Comments on: Swapping Out The Apple TV For A Mac Mini

By: TV Everywhere, Served Up By The Usual Suspects | Webomatica - Entertainment and Tech Digest

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 03:38:59 +0000

[...] to pursue the alternative, plus time and effort to set up a cable-less entertainment system. I’ve done it, but certainly see myself in the minority. Many view cable as a necessity, on the level with a [...]

By: HDCP: One Of Those Details » Webomatica - Entertainment and Tech Digest

HDCP: One Of Those Details » Webomatica - Entertainment and Tech Digest — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 17:08:21 +0000

[...] Mac Mini to the television project continues, and am running up into one of those annoying details that makes things more complicated than it [...]

By: rentmaclaptop

rentmaclaptop — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 06:21:33 +0000

Mac products are now improving when it comes to ease of use, with quality and performance left untouched.

By: webomatica

webomatica — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 19:14:16 +0000

Good point. After reading your comment, I may be too hasty in tossing
out the baby (Apple TV) with the bathwater in the quest for one box to
rule them all. One possibility might be to keep the Apple TV for
renting Apple movies and TV shows and using the Mac Mini for
"everything else." By doing that I could delete all the music and
photos currently stored locally on the Apple TV.

Hulu desktop on the Mini works really well, plus with the Apple Remote
- better than Hulu via Boxee on the Apple TV. Lastly, this Plex
program is currently wooing me big time. If I can bend it to my will
(it is skinnable) it could be better than the Apple TV interface.

By: jcieplinski

jcieplinski — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 18:25:15 +0000

Why not do both? I've had both a Mac mini and an Apple TV hooked up to my television for a while now, and it works great. The mini has a terabyte drive plugged into it, where I keep all of my media. Then, I just keep iTunes running on that mini, which is linked to the Apple TV. One activity on my Harmony remote is set for Apple TV mode, where all my iTunes content is accessible. Another activity is programmed to switch over to the mini, where I can either use a wireless mouse and keyboard or remote access in with my laptop. I threw in an EyeTV from Elgato on the mini, too, so now I can use that to watch and record standard cable tv shows without the need for a TiVo. And, the EyeTV unit works great with the Harmony as well. I leave the EyeTV running in full screen most of the time, so my girlfriend and I can easily control it like any cable box from the Harmony. No complications, unless I'm doing a software update, or I want to do something more complicated.

I haven't tried the whole Hulu thing, but I imagine this solution would work if you just switch to the mini for the Hulu stuff. The only complicated part is remembering which content is in iTunes, and which is only on the mini. I usually set programs I record through the EyeTV on the mini to automatically export to iTunes, so I don't have to think about it much. I get whatever I've recorded on the EyeTV on my Apple TV with zero effort.

So the only time I really end up on the mini is when I want to watch live tv, which is fairly rare.

The only thing I need to improve this set up is a good RAID system for my media. My terabyte drive is getting pretty full, and I really should have a redundant backup system in place. It would totally suck to lose all those movies and tv shows. I'm thinking about a Drobo for that.

I'll say again what I've always said about the Apple TV. It doesn't need anything, except more content available to it. That's the studio's fault, not Apple's. I would be more than happy to get all my content directly from iTunes, if only the networks and movie studios would make it available to me. This idea of some shows being on one service and others being on another is what complicates everything. Make all the shows and all the movies available everywhere, and let the people decide which service is the best for their needs.