I was wondering if it would be feasible to use a Mac Mini as a Home Theater Personal Computer (HTPC). Many of the better HDTV's have VGA (in) and DVI (in) that allow someone to hookup a computer to the TV and use it as a display. When I looked up the Mac Mini specs on the apple website it says VGA video output (using included adapter) to support analog resolutions up to 1920 by 1080 pixels. This means it would support the resolution of the TV I'm looking at but I was wondering if it would be able to support a 40" monitor? If it's possible it would be a less costly way of integrating a computer into my home theater setup. The apple TV only streams certain media from my computer. Having the Mac Mini would allow me to do what the Apple TV does and a whole lot more.
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Mac Mini as a HTPC?
- Thread starter RMD68
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The Mac Mini makes an excellent HTPC, which is why it's the next toy on my shopping list. The Mini's video out is DVI, and supports resolutions up to 1920 by 1200, so won't have any trouble with an HD1080 compatible display. You can purchase an EyeTV compatible TV tuner unit which will then allow you to watch shows on it and also hook up a Sky or cable box to it.
As for audio, it has optical out which will pass through 5.1 digital as long as you have a stereo with optical in and a 5.1 decoder.
mac mini
Check out
http://www.123macmini.com/
Many people using the Mac Mini as a HTPC and ther is a huge gallery.
Check out
http://www.123macmini.com/
Many people using the Mac Mini as a HTPC and ther is a huge gallery.
This is exactly my plan. I need to replace my aging Sony Wega with no useful connectors (scart only). Looking at a Sony 32V2500 which gets cracking good reviews. VGA in so not a problem.
oh yeah, and then buy a mini cos I sold my MacBook a couple of weeks ago !
That leaves me with the Audio issue. My amp only takes traditional L&R channels so I'll have to use a 3.5mm headphone out socket and splitter to L&R channels so my amp will accept the audio. Worked fine with my Macbook so I don't think it will be a problem.
I'm also using a NAS drive attached to my router to source the Divx files. Eventually I should have no trailing wires or anything.... well that's the theory !
oh yeah, and then buy a mini cos I sold my MacBook a couple of weeks ago !
That leaves me with the Audio issue. My amp only takes traditional L&R channels so I'll have to use a 3.5mm headphone out socket and splitter to L&R channels so my amp will accept the audio. Worked fine with my Macbook so I don't think it will be a problem.
I'm also using a NAS drive attached to my router to source the Divx files. Eventually I should have no trailing wires or anything.... well that's the theory !
This is something I'd like to do eventually as well, I'm going to look into this further, thanks for the link!
i use a mac mini as an htpc this. it works pretty well; my only complaint is that I really look forward to a resolution independent version of Mac OS X so that I don't have to squint to see text on the screen. this is basically my only qualm with htpc's.