Mac Mini displaying Full HD right out of the box
I just bought a new Mac Mini and I wanted to install it in my living room and use as a display a Sony KDL-40V4000.
Sony KDL-40V4000
The LCD is full hd and I didn’t knew how the Mini will behave. Mac Mini’s come with a mini-DVI to DVI adapter and my Sony has VGA and HDMI inputs. I bought the cheapest DVI to HDMI adapter I could find, since only the HDMI inputs can display 1920×1080. The VGA input is limited to 1366×768. So now from the Mini to the TV I have mini DVI to DVI to DVI to HDMI. And amazing enough it worked from the first start of the Mini. I just pressed the power button and the grey boot splash screen appeared on my TV in a full 1920×1080 mode. TV confirmed it by displaying an 1080p text in the top left corner.
Makes me wonder why would anyone buy an Apple TV when with just a few extra dollars you can have a real computer and tons of storage. Mac Minis have 5 USB ports. With a wireless keyboard and mouse you’ll leave all those ports free. Add 1TB external drives each time you ran out of space and with 5 ports you’ll end up with a library of 5TB. Easy, scalable and more power than you’ll find in an Apple TV.
Mac Mini - Back view
Now you can have an iTunes library as big as you want since the added hard drives are external and you can switch them with new ones easily so you could have a pretty unlimited library.
Moving my files from my MacBook to the Mini was easy as 1-2-3 with the Migration Assistant. The only problem I have with the image is that it’s not centered very well and because of that the Menu Bar is not visible. It is outside the top of the display. The actual image starts just below the Menu Bar so if I push the mouse pointer outside the viewing area I can click the bar. I’ll have to look into that.
Mac on!
What about playing 1080p movies ?
I don’t have any ripped 1080p movie. I buy them on blu-ray and use my Playstation to play them. If you have some sample I can test it.