Mac Mini as HTPC with DVI to HDMI - any problems?

[dastott]

Dear all,

I'm thinking seriously about making the plunge and getting a 1.66ghz Mac Mini with 1mb of RAM and 80gb HD. The purpose is to use it as a home theatre device as I have a new 32inch LCD TV that has HDMI but no DVI support and primarily I want to watch hi def through a DVI to HDMI cable from the Mac Mini to the TV. I have an Avel Link DVLP2 network media player with a DVI output but it doesn't support HDCP so I can't use it for digital viewing.

So, my question is: has anyone taken a similar path? Are there any pitfalls to using a Mac Mini to watch hi def content on a large LCD TV. I will be mostly be watching .avi files, in VLC player I suppose.

Thanks in advance.

[mhar4]

I have a G4 Mini and tried the DVI output to the DVI-HDCP input of a 27" Samsung LCD tv. The problem is the tv is 1366x768, which is not a standard HD resolution, and is scaled for a "real" HD source. When you connect the Mini it sets to 1280x720 and centres the image, leaving a black border around it. As far as I know there is no way around this, and there is a bit on the Apple forums on this issue. So I use the VGA adapter into the PC input of the tv, which works fine and looks great, but it isn't the DVI, so could probably look better.