I just got a current gen Mini (2.0 GHz) which I upgraded to 4 gigs o' ram and a 500 gig hard drive. I wanted a desktop alternative to either plugging/unplugging a bunch of wires to my MBP or using my full blown gaming PC (for electricity usage/fan noise concerns). It's driving a pair of 24" Dell monitors (which works very well).
Anyway, just to check it out, I installed Plex. WOW. Via SMB mount from my WHS-based media server it played all the MKV's and M2TS files I threw at it. No glitching and no complaints. It was just solid.
For some perspective on where I'm coming from, last summer I built a PC-based HTPC for my main home theater rig. I think I did a pretty good job with parts selection and when it was working, it worked fairly well.
The problem was that in order to do what I wanted, it required a bunch of different software for a bunch of different places, some paid and some free.
Of course they all didn't play well together and an update to one component usually resulted in some type of problem.
I eventually retasked that machine to be my dedicated mkv processor and went back to using a Popcorn hour (this time an A110).
The only thing that it seems like the PCH can do that Mini/Plex can't is stream Dolby TrueHD and DTS MasterHD. It probably never will, and without one of the expensive, flaky, and recently released HD-capable sound cards, neither could my old HTPC.
I'm seriously thinking about offing my PCH and ATV and replacing both with another Mini. I'm that impressed.
John
Anyway, just to check it out, I installed Plex. WOW. Via SMB mount from my WHS-based media server it played all the MKV's and M2TS files I threw at it. No glitching and no complaints. It was just solid.
For some perspective on where I'm coming from, last summer I built a PC-based HTPC for my main home theater rig. I think I did a pretty good job with parts selection and when it was working, it worked fairly well.
The problem was that in order to do what I wanted, it required a bunch of different software for a bunch of different places, some paid and some free.
Of course they all didn't play well together and an update to one component usually resulted in some type of problem.
I eventually retasked that machine to be my dedicated mkv processor and went back to using a Popcorn hour (this time an A110).
The only thing that it seems like the PCH can do that Mini/Plex can't is stream Dolby TrueHD and DTS MasterHD. It probably never will, and without one of the expensive, flaky, and recently released HD-capable sound cards, neither could my old HTPC.
I'm seriously thinking about offing my PCH and ATV and replacing both with another Mini. I'm that impressed.
John
