The Mac mini as a Media Computer
by Anand Lal Shimpi on February 16, 2005 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Mac
Final Words
What we've touched on in this article is far from the full gamut of HTPC applications for the mini (or Macs in general). Elgato, for example, offers a series of internal and external TV tuners for Macs, including a Mac version of ATI's TV Wonder USB 2.0. You can get a remote for the Mac and there are tons of freely-available, user-designed AppleScripts that are great for browsing your DVD collection. There are even multiple open source projects underway to bring about a Mac media center type of application.In the past, Apple hasn't seen a place for a Mac in the living room. Many have theorized that the mini is Apple's way of bringing online movie and music downloads into the living room, but there's a lot that has to happen before Apple can get to that point. As it stands right now, Apple needs to make significant improvements to their DVD player, whose image quality simply isn't up to par. The other issue is that DVD decode performance on the mini is simply unacceptable for any sort of multitasking environments. While Mac OS X does a great job of making sure that other, inactive windows don't take priority over the DVD decoding threads, as soon as you switch window focus, the DVD player no longer enjoys its priority and playback can suffer.
The mini obviously doesn't have the built-in storage capabilities to act as a media server, but with an external FireWire drive, those problems could easily be solved. In its ability to act as a DVR, the mini has some potential, assuming that either Apple or some other adventurous developer puts the time into exploiting those capabilities. But obviously, what's lacking is the media-centric interface (or 10-foot UI) of something like Media Center Edition. If Apple is truly going after this market next, it's an area on which they must focus.
We were quite impressed with the mini's ability to function as a content creation box with its performance in iMovie HD. The box is far more responsive than most entry-level machines that we've played with in the past, thanks in part to the excellent thread management and caching systems of the OS.
Through our continued use of the mini, we still find it an excellent way to get introduced to OS X; although, we are still frustrated by its performance at higher resolutions, thanks to its meager 32MB of video memory. We've heard from many PC users that while they are tempted by the mini, they will wait for what will essentially be version 2, hoping that it will have more video memory, and maybe even an updated graphics core. Given that the current mini makes use of the Radeon 9200, we'd expect its successor to use ATI's X300, which would bring it compatibility with Core Image and Quartz Extreme 2D. With the mini having just been launched, don't hold your breath for an updated version anytime soon, however.
Our recommendation still stands that, if you can, a PowerBook is a much better way to get introduced to and reap the benefits of OS X. But as a second choice, the mini still seems to work very well, even if not as a HTPC.
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unithom - Wednesday, February 16, 2005 - link
In case my profile doesn't show my link, my diagram of my setup is at: http://www.unithom.com/avstuff/Apparently Apple has access to the hardware based MPEG decoding routines in the GPU but doesn't make those publicly available to folks like ElGato. So their DVD player works smoothly but EyeTV hits the CPU pretty hard. Note: it uses /tmp to store the cache as it processes, so keeping your EyeTV library on an external drive should help; less conflicting read/writes when on two separate disks.
I borrowed a friend's 1.25 Mac mini to try out with my EyeTV 200 (analog) and EyeTV 500 (digital). The 200 worked fine. The 500 recorded okay, and played back 'fullscreen' (my 37" Sharp Aquos is at something like 1344 x 768 via DVI, dot for dot mode) pretty well .. maybe a dropped frame here or there, but nothing that made me freak out. Even if I wasn't happy with playback I could always use the Virtual DVHS app mentioned in the article; it played back the LOTR clip available on BitTorrent just fine, recorded and played back fine, and I also recorded from the EyeTV 500, edited out commercials, and played back the stream via VDVHS. All worked fine.
I too was bummed that Apple didn't think to include a digital out like they did on their AirTunes-enabled Airport Express. But for now, I'm ordering the M-Audio Sonica Theatre with coax 7.1 output.
re: storage space, my solution is fairly simple. Two 400 GB firewire drives. (One backs the other one up periodically, straight mirroring - but only once a day or whatever). I'm paranoid about losing data ever since I dropped a 250 GB external and DriveSavers pronounced it DOA...
Re: remote controls. Watching live TV, even HD TV using EyeTV is a real pleasure. It has an IR remote. It lets you do 7 second instant replay and 30 second commercial skip just like TiVo, timeshifting your TV. People like myself are petitioning ElGato to include access to IR codes received via the SDK, e.g. the ability to map specific signals to run applescripts, shell scripts, and so forth. One guy on AVSForum wants to use an IR remote to output serial commands to his tuner and TV. There is already the IRTrans and iRed software available to do this as well.
More eyeTV goodness: You can watch and record at the same time. There is an easy to use editor for removing commercials and then you can 'compact' your show (typically 1 hr -> 42 mins) to save space and junk the commercials. EyeTV 500 doesn't respect broadcast flag as long as you buy before June whatever-it-is. (And good thing, too. Screw them.)
