iMac as Media Center?

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Hi,

I have at home Sony KDL4000V LCD TV (1920x1080p) and regularly watch my movies on the TV through the hdmi connection. The Graphic Card (Radeon 3850 HD) is set to Extended Display Mode (my monitor at 1680 x 1050 and the LCD TV at 1920 x 1080p)

Is it possible to do the same thing with the current (cheapest spec) iMac?


Cheers.
 
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Most people us mac mini's as media centres rather than imacs due to their small size and what-not.

Does your TV have DVI-in? That's what peeps tend to do. Set the screen res to 1920x1080 and run the mini into the TV. Run the sound out of the mini to an external amp (or into the TV if it supports it).

There's loads of resources on the web for turning a mac-mini into a media centre.

Panzer
 
Mac mini is too feeble. iMac has no HDMI out.

A self built PC with Windows Media Center is way better. Hard to stomach but, in terms of entertainment media in the home Apple just makes too many mistakes to make their kit useful.

You can do what you want with an iMac but it's not particularly good at it.
 
To be honest I don't have lot of money, therefore I can't pay extra money for mac mini or PC media box. If I get Mac I will sell this computer to fund for the Mac.

Would it be possible to use the dvi > hdmi convertor and get it to display at full 1080p on the LCD TV? This is what I do with my current PC.
 
Why not use a DVI-to-HDMI adapter along with Apple's mini DVD-to-regular-DVI dongle? You'll have to route the audio separately, but that's usually OK since you'll want to run it through an external surround-sound receiver/amp anyway.
 
BillytheImpaler said:
Why not use a DVI-to-HDMI adapter along with Apple's mini DVD-to-regular-DVI dongle?
Click to expand...

If it will give me 1920 x 1080 Res that would be cool.

yashiro said:
Just use your current PC?
Click to expand...

I want to save space and live a simple peaceful life without ever worrying about my niece installing crappy softwares on my computer...parental control and user permissions never worked! (i wont even go into it)
 
I have a mac mini (1.83ghz CoreDuo) brought from fleabay for £250 running Plex plays 1080p content perfectly. So I wouldn't say its too feable.

G.
 
BillytheImpaler said:
I don't see why it wouldn't. It can do 1920x1200 without problem. If wonky software is the problem you can probably work around that.
Click to expand...

I can confirm the 24"iMac will happily give 1920x1080 to a Sony HDTV using the MiniDVI->DVI->HDMI setup, im running it now, the only odd thing is that it forces the iMac to run at 1920x1080, which gives you blackbars top and bottom on the iMacs screen. Re-read the OP, and im not sure if this would also apply to the current lowest spec iMac, sorry.
 
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