New Mac Mini

By all means give it a try. I have not been overly fussed by SL yet, infact I am tempted to remove it from the one mac that has it on.

Yes yes it starts up the mac quicker, and its quicker shutting down (for the once or month or so I actually do this) but otherwise, incompatibilities, printers not working, slow network shares, slow emails etc etc etc. Just not worth it for me right at this moment.

I'm already running it on both Macbooks with no problems. But you probably didn't want to hear that.

I have been on the appleseed for SL for three months testing all the betas through to release. Connecting to network shares is glacial for me and always was, takes around 1 minute for shared folders to appear and screen sharing takes a further 1 minute to show.

Its something in SL implimentation is not an issue to connect too SL but outgoing forget it.

My Canon IP4000r is in the compatible list cannot be seen on the network by SL so software update cannot offer me any updated drivers to get the damn thing working.

Most of my pref panes do not work, thankfully WACOM does.

Other than that, yes its a tadge quicker, not night and day. And I do understand its laying the frame work for the future.

Until these issues are corrected there is nothing that concerns me to keep it on. I rarely use Icon view so the large previews are pointless, and the small dock changes are neither here nor there.

I expect they will get there in the end.

I have run my TimeCapsule as a network shared device for the past year. It appears straight away (second or two, max), but takes about 20 seconds for the folders to appear as the hard-drive needs to wake-up if I'm not using it immediately prior to wanting to browse it.

I have limited experience with the Mac Mini as a shared device, but it seemed to just be there as soon as I looked for it in Finder. The screen share was virtually instantaneous with just a few milliseconds lag that made it not quite as responsive as the local option. I had been using the Mini immediately before picking up the laptop and looking for it as a shared device, so it was already "awake". It will likely be slower if it has gone into a power-saving mode. I remain unsure about waking it up remotely if it has gone completely to sleep as it will only be on wireless network connection.

Further update:

Mac Mini sounds fine. There are no problems with screen sharing. I can "wake" the headless mini with the little white remote that came with previous Apple stuff. Once awake the sharing works very fast and smooth. There is now no wireless in my music path - I'll post impressions of sound quality/listening pleasure once I have spent some more time with it. A happy chappy for now, though.

How are your screen sharing the mini?

Connecting to my extreme harddrive and drobo is instant, its to other computers where the issues start. I am mnot alone but its not everyone is suffering.

I enabled the screen sharing on the Mini. It then appears on the Finder sidebar of our laptops as a shared device/volume. I selected it, hit the share button, entered the Mini volume's name and password. I checked the box so it would remember the password in my keychain and hit OK. As I said, provided the Mini is awake, it connects very quickly - just a few seconds. After the first-time connection I don't need t re-enter any information; just select the device and hit the share button.

I should add that the Mini is not yet on Snow Leopard, although the laptops are. I'll let you know if there is any change when I upgrade the Mini OS.

Um, very odd. I seem to be a rare but not isolated case. Attempting to connect to any mac on my network from SL takes ages, whether its snowleopard or leopard.

Anyhow as I say I am not bothered, I'll probably stick 10.5 back on the main mac, the wife is pissed she cannot print as well!

where is this commercial???

Allen you did not have the same issue as me (Although your issue was not rare either)

I have faultless wireless and netwrok connections, my droboshare and extreme show immediately. The only thing wrong is connecting to folders on other computers.

I timed it all this morning. I opened my Laptop, it came out of hibernation and I selected Finder. It took two seconds to find the TimeCapsule and Mac Mini as shared devices. The shared screen took another second to come up once I clicked the button. The Mac Mini (having been set to wake up earlier) was on screen saver when it appeared. I clicked the screen and iTunes was on, but paused. Clicking play started the music instantly.

I have no complaints at all. It is all working very well indeed. I really like the fact that there is now no wireless in my music path. Not so much for quality, but for reliability.

Sorry gary

I am concerned you think I am losing sleep. SL works just fine apart from the occasional times I need to screen share. But importantly Leopard 10.5 is rock solid for all the things I am doing (Vuze, XBMC, iTunes, etc)

Oh and I fixed the printer thing as well

No, I just like to gloat. You don't seem stressed at all, and more than capable of sorting out any issues you have. I'm mainly trying to get another rise out of PCS!

So whats the entire set up you have now? To the hifi sort of thing?

I have a droboshare in the garage providing 2.3 tb of disk drive failure protected storage with music and video on. The mini is hooked up to the hifi.

