Mini & Non HD Plasma

[aulds]

Hi,

First time poster, but have been reading for quite some time.

Looking for a bit of advice on the Mac Mini.

I am currently still a windows user, but am looking to switch soon to a macbook pro, but I am also considering a mini for use as a home cinema computer.

I am trying to find out how the mini will display on my Panasonic TH-37PE50B plasma, connected through a Panasonic SA-XR55 AV Control Receiver.

The display only has Scart and component inputs into it (UK), but the Amp has s-video and composite connections on it as well as extra component inputs, so I guess I am limited to using the DVI to video adapter from to connect the display. (No Component output easily available from the mini )

What sort of picture will I get from this set-up as the display has a native resolution of 852 (W) × 480 (H), but is capable of displaying the following signals through the component input, which is then de-scaled to suit by the display. (Taken from the manual)

525(480)/60i 59.94Hz
525(480)/60p 59.94Hz
625(576)/50i 50Hz
625(576)/50p 50Hz
750(720)/50p 50Hz
750(720)/60p 60Hz
1125(1080)/50i 50Hz
1125(1080)/60i 60Hz

The s-video connection would be sent into the amp, then sent on to the display via the component output of the amp.

Would this set-up give a good enough picture for general surfing / frontrow use or is there a better way to connect the mini to my current set-up? It is mainly for music and ripped DVD's.

I had considered an TV, but this requires a PC / Mac to be switched on at the same time.

Thanks in advance for any guidance,

S

 

[Cave Man]

I had considered an TV, but this requires a PC / Mac to be switched on at the same time.

iTunes only needs to be running if you are streaming. Once files have been sync'd to the Apple TV you can shut your computer down. You'll only have access to those files that are resident on Apple TV's hard disk. This is one of the reasons the hard disk replacement came about. A number of people now have 160 gig drives in their Apple TVs.

 

[JAT]

The Svideo won't be great, but it will be close to native resolution of your TV. So probably ok. If you can get text readable.

Passing the TV higher resolution won't help much, it will just have to downconvert it, anyway. And probably lose readability compared to just outputing the proper resolution in the first place.