Tag: htpc

Our last few posts on using a Mac Mini as a Media Centre device have focussed on using Media Centre software like Plex and Boxee to playback locally stored content. While this is my main reason for buying a Mini there is a lot more you can do with it – listen to radio, stream audio and video and play games.

Radio
There are many way to listen to radio via the Mac. The most obvious is via iTunes which comes preloaded with hundred’s of stations. However searching is limited, the streams don’t contain many popular stations and it feels like a tacked on option. If you are serious about your radio there are two options that really stand out

Radioshift can be thought of as a PVR for radio. At the heart of the application is the Radio Guide. Using the guide you can search for stations or individual shows and subscribe to them in the application. The big plus is seeing individual radio shows. You can use Radioshift to subscribe to a show and listen to it live but more impressive is that the application can record the show just like Sky+ does for TV. Radioshift will record multiple shows at the same time and even wake the Mac form sleep so it never misses a show.

The guide is impressive and had a lot of UK content although some of the local stations didn’t have a show list. You also get to see what is popular now and filter stations by genre, location or by full text search. Playback is simple via the application which will also install any missing plugins to maximise the amount of stations it can support. There is no built in audio editor but Radioshift can hand off editing to any installed editor. You can also export audio into iTunes making it easy to listen to recordings on your iPod or iPhone.

Another option for radio is Snowtape. This is a very similar application to Radioshift but with a slightly slicker front end. Snowtape uses an online directory to make radio shows available although I’ve found it to be less complete than the guide in Radioshift. Also, Snowtape includes a built in editor unlike Radioshift. Either app will act as a great recorder for radio so you can’t really go wrong but despite Snowtape being a slightly stronger app I’d choose Radioshift for it’s greater guide.

Streaming
There are many streaming music options now available online. The most obvious one is Spotify. Download the client and over 6 million tracks are available for free. There is a premium option available that improves the audio quality and removes the adverts…which aren’t too obtrusive although the client has got very busy with the random adverts that appear on it. I look forward to the day that Remoteless, an iPhone app that offers full control of Spotify from the iphone, supports a Mac helper app as it’s Windows only at the moment. When that day comes I can switch off the TV and the front end of Spotify and use the iPhone to control my music. Bliss.

Another streaming option is last.fm. More well know for music scrobbling and keeping stat’s on what you and your friends listen to, you can also setup a custom radio station and stream music for free, or stream what your friends are listening to. Grooveshark is a more US centric streaming site which is Flash based and free as long as you don’t mind adverts. Similar to last.fm, you can build up playlists and it has a pretty comprehensive library.

AirVideo
AirVideo is an app for the iphone that will display streamed video from your Mac or PC. Once the server app is installed you can add local video sources which can then be accessed from the iPhone. The app will also access video content from iTunes meaning all video located on your Mac Mini will be accessible on your iPhone, no matter what size phone you have.

In practice I’ve found the streaming to work extremely well on video formatted for the iPhone. Playback is smooth and the application responds quickly. This is of course locally over wi-fi but if you setup your router correctly you can access your content from anywhere in the world. However playback is a little more pixelated with this method and buffering, as expected, takes longer too.

One other feature of Air Video is that it will convert video to an iPhone friendly format. Many formats are supported – mp4, m4v, mov, avi, wmv, asf, mpg, mpeg, mkv, 3gp, dmf, divx, flv – and conversion takes place live. Locally the converted video was quite pixelated but it was acceptable. It also took a while for playback to start but considering that I was converting an mkv then it was to be expected. This is a great add-on for the Mac Mini and makes your video content truly portable.

Gaming
One of the area’s I wanted to explore was game emulation, specifically MAME. MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) is an application that tries to recreate the hardware of old arcade machines in software. Using MAME you can then use ROMS to play thousands of arcade games from yesteryear. I have a lot of ROMS so I was keen to setup MAME. There are two main versions of MAME for the Mac. Mame OSX is a port of MAME, is easy to install and run and presents games in it’s gui window. While this worked fine I found a better option in SDLMAME.

SDLMAME can be run as a 64 bit binary but what I like the most is it runs full screen, making the most of the ROMS and recreating more accurately the feel of the old arcade. The front end though needs a keyboard to search and find ROMS. The keyboard is also needed to play the old games. Thats whats let’s it all down – the lack of an old controller.

Well, there’s an app for that. More accurately, there’s a driver for that. If you’ve a wired 360 pad then installing this driver will allow the 360 pad to work and control the Mac. This is great and makes a big difference to MAME. The driver also has one more trick up it’s sleeve.

The driver has support for the Mad Catz Arcade FightStick. With this and SDLMame it feels like an arcade machine from yesteryear. What a great combination! Of course there are many other emulators out there including SNES, N64 and PS-X which all work well and support the 360 pad.

