Mac Media center
In this report I am going to take you through the steps of construction a Mac Media Center. Since Apple annoucned the Mac Mini every one has been talking about construction a Mac Media center and using a Mac Mini to do it with.Which Mac Should You Get?There are a amount of Mac's on the market, and you need to reconsider who you will use your Mac Media center in order to resolve on which Mac will suite your needs the best.
The Mac Mini
The Mac Mini seems the definite solution for a Mac Media Center. It's small design, and low noise and heat makes it a great candidate to fit in with your existing mix of approved audio equipment.The Mini is a great petite device, it has a nice processor, a Dvd drive, some hard drive space and adequate ports to plug it into all the supplementary equipment you need.The last thing you need is a big ugly tower case, with noisy fans to sit next to your Tv and destroy anyone audio fidelity you are trying to enjoy. And the Mac Mini has some sex motion too.
The iMac
The iMac is also a good candidate for a Mac Media Center, although it's motion is slightly separate from that of the Mac Mini.In a petite space environment the iMac can server a dual purpose. It can be used as a desktop engine by day, and be switched to a Mac Media center by night.The iMac comes in varied sizes, from 17" to 24" so depending on the space you have avalible, and where you want to put it you have a few options. The iMac comes approved with just about all you will need to use it as a Mac Media Center.
The Rest of the Mac Pac
The Mac Pro, iBook, and Mac Book Pro aren't absolutely as versitile as the Mac Mini and iMac, but can none the less be used as a Mac Media Center.The 17" Mac Book Pro would make a nice movable entertainment system, but not a dedicated media center.Using a Mac Pro as a Mac Media center is insane. It's a petite like using a crow bar to open a can of beans.You'll need some hardware to go with the Mac Media CenterFor the purposes of the rest of the report I will use a Mac Mini as an example. I have a Mac Mini and have built a media center with it, so using my first hand feel will hopefully be a petite more correct than speculating on what is possible if you have x...y...z...There are a consolidate of things you will need to get your Mac Mini up and running as a Mac Media Center.Some of these devices are apple devices and some are generic devices. Some work well and some are just a disaster.
Remotes for your Mac Media CenterThe first device you will need to begin hunting for is a remote. Afterall, what good is a Mac Media center without a remote that the house can fight about.There is the infamous Apple remote which comes with most Mac minis and iMacs.It's a small remote, but works well. It comes in typicall mac style. It's tiny, does all you need it to do and has no fancy features. All in all it only has 6 buttons that allow you to control the whole Mac Media Center.
There are also a amount of generic remotes available. Logitech have a bunch of remotes, some of which work well with Mac, and some that are Pc only.I have a Microsoft keyboard and remote, and have been unable to get them going on the Mac.I would advise using the Mac remote. It small, and with ahlf a dozen buttons is absolutely quite easy to use.My Dvd player's remote for instance has 47 buttons, most of which I have never used and I don't have the slightest inclination to find out how they work.You'll also need a keyboard for your Mac Media center EditionOf course there are those times you need to input some data into the screen, like in iTunes for instance, you might need to punch in your password when purchasing content.No one wants to keep jumping off the couch to press a button, I mean we barely find the energy to get up for someone else beer.
Apple have a nice bluetooth keyboard that you can use from your couch. It looks like a normal Apple keyboard, yet it has no cables and just fits a consolidate of batteries at the back.This is a must for your media center. From time to time you Need a keyboard and having to crawl out from under a warm blanket in the middle of winter can spoil the mood.Of course Logitech and a few other have keyboards that would work just as well. But pairing an apple bluetooth keyboard with the built in blue tooth in a Mac Mini is easier than making toast.Add some storage to your Mac Media CenterIf you have ever spoken to anyone about a media center for digital media, the word storage would have poped up a amount of times.The Mac Mini at best will only have and 80Gb hard drive, and when you are downloading movies, Tv shows, music, adding your own Cd's and dumping you digital pictures you can devour disk space rather rapidly.So before you know it, you'll be hunting for a storage device of sorts.Now you have a consolidate of options as far as storage is concerned.
