[geeks] Mac World announcements...

[Mark]

On 16 Jan 2008, at 21:25, Joshua Boyd wrote:

> On Wed, Jan 16, 2008 at 09:35:26PM +0000, Mark wrote:
>
>> That's what most people who want 'outside the envelope' usage on a TV
>> ended up doing. Using a Mac mini and a DVI - HDMI cable. If you have
>> to use custom stuff, or for that matter want to play 1080p media
>> (which the Apple TV hasn't got the guts to do apparently), and you
>> want to play DVDs as well as hard drive media, then a Mac mini is a
>> much better solution all round. I highly recommend Apple's bluetooth
>> keyboard as an 'extended' remote too, it activates Front Row just  
>> fine
>> on my Mac Pro (I had to use the damned Dock icon until I got it). Of
>> course you could just use the remote too ;)
>
> The question I have is will a PPC Mini push 720p video as well as the
> AppleTV?

I don't know, but I suspect not. The Core Duo mini I played with 2  
years ago was touted as much faster and it was scoping 24.7 fps on a  
Spiderman 3 H.264 720p trailer.

Besides all that I haven't seen any used PPC minis going 'cheap'  
anywhere either. They seemed to be in unusually high demand last time  
I looked.

> I don't have a TV to hook it to anyway, although I plan to get a  
> TV.  My
> thought is that after getting the TV, a PPC Mini and Apple TV together
> might be more pleasing than just an Intel Mini.

Nah. For what it'll cost you, a base model Core 2 Duo mini on it's own  
will work way better. You don't just get a better CPU, you get a  
faster hard disk on SATA (so when it's grinding the disk playing a  
movie it's not hammering the CPU interrupts a t the same time) and  
also the PPC mini didn't have a remote AFAIK. You could go nuts too  
and use something like eyeTV and use it as a DVR too, maybe with a  
500GB Firewire disk hung off it for keeping shows on. That's how I'd  
do it at any rate.

-- 
Mark Benson

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