[quote user="fr0g"][quote user="Solomon1"][quote user="professorhat"]The Mini Mac is a great size to fit under the TV though! Seriously though, have a look and decide for yourself.[/quote]Agree.Frog, you basically said you don't like macs. Fair enough, but your comments so far are merely pointed at what's wrong with the mac mini, while you don't own it and thus have no experience with it. Furthermore you haven't named a worthy alternative. The audiocard you named is really nice, but and that's a BIG BUT- it's designed to fit in a tower pc. To keep such a thing quiet you probably need to go for water cooling...and it still leaves you with a hulk of a machine. They only other choice to keep it cool and thus quiet is selecting laptop parts or buying a laptop- this both goes for a system based on windows os or apple os. The new windows os -vista- is notorious for it's high demands on hardware, which is like saying in other words that on the same hardware, it's slow.Since a media pc is mainly aimed at producing music and movies well, the mac will do more then good enough. I mean, even some hifi manufacturers swear by it! See the avi hifi website for this. A pc needs to be assembled, thus will never look as nice, is probably just as expensive- or more as it needs higher specced hardware just to start up and run properly. Many windows customers have gone BACK to XP as they found it worked better- buying a mac still leaves you the option of installing the system you know -windows XP- on it AND enjoy the benefits of a smoother operating media system.[/quote]
I agree. I was a little harsh. The Mac Mini is in fact a perfect media centre option. Underpowered and specced for the price, but looks the part and has a decent onboard sound.
I dont hate Macs by the way. They are just overpriced IMO. Same with Sony windows PCs
I do hate iTunes though , awful program.
Personally if I was going to build a new media centre pc I would use a small form factor micro or mini ATX, and under spec the CPU, and gfx, use a low wattage power supply, and install Ubuntu linux. But that isnt a good idea for nonù-techies..[/quote]
This is the thing - i am indeed a non-techy (by WHFS&V forum standards - its all relative). I'm concerned about adding more than what i already have in my current setup, which is why the pc seems ideal, as long as i can keep it quiet enough. I'm also concerned about what happens if anything goes wrong with an Apple, or if it isnt up to the home pc job (if it were a replacement for my pc and not an addition). On the other hand, i like the look of the interface, am confident (as so many people say it) that itll keep quiet and give good sound, and glad it can work on my TV too, with a purpose made remote. I'm still open to persuasion, and if i sound argumentative (tho i hope i dont) thats just so people will do what they can to persuade me either way