mp4 playing on 'new' but 5 year old macmini.

[mcdseven]

Hi Folks,

First time poster and I can't believe such a site exists. I need some help and I hope some kind folk here can offer me the best advice (I have been on other sites trying to get answers but they don't cover everything I need to know).

I recently bought a factory sealed five year old macmini 1.42ghz, it was a real bargain buy that I could not resist, I don't think many would.

I would like to set it up as multimedia centre connected to a Philips HDTV 42'' where I can use front row to watch movies, look at photos, listen to Podcasts , etc. I will update the OS on the mini to 10.5.8.

Now my question is that I will be using the latest version of Handbrake on an Intel 24'' iMac using Snow Leopard to rip movies into Mpg4 to watch in iTunes. Can someone please advise me what is the best setting to use bearing in mind that the mpg4 movies will be played on the Macmini with its G4 chip. What setting do I use? What screen resolution do I pick? Is or has anyone have a similar set up that they can offer me tips and tricks? I have been googling for hours and I am getting nowhere!!!

Thanks for any advice offered.

[Bandit Bill]

Welcome to the forum.

Because your mini is older, I would transcode to Apple TV settings and see if you like the quality. At least if you do this, if you ever switch to an Apple TV you won't need to do it all over again.

I see you were already on the Handbrake forum, but nobody replied. There are some good threads on that forum that detail settings and why.

You can also search this forum with the "search feature" type in "handbrake and settings".

[mcdseven]

[Smithcraft]

I sure hope the price was right!

You might be able to get away with the AppleTV settings, however that mini is more of a desktop type system.

While you won't be saving any space, I almost think that you might be better of using something like Mac The Ripper to create an optimized disc image, and then play that with the DVD player app.

I say this because my G4 mini is slightly better(slightly faster and more VRAM) than yours, and it has a hard time playing straight up DVD rips made with MakeMKV, but it doesn't have a problem playing the original DVD. From this I think that OS X handles DVDs differently(ie - hardware decoding the video stream) than video files.

This will also give you the best quality you will be able to get from the material, and you won't have to second guess whether you used the best settings.

SC
_________________
Grumpy old man of computing.

[Desktop] G4 mini - 1.5Ghz 1GB 80GB HDD - Newer miniStack v2 500GB - 10.5.8

[Media System] Intel i5 mini - 2.33Ghz 8GB 500GB HDD - 4 x Hitachi 2TB HDD in a qBOX-SF - 10.7.5 (Thanks Phil!)

Make sure it has pins!

[mcdseven]

[bnumerick]

Maybe download some 480p Apple Trailers and see how they do.

http://trailers.apple.com/

Another idea is to use MPEG-4 (FFmpeg) instead of h264. It's not quite as good but it'll be easier to decode.

[Bandit Bill]

$100 euros would have been a better price, but it was brand new.

You may want to consider selling it and getting an Apple TV. If you've never seen Apple TV in action I suggest you check it out.

[mcdseven]