You can whether associate something directly to your Mac Media Center, like a Usb or Firewire drive, or you can associate a Network Attached storage Device.The variation absolutely comes in, when you reconsider what it is you want to do with your storage. If you want storage purely for media article and want it to be ready only to the Mac Media Center, then a Usb or Firewire drive is a great option.But if you have more than one computer on your network, like most housholds today seem to have, you might want to reconsider a netowrk attached storage device, also know as a Nas.Software you will needOnce you have decided on which Mac you want to use, a Mac Mini in my case, and you have you remote, and keyboard ready, and you have some idea of where you are going with some extra storage in the not to distant future, you need to sit down and reconsider what software you want to use with your Mac Media Center.
You have a about a dozen options, I've looked at a bunch of them, and I've narrowed it down to 3 that I think you should consider.The best way to resolve on which media center application you want to use is to install all 3, use them for a week or two and then make your decision.My Mac Mini came with front row, and that's what I decided to use.But here is a break down of the 3 I suggest:Front RowFront row is an apple application, and comes on most Mac Mini's.It's a simple interface, looks a lot like an iPod's interface and has that glass effect. It's a very cool interface, and makes your Tv look like it's in a league of its own.Center StageCenter Stage is an open source application for a Mac Media Center. It's a good fabricate and there's ongoing sustain and amelioration for it.Center Stage is a lot more customisable than front row, and allows a amount of skins to be installed. center Stage also has aditional plugins to make your Mac Media center do more.Just a amiable warning when using non-Apple software on an Apple machine, especially when it's open source. Make sure you run the stable version. Running a beta version could cause unwanted interuptions during your romantic movie which will corollary in a night on the couch.iTheatreiTheter is also an open source Mac Media Center.
It aims to work on just about every Mac ever. Well maybe not ever, but at least in the last consolidate of years.iTheater also has the best user interface (Ui) out of the 3. It integrates a whole bunch of other features and can also display the weather.Add onsOnce you have your mac mini, you remote, keyboard, storage and Ui sorted you need to reconsider some add-ons to make the whole media center thing a petite more enjoyable.Dvi-Hdmi ConnectorTo improve your picture viewing quality, and if your Tv supports it, get a Dvi to Hdmi converter. The Mac Mini has a digital output, and if you can keep your yield digital, level into the Tv then you will benefit from the video quality.While Hdmi supports audio, Dvi does not. So using a Dvi to Hdmi converter will drop your audio, but it will speak your video. You can just use the audio minijack yield from your Mac Mini to get audio to the Tv.Tvyour Tv is not absolutely and add-on, I can't dream you having a media center without the Tv. Like a car without an engine (I had one of those for a while and it's not so great).When choosing your Tv, make sure your Tv has some crucial components to adapt a Mac Media Center. The most prominent is your input.
You need to, at the very least have a Vga input. Hdmi is prefereable but Vga is a minimum.having audio in is someone else requirement. While you can get away with not having an audio input on your Tv it'll only make your life a petite more complicated.Audio out would be the last piece of a absolutely nice puzzle. Being able to associate your Tv directly to your sound ideas will enable you to control the audio volume on your Mac Mini from once central place.I'll be posting an report on Hdtv soon. Have a look at http://www.shawnsweekly.com for more info.iTunesiTunes forms the foundation of your digital content.
I've been using Front Row, and it integrates nicely into iTunes. So when I flip through the menus, it's like flipping through iTunes on an iPod interface.Using iTunes means that you can download movies Tv shows and music from the iTunes store.Once the media has been downloaded, you can access it and watch it with the click of a button.This is a very easy integration and is automatically done for you.Using iTunes to add your Cd library to your computer is someone else great feature. And from your media center you can plainly click the remote and play your whole music collection.AlternativesFor those of you who are anti-mac, and want to benefit from the Mac form factor, but want to run MythTv or Vista Ultimate, you can do that.Simply download bootcamp from Apple, load your beloved Os, setup your Media center and off you go.The Mac Mini absolutely offers you the best of both worlds. You can run Mac Osx, Windows, or Linux, and setup you Media center the way you want.
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