Unfortunately this isn’t as simple as it sounds. The first gen Intel Mac Minis arrived on the scene just a bit too soon for 64-bit CPUs and so are packing the original Intel Core Solo or Intel Core Duo (1 or 2 cores respectively) which aren’t clocked particularly high and are only 32bit capable. Given we had recently obtained something that the people at Samsung consider a “Smart” TV, I decided to replace the Mac Mini with the Plex client running natively on the TV and recycle the Mac Mini into a new role as a small server to potentially replace a much more power hungry AMD Phenom II system that performs somewhat basic storage and network tasks. But neither of these will help much with the video decoding performance. I bumped it from the original 512MB RAM to 2GB (the max) years ago and it’s had it’s 60GB hard drive replaced with a more modern 500GB model. It’s previously undergone a few upgrades.
Whilst it handles 720p content without an issue, it’s now hit and miss whether 1080p H264 content will work without unacceptable jitter. Having now reached it’s 10th birthday, it’s started to show it’s age. My long term relationship on the left and a more recent stray I obtained. Clearly mine takes after it’s owner and hasn’t seen the sun much.
