Office/Classroom Build

b_ondoptical · December 29, 2020

I'm working on an office/classroom type build for a friend and have a case of "writers block" if you will. They want to put in a 70"+ 4k tv to be used with Zoom and, eventually, a physical classroom setting. It needs to be able to present/stream simultaneously and I'm trying to keep everything as compact as possible. They're most familiar with Mac stuff so I was thinking of putting a Mac Mini in to present with and then a NUC to stream using OBS but this seems like overkill. Any suggestions on what would be the best way to set this up? Also going to need to add a couple of IP cameras or Mevo's so I'll be pulling them in to stream as well.

Budget (including currency): N/A

Country: USA

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Zoom, MS Office, Presentations, general office work, etc.

514_AppleGuy · December 29, 2020

Honestly, I would recommend the new Mac mini with the Apple M1 CPU. It'll be more than capable of handling all of that at once.

b_ondoptical · December 29, 2020

Just now, 514_AppleGuy said:

Honestly, I would recommend the new Mac mini with the Apple M1 CPU. It'll be more than capable of handling all of that at once.

That's really what I was looking at but from what I've looked at on the OBS forums it seems that the MacOS version isn't as stable as the Windows version. I'd really like to be sure that everything is super stable and there's no technical ability required (aside from click here and this works.) They're not technically inclined at all so, yeah, stability and ease of use after setup would be a MASSIVE plus.

514_AppleGuy · December 29, 2020

Just now, b_ondoptical said:

That's really what I was looking at but from what I've looked at on the OBS forums it seems that the MacOS version isn't as stable as the Windows version. I'd really like to be sure that everything is super stable and there's no technical ability required (aside from click here and this works.) They're not technically inclined at all so, yeah, stability and ease of use after setup would be a MASSIVE plus.

Key word here is it *seems* less stable. Before you go and buy a separate Windows system, try it on the M1 Mac mini. If they like Macs, you might even be able to by a refurbished Intel-based Mac mini and install Windows on it.