Which Mini for Home Theater?

[i7QuadCoreMania]

As far as I know, you can encode the DVD/BR straight away, no need to rip it first (works with DVDs in HandBrake at least, not sure about BRs as OS X doesn't really support them). That should save some time and 50GB Blu-Ray rip is ridiculous, 20 of those and 1TB is filled This isn't related to OP though as he clearly said he won't be doing anything related to Blu-Ray.

dude, you need something to decode the streams on BR, I know too well that BR discs don't play on OSX I have a bluray drive and it only plays thru Windows via VMware fusion.

it will play once its ripped cause it has been decoded. Besides, only 10-18gb is the actually movie file, you can dump the rest if you wanted to.

we are prob going off topic here, frankly I'm done with this thread, lol

OP, go buy it like Hellhammer and Caveman said it'll work....

 

[Resist]

I have also been thinking about using a Mac Mini with my home theater. I use a Tivo and love it but hate my high cable bill, so may be canceling the TV portion. I never realized before how much TV content is available online, so I shouldn't have to miss out on the shows I regularly watch.

So how could I use the Mac Mini as a DVR or can I still use my Tivo? What is the difference between the Server version of the Mini, besides the price? Is it worth that higher price?

I am thinking that I would use the Air Mouse app on my iPhone as the mouse to control the Mini from my couch, if I do this.