MAC mini and lcd tv questions

Hi all, new to this group and have a few questions.
iam gonna purchase a mac mini and a HD ready LCD TV.

1. does the LCD TV have to have a DVI input or can i get mac mini to
work over HDMI?

2. Would it make any difference to viewing quality if i got 1366x768
rather than 1920x1080 screen res.

3. iam going to hook this whole kit up to a broadband connection for HD
movies etc, can mac mini READ HD DVD'? ( I assume not due to the first
HD DVD/Blueray players costing up to £1000

4. can i get a home theatre surround system to work with all this kit
( i like my 5.1 surround sound)
any help would be great

thanks.

james.

1. DVI and HDMI are interoperable. you will need an adaptor to convert
the DVI from the Mac to HDMI.

2. Yes. Full 1080i/p videos will need to be scaled down to fit the
native screen resolution. However, 720p will be displayed at full HD
res. With viewing apps/desktop you will need to set the screen to a
progressive scan mode to avoid flickering. Typically this will be 720p
(1280*720). Unless you have a 1080p full res HDTV then you can output
1920*1080 without flickering (you will need to pay a huge premium for
this).

3. No

4. yes. The new Core Duo macminis have analogue (3.5mm) and optical
(spdif) output.

Hope this helps. If I am incorrect feel free to correct me.
gary

what would the mac mini look like on a 1920x1080 screen compared to a
standard monitor, better or worse?

and the only way i could play HD movies through the mac mini is to
Download them straight onto the mac itself, correct?

cheers

wrote:
> what would the mac mini look like on a 1920x1080 screen compared to a
> standard monitor, better or worse?
>
> and the only way i could play HD movies through the mac mini is to
> Download them straight onto the mac itself, correct?
>
This is an interesting thread, and I regret I can't add much at all to
answering the questions. I did, however, connect my MacBookPro to my HD
Sony (60" rear proj.) and Lightroom did fine with a slide show.

But I ask you both to please quote enough of the previous post so one
doesn't have to backtrack to follow. '

--
John McWilliams

> what would the mac mini look like on a 1920x1080 screen compared to a
> standard monitor, better or worse?
>
> and the only way i could play HD movies through the mac mini is to
> Download them straight onto the mac itself, correct?

If you have a full 1080p HD screen then you will get full pixels and
therefore full clarity. As I said before be careful with 1080i as this
is interlaced (only drawing every other scanline in each pass) and will
create flickering. If all you want the mini for is as a media centre
then I would strongly suggest getting a *cough* Windows MCE PC. If you
get a fairly high spec model you should be able to switch out the DVD
drive for a HD-DVD/BD in 6-12 months.

Currently the mini does not have support for HD-DVD/BD as they are both
emerging technologies and BD's DRM specs have not been finalised yet.
The core solo comes with a standard DVD-ROM/CD-RW and the core Duo
comes with a superdrive DVD-RW/DL +-. It may be possible to upgrade the
Mini in the future to support HD content/media, but expect to pay a
premium (and thats if Apple even supports current gen minis with HD/BD
drives).

There are a small number of HD movies available in Microsoft's WMV
format which it may be possible to view on a mini, but I haven't tried
this yet. Search microsoft.com for info. they have T2 and some others.

If you are certain you want a MacMini, and you want to view HD content
(trailers, animations, demos etc.) downloaded from the net or on CD/DVD
then I would recommend the Core Duo with 512 or preferably 1Gb of RAM.
I have a core duo with the standard 512, and whilst it will play 720p
content really well, it does occasionally struggle with 1080p when I
have say Mail, Safari, and Azereus running for instance. I have read
that the extra RAM should solve this, partly because the RAM is shared
with the Video 448/64, and partly due to the overheads associated with
running 25/30fps video @ 1920*1024.

BTW I work for a small television company producing a variety of
animated content/programmes which is why I know technically how this
stuff works. I have yet to create a huge amount of HD content however,
so I can't give you any figures for memory/processing/bendwidth etc.
But as far as I know what I am saying is correct.