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Mac Mini-Overkill?

Monkey Business

My other half has been talking about our home media lately. At the moment we have an external harddrive connected to the TV but download all our content from the PC at the other side of the room so it's a bit of a pain having to disconnect, reconnect the harddrive all the time and wait for it all our stuff to transfer and then move back.

He's been looking at an Apple TV and looking into setting up the harddrive so it's able to be accessed wirelessly. That way we don't have to keep moving the harddrive and he can access his photostream, etc. on the TV.

I was looking at getting him a Mac Mini for his birthday but not sure if this would be overkill for our needs. My reasoning was it'd save getting an Apple TV and media centre. He'd be able to download all the content from the Mac Mini and watch it straight away on the TV. He'd also have immediate access to his iTunes library and music collection. And of course all the other stuff done with a computer as a bonus.

What do you think?

Apologies for the long (and probably silly sounding) post. I'm pretty clueless about all this stuff and wanted to explain our needs.

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T-K-O

So you would connect the mac mini directly to the TV and use it from there? If that is the case would that not be a problem in terms of watching tv and using the mac at the same time?

If you go with the apple tv you can separate the computer from the TV. You can point itunes to the external drive (extra space) and stream all the media to the apple TV.

Note: without a jailbreak your media must be itunes compatible, some conversion maybe required.

Monkey Business

T-K-O wrote: »

So you would connect the mac mini directly to the TV and use it from there? If that is the case would that not be a problem in terms of watching tv and using the mac at the same time?

If you go with the apple tv you can separate the computer from the TV. You can point itunes to the external drive (extra space) and stream all the media to the apple TV.

Note: without a jailbreak your media must be itunes compatible, some conversion maybe required.

Thanks for the reply. Usually when we're watching TV we wouldn't be online, and if we were it's usually only to check something so out iPad/iPhone is what's usually used. Only use the main computer during the day so wouldn't be a problem sharing the Mac Mini with the TV.

99% of our media wouldn't be iTunes compatible, that's why I am unsure about Apple TV as a solution. I know the Apple TV 3 can't be jailbroken so would be looking at an Apple TV 2 but I would not pay the price people are looking for them second hand.

T-K-O

Monkey Business wrote: »

Thanks for the reply. Usually when we're watching TV we wouldn't be online, and if we were it's usually only to check something so out iPad/iPhone is what's usually used. Only use the main computer during the day so wouldn't be a problem sharing the Mac Mini with the TV.

99% of our media wouldn't be iTunes compatible, that's why I am unsure about Apple TV as a solution. I know the Apple TV 3 can't be jailbroken so would be looking at an Apple TV 2 but I would not pay the price people are looking for them second hand.

I'll assume people are selling the apple tv 2 at a premium because of the jailbreak issue?

Sounds like you have a similar setup to myself. The ipad is perfect for browsing. Converting the media can be a nuisance especially if you already have large collection. There are other boxes available that will run something like XBMC, that will steam almost any format.

You can obviously fix your original problem for anything between 100-200 however the mac mini is a great present and has obvious benefits

Monkey Business

T-K-O wrote: »

I'll assume people are selling the apple tv 2 at a premium because of the jailbreak issue?

Sounds like you have a similar setup to myself. The ipad is perfect for browsing. Converting the media can be a nuisance especially if you already have large collection. There are other boxes available that will run something like XBMC, that will steam almost any format.

You can obviously fix your original problem for anything between 100-200 however the mac mini is a great present and has obvious benefits

Yeah last time I checked most where between €200-€260, which is taking the piss.

Yeah the iPad is great for browsing and RTE Player and that. Have around 500GB of movies, music and TV shows on the external harddrive.

What kind of devices for €100-€200 would sort me out?

I'm in two minds as the other half is really into his tech so would imagine he'd love a Mac Mini just don't want to get one if it's overkill.

yankinlk

have you tired adding airvideo server to the PC? then you can convert on the fly . You browse the content with the ipad and play it on the ATV. The advantage this way is that u can still use ipad to do other things.

wish i never got the atv3 me.

T-K-O

Monkey Business wrote: »

Yeah last time I checked most where between €200-€260, which is taking the piss.

Yeah the iPad is great for browsing and RTE Player and that. Have around 500GB of movies, music and TV shows on the external harddrive.

What kind of devices for €100-€200 would sort me out?

I'm in two minds as the other half is really into his tech so would imagine he'd love a Mac Mini just don't want to get one if it's overkill.

You can get android boxes for around 100 but to be honest I have no experience with them. I do however use the software XBMC and it's much better than the apple tv software.

