Mac Mini to get HDMI???

I saw this over on MacRumors and am more interested in them lettting OS X send sound out of the mini display port than the actual HDMI on the Mac Mini. If what I have read over the last few months is true, OS X is the only thing stopping sound from going out of the mini display port (granted you are using a monoprice HDMI adaptor already).

 

I don't think Apple is going to ever put in anything that requires loyalties.
such as bluray or HDMI.

 

This would certainly have helped the headaches I dealt w/ trying to get my 1.83Ghz Mini to connect to my Hitachi Plasma. It's stuck w/ the even more annoying DVI and is surprisingly totally incompatible w/ DVI->HDMI cables.

Farthest I ever got was an Apple logo for a brief moment despite trying every version of utility or hack I could find. Even my $199 Acer Revo was straight up plug and play. Coupled w/ OSX's atrocious Flash performance, struggling on Hulu despite 1.83Ghz Core2Duo/2GB RAM and I gave up making it a HTPC despite having the handy remote and neat Hulu desktop option. Guess making stuff work wasn't a priority or they really wanted me to buy an AppleTV instead.

 

I used the 1.83 Core 2 duo mini for two years via dvi to hdmi cable as a htpc.
DVI and HDMI are pin for pin compatible just without the audio.
I set the output to match both our 52" sharp and our sony bravia at 1080p 60hz
Played full 1080p without drop frames, also used two HDHomeRun turners for full DVR functions
I have since sold that mini and placed a low-cost broken core2 macbook in its place, still using the DVI-HDMI cable with the macbook mini dvi cable
Sounds like it was your TV/Display that was the problem

 

It's a sync problem but the TV cost well over a grand while the computer was half as much so swapping tvs wasn't an option. The solution for a while was to run my quadcore desktop as the htpc(w/ 5+ yr old video card). Even my P4 dual core could connect to my ancient JVC 1080i CRT projection tv. If you search the web, you'll find lots of people proposing solutions to the mini hdtv issue (common problem apparently) and none were really cost effective. I put the Mac as my main home/basic productivity machine which was fine since it couldn't hold a wifi signal for more than 10 min. Worked great fully wired except when I had to do some actual computing the 1.83Ghz was less powerful than even my work laptop.

I debated trading up for a newer model but for a while wound up running a $200 Acer Revo which ran everything great minus choking on iTunes and Hulu desktop. It'd do 1080p(WM amazingly enough) better than the Mini(QT) on my 24" and consumed even less power and worked as a print server as well. The Hulu thing finally bugged me enough to get rid of it but the Mini still stumbles on Hulu desktop too despite having several times the processor power of the Revo. So now I'm back to not having a htpc until I figure out a power efficient (and cheap) machine to leave on 24/7 that happens to like my printers and can actually handle flash at 1080p.

 

install flash 10.1 beta. Supports hardware acceleration with your ion gpu

 

Yup. The Revo should be good for Hulu with Flash 10.1 beta. (I have the dual-core Revo, but I don't think it really matters for this.) You may have to uninstall the old Flash first.

Nothing can cure iTunes video performance though... as far as I know. iTunes for Windows just blows chunks... so I just avoid it. You can watch movies on the Revo purchased from either the Zune store or Amazon Video on Demand.

But we've drifted off the thread topic a bit. I don't think the Mini will get HDMI, because Apple's "official" answer for the living room is Apple TV, and for computing Apple is pushing Mini-DisplayPort. But I could certainly imagine them improving the Mini-DisplayPort by sending sound through it and things like that.

 

I dunno...Apple's own executives have just recently restated that AppleTV is still "just a hobby" for Apple. I'd personally love for the Mini to get an HDMI and that addition would probably push me to get one. That being said, I'm not holding my breath and would be content with a DisplayPort that also pushed out audio so I can at least "simply" convert it to HDMI with an adapter cable. I'm wanting a HTPC since I've basically made the full switch to my MBP at home and its a real PITA IMHO to use the DP+USB audio-to-HDMI adapter from Monoprice and I don't want to have to pull out long cables anymore That being said, I'm gonna wait for the next Mini update and if still no digital video+audio I'll probably just jump to whatever is the current cream of the netbook crop