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Makosuke

macrumors 604
Original poster
Aug 15, 2001
6,796
1,518
The Cool Part of CA, USA
I'm using a Mini as my HTPC center, but since I mainly use it for Hulu and Crunchyroll and occasional downloads, rather than using Plex or XBMC with a remote I just use the stock interface with a wireless mouse and keyboard.

Which works quite well, with one exception--being a 1080p screen and not a particularly large one for its distance from my couch, the interface is TINY. If I want to actually read any text, I have to get up and walk over to the screen.

The getting-close-to-prime-time HiDPI mode is, interestingly, the perfect solution for this. By setting the TV to a resolution of "940x540", you get nice, large, readable interface elements, but fullscreened video ends up just as sharp as it would have been in regular mode. Perfect solution.

Well, almost. Two problems:

1) The soft badges on Hulu shows (the ABC logo, for example) are also pixel-dobuled, so instead of being tiny and essentially invisible, they're big and annoying.

2) Soft subtitle text, depending on the player and subtitle format, can end up being unnecessarily large as well. This, at least, can be worked around by fiddling with settings.

Any suggestions for dealing with #1? Or a better solution than HiDPI mode?
 
the control key and the scroll wheel on your mouse will zoom in, not sure how you're controlling, but i use that when i can't read text on mine.
 
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