oO, a yummy collection of words I get to eat!

I took some advice from Steve and ordered the HDMI->DVI cable from XtremeMac, even though I didn't want to. Even though it shouldn't have mattered. Even though I had an HDMI cable and a HDMI/DVI converter that said it was DVI-D... pins to pins and all that right? Yeah, well, the new cable allows my Mac mini to display to my TV via HDMI (and HDMI switch box).

So. For people that are looking for an Apple TV that allows you to rent/buy movies directly from the iTMS and play discs and support HDMI, there is an option: the Mac mini*

* of course there are caveats, and I'm using my Core 2 Duo Mac mini running Leopard as my baseline - I have no idea if this applies to a Core Duo or G4 Mac mini.

The following applies:
• Mac mini supports DVI-I/DVI-D, SVideo/Composite via an Apple dongle, VGA via an Apple dongle, HDMI via a proper third party converter - it does not support Component like AppleTV does
• AppleTV 2.0's software is not on the Mac mini - only Front Row v2 is
• Rentals/purchases must be done through iTunes
• No 802.11n support - has 1GB and 11g, thought
• Playback physical DVD's (AppleTV doesn't)
• Stream music/videos from remote PC's or Mac's (AppleTV does this as well)
• No remote powering for the Mac mini (AppleTV, like TiVo can sit in standby forever)

Looks like the HDMI Switch was a worthwhile purchase after all.