Old apple mac minis as media centre?

caroline1973lefty

Hi there, I've been thinking about getting a mac mini as a home computer / media centre.

(Rationale - I need a new computer to work from at home, have an ipad to use on the move (and an apple keyboard) I live in a tiny studio and i like that they are so compact, also am in love with my 2nd hand iphone so thinking maybe mac is the way forward in general).

Needs - I don't play games or edit video or store loads of photos - though I do a lot of typing documents. So I don't need really whizzy processor.

What I'd really like apart from this is something I can watch iplayer / catch up tv / netflix type stuff on - ideally one that works with a not too huge / expensive / flashy TV / monitor.

And ideally I'd like to be able to watch DVDs and even listen to CDs on it (as i say - space is a premium in my flat so looking for multi-purpose!).

So... i was wondering if one of the older mac minis which has a DVD drive might be worth buying, where i might get one from, and whether these are able to be plugged into ordinary (non smart) cheapish flatscreen tvs and watch streamed or downloaded content?

Any advice, MSE-ers?

Thanks!
c

onomatopoeia99

I use a core2duo mac mini (six years old, I'd guess - I bought it new just after the iPhone 3G came out) connected to my telly using a DVI to HDMI lead for iplayer and other streaming services. I use Windows 7 on it exclusively, OSX has been completely excised. I use it as a media PC as it is small and very quiet.

The physical size of the screen you attach it to shouldn't be an issue, the resolution is important. Mine happily outputs 1080p resolution (1920x1080) that "Full HD" tellies work at and it will work at lower resolutions too.

The only downside of the older Mac Minis is they don't have much RAM - mine came with 1GB and cannot be upgraded to more than 2GB and the built in hard disk is quite small - mine was 80GB. This would be fine for just watching streaming videos and document editing (at least using 32 bit Windows 7), but not for things like photo / video editing or gaming if you later decide you do want to do these things. Taking them apart to upgade the internals is a really fiddly job.

I don't know what the demands of OSX are on the hardware nowadays, so can't say if the default spec of one that old would cope with what you want to do with it, you'll need a Mac enthusiast for that information.