Originally I used the EyeHome, which is a sort of thin client; it browses pages served by a (sadly, closed) Tomcat server running on the Mac. It serves eyeTV recordings, ripped movies, iPhoto Library slide shows, iTunes songs/playlists, and lets you browse webpages on screen. But network latency makes it fall off. No on-screen 'time elapsed/remaining'. Can't get back to where you were easily if a program dies (happens WAY too often especially when trying to ffwd/rew, then hit play again... zoop, dies.) The interface is fairly hard to navigate.
So I'm eschewing the eyeHome for a Mac mini. With a bluetooth module, and a wireless keyboard/mouse bundle, that's a far better remote IMO for doing other stuff besides EyeTV playback.
(I already have wireless mouse/kbd and BT for an iMac G5 and though there is a slight wake-up delay and slight mouse-moving delay -- can't be helped, it's still really nice for a more clutter-free experience. For the living room, it'll be essential.)
I found myself missing iTunes for playing music, iPhoto for doing slide shows, Safari for web browsing -- you get the point. So, having an actual computer in place of eyeHome will be nice.
People keep saying that some kind of breakout box for the Mac mini needs to happen. IMO it's already here, it's the EyeTV. That plus external drives, and i.Link support -- just make sure all your devices have two ports (eyeTV does; other world computing sells the Mercury external enclosures with 2) or that you have a firewire hub, etc.
Happy HTPCing!
mlittl3 - Wednesday, February 16, 2005 - link
Thanks #20. That would work perfectly and not take up too much space or add more noise.I was thinking about harddrive space with regards to size and noise. I guess you could buy a 100 GB 2.5" drive from a third party and install it. That would be pretty cool.
T8000 - Wednesday, February 16, 2005 - link
When viewing interlaced content on a PC, I usually do not use de-interlacing, as the slight resolution improvement is not worth the artefacts.Can the Mac also play DVD's without de-interlacing? And does that solve all artefacts?
Also, with mpeg4, you are not unlikely to fit over 100 movies in VHS quality on a 80 GB PC/MAC.
sprockkets - Wednesday, February 16, 2005 - link
Interesting. I didn't know HD recording was possible. You can get an HD tuner card for a computer, but is limited to over the air broadcasts, so big deal.It seeems that there is a way then to record from firewire, but then again, with bull encryption. Like someone is going to pirate a 10 GIGABYTE recording over the internet!
HardwareD00d - Wednesday, February 16, 2005 - link
So what kind of software is available to let me record video through my cable box's firewire connector for the PC? Anyone?How much disk space will a 2 hr HD video stream take up? I'm guessing around 8-16 GB?
Doormat - Wednesday, February 16, 2005 - link
My thoughts:-as poseted by #20, use m-audio USB TOSLINK out to surround sound reciever. Works fine with the Apple DVD player.
-Wait until video core upgrade comes along in v2. I wont buy it unless it handles 1920x1080P/30 flawlessly (yes, 1080P will be available on HDTVs this year, no content available but available as an input). That would require something like a 9600 with 64MB vram.
-use the Mac Mini as a HTPC client box, having a server someone else in the house with many video capture cards and some sort of remote scheduling front end (doesnt MythTV or one of those have a OSX front end available?). Also, the large server could also handle the massive storage requirements needed for HD.
I personally want to use it as a client for a Kalidescape-style system, plus to surf the web and play MP3s on my 61" DLP TV. I'm hoping apple does a refresh for the Fall/back-to-school time (with more video horsepower, even if I have to pay extra for it).
paulbeers - Wednesday, February 16, 2005 - link
bob661 -Yes true you can get an external hd. One can also get external TV Tuners. One can also get...yadda yadda...but all of these devises require more space and will generate more noise and more cables and more plug ins...etc. I even own an external drive enclosure. What Myth TV now will do for you is allow you to set a box wherever (close or office or bathroom if you would like) and that will do all the recording and can have all the loud 7200 rpm hard drives spinning away and it will never interfere with your enjoyment (if you have ever had an htpc in your living room that isn't virtually silent which I have) you know how annoying that proc fan can get reaallllyyy annoying.
michael2k - Wednesday, February 16, 2005 - link
You want something like this, mlittl3?http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/SonicaTheate...
mlittl3 - Wednesday, February 16, 2005 - link
Since the Mac Mini has USB 2.0, are there any external USB audio solutions from any of the sound card manufacturers like Creative that supports Mac OS X? If so, this would be a way to get 5.1 and 7.1 audio onto the Mac Mini. However, this would require a little more space. You would have to stack the device on top of the mini.I can't possible see hard drive space being a problem. Just get an external firewire or USB 2.0 drive like #18 said.
Lastly, Anand, it would be cool if you could make a section on your website for people to send in photos and solutions on how they set up their Mac Mini as an HTPC. There are a lot of combinations and externals that could be used and it would be interesting to see what people come up with. The comments section to these reviews is just not enough.
bob661 - Wednesday, February 16, 2005 - link
#14Since the mini has USB ports just connect an external hard drive to the ports. You can get hard drive enclosures for $30-$40 and install any hard drive you want in there. No need for a server.