I have both the Mac Mini (1.66 Core Duo/2GB) and the VP50. Although I have not used them together, I can confirm that the DVD player in Mac OSX 10.5 (Leopard) is vastly improved compared to OSX 10.4 (Tiger).
One of my favorite real-world de-interlacing torture tests the Family Guy episode, " Blue Harvest ,' which is a complete parody of Star Wars available on DVD. It is 480i animation and will very quickly expose any de-interlacing issues. Using the Mac DVD player in 10.5 with the 'De-interlacing' set to 'Optimal Quality' the result is very good.
The Mac Mini will output video via DVI-to-HDMI all the way to 1080p (I have tested this) so it would appear the the issue with integrating the Mac with the VP50 would entail some real-world testing to see if you prefer the de-interlacing and scaling of the Mac, the VP50, or some combination.
I have not tested this, but some reports suggest that the Mac Mini cannot output interlaced video, which may be an issue easily overcome with the VP50's PREP feature if you prefer the VP50's de-interlacing. In any event, I suspect that it will be difficult to improve upon a SDI modded DVD player, so your trial-and-error testing will invlove an attempt to get as close as possible to what you have now.
Good luck!
I have both the Mac Mini (1.66 Core Duo/2GB) and the VP50. Although I have not used them together, I can confirm that the DVD player in Mac OSX 10.5 (Leopard) is vastly improved compared to OSX 10.4 (Tiger).
One of my favorite real-world de-interlacing torture tests the Family Guy episode, " Blue Harvest ,' which is a complete parody of Star Wars available on DVD. It is 480i animation and will very quickly expose any de-interlacing issues. Using the Mac DVD player in 10.5 with the 'De-interlacing' set to 'Optimal Quality' the result is very good.
The Mac Mini will output video via DVI-to-HDMI all the way to 1080p (I have tested this) so it would appear the the issue with integrating the Mac with the VP50 would entail some real-world testing to see if you prefer the de-interlacing and scaling of the Mac, the VP50, or some combination.
I have not tested this, but some reports suggest that the Mac Mini cannot output interlaced video, which may be an issue easily overcome with the VP50's PREP feature if you prefer the VP50's de-interlacing. In any event, I suspect that it will be difficult to improve upon a SDI modded DVD player, so your trial-and-error testing will invlove an attempt to get as close as possible to what you have now.
Good luck!
