[reeko]

ok,

i bought a mac monday. mac mini to be exact, love it.

i then went and bought a 32" LCD HD TV and samsung surround sound.

i am expecting the optical leads + dvi to hdmi in a day or so but just wondered about download movies onto my mac.

i am completely unfamiliar with HD dvd / tv. all i can gather is 720p is HD and 1080p is blu-ray HD (right?!?!?!)

basically, i want to download films onto my mac from one of the many sites you can do that type of thing from, and play them through my new telly with surround sound and HIGH DEFINITION PICTURE.

what format should i be looking for when searching?

i have typed it in google a bit but there is so many ways to word it and not getting much back, and dont fancy dl one of every type and trying. the 1080p are like 10 GB each!

thanks in advance.

Reeko

also, the screen max resolution is 1366 x 768 (i think). i have seen people talk about displayconfigX and a couple other programmes. are these the best to use and how to set them up?

has anyone got their mac mini setup with their tv in a similiar way to what im looking at that could give me some pointers because i really dont feel its going to be as easy as plug it in and it will work straight away.

[cpjr]

I am jealous. Other than that I dont know

[Imahottguy]

Think of it like this: You have a movie that someone ripped from DVD and compressed it to, lets say, 480i. Well, it will not magically upgrade itself to 1080i/p, unfortunately. Having the HD connection is good, but it's only as good as the video format/quality that pipes through it. I believe that SD goes up to 480i, ED is 480p, and HD starts at 720i. Also, Blu-Ray disks are VERY large in size to download (around 30GB per film), so I don't know how good of quality you could get and not kill the HDD... Just to clear it up a bit.

Now, I must say that I hook up my POS laptop to my 42" LCD TV (1080i), and movies at DVD quality look very nice on it- And that's using an S-Video cable!

Also, sounds like a nice set up. I'm thinking of getting a surround sound system later this year (we're moving in like a month, so we can't afford it now).

[reeko]

ok, the best format i have found is 720p. i can download mp4 and play straight through itunes, so i only need to use my little white infrared remote to watch movies from my sofa.

however, i have an optical lead going from my mac (with a 3.5mm adapter) to my surround sound, but am only rgetting a stereo output in even though its a digital connection (says digital in mac and surround sound), only my fr. left + right + sub are working.

also, the 1 inch border around the screen is killing me. switchresx cant fix it if anyones got any ideas please let me know, ive spent about 10 hours altogether trying to do it. i have adjusted the front/back porches but my screen doesnt move left or up at all

[Imahottguy]

If you are using a converter from opitical to 3.5mm, you are effectively killing the upgraded signal... right?

[reeko]

no, the 3.5 mm jack is a converter, the optical lead still works through it. the jack is like clear in the end, its odd but pretty sure it works.

however, my mac doesnt offer surround sound.

[jamng]

I think the MACs don't allow true 5.1 audio except when you're playing it direct from DVD movies. You still have to change the settings in the DVD player to tell it to output directly to the optical output instead of letting the MAC Mini process it.

I had to go to an external solution to get 5.1 sound.