“According to analysts – Gene Munster, of Piper Jaffray, in particular – Apple is soon to launch a revolutionary Apple TV device,” Johnny Winter writes for Mactuts+. “Don’t mistake this for another Apple ‘hobby’ – it’s not going to be a set-top box. This is going to be the real-deal, Siri-enabled, iCloud-attached, iOS-controlled, large flat-panel to dominate your living room! Apparently.” “But since Gene has been banging on about this for three years or more (Apple has its ‘hobby,’ and Gene has his), the Mac mini makes for a pretty good media centre in the meantime,” Winter writes.
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“It runs silent, draws little power and can be upgraded relatively easily if you are confident and competent with paint stripper (yes, seriously!) and a screwdriver. Even if you don’t fancy getting handy with tools, plugging in a large external drive to house your media is sufficient, even over USB 2.0.” Advertisement: Winter writes, “In it’s current form, neither the Apple TV 2 and Apple TV 3 are able to store media locally nor can they install third party client apps. For that reason, we need to find other ways of getting audio and video to the television. Some of this can be done with Apple’s AirPlay, the rest with third-party software solutions.” Much more in the full article. This is what I have set up for the last 4 years Mac mini Multple external hard drives 1 hard drive stores iTunes data Other hard drives used for time machine back up HDTV hooked up to mini Hd monitor in next room hooked up to mini I can control min remotely either with share screen on Mac or a remote app on my phone or iPad. Can play content from iTunes, vlc, or hbo go etc Works very well Also have an Apple TV which can do almost all of that now but was not available when I set this up.
Cost about $900 including Bluetooth mousepad and keyboard so the mini can be used as a regular computer as well. You don’t need a separate mac mini media center — just a mac as your desktop computer anywhere in your house. My setup: – Mac Mini in my home office with plex (and air video server for phone and iPad access to videos – works better than Plex for iOS) – External hard drive to hold all media files connected to Mac – Airport network with house-wide coverage (one Airport Extreme and 2 Expresses do it for me). – A cheap Roku unit for each TV, which will run Plex, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, MLB, and if you have EyeTV, recorded TV as well. – Airplay direct from Airport Express to stereo amp for music.