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February 28, 2006
New Mac Mini Sounds Tempting
I'm really tempted to grab a new Intel-based Mac Mini for replacing our noisy, outdated home theater PC. All I need it to do is hook up to my network, support an external HDD, play media, and browse the web. Sounds perfect, right?
My only concern are the specs, and Mac specs aren't something I'm familiar with enough to judge. Would a 1.5GHz Intel Core Solo and 512MB of RAM be enough to handle high-res video, let alone HD content? I'm just not sure.
One cool new feature on the mini is the addition of Front Row, which tosses in a remote for controlling media from anywhere in the room. Now that's nifty. Check out complete specs at the Apple website.
Update: Ben over at HDBeat loves the new Mac mini as an HTPC, but also isn't sure whether an Intel Core Solo mini would have the horsepower to handle HD content. [Read]
Posted by Craig in Computing
and Home A/V
Comments
Intel mini runs 1080P like butter?
Posted by: bob at March 4, 2006 12:05 AM
Since it doesn't sport a tv tuner can it really be called a home theater PC?
Posted by: Luke at March 8, 2006 2:48 PM
Luke: Good question. I guess I don't consider that a requirement of an HTPC since I have no need for a PC to handle TV tuning responsibilities (we have 2 TiVos and a cable box DVR for that). We (my family) primarily uses an HTPC for playing media of various sorts (e.g., XviD movies and Ogg Vorbis audio files) and connecting to the Internet for media-related reasons (e.g., showing movie trailers and YouTube vids to friends) -- two things that other pieces of HT equipment don't (yet) do as well.
Posted by: Craig at March 8, 2006 3:03 PM