The mini has itunes running pulling the music from drobo. The drobo also has firefly on it providing itunes music for sharing to anything on the network (Itunes could do this via its own sharing but keeps hanging, I have an apple guy working with me on it, something to do with NAS)

XBMC is awesome, and provides music interface, Film and TV shows. The new minis are great I have it hooked up twice to the TV, so XBMC can be running all the time and also a desktop running on the other input for me to screen share into for VUZE, itunes etc.

There are lots of very good programmes out there to make all this stuff really work if there is anything specific you need, let me know.

GROWL is a must for lots of programmes over the network.

It is in my profile. But basically, a headless 320GB Mac Mini which plays our Apple lossless files (all ripped from CD) from its local drive using iTunes. The output is via an optical link to my SuperNait DAC (which also has a HiCap2). Naca5 to some old B&W 803s.

We control the headless Mini with our laptops. At the moment we only use the Mini for iTunes.

I also have a 1TB TimeCasule which holds a copy of all the music files but not yet by using TimeMachine. When I get around to it, I will hardwire the Mini to the network overnight and create a proper TimeMachine backup (then remove the folder that contains the old file from the TC). We also use the TimeCapsule/TimeMachine thing for backing up our laptops.

We're not much into internet-based video at all (although the Mini monitor output is currently connected to the TV) and are trying to keep it simple. We watch Blu-ray or DVD via dedicated players and have a cable box that has it own HD recorder. I don't use it very much, though. All audio is via the SN. Only the Blu-ray (and Mini, of course)consistently provides a digital signal that the SN DAC can understand, so the DVD and cable-box are via analogue. I don't really care, though.

Thanks for the offer of help. If I want get all fancy with the Mini as a true media server, I'll seek your advice via the forum.

OK, I've hit my first glitch. I bought a HD TV show from iTunes, and am now falling foul of the HDCP. Basically, the Mini doesn't recognise my Sony TV as a HDCP compliant display and won't play the show.

Any ideas for a work around?

quote:

Originally posted by winkyincanada:
OK, I've hit my first glitch. I bought a HD TV show from iTunes, and am now falling foul of the HDCP. Basically, the Mini doesn't recognise my Sony TV as a HDCP compliant display and won't play the show.

Any ideas for a work around?

I think I read somewhere that HDMI to DVI converters might work around this issue while still being capable of providing the required bandwidth.

Does either of the devices have DVI output? Or maybe two DVI-converters and a DVI-cable will do the job?

-
Aleg

Don't buy content from apple.

quote:

Originally posted by Aleg:

quote:

Originally posted by winkyincanada:
OK, I've hit my first glitch. I bought a HD TV show from iTunes, and am now falling foul of the HDCP. Basically, the Mini doesn't recognise my Sony TV as a HDCP compliant display and won't play the show.

Any ideas for a work around?

I think I read somewhere that HDMI to DVI converters might work around this issue while still being capable of providing the required bandwidth.

Does either of the devices have DVI output? Or maybe two DVI-converters and a DVI-cable will do the job?

-
Aleg

The connection already goes via DVI. The output from the Mac is DVI in a compact physical form. It goes to a physical converter that takes it standard DVI "shape". This then goes to a cable that is standard DVI one end and HDMI the other, which plugs into the TV.

quote:

Originally posted by garyi:
Don't buy content from apple.

Yeah, yeah. I know that. The better half couldn't live without catching the first two episodes of Grey's Anatomy. Neither Hulu nor the ABC network sites will play the show into Canada. I don't steal stuff, so just looked for what I thought would be an easy and legitimate way to view the show. If I'd been a crook and just picked it up with some dodgy bit-torrent deal, I'd likely have less hassle. It shits me that DRM seems to only f$#^ over the good guys.

Any way, she's going to watch it in bed on the MBP with headphones. Suits me better anyway.

Well here's the thing. I just tried to watch the SD version on the TV, and guess what? The HD version is playing fine through my TV. I did nothing different. I wonder if Apple relaxed the DRM somehow and sent an update with the latest version of iTunes. Anyhow, I'm a happy camper. The mini is now working as a brilliant media server. I will now contemplate buying more AV content from them.

Apple continues to rule, albeit from a bit of a philosophically "closed" mindset. You can forgive that when everything just works so well.

I might add, I made enquiries with Apple about this HDCP issue, and although they didn't resolve the issue at the time, it was very easy to get to talk to a competent consultant. Top marks for that, too.