If your eyes explode when forced to watch video with obvious artifacts and occasional stutters, the Mac mini as media center may not appeal to you. Streaming video doesn’t look as good as video coming from a cable TV box, satellite receiver, or OTA antenna. You can purchase-or rent, via Netflix-shows from these networks, but they’re released sometimes a year or more after the season has concluded.
#Rowmote remote control for mac movie#
The same is true of premiere movie channels such as HBO and Showtime. Live sports just isn’t served very well via the Internet. But if you do follow sports, it’s unlikely you’ll want to toss out your cable box or satellite receiver. I have very little interest in televised sports so no loss to me on that front. With this setup I was confident that I could do without my DVD player, the receiver’s radio, and much of the content currently offered by my satellite TV provider.
With iPhone in hand I was able to play music, videos, and podcasts watch slideshows access Hulu and Netflix and purchase and rent iTunes content from the couch without much bother. At the end of that day the mini functioned much as I’d planned.
#Rowmote remote control for mac upgrade#
Once I had the parts it took me the better part of a day to upgrade the mini and configure it as I’ve outlined. And, if I can stand using half-a-dozen remotes instead of just one, I could do without the Harmony 880. RadioShift is another luxury if I’m willing to listen to radio live via iTunes or a Web browser. Toast Titanium is helpful for many things but Handbrake, though slow on this Mac, is a capable ripper and converter. For example, the Mac mini’s 120GB internal hard drive is slow and it doesn’t hold a ton of media, but if much of my media is stored and accessed on network drives, who cares? I could do without both the Elgato EyeTV Hybrid and Turbo.H264 HD if I were willing to use my existing TV connection and TiVo and convert media more slowly.
I could throw together something nearly as functional for not a lot more than the price of the mini, however. Some of the components of my Mac mini-based media centerI was after a completely tricked-out Mac media center and that’s what I built.
Roxio Toast Titanium 10: $80 (after rebate)Įxcluding the Netflix subscription, taking the sale price on the external hard drive, and assuming that you already have all your AV components and an iPhone or iPod touch, that comes to $1,530.
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