Mac Mini as HTPC Question

D

djoxygen

Full Audioholic
So I got the Westinghouse LVM-37w3 1080p LCD monitor. Don't have an uprezzing DVD player or HD-DVD, only an old Sony 480p component for optical disc playback.

I hooked up our G4 Mac Mini because we also don't have a DVR and if we miss a show we end up dowloading torrents and I was sick of watching them in the office. (Also purchased an ATI RF remote for the Mac.) The first time I booted the Mini with the monitor attached by DVI, it came right up into 1920x1080p. Sweet. Being it's the off-season and not much TV watching is happening right now, I haven't had occasion to test playback of any downloaded video, but...

... about a week ago I stuck a DVD in the Mini and let the included DVD Player software take over. Holy Crap does this look great! I pulled the Sony out of the rig and programmed the ATI remote with buttons to enter full-screen mode and eject the disc.

I have the DVE DVD for tuning. Haven't run it from the Mini yet, but OS X has built-in calibration software, so I expect I will find the the color/grey and white/black will already better than I could achieve with the LVM's color/tint/etc... adjustments.

So here's my question: DVE has some resolution and motion tests, but I have no idea how to use these or what to look for when running them. I am curious if there is any downside to using the Mac as a DVD player vs. getting dedicated uprezzing hardware. Does anyone have thoughts on this or assistance with interpreting the DVE screens so I can evaluate this for myself?
 
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