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Mac Mini vs Apple TV - benefits?

A

amammad

macrumors regular
Original poster
I was looking to buy my partner an Apple TV for Christmas but it nows seems they like the idea of having a fully functioning Mac and bluetooth keyboard hooked up to the TV instead.

Aside from gaining the full MacOS functionality, what are the main downsides of going down the Mac Mini route rather than Apple TV.

Opinions are MUCH appreciated.
 
Downsides? You mean upsides.

You get an actual computer. The Apple TV is very nice, but it's not as good as the Mac Mini.

Yes, it's been hacked to run OS X; the hardware sucks even more than the Mini's! Go with the Mini.
 
Tallest Skil said:
Downsides? You mean upsides.

You get an actual computer. The Apple TV is very nice, but it's not as good as the Mac Mini.

Yes, it's been hacked to run OS X; the hardware sucks even more than the Mini's! Go with the Mini.
Click to expand...

Oh okay. Sound good! 🙂

The idea is to use the mac mini as a home computer (just for surfing/email - nothing intense) and a kind of hub for iTunes and a few movies.

Thanks
 
This is something that i have contemplated for a while also...

but what is the recomended video output for the mac mini... it has dvi i know but should we use dvi - hdmi cables or some other arrangement?
 
DVI and HDMI are basically the same thing. I just use a DVI->HDMI converter on the back of the mini and then a regular HDMI cable to the TV.

I had an Apple TV, but I got tired of having to maintain its precarious balance of hacks. Also, it can't really run OS X in a media center -- there's no sound and no ethernet!

I sold my ATV and bought a Mac Mini, with which I use Plex -- and it's fantastic. I wrote a couple posts about my experiences on my site: http://rogersmj.com/tag/plex/
 
Tallest Skil said:
Downsides? You mean upsides.

You get an actual computer. The Apple TV is very nice, but it's not as good as the Mac Mini.

Yes, it's been hacked to run OS X; the hardware sucks even more than the Mini's! Go with the Mini.
Click to expand...

Is the video output not inferior? I thought I remembered reading that the Mini couldn't compete with Apple TVs HD output? :-s
 
nomad01 said:
Is the video output not inferior? I thought I remembered reading that the Mini couldn't compete with Apple TVs HD output? :-s
Click to expand...

No, that's completely untrue. The Mini can output all the way up to 1080p without a problem. HD videos look just as good on my Mini as they did on my ATV.
 
amammad said:
The idea is to use the mac mini as a home computer (just for surfing/email - nothing intense) and a kind of hub for iTunes and a few movies.
Click to expand...

Plex on a Mini is far superior than the Apple TV. You get many more codecs, DTS audio (as well as DD AC3), integration with iTunes and iPhoto, music and many other things.
 
Mr Kram said:
just for clarification, are we talking about an intel based mini?
Click to expand...
Very important if you want to run Plex, which requires an Intel cpu. From what little I have seen of Plex so far I am not in love with it; it is just a more modern version of XBMC, which got the job done but was nothing to brag about. The Plex menus are still the same as XBMC. And it still requires a lot of setup to get things right.
 
all my video is already converted for ATV, so plex isn't really an issue. i would probably use front row 99% or the time. are the older mini's sufficient?
 
Mr Kram said:
all my video is already converted for ATV, so plex isn't really an issue. i would probably use front row 99% or the time. are the older mini's sufficient?
Click to expand...
I would rip all of my DVD's to video_ts and use Front Row or Media Central. I think a Mini G4 should be more than sufficient (but maybe not for HD), but you would need to add a remote control to it (unless you used a keyboard, of course).
 
Food for thought, another thing that's nice about getting a Mini instead of an :apple:TV is that the Mini can take advantage of things like Hulu.com and Netflix instant view. Both of these would work better if you have a newer machine. (Netflix isn't available at all for PPC.)

We have a Mini here as a media center. We watch TV using EyeTV and movies from Netflix (DVD or instant view). It works wonderfully.

Personally, I would never consider the :apple:TV because it's much more limited.
 
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