Oldest Mac Mini capable of 1080p playback?

[PhazonUK]

I'm looking to get a Mac Mini as cheap as possible to use as a HTPC and was wondering what is the oldest Mac Mini model that is capable of playing a 1080p MKV file.

 

[RickyB]

I've played 1080p on a 2ish GHz, 2Gb Core 2 Duo, not sure about MKV It was fine.

 

[philipma1957]

try the 2009 2.26


http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=2.26+mac+mini&_sacat=0


clock prices see if one goes for 400 with at least 4gb ram

 

[Intell]

I would say the minimum is a 2.0Ghz Core2Duo 2007 Mac Mini at the very least. A 1.86Ghz might be able to as well.

 

[pure3d2]

I'm looking to get a Mac Mini as cheap as possible to use as a HTPC and was wondering what is the oldest Mac Mini model that is capable of playing a 1080p MKV file.

For MKV files, use CoreAVC as your decoder (if you're running your HTPC in Windows). It gives you the best performance per CPU cycle and it's only $13!

I have a Core2Duo 2.0 GHz Mac Mini from 2007 with 2GB of ram. I run Windows XP MCE 2005 on it to run my HDHome Run tuners (2 boxes for 4 tuners) and play 1080p MKV files using CoreAVC as my decoder and things are very smooth on most streams. I do notice some slight stuttering on 1080p sources that have really fast moving/busy scenes.

I installed Windows 7, but watching TV really sucked because as soon as I do anything with the MCE gui, the video would stutter and lag, so I ended up going back to XP.

When the new Mac Mini comes out, I'll probably get it and put Windows 7 on it.

 

[aarond12]

With the latest version of VLC, my first-gen MacBook Pro (yeah, not a mini, but same mobile CPU) can play 1080p videos. They did something to the renderer in version 2.x to make it more efficient. With older versions of VLC, it would only play 720p videos.

Core Duo 2.16GHz, 2GB RAM, ATI Radeon X1600 with 128MB RAM

 

[Intell]

The first generation of Intell Mac Minis (2006-2008) never came with a 2.16Ghz CPU. A 2.16Ghz CoreDuo is more powerful then a 1.5Ghz Core Solo or a 1.66Ghz CoreDuo.