CTJoyce goes...Mac?

[ctjoyce]

Its for a good reason though. Recently I have been helping my mum's boyfriend setup a new Home Theater w/ HTPC. After all was said and done, and I was flipping back and fourth between watching TV and surfing the web, I decided that I wanted a HTPC setup too. Then I took it a step further thinking that not only could I do basic functions, but if I could hook up my two turn tables + mixer to it and have a full fledged studio / theater in my living room. And to go even further I do need a fully working Mac so that I can use final cut pro, and Garage band. I'm sick of editing windows based. Then there is the fact that dashboard is a hell of a lot better and cooler looking than MCE, and with help I plan to replace dashboard with Apple TV.

So right now here is my plan, Get one of the new Mac Minis (1.66Ghz Meron 1GB RAM ) get a 500GB+ NAS (Network Access Storage0 and get a S Video hookup (which aparently comes with the Mini) i could have the ultimate TiVo / Stereo / everything without having to lug my laptop up and down the stairs. So my only questions to you are

1: How would a 1024 x 768 OSX desktop look on a 40' 4:3 CRT TV?
2: There is very little space left in our media cabinet. A Mac Mini fits perfectly, but do you have any other options. I've heard that Acer has something similar, but haven't seen it for sale anywhere.

Cheers
Cameron

PS: Budget for this one is $600 MAX The mini I can pick up from e-bay

[Ashton Lawson]

wow, ctjoyce asking for advice! kidding

i dunno about other laptop stuff, but 1024x768 on a 40" won't look that good.  if there is a scale for it, then if u want to read text, it will be very flickery.  if u want to have everything smooth, then u wont be able to read text, and it will still be slightly flickery.

but this is my experience with the 20 something inch CRT in my room, and a GeForce 4 MX.

with a mac, it might look okay, but in my experience, porting a Computer Desktop to a TV screen is usually a hassle unless those screens are HD ones, getting DVI from a DVI supporting graphics card...

[GunnerMan]

I hooked my Gf4Mx up to my Tv (I think its a 22 inch?) with 1024x768 rez. It worked and was not flickery(set refresh rate to about 72 hz) but the TV rez sucked. A TV native resolution is very low I think it's like 740x something so you may need to run a low res on your computer screen for it to work? Maybe the way it resamples the data for TV is funky. I really can't help now im just thinkin up ideas. Im sure there is a way for it to work out though.

[richardd43]

You might want to look at the AverMedia TVBox (or something equivalent) as a go between for the computer and the TV. I have the AverMedia TVBox hooked to my LCD, I do not have a CRT TV to check it with.

[DizZa]

Macs.... lol.

P.S. Where do you get your money from?  :-?

[ctjoyce]

Macs.... lol.

P.S. Where do you get your money from?  :-?

Selling non-vital organs.

Cheers
Cameron

PS: I used to laugh at the mac too, but show me an operating system that is better for editing, and show me a smaller PC.

[GunnerMan]

Or a more pricey, hard to fix.  ;D

I always thought you liked Macs though, you seem like a Mac guy and in your little Windows Vista review I remember a qutoe "It's very "macesqe" and I like that."

[Ashton Lawson]

[quote][quote]Macs.... lol.

P.S. Where do you get your money from?

[GunnerMan]

Yeah the CD thing sounds about right. I just loved their ad "With the ATI 64mb rage gfx engine you will be able to play all of todays hot games like Doom 3" A computer with a rage gfx card for 3,000 bucks? nty I am also very disapointed with my Ipod.