Well, yes its overkill for what you want to do and you could pick up a really nice laptop or computer for less money. In saying that as a tech fan myself I would'nt say no to one as a present. Two birds one stone??

yankinlk

yankinlk wrote: »

have you tired adding airvideo server to the PC? then you can convert on the fly . You browse the content with the ipad and play it on the ATV. The advantage this way is that u can still use ipad to do other things.

wish i never got the atv3 me.

just to mention my solution will cost you 5 dollars.

Monkey Business

yankinlk wrote: »

have you tired adding airvideo server to the PC? then you can convert on the fly . You browse the content with the ipad and play it on the ATV. The advantage this way is that u can still use ipad to do other things.

wish i never got the atv3 me.

No haven't even got an Apple TV. Just looking at ideas for a present as he was talking about wanting set up some kind of media centre that didn't involve disconnecting, moving and reconnecting the harddrive all the time.

Why do you wish you never got an Apple TV3?

T-K-O wrote: »

You can get android boxes for around 100 but to be honest I have no experience with them. I do however use the software XBMC and it's much better than the apple tv software.

Well, yes its overkill for what you want to do and you could pick up a really nice laptop or computer for less money. In saying that as a tech fan myself I would'nt say no to one as a present. Two birds one stone??

I'll need to think about it over the next couple of weeks. As I said he's been looking into the best option to have a media centre basically and looking at cancelling the Sky as we never use it and download everything.

We're pretty well set up tech wise in all ways except this so finding it hard to find stuff to get him. Think the Apple TV may be out the window as from what I've gathered everything downloaded will need to be converted and the computer will basically need to be on 24/7?

yankinlk

Monkey Business wrote: »

Why do you wish you never got an Apple TV3?

Think the Apple TV may be out the window as from what I've gathered everything downloaded will need to be converted and the computer will basically need to be on 24/7?

yep - thats why. .243 or mp4 whatever is fine with ATV v3. everything new is always mp4. But any older content defaults to avi - so apple is useless. i wish i knew that at the time and bought a v2 and hacked it. instead i should have kept my wdtv for roughly 100 quid. it played everything.

never take advice from a guy called dazza - he is useless.

T-K-O

As someone with a lot of apple products, they can be very limited. What is says on the tin they do well, outside of that can be a nightmare.

Monkey Business it sounds like a box running XBMC is what you really want. You can add pluggins that stream players from all over the world. Rte player TV3 etc. You can also get players from outside the country but that requires a little tweaking.

Youtube XBMC and or download and try the software for yourself.

Monkey Business

Thanks for the reply.

I'm slightly going away from the purpose of this forum but is it possible to make the hard drive that's connected to the TV wireless and appear wirelessly on the computer?

Meaning I wouldn't have to move it or leave the computer running all the time. I could drag and drop wirelessly?

T-K-O

Sounds like you're talking about a NAS drive. I would imagine your hard drive is USB and needs to be connected. When you play movies now, is the hard drive directly connected to the TV or does it connect via playstation, PC etc?

NAS drives can connect to your router and you can share files to other devices on your home network.

Monkey Business

T-K-O wrote: »

Sounds like you're talking about a NAS drive. I would imagine your hard drive is USB and needs to be connected. When you play movies now, is the hard drive directly connected to the TV or does it connect via playstation, PC etc?

NAS drives can connect to your router and you can share files to other devices on your home network.

We have the hard drive connected to the TV via USB and play through that.

We're pretty fortunate that our router is beside the TV. So we have the TV and PS3 connected through ethernet. The only thing annoying us is the hard drive having to be moved all the time.

If we could sort this out (cheaply) we'd be sorted.

T-K-O

Ah I see. Right so, get yourself a NAS drive with USB connectivity.

Connect the NAS drive to your router. Download movies with your laptop (wirelessly) to the NAS drive.

Connect the NAS via USB to the Playstation, connect the PS3 to the TV, hey presto

This will get you started.

http://www.dabs.com/category/components-and-storage,hard-drives,nas/11272

Zimmerframe

The mac mini is over kill, and like most things, it comes down to dosh.
The mac mini is "perfect" as a media centre. Does it all, top quality and runs "Plex" software which is an awesome piece of free software to "manage" all your media files. Plex also usable with iPhone/ipad/android apps too.
Only problem with this setup is paying for it.

Although I have an Atv 2 as well, I wouldn't recommend the apple tv for your needs.
I would get a media player "box" like the popcorn hour or similar. Plug your hdd into it, or fit it internally.

Monkey Business

T-K-O wrote: »

Ah I see. Right so, get yourself a NAS drive with USB connectivity.

Connect the NAS drive to your router. Download movies with your laptop (wirelessly) to the NAS drive.

Connect the NAS via USB to the Playstation, connect the PS3 to the TV, hey presto

This will get you started.

http://www.dabs.com/category/components-and-storage,hard-drives,nas/11272

Sounds like that might be a better idea rather than splashing out on a Mac Mini.

