Got my new Mac Mini setup as a media center! [Archive]

rogersmj

Sep 12, 2008, 06:26 PM

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3223/2851965898_2627532c89.jpg?v=0 (http://rogersmj.com/2008/09/12/mac-mini-as-a-media-center/)

This was my project today. I picked up this 1.83 GHz Core 2 Duo Mac Mini with 1.5GB of RAM from Craigslist, and today replaced my hacked Apple TV with it. I'm running the great Plex software, and so far the whole user experience is fantastic. These Minis are great little machines!

More info and pictures in a quick post on my blog (http://rogersmj.com/2008/09/12/mac-mini-as-a-media-center/). I'm lovin' it.

kalex

Sep 12, 2008, 07:29 PM

Nice setup.

powerful and clean. this is actually on my to do list. I'm trying to find a decently priced mini and so far its not working out. My xbox running xbmc is getting old and mac mini would be an awesome replacement.

I just read your blog and its almost same as me. I tried AppleTV but after using xbmc, it just sucks :)

Hopefully i'll be able to get a good deal on mac mini, then my setup would be complete and my xbox will go to electronic heaven as a wounded soldier.

mpshay

Sep 12, 2008, 07:55 PM

Cave Man

Sep 12, 2008, 08:50 PM

That's a nice setup, for sure. And Plex is tops for HTPCs. Now, you just need to get rid of that LCD TV and get a 1080p projector. ;)

basesloaded190

Sep 12, 2008, 09:44 PM

i have been wanting to get an apple tv for a long time, but have also considered getting a mini. i know the mini would be more expensive, but i really don't know which one would be better as a media device

Cave Man

Sep 12, 2008, 10:31 PM

rogersmj

Sep 12, 2008, 10:39 PM

Looks good. Mine pretty close to yours. I've got a 2.0 GHz mini, 1 TB harddrive in Newertech mini stack feeding a Samsung LCD. Is that a Tivo? I've got 3 in the house including a Series 3 next to the Mini. I've got Plex installed, but end up using Front Row most of the time because my wife and my 4 yr old like it because it's simpler.

I've also got a 1.83 GHz mini in the master bedroom mainly for watching video podcasts at night and the occasional ripped DVD.

Yeah that's a Tivo HD. I upgraded the hard drive in it to 500GB.

My Mini pulls its content from my 2.4 TB main machine in the next room over a gigabit ethernet connection. So far my wife likes the new Plex interface just as well as the Apple TV interface. All the button sequences I programmed into my Harmony help.

donga

Sep 12, 2008, 11:33 PM

are there step by step instructions on how to set the cables up with the mini to the tv?

also, does the apple remote work with plex? or only front row?

basesloaded190

Sep 12, 2008, 11:40 PM

1. What types of media are you wanting to play?

2. Are you willing to invest half an hour a week managing the system?

If #1 is anything other than MPEG4 H.264 720p or #2 is "yes", then you want a Mini with Plex installed.

Well i guess i would just be using all my music and podcast from itunes, then ripping all my dvds onto an external HDD. What kind of managing would you need to do?

DoFoT9

Sep 12, 2008, 11:43 PM

hey OP,

wonderful setup!!

we recently got an HD panasonic TV, and i am comtemplating getting a Mac Mini to play some of my ripped BluRay content.

have you had any experience playing back 1080p movies on the MacMini yet? it would be awsome if you could test it out for me as im not 100% if it will play it flawlessly :)

love your setup

rogersmj

Sep 12, 2008, 11:59 PM

are there step by step instructions on how to set the cables up with the mini to the tv?

also, does the apple remote work with plex? or only front row?

Oh yes, the Apple Remote works with Plex.

hey OP,

wonderful setup!!

we recently got an HD panasonic TV, and i am comtemplating getting a Mac Mini to play some of my ripped BluRay content.

have you had any experience playing back 1080p movies on the MacMini yet? it would be awsome if you could test it out for me as im not 100% if it will play it flawlessly :)

love your setup

Thanks! My TV is 720p, so I don't know about the 1080p content. Someone else might be able to chime in though.

DoFoT9

Sep 13, 2008, 12:02 AM

Thanks! My TV is 720p, so I don't know about the 1080p content. Someone else might be able to chime in though.

oh ok then, how does 720p content play with the mini (if you've ever done that?)

thanks

rogersmj

Sep 13, 2008, 12:06 AM

It plays 720p perfectly smoothly. Today I watched the Battlestar Galactica miniseries in 720p, streaming over the network, and it was flawless.

brand

Sep 13, 2008, 12:06 AM

My Mini pulls its content from my 2.4 TB main machine in the next room over a gigabit ethernet connection.

The Mac Mini only has 10/100 Ethernet so no matter what it connects to that is as fast as it will go.

DoFoT9

Sep 13, 2008, 12:10 AM

It plays 720p perfectly smoothly. Today I watched the Battlestar Galactica miniseries in 720p, streaming over the network, and it was flawless.

thanks OP for that :)

The Mac Mini only has 10/100 Ethernet so no matter what it connects to that is as fast as it will go.

