Mac Mini Duo

davetherave2 · 28 Jun 2006 at 03:54

Hi all,

Well the other half has decided to trade in her PC for a Mini Mac Duo. Which is great as I have always fancied having a tinker with a mac and these interested me when they were first released some time ago.

The main use for the mac will be to stream media from my pc's and it seems that VLC will fit the bill quite well for this but what about security? For PC I would use something like Norton, AVG etc but what good programs can you fine people recomend for the mac?

Plus what other interesting programs can I get for the MAC?

davetherave2 · 30 Jun 2006 at 02:02

well thanks for the replies guys. I didn't think there was much of a need for AV anyway and I have enough security on the network to stop most people from getting in.

Some of the programs that I have looked at in the mac thread look pretty cool so when she gets it I'm sure to have a play.

davetherave2 · 31 Jul 2006 at 01:11

Well after almost a month of waiting for this too come into stock I have to say I am well impressed with this little box. It was simple to set up and after a few teething issues with the wireless network everything clicked into place.

Plus the little remote you get with it is fantastic and comes in handy given that the primary function of this unit is as a HTPC.

Having never used a mac for any length of time about 5 or 10 minutes here and there I have to say that its not that scarey a transitions from the MS way of thinking although I keep wanting to close windows on the right hand side

I don't think this will totally convert me over to mac systems but has certainly opened my eyes to another way of computing.

davetherave2 · 2 Aug 2006 at 02:10

Big-Mac-Please said:
I have a G4 mini and have considered changing, but have a few questions.

Have you tried any video editing using iMovie or iDVD? Did it cope ok?

Does it lag much or at all?

Whats it like playing HD video?

Thanx for anyhelp with those questions

Well haven't tried any video encoding yet but I will try it at some point. Dvd playback is spot on and plays beatifully. Need to test this on the 50" tv now to get the full effects from this little powerhouse.

As for hi-def stuff I have played loads of 1920X1080 and 1280X720 and plays it really smoothly. although VLC doesn't seem to play the movies as well as it does on my Windows based PC's but if you try out a free Hi def movie called elephant's dream you will see the quality instantly.

I'm so impressed with this little unit that I am thinking of getting rid of my existing HTPC and trading it in for another one as it will sit nicely under the TV.

Hope this helps and any further questions by all means ask away I will try and answer them as best I can.

davetherave2 · 4 Aug 2006 at 01:52

cheers i will give them a try and see what happens.

davetherave2 · 13 Aug 2006 at 13:06

well it plays 1080P ts files no problems at all. I will try the others when I have downloaded the content. To be honest I am betting it should be fine.

I'll report back in a bit with the findings

davetherave2 · 13 Aug 2006 at 20:18

ok well have tired it with H.264 720/1080P and it plays it with no problems at all.

I have noticed some slight graining to the images using VLC and Quicktime so will try the combo stuppy uses to see if it improves the quality.

davetherave2 · 13 Aug 2006 at 23:42

All i did was try the sample quicktime movies from apples website and it handled them with ease, which I expected to be honest.

davetherave2 · 14 Aug 2006 at 14:32

Echo toxin said:
Ah, I wonder if a chunky H.264 Transport Stream file would make it cough and splutter...

What I will do is reencode one of my ts files with approx 16MB average info and see how it fairs but to be honest I think it will cope no problems at all.