thought i'd start a new thread for people who need help, want to ask questions etc

and i will start it off

got my new 1.66CD mac mini hooked up to an oldish fujitsu plasma via a dvi cable

it will only let me choose shitty screen resolutions like 1024x768 is max

i know the screen can output to 1336x768 widescreen

how do i get it to that res

i think ive heard of a program called switch res x before
but havent tried it out

is that the best way to go?

SwitchResX is definitely the way to go. It's a bit fiddly to get perfect though.

Check the specs on your plasma.

Alot of plasmas on the market have a native resolution of 1366 x 768 but the VGA/DVI port will only accept a max res of 1024 x 768.

You may be better off feeding it 720p / 1080i through the HDMI port. You'll be needing the software that marc mentioned.

cheers guys, will give swithresx a go

also display config x is worthwhile. I used a combination of both for my mini through my denon AVR DVI > HDMI.

Display config x has a cool test screen for getting the adjustments right.

Rgds

Hi All,

What I have :
- Mac mini PPC 1.42 1GB running Leopard
- couple of firewire drives
- an old SD TV

The goal is to watch/record Digital TV (at least SD, ideally downscalling HD) with a DVB-T dual tuner (elgato/Miglia) and still have all the nice Mac OS X stuff (Frontrow ...).

Is it worth it (about $300 for the dual tuner, cabling ...) or sounds like wasting money for not so great setup ?
The thing i'm the most worried about is picture quality (current analog signal is kindof ghosted and fuzzy at times) and underpowered mini.

Appreciate any advice ...

Cheers

It took us a while to get our Mini set up right but now that it's working it's a great solution.

There's some info about it on my Site primarily about how to get TV's to work with them. Our first TV, an NEC, didn't output any EDID information. The Mini was never able to recognise it was plugged in. In the end we sent it back and picked up an LG. The LG has been great, thought we only run the mini at 1280x720. There's a small border but it's almost unnoticeable.

The other trick in our toolkit to make it all work well is Touch Pad Pro on our iPod touches. Basically it acts as a remote touchpad and keyboard. This allows us to control the Mini from the lounge.

cool, that sounds awesome ... i might have to look into a mini htpc

It is awesome. Probably the most awesome app I've ever seen on the iPod/iPhone.

Yeah, Touch Pad Pro is great. Always wanted a trackpad for my Mac Pro.

first i have seen of touch pad pro

must say it looks sweet!

Well I took the plunge and did it ... the result an EyeTV Diversity on my Mac Mini.
it took me some time to get something decent (better use the aerial from the roof) but it works !
SBS is the only channel i'm having issue with (from time to time signal quality goes down at 40%, everything else is consistantly at 90%-100%).

I also have some performance issue but only happens after a while so still trying to figure out what's happening (skipped frames when playing/recording).

Oh the joy of watching TV with no "snow" or ghost ... and skipping commercials

congrats!

I must say now that I have an Itunes US account ive been renting movies like a freak.

Just great being able to get a movie (sometimes for 1.99 US) and watch it 15 mins later, without having to move!

Shits all over foxtel IQ - Movies are 9000 years old by the time they get to foxtel..and they select the crap ones

Cheers

Well I just got my mac mini PPC 1.42 1GB Ram today and just installed Leopard on it.
So I will take it home this afternoon and plug it in my 42" Panasonic HD Plasma via VGA and see how it goes.
i'll let you know how it all works out..

I might get a dvi to dvi converter and run it that way, just see how it goes i guess...

Thanks !

Quick question for all the HTPC guru out there. Elgato's website states that all should be good for a Diversity running on a G4 as long as HDTV is not required, but on some other websites (Streetwise to name one), it says that "For dual channel viewing a G5 or Intel processor is required."

Anyone got any feedback based on experience ?
On my Mini 1.42, watching one channel put my CPU at 60-70%, so I can watch and record but that's about it (that could explain why PIP is not working for me) ... is it everyone's experience or something is wrong on mine ?

Cheers