HAHA-read that, the specs are clearly 1000mbps.

http://www.apple.com/macmini/specs.html

brand

Sep 13, 2008, 12:47 AM

HAHA-read that, the specs are clearly 1000mbps.

http://www.apple.com/macmini/specs.html

Wow, I guess I have been thinking wrong all this time. :eek:

Cave Man

Sep 13, 2008, 12:55 AM

we recently got an HD panasonic TV, and i am comtemplating getting a Mac Mini to play some of my ripped BluRay content.

have you had any experience playing back 1080p movies on the MacMini yet? it would be awsome if you could test it out for me as im not 100% if it will play it flawlessly :)

Give this (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=548905&highlight=yes+virginia) a re-read, then download Plex. You'll be in Blu-Ray heaven with your Mini. ;)

Well i guess i would just be using all my music and podcast from itunes, then ripping all my dvds onto an external HDD. What kind of managing would you need to do?

In that case, an Apple TV would be best for your needs. If you were wanting to play other file formats (e.g., MKV, Blu-Ray), then a Mini with Plex would be the way to go.

Aegelward

Sep 13, 2008, 05:16 AM

How well does streaming work for high definition files under plex?

soLoredd

Sep 13, 2008, 05:42 AM

Nice setup. I went back and forth on the Apple TV vs. Mac Mini decision for about a month. Plex was so enticing after having used XBMC for years and having a Mini readily available sounded great. The more I thought about it though, the more I realized how much extra time I'd have to spend keeping everything running smoothly for my wife and with a baby on the way, I just didn't want to deal with the whole XBMC-type set ups anymore. Not that they are cumbersome once set up but my wife and anyone else who would be at the house would find some way, some how to mess it up. <sigh>

Who knows, I might get one anyway.

Question: you said you control everything with a Harmony? That includes control of the Mini? What Harmony is it?

ChevyAppleJR

Sep 13, 2008, 06:15 AM

I want to do this on my my 1.25GHz G4 PPC Mac mini with 1 GB Ram and 100 GB HD Can anyone help me?

Garett:apple:

brand

Sep 13, 2008, 07:17 AM

I want to do this on my my 1.25GHz G4 PPC Mac mini with 1 GB Ram and 100 GB HD Can anyone help me?

If you bothered to check out the Plex website (http://www.plexapp.com) and more specifically the FAQ you would find...

Will you support PPC and/or Tiger?

It's unlikely that we will ever support PPC. Many people think that it is as simple as "checking PPC" in XCode, it is not. Additionally, as stated above one of the goals of Plex is to support HD playback on most hardware this is just not likely on legacy Mac PPC hardware. Tiger support is not a near term goal, but it is a possibility in the future. It's obviously quite possible to get Plex to work on Tiger, but the team has determined that it is also non-trivial. As we get closer to a 1.0 release we will poll the community to see how much demand there is for Tiger support.

DoFoT9

Sep 13, 2008, 07:17 AM

I want to do this on my my 1.25GHz G4 PPC Mac mini with 1 GB Ram and 100 GB HD Can anyone help me?

Garett:apple:

im sorry but i doubt it. had a quick look on google and couldnt find anything, so thers maybe a slight chance?

rogersmj

Sep 13, 2008, 08:20 AM

How well does streaming work for high definition files under plex?

Scroll up 5 or 6 posts.

Nice setup. I went back and forth on the Apple TV vs. Mac Mini decision for about a month. Plex was so enticing after having used XBMC for years and having a Mini readily available sounded great. The more I thought about it though, the more I realized how much extra time I'd have to spend keeping everything running smoothly for my wife and with a baby on the way, I just didn't want to deal with the whole XBMC-type set ups anymore. Not that they are cumbersome once set up but my wife and anyone else who would be at the house would find some way, some how to mess it up. <sigh>

Who knows, I might get one anyway.

Question: you said you control everything with a Harmony? That includes control of the Mini? What Harmony is it?

Interesting that you mention the maintenance issue...I ditched the hacked AppleTV because it was such a headache. It crashed periodically when playing my videos, and of course every time there was a software update I'd have to re-hack it, which wasn't trivial for me because I needed the SMB filesystem stuff too.

Any Harmony will work, but I have the 550. It controls everything in that room, including my lights via X10.

Aegelward

Sep 13, 2008, 08:33 AM

rogersmj

Sep 13, 2008, 08:35 AM

Incidentally, there is a remote control app for xbmc on iphone

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=289316916&mt=8

unfortunately i'm not sure if it is compatible with plex, or needs vanilla xbmc specifically

There's some discussion about that app over in the Plex forums (http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php?showtopic=1169), and it sounds like people have gotten it to work.

Cave Man

Sep 13, 2008, 08:46 AM

How well does streaming work for high definition files under plex?