There are some good resources online for getting SDLMame up and running. I used the forums at ShoRyuKen to find out the best Mame options on the Mac. Brian also pointed out this Youtube tutorial for compiling SDLMame using Xcode. Finally there’s a board just for SDLMame on the Emuversal bulletin board that also has links to M+Gui which provides a GUI front end to many Mame tools and works well on the Mac.

Conclusion
I’ve covered a few other suggestions for making the most of your Mini but one obvious omission is broadcast TV. I’m not using the Mini for live TV but there are some great solutions from Elgato for watching, recording and also streaming content to your iPhone. If there is any other software that makes sense for the Mini then please leave a comment with your suggestions.

The next post will focus on content. How to make it from DVD’s and CD’s, where to find it on the internet and how to build your own low maintenance Tivo using your Mac Mini.

Our last posts in our Mac Mini Media Centre series looked at Plex and Boxee, two great media centre applications. However one issue I haven’t covered is Remote Controls. What is the best way of controlling your Mac Mini? There are a variety of options and hopefully one of them will suit your needs.

Keyboards and Mice
The most obvious control solution is the good old keyboard and mouse. I was lucky in that I had an older bluetooth Apple Keyboard and Mighty Mouse. For me that’s fine as I won’t really use them that often, instead relying on some of the other solutions I describe below. If you need to buy a keyboard and mouse then one little bit of advice – don’t buy a Mighty Mouse! I’m not a fan of the new Magic Mouse either but thats really just personal choice. If your going to buy a mouse I’d go for a Logitech. As for keyboards, there’s a bit more choice. For one you have the newer Apple wireless keyboard.

It looks gorgeous, is light on batteries and is tiny. Exactly what you need for a living room keyboard. If only it had a touch pad at the side it would be perfect. Looking elsewhere, Logitech has a nice option with the diNovo Edge. It’s a rechargeable keyboard with a built in touchpad. It looks great and would be a fantastic controller for the Mini but tech that looks that good doesn’t come cheap – £139. Ouch.

One keyboard that’s a lot cheaper and you might overlook is also from Logitech – Mediaboard Pro for PS3. This a bluetooth keyboard that also includes a touchpad with the only problem being the windows keyboard layout but it works perfectly well on a Mac and is only £49.99. Bargain.

Remotes
Keyboards and mice are fine but the Mini is acting as a Media PC and as such I want to use a remote to control it most of the time. The obvious option is the Apple Remote. This little remote is straightforward but will allow you to control quite a bit of your Mini. Front Row and iTunes are fully controllable with the remote although you can’t do any searching from it as there’s no keyboard. Plex and Boxee are also fully controllable. If you run Boxee or Plex almost solely on the Mini then you can get by without anything more than the Apple Remote. It’s just a shame that Mac’s used to come bundled with a remote but it’s now a £15 extra which is quite pricey for what it is.

A more complete remote option is the Harmony range from Logitech. Not only can the Harmony replace all your other remotes and control your hardware, it can also work with your Mini. There is support or a wide variety of software but taking a look at the Plex wiki shows that it’s neither straightforward or without issue. If you already have a Harmony then it looks a good option but I won’t be rushing out to buy one anytime soon.

iPhone
If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch there are an increasing number of remote controls available, some far more powerful than the IR remotes mentioned above. So what are the options?

First app that should be installed is the Apple Remote (iTunes link). This connects to iTunes and allows you control your iTunes library. Once installed you can pair the app with as many iTunes libraries as you have in your house. When you launch the app you select a library and then you can browse and playback any music in your library. This doesn’t play through your iPhone or iPod though – you are merely controlling playback on your computer, in this case the Mini. The app is very feature rich though – select from and create playlists, use and update Genius playlists, search the whole library, view album art on the iPhone/iPod and even select the speakers to playback through. It’s free and well worth installing – I just wish you could send music to the iPhone/iPod as well. That would make the app perfect.

Rowmote Pro (iTunes link) is an app that really does make controlling your whole Mac Mini possible from the iPhone/iPod Touch. To work you first must install the Rowmote Helper application on your Mac which is available free from the Rowmote website. Once installed you connect to the iPhone app and once complete you then have an Apple Remote (the physical Apple Remote) on your iPhone. The advantage of this remote though is it works over wi-fi – no line of sight issues with this remote. The app also does far more than the hardware remote. You can wake and sleep your Mac, connect to multiples Mac’s from the one remote, remembering that line of sight isn’t an issue. You can also swap between applications by selecting from a list or by clicking on a dock icon which is displayed on the iPhone.

That covers the £0.59 Rowmote app. The Rowmote Pro version, at £2.99, adds a wireless touchpad and keyboard. This works amazingly well and means you can control virtually everything from your iPhone or Touch without a keyboard or mouse. Searching in Spotify is easily done from Rowmote Pro and it really is a bargain application.

