[Cung]

does anyone use their apple cinema display as a living room tv? with the mac mini coming out, I want to make my living room a sorta of mac media center, I want to get the display, macmini,blue tooth keyboard, mouse and maybe eye tv to record stuff.

So the question is really can you hook the cinema dislay up to your cable box, etc? do you need an adapter, etc? It be really cool to watch tv, and then check your emails during commericlals, etc

[k squared]

I'm sure you could do it (the cable would attach via eye TV), but wouldn't you save money buying a regular flat panel HDTV and hooking the mini up to it? Hell, for the price of the Apple 30" display could but a 42" plasma or 37" LCD...

[buzzkill]

I Think k has a point as far as the cost of the 30" and a standard plasma display. Another snag may be the ability for the graphics card of the Mac mini (32mb) to drive a 30".

[Goldfinger]

The Mac mini can't drive a 30" Cinema. 23" Cinema is the max.

[trevorM]

A few points

• Mac Mini wont drive a 30" Cinema HD Display
• The 30" Cineme HD Display is expensive in contrast to the large range of Plasma screens on the market. Here in Australia you can easily buy a Plasma TV for a little over the price of a 23" display.
• You could use a 30" Display I suppose but its really made as a comuter display and its resolution is thus sutied to computer situations rather than driving TV images all day.
• An eye TV HD will use a good bit of processor power. Afterall its only a tuner, so it will eat away at your computer power...

[eddiecatflap]

in the next year when i upgrade i'm going to buy a dual tower with the 30 inch and ditch my sony wega tv

best of both worlds

[subego]

Originally posted by eddiecatflap:
in the next year when i upgrade i'm going to buy a dual tower with the 30 inch and ditch my sony wega tv

best of both worlds

How big is your current TV?

[Cung]

Thats a bummer a mini can't drive a 30",getting a g5 would seriously up the budget! While I know a 30" is expensive, I was planning on using it to do design work also (thats the part where I was trying to get the best of both worlds having large display for work, and also being able to watch stuff in HD)..oh well,gonna have to re tinker my digital hub palns. can anyone recommend a nice plasma in the 3k range? 30-50inch display

[ixus_123]

plasmas aren't very sharp - if it's only 30inch you want stick with a normal crt tv - it's still going to be a while yet before plasmas & lcds can out perform them for like money

[lightusr]

I still think using an LCD isn't such a bad idea, a 30" is just overkill. The things you display on it if you're using it as a media center regardless if you get a G5 with dual dvi or something else wouldn't take advantage of the monsterous resolution.

I have a coworker who is using a 30" LCD tv in conjunction with a Mac as his basement home lounge setup and he loves it.

[jebjeb]

Originally posted by Cung:
Thats a bummer a mini can't drive a 30",getting a g5 would seriously up the budget! While I know a 30" is expensive, I was planning on using it to do design work also (thats the part where I was trying to get the best of both worlds having large display for work, and also being able to watch stuff in HD)..oh well,gonna have to re tinker my digital hub palns. can anyone recommend a nice plasma in the 3k range? 30-50inch display

I would look at getting a 32 inch LCD TV from Sharp or Phillips or similar. Should be able to get one for around $2000 which is native 1280x720 res so it will be perfect for 720p HD. Have a search and find one with DVI in. Either way (DVI or VGA) the Mac mini would run it fine. The only thing you may have to do is use a util or something to make sure you can select that exact res.