So if I get a NAS drive I can connect my hard drive to that and then it'll be available as a wireless network meaning I can save files from my computer to it without it being connected to the computer?

Would this one be what I need?

http://www.dabs.com/products/d-link-sharecenter-solo-1-bay-nas-network-storage-enclosure-4SRD.html?src=2

T-K-O

Exactly. The NAS will basically replace your hard drive. The benefit of a NAS is that it connects directly to the router and your laptop can connect wirelessly to the NAS.

The link you posted is just case you would also need a hard drive.

Monkey Business

T-K-O wrote: »

Exactly. The NAS will basically replace your hard drive. The benefit of a NAS is that it connects directly to the router and your laptop can connect wirelessly to the NAS.

The link you posted is just case you would also need a hard drive.

Ah I see. Can I not use the hard drive I have at the moment? Is there not a way to make that a NAS drive?

Thanks for taking the time to help me out by the way. Appreciate it.

T-K-O

Monkey Business wrote: »

Ah I see. Can I not use the hard drive I have at the moment? Is there not a way to make that a NAS drive?

Thanks for taking the time to help me out by the way. Appreciate it.

I would doubt it. I would imagine you current drive is a USB. You need an Ethernet connection ( to connect to the router ) NAS also drives contain protocols that enable sharing.

If you guys are thinking about a media centre a NAS drive is a good investment, you can store all your files in a central location.

TCP/IP

Mac Mini and Plex job done really is an amazing setup have two myself in this configuration and its super.

T-K-O

TCP/IP wrote: »

Mac Mini and Plex job done really is an amazing setup have two myself in this configuration and its super.

I have never used Plex, any extra features compared to something like XBMC?

goalscoringhero

Monkey Business, let me say beforehand, this advice may sound harsh but it's not meant personal:

Do you know whether your OH has anything specific in mind already?
If that is the case, throwing in a random bit of hardware/technology as a surprise that does not go well together with your OH plans (as in, compatibility) can easily backfire.
Talk it through with him beforehand, and you can make informed choices. I understand this will take away the surprise.
Otherwise, stay away from getting some sort of hardware as a gift, unless you are pretty sure that you know what you're doing.

I'm saying this as in my experience nothing is more frustrating than being able to come up with a good plan to put together some technology and make it work, just to be faced with the fact that some other, out-of-the-plan technology would now have to be incorporated. As has been mentioned before by other posters, if your architecture is not Apple already, it may be unnecessarily difficult to make a sudden switch, unless you commit to Apple 100%.

Hope that helps

Captain Commie

You might also want to look at the Western Digital, WD TV Live, I have one at home on my wired network hooked up to my TV. There are 2 USB ports on it and you can connect to it from another machine as well, so you can download the movies to your computer and then transfer them over the network to the external drive that is attached to the media streamer.

I had it setup like that for quite a while, but decided to go with a NAS setup as wanted to use it for more than just media.

silvine

If you're looking for a NAS you can't go wrong with a Synology device. They're easy to configure and perfect for a HTPC setup. Mine is connected to my HTPC and it downloads all my media for me automatically. I can also access it from anywhere and listen to music or watch videos stored on it.

I watch my media with a Zotac AD10 running Openelec (a fork of XBMC) installed. It runs like an appliance and it boots in 15 seconds. It's a few hundred euro cheaper than a Mac Mini and if you want to hold off on the NAS you can configure Openelec to download media for you. You could also run Windows and XBMC on this machine.

I am not sure what kind of media you have but the Apple TV is fairly restricted in what it can play e.g. do you watch .mkv files, is HD audio important to you? You would be better off with the Mac Mini over an Apple TV. I've had a WD Live TV too. They're not as fast or feature rich as Plex or XBMC. I returned mine.

Your best options are:

1) Get a Mac Mini and download and install and play your media on this device using Plex or XBMC.

I had this set up for a while and I liked it. The only downside is when you have to manage the media on your Mac. This means logging in remotely or using your TV like a monitor. In other words do you really want to look at a desktop or computer screen when all you want to do is watch a film?

2) Get a NAS to store your media and get a separate client like the Zotac AD10 or an Acer Revo.

Most HTPC heads opt for a separate NAS and client. That way you can stream or play your media on multiple devices. It's also easy to upgrade or change parts of your system, change your media player and can even use your NAS to back up all your data. The downside is the initial cost and it can take a bit of time to set up at first. If this is a factor start with the client and add a decent NAS in a few months.

If you do buy a NAS definitely don't buy a cheap one like the one you linked to on DABs. It'll be frustratingly slow and devoid of features. QNAP, Synology or a build-your-own NAS are the best choices.

