besides hooking up my laptop to the tv... what can i buy? I want to be able to load some movies onto a device and plug that device to the tv. any suggestions? appletv is not compatible w/my tv.
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watching movies (.avi, etc) on tv
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Considered a Mac Mini?
I have mine set up with one of the Hard Drives on my Mac Pro mounted on the desktop of the Mac Mini via the wireless network, then by creating an alias to that in the Mini's Movies folder, Front Row happily streams all the movies etc over the network to the Mini which is connected to an HDTV. If you share your iTunes library you can access it too via Front Row and the Apple Remote.
Really simple but effective. All you need to do is make sure you install Perian on the Mini so that it can handle the various movie file types.
Of course there's the much simpler method of just loading movies on to the hard drive of the mini and playing them locally via Front Row, just depends on your situation, but ultimately a Mini is quite flexible.
I have mine set up with one of the Hard Drives on my Mac Pro mounted on the desktop of the Mac Mini via the wireless network, then by creating an alias to that in the Mini's Movies folder, Front Row happily streams all the movies etc over the network to the Mini which is connected to an HDTV. If you share your iTunes library you can access it too via Front Row and the Apple Remote.
Really simple but effective. All you need to do is make sure you install Perian on the Mini so that it can handle the various movie file types.
Of course there's the much simpler method of just loading movies on to the hard drive of the mini and playing them locally via Front Row, just depends on your situation, but ultimately a Mini is quite flexible.
mac mini
mac mini is too much for something that i want to do. plus buying a mac mini is like buying a new computer, something that i do not plan on doing for awhile. i'm looking more in the $300 price range. thanks. any other suggestions?
mac mini is too much for something that i want to do. plus buying a mac mini is like buying a new computer, something that i do not plan on doing for awhile. i'm looking more in the $300 price range. thanks. any other suggestions?
iPod
I just use my Video iPod with this cable. It doesn't exactly have the nice remote control or anything, but it is pretty effective. The only downfall is that you would have to reencode some of the videos but it isn't that bad. If you rip the DVD at 1450 kbps h.264 and a width of 640 it is very good quality to play on the tv (It shouldn't take that long on an intel mac, but PPC is pretty slow it seems)
I just use my Video iPod with this cable. It doesn't exactly have the nice remote control or anything, but it is pretty effective. The only downfall is that you would have to reencode some of the videos but it isn't that bad. If you rip the DVD at 1450 kbps h.264 and a width of 640 it is very good quality to play on the tv (It shouldn't take that long on an intel mac, but PPC is pretty slow it seems)
A modded xbox running xbox media center is probably the absolute best way to watch any sort of media file on the tv right now. It plays practically anything out there, and can stream video/music/photos off your pc over the network.
It might be more entailed than you'd be willing to get as far as initial setup is concerned, but the final product is superb.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XBMC
It might be more entailed than you'd be willing to get as far as initial setup is concerned, but the final product is superb.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XBMC
Oooh, really? That's what I really want. My philips doesn't do that. What model do you have?
Oooh, really? That's what I really want. My philips doesn't do that. What model do you have?
You are in Oz...alas. Minimal googling does not appear to result in a US equivalent...but I will keep searching. Thanks for the info. 