Considering a new mac mini setup... but i dont know?

[Tminusg]

Hey guys, any help will be greatly appreciated. At this moment I am using a windows based machine to transfer movies to a 2TB HDD through USB 2.0 (yeah im oldschool) and reattaching it to my Xbox 360 to view through the video library on my HDTV. I am considering purchasing a new mac mini due to the fact that my current machine has had better days. Now what would you suggest for an appropriate convenient setup? I was thinking of taking my external 2tb hdd out of the enclosure and adding it into the new mini with my vortex 2 ssd and running plex through an extended hdmi cord or running windows media center through the mini wirelessly to my xbox. What would you suggest? Does windows media center run on a mac? Also, does the 2011 base 599$ mini play videos nicely through plex? Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

 

[djrbx]

Hey guys, any help will be greatly appreciated. At this moment I am using a windows based machine to transfer movies to a 2TB HDD through USB 2.0 (yeah im oldschool) and reattaching it to my Xbox 360 to view through the video library on my HDTV. I am considering purchasing a new mac mini due to the fact that my current machine has had better days. Now what would you suggest for an appropriate convenient setup? I was thinking of taking my external 2tb hdd out of the enclosure and adding it into the new mini with my vortex 2 ssd and running plex through an extended hdmi cord or running windows media center through the mini wirelessly to my xbox. What would you suggest? Does windows media center run on a mac? Also, does the 2011 base 599$ mini play videos nicely through plex? Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

If the only thing you are going to be using the mini is for video playback, the base mini at $599 will be just fine. All current models are overkill and should handle all videos you throw at it without having a hard time. That said, I say go with the base model and use the money you save and invest in a NAS and/or extra RAM.

My current setup consists of the 2011 base model mac mini and all my content is stored on a network share on my readynas. This enables any computer on my network to access my content. I am also not restricted to the 500GB hdd that is included with the mini since all content is just streamed to the mini from the network share. If I need more space, I just pop in a larger drive on the NAS.

All current models will also run Windows Media Center without issues if you want to go that route.

 

[Vermifuge]

If the only thing you are going to be using the mini is for video playback, the base mini at $599 will be just fine. All current models are overkill and should handle all videos you throw at it without having a hard time. That said, I say go with the base model and use the money you save and invest in a NAS and/or extra RAM.

My current setup consists of the 2011 base model mac mini and all my content is stored on a network share on my readynas. This enables any computer on my network to access my content. I am also not restricted to the 500GB hdd that is included with the mini since all content is just streamed to the mini from the network share. If I need more space, I just pop in a larger drive on the NAS.

All current models will also run Windows Media Center without issues if you want to go that route.

could someone confirm the base mini will playback 1440p on youtube?

 

[haushinka]

Hey guys, any help will be greatly appreciated. At this moment I am using a windows based machine to transfer movies to a 2TB HDD through USB 2.0 (yeah im oldschool) and reattaching it to my Xbox 360 to view through the video library on my HDTV. I am considering purchasing a new mac mini due to the fact that my current machine has had better days. Now what would you suggest for an appropriate convenient setup? I was thinking of taking my external 2tb hdd out of the enclosure and adding it into the new mini with my vortex 2 ssd and running plex through an extended hdmi cord or running windows media center through the mini wirelessly to my xbox. What would you suggest? Does windows media center run on a mac? Also, does the 2011 base 599$ mini play videos nicely through plex? Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

base mini will play videos just fine. however, if your *only* purpose is to stream videos from your windows box, then i would just save the dough and stream stuff to the 360 directly. it's fairly easy to set up windows extender (assuming you're using win7). google is your friend.

 

[djrbx]

could someone confirm the base mini will playback 1440p on youtube?

Just tried it, No lags whatsoever and streamed perfectly fine.

EDIT: just to note, Extreme-HD or XHD for short is just a term coined by Nvidia for their Quad SLI setup. Technically, you cannot take advantage of this setup without a XHD monitor/TV which can output 2560x1600, 1920x1200, and 1680x1050.

EDIT 2: To OP, unless you will be using a monitor on this list http://www.nvidia.com/object/extreme_hd_monitors.html, you will not be able to reep the benefits of XHD

 

[Vermifuge]

Just tried it, No lags whatsoever and streamed perfectly fine.

EDIT: just to note, Extreme-HD or XHD for short is just a term coined by Nvidia for their Quad SLI setup. Technically, you cannot take advantage of this setup without a XHD monitor/TV which can output 2560x1600, 1920x1200, and 1680x1050.

EDIT 2: To OP, unless you will be using a monitor on this list http://www.nvidia.com/object/extreme_hd_monitors.html, you will not be able to reep the benefits of XHD

This list is pretty old. the latest Cinema display does 2560 x 1440 which just happens to be 4x 720p This is classified as XD.

 

[Tminusg]

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Thanks for the replys guys!!! Very helpful.