Features

Audio

The Intel Mac mini has 3.5mm digital audio in and out ports. You can connect this to any analogue or digital input by adding an adaptor. For £13, for example, you could buy Belkin's Optical cable with Mini Optical Connector and plug your mini into any amplifier, home cinema receiver, or speaker system with an optical input. If your stereo doesn't have optical inputs, you can pick up a cable from most high-street electrical retailers to carry analogue audio from the 3.5mm jack on the back of the Mac mini to phono connectors on the rear of most consumer hi-fis.

When connected to a digital input, the mini passes digital surround sound - such as Dolby Digital-encoded audio - straight to an amplifier where it is decoded. An Intel-powered Mac mini can therefore act as a DVD player with full surround sound support; G4-based systems are limited to stereo analogue sound.

Video

The Mac mini has a DVI connector and so can connect directly to any television with a DVI input, though unless you spent a fair bit of cash recently, it's unlikely that your own TV will have DVI input. If your TV has an HDMI input rather than DVI, you can buy an adaptor for around £20. Most people will only have analogue inputs, so will need to buy Apple's DVI-to-Video adaptor, which costs £15 and allows you to connect your mini to a composite or S-Video input.

To get the best picture from a mini to a TV, set the mini's resolution as close to the TV's native resolution as possible and select the overscan option in the Display pane in System Preferences. You can then use the Zoom function on your TV, if it has one, to set the optimal image size. Experiment with brightness, contrast and colour temperature on your TV until you're happy with the picture.