Maybe we should have a "Home Theater mini" sticky, since so many people want to use minis for that purpose, and we constantly see new threads about this.
Stuff n00bs would find useful to learn includes:
1. HDMI and DVI are the same video spec. The only difference is that HDMI cables can also carry sound and the connectors are shaped differently. Cables exist for plugging the "DVI out" of the mini into the "HDMI in" found on HDTV's, and on most currently-sold sets it works perfectly. If you can't afford a big new HDTV, just about any computer monitor will also do the job nicely.
2. The mini has a hybrid sound-out jack. You can use a headphone jack - RCA cable to connect it to any stereo system, or with a little adapter you can use an optical cable to connect it to a surround-sound receiver.
3. Raw MPEG-2 HDTV signals (such as the typical 720p or 1080i streams currently in use by most broadcasters) are well within the mini's capacity to handle. Buy an Eye TV tuner and your mini becomes a pretty darn good High-Def PVR.
4. The most demanding (and impressive) video codec, h.264, relies more on the CPU than the video card, and the mini has plenty of CPU juice to handle the job. Say goodbye to frame drops, so long as you're not running a lot of "heavy" apps in the background when you're watching stuff.
5. A program called Handbrake has evolved over the years from a quick hack for batch-processing rips of VOB files to become a fabulous one-stop solution that does a great job of not only ripping DVD movies to any of several popular formats, but also converting other video files for use with iPods, iPhones,
TVs, PSPs, etc. No media mac should be without it. Oh, and it's free, so be very nice to the devs when asking questions on the forums.
6. A library of QuickTime code extensions called Perian will allow you do play nearly anything via QuickTime, iTunes, and FrontRow, although Apple's CoreAudio seems to mangle 5.1 "AC-3" signals when nested in MP4 files. That, along with a few other minor annoyances, has led most Home Theater mini users to either hack FrontRow with clever extensions, or abandon it for various other apps, which leads us to...
7. Plex is an OS X flavor of XBMC, a home theater app originally written for people to use with hacked X-Box consoles and standard-def TV sets. At version 0.7.x, it is already quite mature and getting better at a rapid pace as contributing programmers and designers continue to tweak it. It is also free, and also indispensable.
8. If you want a LOT of screen for not a lot of money, and you are able to control the light levels in your media room, the best deal out there is a projector and a screen. Under $1500 gets you a very high quality projector these days (especially if your eyes consider 720p to be good enough), and is even better if paired with a $700 high-contrast silver-beaded gray screen. That plus a good surround-sound system turns an ordinary media room into a movie theater experience which will rival, if not exceed, what you get at your local multiplex.
9. The most essential peripheral for an HT mini project is the DiNovo Edge keyboard. It's a sleek, durable Bluetooth keyboard with a built-in trackpad and a rechargeable battery that lasts about a month per 4-hour charge. Map the Windows key to function as a command key, and you will find it so handy and unintrusive that you might not even bother with a remote control. Also, the trackpad allows you mouse control of the UI (and any games that are not TOO mouse-oriented) without the need of a flat surface to put a BT mouse on. If you can't afford to buy this keyboard, but have a laptop lying around, you can accomplish most things almost as easily by turning screen sharing on and treating the laptop as your remote kb/mouse solution.
10. The integrated GMA-950 video card on the current mini is, sadly, almost as bad as you probably have heard. The good news is that it plays World of Warcraft smoothly, and can also handle City of Heroes fine if you dial the settings down a little bit. When (if) new minis come out, gamers will want to move up to those, while non-gamers can expect to find some great bargains on the current ones via the used market. Some people recommend waiting for these next-gen minis to arrive before buying, but it's the nature of computer tech that there's *always* something "just around the corner" that's better than what's currently available.
11. Yes, you do want to upgrade the memory and yes, you can do it yourself in a matter of minutes without voiding the warranty, as long as you are careful not to break the DVD-drive's ribbon cable.
