After reviewing and hacking the AppleTV (or tv for us that can see the cool apple symbol), I thought that it would behoove everyone to take a look at the Mac Mini.

The tv is a good product.  I have no problems with it until you get to HD content or to content that uses complex codec settings.  Many things about the tv are good, and I could recommend as a way to get television shows, music, and movies to your television.

Something else that I pondered was the lack of a CD/DVD drive.  The tv is a small device, and I don’t think they had enough space to keep the form factor that they were aiming for.  Of course, with an external drive you will have a bit more flexibility with what you can watch on it.

A Different Direction

The Mac Mini is a computer first and foremost.  It’s a small computer and you won’t be able to play the latest games on it (you can laugh at that one, a joke if you will) but the question is if the integrated Intel GMA 950 video chipset along with the Intel Core 2 Duo processor will make it able to push everything up to 1080p.

Now, as a confession: I don’t have any 1080p content.  I’ve already ordered the gear and I wait for it, even yearn for it.  It, however, resists my demands and remains in the US Postal System.  I fear I won’t get it before I go on travel again.

You can install all the apps that are on the tv on the Mac Mini.  You can convert your Mac Mini into the SUV-version of an tv.  This would be an amazing review and the extra umph would help it out greatly.  However, this is a computer first and foremost, and I’m reviewing this as a computer that is hooked up to your television.

How Well Does It Work?

It works remarkably well.

I started out buying the low-end Mac Mini (the $599 version) because I knew that all of my media was located on my fileserver so local storage wasn’t really needed.  I was slightly disturbed due to the fact that the tv software runs on boot, and Front Row requires that you drag a link to any volume you want to access to the Movies directory.

So, are there any pieces of software available on the internet that will allow me to play all my media files conveniently?  I’m not a fan of Perian + Quicktime.  I’d rather have a program that’s a touch better at decoding video.

Enter OSXBMC, or XBox Media Center for OS X.  This is an pretty nifty program.  It can play all kinds of videos and works pretty well as far as overhead goes for playing media.

From the website:

XBMC can play a very complete spectrum of of multimedia formats, and featuring playlist, audio visualizations, slideshow, and weather forecast functions, together with a multitude of third-party plugins. Originally developed as XBMP (XBox Media Player) for the first-generation Xbox game console in 2002, XBMC has eventually become a complete graphical user interface replacement for the original Xbox Dashboard, and it is currently also being ported to run natively under Linux, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows operating-system. This, The XBMC Project is also known as “XBMC Media Center” or simply “XBMC”

This translates into playing videos in the MKV, OGM, AVI, MP4, and MOV containers encoded with 3GPP, DivX/XviD, H.264, MPEG2/3/4, and other codecs that I can’t recall offhand.  It works well and does not require Perian or Quicktime.

It can access iTunes but you’ll need another program called Firefly Media Server and set it to the proper port.

Now a word to the wise: if you install OSXBMC, it will steal your Apple Remote.  You press the ‘Menu’ button and it will summon OSXBMC not Front Row so beware on this.

Does It Work Better Than tv Though?

Yes and no.

It is different.  The tv is easier to hook up and even with the hacks it works well.  The price difference is prohibitive at around $350.  However, if you have the extra money then I would go with the Mac Mini.  You get a computer with some testosterone.  The tv’s nVidia GeForce Go 7300GS is not a bad graphics card.  It helps out the underperforming 1.0GHz Pentium M.  I believe that the Mac Mini, even with the underpowered GMA950 graphics card, wins out in the performance category.

The Mac Mini with OSXBMC works very, very well.  I’ll take some time and properly review OSXBMC, but the simple line is this: you’ll have a better experience with HD content on the Mac Mini.