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YMMD.
Absolutly right - got my 50-Buck-mini 1.33GHz this week. Except from DVD-player and 360p with CorePlayer forget about video.
It will make a nice fax-machine sitting beside my white intel-imac.

So...a 1.33 iBook plays 720P and some 1080P with Coreplayer but a slightly higher specced Mini doesn't? Welcome to the weird & wacky world of PPC!
 
So...a 1.33 iBook plays 720P and some 1080P with Coreplayer but a slightly higher specced Mini doesn't? Welcome to the weird & wacky world of PPC!
Maybe I should make a second attempt to max-out the mini. Currently I've just cloned Leopard from my iBookG4 1.2GHz to the miniG4 1.33GHz. On both machines nearly the same experience.
YouTube runs fine with 360p/ClickToPlugin-Download/CorePlayer. Certainly it may cope with 720p after some fine-tuning. It can play DVD disks and MPEG2-video recorded with eyeTV.
But then I have a hole bunch of ripped *m4v video (Handbrake/ATV2-preset) that stutter on most video-players and is horribly pixelized on CorePlayer.
The mini is definitely comparable to the iBook - except from the limitation to the maximum of 1GB of RAM.
I like it - a nice machine, which already has it's place as fax-server now (a job, that was done by an iBookG4 before)
Otherwise not my choice or recommendation as a one for all video-player (I'm running a c2duo for this purpose anyway ;) )
macmini.jpg
 
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Otherwise not my choice or recommendation as a one for all video-player (I'm running a c2duo for this purpose anyway ;) )

Nice setup.
No I wouldn't recommend a PPC as a go to media player as a first choice to anyone, however, I'm using my 2.1 G5 iMac as a player right now after my Amazon TV Box decided to delete 150Gb of files from my hard drive!
Interestingly, despite Quicktime being ill equipped to play 720P video, when using Front Row it works fine.
 
Nice setup.
No I wouldn't recommend a PPC as a go to media player as a first choice to anyone, however, I'm using my 2.1 G5 iMac as a player right now after my Amazon TV Box decided to delete 150Gb of files from my hard drive!
Interestingly, despite Quicktime being ill equipped to play 720P video, when using Front Row it works fine.
Huh, how did that happen? I don't have stuff from Amazon since their video can be streamed with the Mini.
After our Flat-TV went to Limbo last week, I'm hero of the family now, saving the day with that old Cinema-Display and the Mini. Compared to it's huge size on the desk the Cinema-display looks tiny now sitting lonesome on the TV-board in our living-room. But there's definitely better sound coming from the soundstick compared to the Flat-Screen-TV.
After fumbling with the small Apple-books I'm really keen to open the huge TV to change motherboard and inverter-board as soon as they arrive next week. (Another chance to be local hero again ;) )
There a so many changes in the pipe concerning TV/standards that I decided to stick with our 10y old Flat-TV as far as it's not damaged beyond repair...
The mini holds an SSD for the OS and a second HDD that replaces the previously defective optical drive. The spinning drive is meant for video capturing and buffering and currently an elgato-diversity-usb-tuner offers to channels. Too bad, DVBT-standard will change next spring and my TV-tuner hardware will be obsolete.
Then I've got these two "MiniPartner" for 60€ (300+500GB HDD included) to store some more videos. The do fit nicely all the other stuff.
Hopefully it will last some more time...

CinemaDisplayTV.jpg
 
Nice setup.
No I wouldn't recommend a PPC as a go to media player as a first choice to anyone, however, I'm using my 2.1 G5 iMac as a player right now after my Amazon TV Box decided to delete 150Gb of files from my hard drive!
Interestingly, despite Quicktime being ill equipped to play 720P video, when using Front Row it works fine.
no ppc as a media player? i must strongly disagree. i have a 1.25ghz imac that i use daily as a media player only. ripped cd's on itunes and ripped video_ts files from dvd's using apple's dvd player. this machine has never skipped a beat. more capable now than when it was new because you can now get insane sized external drives that just didn't exist in 2003.
 
no ppc as a media player? i must strongly disagree. i have a 1.25ghz imac that i use daily as a media player only. ripped cd's on itunes and ripped video_ts files from dvd's using apple's dvd player. this machine has never skipped a beat. more capable now than when it was new because you can now get insane sized external drives that just didn't exist in 2003.

I meant if you were in the market to buy a player, I'd advise the money is better spent on a dedicated Android box.
I fully agree, PPC Macs are more than capable for video as long as you acknowledge the format limitations for the particular machine.
 
no ppc as a media player? i must strongly disagree. i have a 1.25ghz imac that i use daily as a media player only. ripped cd's on itunes and ripped video_ts files from dvd's using apple's dvd player. this machine has never skipped a beat. more capable now than when it was new because you can now get insane sized external drives that just didn't exist in 2003.
That's what I've said above: playing DVDs/mpeg2 is fine and music isn't a problem even for much older machines.
But when it comes to playing compressed high-resolution video the G4 simply hasn't enough power under the hood.
Not to mention streaming video from Netflix or Amazon...
 
... Too bad, DVBT-standard will change next spring and my TV-tuner hardware will be obsolete.

View attachment 677382
Nice desktop background! and IKEA blinds :) (We had them too, now they are recycled for pillowcases and the sofa)

Do you have the possibility to install a satelite dish? Then I'd recommend going the DVB-S2 route directly instead of replacing it with DVB-T2. More free channels on DVB-S2 anyway. (I might be saying the obvious, but sometimes we forget the nearest things).
 
Nice desktop background! and IKEA blinds :) (We had them too, now they are recycled for pillowcases and the sofa)
Do you have the possibility to install a satelite dish? Then I'd recommend going the DVB-S2 route directly instead of replacing it with DVB-T2. More free channels on DVB-S2 anyway. (I might be saying the obvious, but sometimes we forget the nearest things).
I guess I'm going to hold on until spring and go for DVB-S2. Fortunately I could get the TV work again by swapping the defective mainboard with a nearly fully working 2nd hand board - only the TV-tuner doesn't work, but it would be outdated by next spring anyway ...
Now the c2duo mini is full in charge and maybe will be the first machine in our house to get connected to the coming satellite dish... :)
 
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