Re: Mac Mini ports
"Exactly how many displays do you think it is appropriate to support on the entry level model? Where are the people (besides you, I guess) who are going to want to hook four monitors up to a $599 computer?"
Maybe there aren't many of us, but it's a completely artificial limitation - that's what annoys me.
There is the graphics capability to drive:
"Up to three displays: Two displays with up to 6K resolution at 60Hz over Thunderbolt and one display with up to 5K resolution at 60Hz over Thunderbolt or 4K resolution at 60Hz over HDMI:
I run five displays (visual impairment means it's the best way I've found to arrange my work), but they total less than a single 6k display:
2*1080p (2Mp), 2*1440p (3.7Mp), 1 laptop monitor (3072*1920 is another 6Mp)
That's a total of ~17 million pixels, substantially less than just one 6k display (21 million)
It's not like the software can't handle the monitors, and it's not like the hardware isn't powerful enough either.
If they supported displayport daisy chaining it would be even better... but MacOS has never done that to my knowledge, despite the hardware being capable (I tested on my older mac by running linux).
In an events setting where you are doing projection and streaming then a mac mini works great, and the third display will benefit there*, but more displays would allow for more processing to be done - and again, it's not even touching the sides of what the hardware is capable of driving. Extra outputs would allow for subtitle displays, reduced projection displays for easier compositing...
* At the moment we use a USB DisplayLink adaptor for the third display, it looks awful compared with a real display output, but is Ok for OBS...