new Intel-based Mac Mini

Fully loaded, with 2GB of RAM and a 120GB disk, a universal DVD burner, and nice touches like gigabit Ethernet and S/PDIF audio out, it's still only $1300 or so. Is this the ultimate home theater PC?

Definitely NOT the ultimate home theater PC. If you mean utimately small, perhaps. Which is neither good nor bad I suppose. It really depends on how you want to fit the system into your home theater and how you plan to arrange your storage. 120GB is not nearly enough for anything beyond a marginal interest in home theater/video. $1300? Everything except the extra 1.5GB of memory and larger disk comes standard in the new Mini at $799. It's a $500 premium for those two things? Wow.

Since the machine goes so well with the software I'm developing, I'll probably pick one up sooner or later - though I still wish they were a little cheaper. The lower end system is about the same price as the previous model once you factor in the new extras (WiFi & BT standard).

Too bad the onboard graphics suck soo bad. I mean, the ATI 9200 in the old model was nothing to cheer about, but this is not much of an upgrade (slower in a number of tests according to Apple in fact). With an X1600 in there the system would be a lot sweeter. Though even with the slower subsystem, it should be plenty of pixel power for video and audio playback, especially when much of the previous bottleneck was CPU-based video decoding power.

Get your HDs and memory from third party vendors if you don't mind cracking the case open yourself.

Bruno

I'm tempted, but without a good DVR solution it just isn't enough for the price. I havn't looked into third party osx DVR solutions, but one integrated into front row would certainly be nice. Of course, they'd probably need to add some buttons to the remote, and steve's so proud of his five button remote that probably isn't going to happen.

That said, they're great little desktop machines. With the upgrade they're certainly a lot more price competitive with a dell box.

Matthew

Well, Apple has not yet seen the Intel chips be cheaper than the PowerPC chips, which is unfortunate. But I imagine that the system runs cooler. Not that that's such a big deal for the Mini, as opposed to the laptops, where it is. I imagine that the move to the Intel chips on the Minis is just a result of being a closely related architecture to the laptops. The additional memory is probably just to hide the additional cost.

That said, I can't imagine anyone having a homebrew home theater PC actually keeping the data on the direct-attached storage on that PC. At the very least, it's difficult to upgrade and back up. You can also easily reach a maximum amount of storage, whereas remote filesystems can be expanded indefinitely. Also, more direct-attached storage means more heat. So I don't see smallish hard drives being a concern. Although, it probably is the largest laptop hard drive available.

One thing the Mac Mini does really well is that it is a very quiet and small system for driving a TV. I have the PowerPC one attached to my DLP TV, and unless it is spinning a disc full speed when initially inserted, it is otherwise not noticeable. It's one big reason I gave up on the XBMC and also XBox 360 media solutions.

I do admit though, I haven't replaced my ReplayTV with it though. Automatic commercial skip is still a big feature for me, and the ReplayTV still does that well. The Mini is used for MP3s, DVDs, playback of internet videos, and lastly video podcasts.

The new unit interests me because it can have a Core Duo chip in it, meaning it should be able to do higher then 480p H.264 unlike the PowerPC Mini. It also has the 5.1 output built in, has gigabit ethernet, and Front Row without hacks. They are shipping a new version of Front Row on it that supports the iTunes sharing of music and videos, so storage locally is no longer a huge issue. I already run mt-daapd on my music server, and it should hopefully be a small change to have it also do video. Though currently Front Row works fine following a symlink in the Movies folder to a network share.

The graphics chip is kinda disappointing, but it seems to be an upgrade above the 9200 slightly. For the cost and size of the system, I guess it is a good choice. Memory upgrades now will be cheeper, since it's using 2 memory slots instead of just one.

I have to say I am very tempted, in fact the Credit Card did come out at one point

My current PowerPC mini is a little under powered now I think, iPhoto is quite slow and editing in Final Cut Express HD is also not very good. I put this down to the slow 4200rpm HD, so I was think if upgrading that and putting the old 80Gb into the empeg.

It's all the comments about the intel gfx card that are putting me off. I have never really had an issue with their cards in the past, I never play games so as long as the desktop works well I'm fine. But I get the feeling Apple may change this in the future revisions of the mini, I wouldn't want to be stuck with intel gfx when everyone else has moved on. I find the 9200 one of the biggest bottle necks in the system I have, it doesn't do a very good job of running my Dell 2005fpw (no ripples etc...)

On the memory front, isn't it using laptop memory modules? If so I think we are already looking at the hardware for the new MacBook's so maybe Apple know what they are doing ???

I guess I will have to buy one and see, has anyone ordered one yet?

Cheers

Cris.

Quote:
They are shipping a new version of Front Row on it that supports the iTunes sharing of music and videos, so storage locally is no longer a huge issue. I already run mt-daapd on my music server, and it should hopefully be a small change to have it also do video.

Yeah, I'm very much thinking of getting one for just that. What would be great (partly because of its size and lack of PCI, partly because of where the aerial is in my particular house) would be if, in conjunction with some kind of hack to mt-daapd, it could play DVB-T TV stations off a DVB-T card in a PC upstairs.

Or actually if it could just run a MythTV frontend using the Apple remote control. That would be good enough, whether on MacOS or Linux. Can you drive MythTV with just a 5-button remote, or do you need a wireless keyboard?

Peter