mac mini?

We recently got my dad a apple tv for Christmas thinking it would be a great way to get hulu and other apps (with atv flash) and itunes but hulu has never worked as promised and we also want to be able to view setanta on the tv so after reading through many posts it seems like a mac mini is the only option and that seems great except the price. So basically the question is - is the mac mini my best option to get this accomplished and where is the cheapest place to get a mac mini I need to get this done? Thanks