TV awesomeness
Hooked up the Mac mini to the new TV. So far it's been great.
- 56" is a great size for my living room. I was thinking it's too big, but it's actually the right size. Not too big.
- Installed Synergy2 to control Mac using ThinkPad. Working fabulous, except I needed to install the universal binary to run on Intel Mac.
- Hooked the cable and did scan the Cable and Digital Cable. Most TV channels from Comcast are available for free thanks to the QAM Tuner built in this model. I can watch HD channels (CBS, ABC, NBC etc.) as well and 720p/1080i picture quality is good.
- For some reason 1080i channels look better than 720p. When I tested with my 42" plasma (720p) in Japan, 720p looked better. I guess it's because my new TV is full HD.
- Connected 500G LACIE HDD to Mac mini and mount it to play vids.
- Enabled Windows sharing and access the other 120G HDD connected to my windows to play the fresh files I download using WIndows. It gives a gap when I play bigger files because it's network sharing. I need to think about how to sync these data.
- Connecting Mac mini with VGA and it just did 1920x1080 out of the box, but it gives me a little bit overscan (there are ~5% of black area between edges). I'll need to find the way to fix this by no overscan.
- Installed Remote Buddy to control lots of apps (QT, VLC, iTunes) using Apple Remote without using the Front Row. This is an awesome software.
- Tested Last.fm player, Joost, Nicovideo and Rimo on the screen and they worked all great. This is why I got Mac mini, not Apple TV!
The only problem I have is that with 1920x1080 setup, and I sit 10 feet distance from the TV, I can't read the characters on Mac! I configured the Finder font size up to 16px and it's almost readable but other applications like Safari or iTunes are almost impossible to read. It's mostly because of the distance and my eyesight, but need to think a bit about it.
Comments
I know ABC and Fox are 720P while NBC, PBS and CBS are 1080i from the networks feeds.
I will see if my pal Jan was able to fix her over scan issue(s) on her Mac Mini. I am going to share the Remote Buddy link with her.
Thanks for the comment. Reading through the manual and the forum, looks like the overscan can be cancelled only if the input is 1920x1080 digital and by choosing "Just Scan".
Right now I connect the PC using VGA and there's no way to cancel that. Ordered the DVI-HDMI cable on monoprice.com...
Cheers,
Doug