Mac Mini - Almost the perfect Home Theater component
Apple announced the Mac Mini today at Macworld. This is the exact form factor I've been looking for to use as a home theater PC. It's small, it's quiet, and it looks cool. Oh, and at $500 it's not that expensive (considering most of the nice HTPC cases I've been looking at are around $200 for an empty case). I know that Apple is not (yet) looking to compete in this market, but I hope they do soon because there are just a couple things that keep me from buying one to stick in my entertainment center.
1 – There's no built-in RCA or S-video. I wish I had an HDTV that took DVI, but I don't. And I'm sure most people don't. Apple does sell a little adapter, but it would be nice if it was built-in.
2 – The only sound output is a mini plug. No coaxial or optical audio here. Once again, there's an adapter to solve this.
3 – No good 10foot experience software. I've not done extensive research, so I'm not positive on this. There are plenty of options for Windows (Media Center Edition, Media Portal, Meedio, etc), so I would not be surprised if there was something for OS X that I could not find.
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure one of these will probably be arriving our house in the next 6 months (like to wait until Tiger is released), but it won't be showing up to go into the entertainment center (so sad).
Crossposted from dmihalik.com
