[Bruck]

I am building a home theatre in my house, and would like to buy a new mac mini to use front row and itunes as a music server. The cabinets that will be holding equiptment are wood on the front, all devices will be using RF repeaters and 1 main remote that will control them, so line of sight to components is not an issue.

Will I need to mount the mac mini within sight of the remote? (and thus not in the cabinet?

thanks

[harrisjamieh]

I don't understand your question... you say you will be using an RF repeater for each IR device you have, so line of sight doesn't matter, but then you say will you need to put the mini IN the line of sight of the remote....

[Bruck]

do you think the RF repeater and MAster remote will be compatible with a Mac Mini? If so then I'm all set.

[harrisjamieh]

I don't see any reason why not - the front row remote just gives off a bog standard IR signal

[Bruck]

what are everyone's thoughts on speed? Is it worth saving the $$ and getting the solo?

It's basically gonna be used to rip/store/play music, barely any computing going on, maybe the occaisional isight video chat/internet browsing.

Also 512 ram sufficient?
(it's library will be shared with every other computer in the house for music browsing/listening)

[brokenjago]

The Solo should be perfect for those uses, although I'd upgrade to 1 GB RAM just to be safe

[EFFENDI]

If you plan on watching any High Definition content, now or in the future, invest in a Core Duo with at least 1GB of RAM.

[cornwallstone]

Originally Posted by EFFENDI

If you plan on watching any High Definition content, now or in the future, invest in a Core Duo with at least 1GB of RAM.

Amen! With the same size memory in both slots.

[brokenjago]

As far as I know, the Core Solo will play a one 1080p stream flawlessly, although it will completely max out the CPU.

[cornwallstone]

Originally Posted by MacWorld

In our test of an HD movie trailer for IMAX’s Deep Sea 3D (H.264 encoding at 1,440 by 1,080 pixels), the Core Duo model played the video back smoothly. The Core Solo model, however, dropped frames, leading to distracting, stuttering video—even after we upgraded it to 1GB of RAM.

I can tell you that with a 2GB 1.66 Core-Duo, that trailer barely plays without noticable frame drops, but frame rate does drop to 12-13 fps in a couple of scenes where there are large schools of small fish darting about quickly. I can't imagine trying it with only the Core Solo.

[harrisjamieh]

When I tested my MacBook with HD content, it was fine, keeping up a constant 30 FPS, apart from in a few places where it dropped to ~20. When I used CHUD tools to disable once processor, it played at a constant ~25 FPS, dropping as low as 12 at a few points

[cornwallstone]

Originally Posted by ARS Review of the Core Solo

Playing the Deep Sea trailer on the Mac mini Core Solo had interesting results. It played the 480p version flawlessly with a constant frame rate of 24 fps. The 720p formatted film was a slightly different story. The video played very well, but when the video had quick-moving segments (schools of fish moving and changing direction quickly) the frame rate would dip slightly into the 18-20 fps region. The 1080p version was simply unplayable. There were frequent skips and jumps in the video playback and the actual frame rate hovered somewhere around 10-13 fps...

Playing a more calm video like Magnificent Desolation had different results. Both the 480p and 720p version played flawlessly whereas the 1080p format played at 24 fps during some segments but dropped to 18 and sometimes 12 fps when there were scene transitions and anything other slow-moving objects on the screen.

From this I take it the Core Solo Mini plays 720p about as well as the Core Duo Mini plays 1080p.

[brokenjago]

I stand corrected!