, an upgrade from a 32MB to a 64MB 9200 video card will not allow you to run core image.