[crashnburn]

Old Slow Mac Minis that are or can be made equivalent of Apple TV 1 + Crystal HD?

I love my ATV1 + Crystal HD XBMC setup. A Mac Mini that can be made or is equivalent of ATV1 + Crystal HD?

I am wondering which Mac Mini (how old or new of a Mac Mini Model) could do the same / be equivalent with or without the Crystal HD?

Which of the older Mac Minis (with or without Crystal HD) can work as well as at HTPC Group 3 EQUIVALENT as per Eskro's rating system i.e. ATV1+Crystal HD Card?

Something less powerful or not as new but EQUIVALENT to play the Group 3 stuff would be good enough. So which MacMini hardware can it go down to?

How far down the Mac Mini line can we go?

---

Group #3
* HDTV possess HDMI ports
* wants to play SD movies (DivX, XviD)
* wants to play DVD movies
* wants to play 720P movies
* wants to play 1080P movies
* wants to stream 1080P Hulu content

Best Served By?
* AppleTV1 + Broadcom Crystal HD
(sole way for playing 1080P via purely Component HDTV's)
(Hulu requires Bluecop's XBMC Hulu add-on or the use of a Linux distro)

HTPC / MEDIA PLAYING - GROUP CATEGORIES as per ESKRO
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?p=8...post843683

The objective is to be as powerful as this for playing movies from a NAS.

[davilla]

Any of the 1st gen older pre-pancake intel MacMini's are fine. The 1.6GHz coreduo is quite good, that's what I used to dev crystalHD on. Even the 1.5GHz coresolo would work.

At some point they changed from using a mini pcie slot for wifi to some custom thing. Don't remember the exact point.

[crashnburn]

Any of the 1st gen older pre-pancake intel MacMini's are fine. The 1.6GHz coreduo is quite good, that's what I used to dev crystalHD on. Even the 1.5GHz coresolo would work.

At some point they changed from using a mini pcie slot for wifi to some custom thing. Don't remember the exact point.

When you say Pre pancake.. I am not really clear. Are you saying the Unibody ones?

Can you point out which range of models (from the Wiki) will work as well as Apple TV1 + Crystal HD ...? With or without?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_Mini

[davilla]

Yes, Unibody does not have a mini pcie slot.

Early 2006 to mid 2007, all those had Integrated Atheros for wifi. Early 2009 and above have Integrated Broadcom and that's where it gets fuzzy.

Ok, verified (http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Mac-mini-...down/659/2) , Early 2009 and above do not have a mini pcie slot.

[crashnburn]

Thanks for the insights DaVilla

I am looking on E-B...y for these.

Although I am wondering how these ones..
Mac Mini with
Nvidia GeForce 9400M using 128 MiB or 256 MiB of DDR3 SDRAM
without the Crystal HD cards.. ? You must've seen some history of that?

[davilla]

Thanks for the insights DaVilla

I am looking on E-B...y for these.

Although I am wondering how these ones..
Mac Mini with
Nvidia GeForce 9400M using 128 MiB or 256 MiB of DDR3 SDRAM
without the Crystal HD cards.. ? You must've seen some history of that?

Nvidia GeForce 9400M == ability to used VDA hw decoder which means h.264 only for osx but IF you boot linux on it, then basically all formats are there.

[crashnburn]

Nvidia GeForce 9400M == ability to used VDA hw decoder which means h.264 only for osx but IF you boot linux on it, then basically all formats are there.

So with these Mac Minis you dont need Crystal HD Card to perform at the ATV1+Crystal HD level?

The VDA H/w Decoder decodes all media formats through Linux boot? (Specific linux? or the CrystalBuntu? etc.. Open ELEC?

[davilla]

So with these Mac Minis you dont need Crystal HD Card to perform at the ATV1+Crystal HD level?

The VDA H/w Decoder decodes all media formats through Linux boot? (Specific linux? or the CrystalBuntu? etc.. Open ELEC?

VDA is an OSX thing, when you boot an nvidia chipset based MacMini under Linux, then you get vdapu and all it's trimmings.

[crashnburn]

So with these Mac Minis you dont need Crystal HD Card to perform at the ATV1+Crystal HD level?

[davilla]

So with these Mac Minis you dont need Crystal HD Card to perform at the ATV1+Crystal HD level?

I thought I just said that Provided you boot a Linux distro on it of course.