“More specifically, prototypes of a new Mac mini — Apple’s smallest and most affordable system, commonly employed by tech savvy Mac users as an ad-hoc living room media server, has been making the rounds with an HDMI port in place of its legacy DVI connector, according to two people familiar with the matter,” Jade and McLean report. “Only Apple TV [currently] provides an HDMI connector capable of delivering both audio and video signals to an HDMI display.”
Jade and McLean report, “However, another product floating around Apple’s labs is a proprietary mini DisplayPort to HDMI adapter that the Mac maker had originally developed and intended to ship alongside its most recent iMac revision, according to people with knowledge of the situation. It’s said to include technology that would allows Macs shipping with an updated mini DisplayPort spec to channel both video and audio through the mini Display port to the HDMI adapter, rather than just video.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Andrew W.” for the heads up.]
I thought the Mac Mini was being discontinued…………………….
Right. That’s my Mac mini summer purchase postponed.
I think this is crap course not, they have mini display port there not gonna abandon something yet again. Want HDMI get the adaptor, want DVI get the adaptor, want VGA get the adaptor. Macs aren’t PC’s and won’t be plagued with thousands of connectors all over its body
Oh great, another $29 adapter from Apple!
Anybody know why this is taking so long?
Snow Leopard:
You could try Radio Shack
This HDMI will likely NOT have HDCP support. Which means, no Blu-ray drive with a Blu-ray movie playback.
It is about time that Steve and Apple make the Mac mini the DVR hub that he talked about several years ago! The AppleTV is a node for the missing Mac mini DVR and the iPad touch, iPhone and now the iPad will be the mobile media nodes in your home.
It is way past time and has been very disturbing that the half released home entertainment system continues to be called a hobby. You just had to say that the BILLION DOLLAR SERVER FARM needed to be up and running along with other agreement / takeovers that are not yet done!
Take petty cash and buy TiVo then stick a Mac mini DVR in every new home!
If you want an Mac Mini based DVR, go no further than here:
http://www.elgato.com/
Apple will not produce any sort of DVR. They want to make money from the iTunes store.
Also, another reason for them to not bother with a DVR, is the fact that all the cable companies are (soon, if they haven’t already) making it so you can’t record any HD content off their cable service (with the possible exception of your local channels that you can get off the air anyway). They are doing this for one simple reason — so they can charge your $20/month to RENT you a DVR.
Verizon does it with FIOS, DirectTV and Dish do it, so Com(unist)Cast, Time Warning, etc all want to do it too. What are you going to do, go to one of the other services? You can’t use your DVR there either.
See links and see what I am talking about:
“Analyst: Major Apple TV update coming soon; Apple to debut ‘connected television’ in 2011”
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/22148/
Why can’t the talking heads see what Apple is trying to half hide? Did you all not see the fly over of Apple’s SERVER FARM?
“Flyover of Apple’s $1 billion Maiden North Carolina data center posted online (with video)”
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/24126/
Blu-Ray 🙁 I gave up on making blu-rays to get into more successful fields of theoretical science, like alchemy, cold fusion and proving string theory.
Hi jas67,
I can put this Mac mini hub together. People have done this for a few years now. I own the first AppleTV and have been looking to finish my home system with a clean simple to use entertainment hub system that I know Apple can and will supply.
…could BlueRay be far behind?
HDMI on a Mac is not gonna happen.
Rob is correct. Displayport or DVI can be adapted. Apple will probably keep pushing Displayport w/ HDCP to satisfy Hollywood lawyers.
HDMI is an expensive “solution” to a nonexistent problem. Nobody who knows anything about home theatre systems wants to run their audio and video in the same cable if they can avoid it. Video goes to the display, and audio to the amps: separate shielded cables prevent signal cross-bleed (degradation) for long cable runs.
Displayport, though technically little better than HDMI, is at least thought out for more than 6 months into the future, and doesn’t have a ridiculous licensing regime. Why consumer audio companies embraced HDMI is a mystery that will baffle future generations.
Blu-Ray technology would be very desireable on a Mac. There’s no technical reason whatsoever that it can’t be implemented without HDMI or HDCP, just greedy middlemen getting in the way.
“Nobody who knows anything about home theatre systems wants to run their audio and video in the same cable if they can avoid it. Video goes to the display, and audio to the amps: separate shielded cables prevent signal cross-bleed (degradation) for long cable runs.”
You do realize that HDMI is digital, right? There is no “degradation” or “signal cross-bleed” with digital cables- it either gets there or it doesn’t. I’m guessing you buy and swear by $200 monster cables.
HDMI is fast becoming the easiest and most ubiquitous way to connect your computer to your TV. I work in computer retail with both macs and PC’s, and without using HDMI you’re stuck with VGA (yuck) since very few HDTV’s have DVI ports these days. You can get DVI-to-HDMI converters, but why have two adapters instead of one? Apple should have released a mini-DVI-to-HDMI and mini-Displayport-to-HDMI from day one, and the fact that they haven’t is one of the biggest mars on the user experience of mac users; I experience it on an almost daily basis, since TONS of people come in wanting to hook their computer up to their TV.
There are third party adapters out there, but Apple should have their own, especially since then they can wire things so that the audio and video are both carried.
@Mike: “Nobody who knows anything about home theatre systems wants to run their audio and video in the same cable if they can avoid it. Video goes to the display, and audio to the amps”
Up-to-date home theater systems route and switch HDMI through the A/V receiver. The receiver processes the audio and passes the video onto the HDTV. The single cable, fully-digital, high bandwidth approach of the HDMI standard is a very good one for A/V.
Fire up the HDPC strippers.
I have a Mac Mini connected to an HDTV via an HDMI / Display Port adaptor. It has a built-in USB connector that is used to add the sound to the HDMI connection. Works very well. The screen resolution is 1080p and the Mac Mini properly recognizes as an HDMI connection. The adaptor is from monoprice and costs around 30.
I can see the Mini swapping out its Mini-DVI port for a HDMI port, but it’ll keep the Mini-DP. I can’t see any of the other Macs getting HDMI, if they already have Mini or Micro-DP. That’d be going backward. DP can drive higher resolutions than HDMI and was meant to be the universal connector between computers and electronics.
It still surprises the way Apple decides to adopt a new video standard every year.
What was the point of Mini Display Port if they were just going to jump on HDMI? What’s the point of jumping on HDMI when Light Peak is around the corner? Just pick a standard and stick with it for a while, instead of jumping on every incrementally better format.
to “@Mike” : No sher, shitlock. when the digital signal degrades beyond the decoder’s ability to process the signal, then you have “no signal”. Without repeaters to amplify the signal, HDMI is useless past 10 meters. The same exact video signal on a DVI cheap cable will take you about twice as far.
ubiquitous does not equal good.
to Don: we have “vintage” audio gear in the studio that will absolutely crush most of the “up-to-date” gear with HDMI switching. All HDMI did for home theatre systems is force another round of new receiver purchases so tech newbies didn’t have to plug in too many cables and get confuserized.
The HDMI cables are ridiculously expensive, too 🙁
could we talk about Al Gore and politics now?
@dna
About time. This thread was ridiculously on-topic.
Wow! Think off all the new features we can get by having HDMI…
Oh, wait… there are NONE. Uhhhhhhh.
We could even change the white connector to a blue one… or later in the year a red one.
If u need hdmi, you get it by using an adapter. Sure not as tidy, but ALL the same functionality.
You call this news????