Plex is a fork of XBMC and it works really well on a Mac. It's pretty similar it terms of functionality but it arguably looks nicer than XBMC. It's also quite good at scraping or downloading information about your media. You can run a Plex Media Server on your NAS and have Plex clients around the house e.g. on a laptop, phone, tablet.

http://openelec.tv/

120_Minutes

Some excellent advice on this thread, and my own setup is a little moot but i'll chime in anyway.

I have a jailbroken ATV 2 running xbmc and a netflix sub that is (forgive me if i'm skirting close to the charter) *ahem* friendly with my cousins across the atlantic. and i stream from "other sources"

point is i stream everything and it cost 110 for the apple tv, 7.99 per month for netflix, and a fiver a month pocket money to my cousins.

sadly, you cant jailbreak the ATV 3 yet, so all you'd get is netflix, and the itunes store to purchase content.

my internet is not brilliant by most standards , 6 meg dsl with a 300gb monthly allowance and it works fine.

advantage: you dont have to wait for something to finish downloading
disadvantage: you no longer have the "collection" of media you would have with a NAS (i got over that)
advantage: stumbled on stuff on netflix i wouldnt have watched.
advantage: the ATV is so portable, all you need is a HDMI tv and internet and you can bring it anywhere.

just offering an alternative. may not work for you.

DominoDub

Zimmerframe wrote: »

The mac mini is over kill, and like most things, it comes down to dosh.
The mac mini is "perfect" as a media centre. Does it all, top quality and runs "Plex" software which is an awesome piece of free software to "manage" all your media files. Plex also usable with iPhone/ipad/android apps too.
Only problem with this setup is paying for it.

Although I have an Atv 2 as well, I wouldn't recommend the apple tv for your needs.
I would get a media player "box" like the popcorn hour or similar. Plug your hdd into it, or fit it internally.

Also went with a Mac mini running Plex and Samsung 40" Smart TV ....with remote streams from it via iPad and iphone . Easy to setup and friends are amazed

silvine

The ATV alternative is good choice too. You could add Spotify to it and have a great - albeit subscription based - media client.

stimpson

There is a Plex client available for Samsung Smart TVs. I have a Samsung Bluray player and the client is really good.

It's also worth pointing out that Plex Media Server runs on Windows and Linux too. Might be as simple as installing the server on your PC and the client on your telly.

This is coming from the guy who is upgrading his mini to a 2.6 GHz quad i7 with 16gb of ram and a 256 gb ssd.

cornbb

I run a Mac Mini connected to a 2Tb drive running Plex. As others have pointed out, a huge advantage of this is that plex can be used to serve media to other clients around the house (e.g. iPhones, iPads, laptops) as well as to watch media from the Mini itself. The interface is great, works nicely with an Apple remote, and it'll add nice metadata to all your media. A Mac Mini is expensive kit compared to an ATV or other media box but it'll let you do a lot more. There's plenty of other stuff you can do too that you could do on some but not all media boxes, e.g. run bittorrent clients, Netflix, Spotify, browse the web with a wireless kb and mouse, or whatever else you would normally expect to do with a desktop PC. I'd say go for it anyway, if your budget allows.

Ur[s]uS

T-K-O wrote: »

I would doubt it. I would imagine you current drive is a USB. You need an Ethernet connection ( to connect to the router ) NAS also drives contain protocols that enable sharing.

If you guys are thinking about a media centre a NAS drive is a good investment, you can store all your files in a central location.

My router can NAS-ify any USB drive. Any Netgear that offers ReadyShare would fit the bill:

"Supported Routers: Centria WNDR4700/WNDR4720, R6300, R6200,
WNDR4500, WNDR4300, WNDR3800, WNDRMAC, WNDR3700, WNDR3400,
WNR3500L,WNR2200"

http://www.netgear.com/landing/en-us/readyshare.aspx

Alternatively, you can get a NAS adapter; a simple dongle with USB at one end, ethernet the other that does the same. I've not dabbled, but my gut would lean against these.

Either option would spare you getting a dedicated new NAS. If you do go for a NAS, plus one for the ReadyNAS and Qnap Turbostations (from experience). Also, good feedback on Thecus and Synology diskstations.

The mac mini is overkill, but would count as a sweet gift. It a very good idea. Thing is; the cheapest one has a magnetic hard drive that is slower and louder than solid state disk. If you want the SSD, you've got to fork out over €1k.

Apart from WD Live or Popcorn hour type options, you could look at a small form factor PC (or nettop) for less:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/vision-ht-321b-jbc700-q180,3231.html

I've an ASRock. I like it; but am thinking about swapping for a Mac Mini.

Too many options; the reason: none of them is perfect. If you could jailbreak ATV3, to run XBMC and get a router upgrade or NAS dongle, that would be a sweet solution. But you cannot, yet. Grrr.