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Philmatic · 2010-06-15, 19:16

reddeath Wrote:I am more curious about the noise and heat of this new model. There would also be a new support needed for XBMC on it, considering that it has HDMI, new graphic card and video acceleration is now available in the OS.

XBMC will work on it out of the box, XBMC support any hardware the OS X recognizes since it communicates through their abstraction layer. They don't need to support the HDMI port per say, they just need to support "video out", the OS/Driver takes care of the rest.

AC3 passthrough/HD Bitstreaming is a completely different beast though. Tongue

**Sam.Nazarko** · 2010-06-15, 19:24

HDMI seems nice, but it seems too little too late. Already got an ION box for media. Sure the Mini is a little more capable but at the time, there was no HDMI out

davilla · 2010-06-15, 19:44

Philmatic Wrote:XBMC will work on it out of the box, XBMC support any hardware the OS X recognizes since it communicates through their abstraction layer. They don't need to support the HDMI port per say, they just need to support "video out", the OS/Driver takes care of the rest.

AC3 passthrough/HD Bitstreaming is a completely different beast though.

CoreAudio hides those details, if the output device has the capability, XBMC for Mac knows.

**Jeroen** · 2010-06-15, 19:50

$699.00?
Seriously Apple? Wow.
I really can't see any justification in paying that much for mediocre hardware.
So it has HDMI now. Welcome to reality Apple.

**voip-ninja** · 2010-06-15, 19:53

Jeroen Wrote:$699.00?
Seriously Apple? Wow.
I really can't see any justification in paying that much for mediocre hardware.
So it has HDMI now. Welcome to reality Apple.

If it sounded like a hair dryer, sat in a plastic case and ran Ubuntu then the price could be argued to be unreasonable.

However, it's beautiful looking, has respectable guts, has a machined aluminum case that's unibody and runs OS X (which is a fantastic operating system).

$699 is high but considering that the previous Mini was only $100 less and this new one has much more capable hardware and is going to be FAR easier to upgrade (parts are directly accessible behind an access cover now) they will sell millions of them.

And not even only to idiots! Rolleyes

**Jeroen** · 2010-06-15, 20:03

voip-ninja Wrote:If it sounded like a hair dryer, sat in a plastic case and ran Ubuntu then the price could be argued to be unreasonable.

Yes, because anything not Apple is noisy, plastic and cheap. And they're all beige and used on CRT screens... Typical Apple-minded cliche thinking really. Widen your horizon sometimes, it may give you some perspective.

pin87a · (This post was last modified: 2010-06-15, 20:26 by pin87a.)

While the new Mini is expensive at $699 it's kind of a unique product that provides a lot of performance in a very small form-factor. There isn't really anything out there that is comparable in those regards the doesn't cost as much (if not more).

Hell, the thing is about the same size as a Apple TV yet it still has a Core2 Duo, Bluetooth, WiFi, 320GB hard drive, internal power supply, and a DVD Burner.

As a dedicated XBMC machine it is totally overkill (Atom/ION machine would be much more cost-effective). But if you have a need for a full-fledged PC connected to your TV it isn't a bad choice. Boxee might even be usable on it :p

poofyhairguy · 2010-06-15, 20:26

Unless Jobs has gotten over his fight with Blu Ray, then the addition of a HDMI is pointless.

I guess we will wait for reviews to be certain, but something tells me that even though it has HDMI then OSX still doesn't support HD audio in any form.

HDMI without HD audio passthrough = useless

**voip-ninja** · 2010-06-15, 21:07

Jeroen Wrote:Yes, because anything not Apple is noisy, plastic and cheap. And they're all beige and used on CRT screens... Typical Apple-minded cliche thinking really. Widen your horizon sometimes, it may give you some perspective.

Seeing as I've been building PCs and Servers running a variety of OS's since the early 1990's I'd say that you appear to be the small-minded one here who is labeling others unnecessarily.

**voip-ninja** · 2010-06-15, 21:10

poofyhairguy Wrote:Unless Jobs has gotten over his fight with Blu Ray, then the addition of a HDMI is pointless.

I guess we will wait for reviews to be certain, but something tells me that even though it has HDMI then OSX still doesn't support HD audio in any form.

HDMI without HD audio passthrough = useless

I don't think Jobs has a fight with Blu-ray. Apple sits on the Blu-ray board of directors after all.

Jobs probably just views optical media as dead... people thought they were crazy when they eliminated floppy discs a few years before they really died out.

Apple is now all about the cloud computing and I think they are too far-sighted to understand that Blu-ray is here to stay for probably 10 yrs.

I disagree with Jobs and would love to buy a Mac with an integrated BD drive but I'm feeling that this will never happen... we are at this point more likely to see a line of Macs with no optical drives on them similar to the Air model.

davilla · 2010-06-16, 03:19

poofyhairguy Wrote:Unless Jobs has gotten over his fight with Blu Ray, then the addition of a HDMI is pointless.

I guess we will wait for reviews to be certain, but something tells me that even though it has HDMI then OSX still doesn't support HD audio in any form.

HDMI without HD audio passthrough = useless

Gezzz, will you actually read the specs rather than guessing -> "HDMI port supports multichannel audio output".

davilla · 2010-06-16, 03:23

Jeroen Wrote:$699.00?
Seriously Apple? Wow.
I really can't see any justification in paying that much for mediocre hardware.
So it has HDMI now. Welcome to reality Apple.

Let me count the ways, dual video display capable, and not just HDMI/VGA but HDMI/Display Port which covers both DVI/VGA and another HDMI port Smile

No power brick, I hate those things. Apple learned from the AppleTV and it's a direct wall to box plug.

Tri-OS boot, OSX, Windows and Linux.

Find something else like this in the same form factor and we can talk Smile

phrehdd · (This post was last modified: 2010-06-16, 03:28 by phrehdd.)

poofyhairguy Wrote:Unless Jobs has gotten over his fight with Blu Ray, then the addition of a HDMI is pointless.

I guess we will wait for reviews to be certain, but something tells me that even though it has HDMI then OSX still doesn't support HD audio in any form.

HDMI without HD audio passthrough = useless

I don't need blu ray on this box. I stream my media from a NAS. Anyone can add blu ray burners to MAC so its not that big a deal if Jobs whines about a "bag of hurt" with respect to blu ray.

I have an older 2.66 quad Mac Pro and one front drive bay houses a blu ray player I put in myself. All is well for me. My friend uses an external blu ray unit with his iMac/Mini and all is well.

I'll say that the two areas of question remain with pricing and internal power supply (heat??). The latter I'll wait and see what people say who get one and the former - the pricing is in reach of enthusiasts while high enough to make those who just want ATV go buy the ATV instead. That leaves the rest of us here well..paying a bit much for a nice power lil machine.

As for HDMI without HD audio..hmm...I find it cool I wont need an adaptor to go digital+video to hdmi to my system. It already works with this Mini "as is" using HDMI native. I'll be curious what Apple intends for the 1.4 HDMI (I would have guessed being Apple they would do 1.3a/b instead and be behind the curve). Perhaps 3D from Itunes or 2-way communication? hmmm the possibilities to come.

- Phrehdd

Drifty · 2010-06-16, 05:01

Will the HDMI port allow XBMC to fully support the adjust refresh rate?

Philmatic · 2010-06-16, 19:24

Drifty Wrote:Will the HDMI port allow XBMC to fully support the adjust refresh rate?

That's a feature that has yet to be implemented in the OS X branch of XBMC. It's not really dependent on certain hardware. If you run Windows or Linux on the new Mac Mini, I'm sure that feature would work fine.