It depends on the bitrate. For example, the Apple 720 HD files are encoded around 4 to 4.5 mbps and stream just fine. However, ff and rew are pretty slow. The few transcoded Blu-Ray movies I have (1080p down to 720p) are encoded at 6 mbps and drop frames every now and again to my Apple TV, but not to my Mini. The principal difference here is my ATV is on WiFi-n and my Mini is by ethernet (100 mbps). My Blu-Ray movies stream fine through Plex using ethernet.

I want to do this on my my 1.25GHz G4 PPC Mac mini with 1 GB Ram and 100 GB HD Can anyone help me?

You'll likely need to get a different computer. The G4 isn't a great processor for doing 480 video playback, let alone HD content, and I don't think it even came with Front Row or a remote (i.e., no IR), did it? The Intel dual core Minis are probably the lowest for playback of HD content, while a single core can handle standard def (e.g., DVD rips).

chedda

Sep 13, 2008, 08:54 AM

That's a nice setup, for sure. And Plex is tops for HTPCs. Now, you just need to get rid of that LCD TV and get a 1080p projector. ;)

I'm not so sure about a projector in the living room after having one for a few years. The best picture is only achieved through total blackout in the day time and the fan noise was also a bit of a problem.Also due to my naivety i used to smoke and the cooling system pulled it in nicely rendering my beautiful huge image a nice tobacco tint ! I'm all for projectors don't get me wrong it's just that i think they need there own dedicated room possibly a basement. Another added bonus is that with the correct paint on the wall when the projector is off you don't lose any space and have a dull black screen in the room this was a problem for those huge rear projection tv's. For now i'll stick with my loewe 46 individual .

Cave Man

Sep 13, 2008, 09:09 AM

Yeah, no doubt. My projector is in the basement, soon with dark red walls and dark blue matte ceiling. (Wife vetoed flat black.)

kalex

Sep 13, 2008, 12:15 PM

Can a 1.83 C2D model of mac mini handle blue ray playback through plesk? or does it have to be 2.0 C2D?

thanks

rogersmj

Sep 13, 2008, 12:23 PM

Can a 1.83 C2D model of mac mini handle blue ray playback through plesk? or does it have to be 2.0 C2D?

thanks

1. What's Plesk? Is that some other piece of software or do you mean Plex?

2. No Mac has a Blu-Ray drive, but if you mean playback of ripped HD content then yes, as we've already talked about in this thread several times, any of the current-gen Mac Minis work fine. A whole 170 MHz isn't going to make much difference.

kalex

Sep 13, 2008, 01:33 PM

Sorry meant to say Plex

thanks for the answer

rw3

Sep 13, 2008, 04:34 PM

You could always get a modded Mini with a 2.33Ghz T7600 Core 2 Duo. :)

gonyr

Sep 13, 2008, 05:02 PM

This is my exact upcoming project, except that I have an old-school crt front projector (way bigger and ridiculously heavy, but an awesome picture at about 106" diagonal). I'm still looking for a mini in my price range. If I get tired of waiting, I'll probably build a cheap hackintosh box.

kalex

Sep 13, 2008, 06:46 PM

You could always get a modded Mini with a 2.33Ghz T7600 Core 2 Duo. :)

Thats true, but C2D 2.0 is already expensive :)

rw3

Sep 13, 2008, 08:51 PM

Thats true, but C2D 2.0 is already expensive :)

I can make a T7600 from a refurbed 1.83Ghz Machine for cheaper than a NEW 2.0Ghz machine.....and that includes maxing out the machine with a 500GB and 4GB (3GB is actually faster).

DoFoT9

Sep 14, 2008, 07:56 AM

I can make a T7600 from a refurbed 1.83Ghz Machine for cheaper than a NEW 2.0Ghz machine.....and that includes maxing out the machine with a 500GB and 4GB (3GB is actually faster).

here in aust where its more expensive i cant :( turns out to be around $300AUD more expensive. i cant find any T7600's anyway, only the R7500's (2,2ghz models)

oh and how is 3gb faster? because its paired?

rw3

Sep 14, 2008, 03:00 PM

3GB just seems to be addressed by the Intel 945 Chipset better than having 4GB in there. The T7600 can be had on eBay for under $400 usually.

jmann

Sep 14, 2008, 03:09 PM

That's awesome. I am fantastically jealous. :D

rw3

Sep 14, 2008, 04:15 PM

I actually have a brand new spare of the same specs in my sig, so if anyone would want one....

I really love the machine. I use it in conjunction with my AppleTV and use it to encode some BluRay rips. It does a great job and bumping the fan up in speed with smcFanControl doesn't ass much noise.

DoFoT9

Sep 14, 2008, 08:13 PM

I can make a T7600 from a refurbed 1.83Ghz Machine for cheaper than a NEW 2.0Ghz machine.....and that includes maxing out the machine with a 500GB and 4GB (3GB is actually faster).

a T7700 can be put into the mini? found one for $412... im sure i could supplement it in instead of getting a larger HD, i have enough storage space already haha