HOW TO INTEGRATE WITH A MAC MINI

By Tom Kopin – CTS, ISF-C

September 2010

KRAMER WHITE PAPER
WWW.KRAMERELECTRONICS.COM

TABLE OF CONTENTSABOUT Mac mini.................................................................................................1
HDCP.................................................................................................................. 2

Apple’s Mac mini is exactly what it sounds like. It is a small Mac Computer. These computers are popularin the AV industry, because they are petite, relatively inexpensive, powerful, and are adorned with theApple logo. Due to their size, these Mac mini's are commonly found in the AV racks. Since most consumer
products were never designed for the commercial AV world, it is important to know how they will perform inthis more complex environment.

Power button

Gigabit Ethernet

Built-in power supply

FireWire 800

HDMISD card slot

Mini DisplayPort

USB 2.0

Audio inAudio out

The focus of this white paper will deal with the two video outputs of Mac mini. One output is the mini Display
Port connector now found on all Apple computers, and the other is an HDMI output which is a first for Appledevices. Since both output ports are digital, all digital rules apply answering these following questions. What
EDID will the computer see? How far away are the displays or other interfaces? What resolution is required?
Do my sources enable HDCP? If so are all devices connected HDCP compliant? What makes the Mac mini
unique is the way that it handles HDCP.
Why is HDCP a concern if the Mac doesn't have a Blu-ray player? The purpose of HDCP or High-Bandwidth
Digital Content Protection is to ensure movie studios that high resolution copies of their movies are not madeby consumers. Today, Blu-ray discs are not the only way to legally view a high-definition movie. Services like
iTunes allow users to purchase HD content for your viewing. Just like in Blu-ray players, computers now
need to have the ability to encrypt their digital outputs with HDCP when such content is being played. Since
normal computer content does not need to be copy protected, it is put to the computer to decide when toenable and disable HDCP on its output.

KRAMER ELECTRONICS, Ltd

HOW TO INTEGRATE WITH A MAC MINI

1

In the consumer world, computers are always directly connected to one of two types of digital monitors; ones
that are HDCP compliant and ones that aren't. Since Apple doesn’t know which type you have, they haveto account for both situations. When the Mac mini is connected to a display that is not HDCP compliant, it
sends out a digital signal that does not contain HDCP. The caveat here is that if you try and watch a studiomovie on this display you will receive an error message such as this one delivered from iTunes.

Since the display connected to the Mac mini is non-HDCP compliant, the Mac cannot legally display thatHD content. When you connect the Mac mini to a display that is HDCP compliant, the Mac mini recognizes
and encrypts the output 100% of the time, even when HD content is not being played. This could be done
for many reasons but mostly because it would prevent the output from glitching when you play a movie andHDCP is initiated. Since Apple assumes your computer is connected directly to the display, it doesn't hurt toencrypt all content, because the user has no knowledge of this happening.
This can create a problem when the Mac mini is added into a commercial installation, because we never gofrom source directly to a display. Going into devices that are HDCP compliant and then going out to devices
that are non-compliant will expose this issue. An example of this issue can be illustrated by connecting a Mac
mini into the HDMI input of the VP-729. Since the VP-729 is HDCP compliant, the Mac mini automaticallyencrypts its output. HDMI input of Kramer's VP-729 switcher scaler is now HDCP encrypted, the 15-Pinanalog output of the scaler will shut off even if you aren’t watching any HDCP material on the computer. Thesame would apply if the digital output of the scaler was connected to a non-compliant display. The tricky thing
here is that the user could connect the Mac mini directly to that non-compliant display and get a picturesince the Mac will recognize this display as non-compliant. Another interesting example concerns connecting
a Mac mini to a Kramer DA or Matrix switcher. The Mac mini will make an HDCP connection with the inputof that device; therefore, making it impossible to go to a non-compliant display.

2KRAMER ELECTRONICS, Ltd

HOW TO INTEGRATE WITH A MAC MINI

This is a very odd problem to have, but there can be a solution as long as the application does not call for theMac mini to be playing HDCP videos. If the first device the Mac mini recognizes is a non-HDCP device, then it
will think it is connected to a non-compliant display and it won’t encrypt its output. This can be accomplishedby placing a VA-1DVIN in-between the computer and the scaler, matrix switcher, or distribution amplifier.
The VA-1DVIN is usually used as an EDID Emulation device, but since it is not HDCP compliant it can also
be used to emulate a non-HDCP environment allowing the computer to output a non-HDCP signal. While
this issue can be exposed using Kramer equipment, it is not a Kramer problem and is just a matter ofunderstanding how the Mac mini operates.

Note: The VA-1DVI has DVI connectors so the Kramer AD-DM/HF may be needed to convert HDMI to DVI.

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