Another app that works similarly to Rowmote is Air Mouse Pro (iTunes link). This too needs a helper app which can be downloaded from their website and is available for Mac and PC. Air Mouse Pro has similar features to Rowmote but supports custom media layouts, programmable hotkeys and multi touch gesture support. It also supports an accelerometer mode which works like a laser pointer to control your Mac. Air Mouse Pro has so many features yet it’s also cheaper at £1.19. It doesn’t support the remote layout seen in Rowmote so it’s probably down to personal preference as to which is better. I’ve found Rowmote Pro more reliable in use than Air Mouse but it’s handy having a Windows option on the iPhone so i have both installed.

An option worth considering is Keymote (iTunes link). Once the helper app is installed Keymote becomes a keyboard and shortcut enabler. Once the App is paired with the Mini you will see it comes with a few default keysets for DVD Player, Front Row and Expose. They are presented well and allow you to send keyboard shortcuts to the Mini. Note this isn’t a mouse and keyboard replacement – it almost feels like a keyboard extender. You can also create your own Keyset’s for any applications you have installed. Creating your own Keyset is fairly straightforward on the iPhone but it can be a bit awkward moving the key’s around. You can’t choose the size of the keys but you can swap between white and black keys to contrast the layout and the layout can be larger than the screen as you can swipe up and down through the layout. If creating your layout isn’t your thing, Keymote comes with it’s own Store from where you can download other users Keyset’s. This is a great feature and saves a lot of time but there are many duplicates in the Store so it’s a case of trying the 6 or 7 iTunes layouts before settling on one that suits. You can also upload your own Keymotes to the store if you’ve made something unique or better than what’s out there already. This is a lovely app, almost a companion to Rowmote rather than a replacement. It also has uses beyond the Mini. Keymote can be used alongside a normal keyboard like an extender meaning common tasks could easily be applied to a custom Keyset. I’m already looking at Fastscripts and Keymote as a great combination to easily launch custom scripts from the iPhone.

A free alternative to these products is Logitechs Touch Mouse (iTunes link). You again install a helper app which then allows you to connect to your Mac or Windows PC. Touch Mouse gives you a trackpad and keyboard, will display text on screen while typing and supports two finger scrolling. For free it’s excellent but I missed the app launching capabilities of Rowmote and Air Mouse.

Another free option specifically for Boxee is the Boxee Remote (iTunes link). This requires you to setup the web server in Boxee (Settings > Network > Servers ensuring the Web Server is enabled on port 8800) and allows you to control Boxee in two ways – via Gestures or Buttons. Gestures works by dragging the Boxee logo around the app screen. Clicking in a text field displays a keyboard for text entry. It’s a good app but is really for Boxee only.

Finally, a remote app to watch out for. Remoteless is an up and coming remote for Spotify which will offer full control of Spotify from the iPhone. The video demo looks good and I’m hopeful this will be a great controller that allows for full access to desktop Spotify.

Anything Else?
Another way of remotely controlling your Mac is via screen sharing. You can connect from another machine and take full control of your Mini. This means day to day use can be via a remote or iPhone and when you need to tweak then do so via screen sharing rather than the Mini having it’s own dedicated mouse and keyboard. Off course this doesn’t just work locally. You can VNC to your Mini from outside your local network assuming you set up router and Mini to do so. This means that your Mini is always controllable from anywhere in the world.

VNC is also available via a number of clients on the iPhone for those times when you have to access your home computer. It’s not ideal and the screen is small but it can be effective when needs must. This takes quite a bit to setup but opens up a number of interesting possibilities which I’ll cover in a future post.

Conclusion
Hopefully this post has highlighted the variety of options available to you when it comes to controlling your Mini. I’ve settled on Rowmote Pro and Keymote on the iPhone, screen sharing and a very occasional use of keyboard and mouse. Even the use of screen sharing is only when I’m setting up some new software.

Next up in the series is XBMC whose software is at the root of both Plex and Boxee. Previously only available as an add-on for a hacked Xbox it’s now available on Mac, Windows and Linux. I’ll take a look at how to set it up and also how to customise it as it has arguably the most active community driving it forward. Until then, happy controlling.

With the hardware plugged in and my essential software and codecs installed I was going to crack on with Plex but I needed to sort out my iTunes library and also make a decision – to sleep or not to sleep.

iTunes Library
A quick recap on my hardware setup. I have purchased a Mac Mini and will be using it as a Media Centre device for under the TV. Connected to the Mini is a Drobo. The Drobo holds all my media keeping the Mac Mini virtually free of content. I also currently have an iMac and Macbook pro. My iTunes library was sitting on the iMac but I wanted to move it to the Drobo and access the content from the iMac or the Mac Mini.

Moving the iTunes library was fairly straightforward as I let iTunes manage my music. This is a setting in iTunes preferences which means iTunes looks after the naming and location of all my iTunes managed media. To move the content I followed an excellent guide at iLounge on Transferring your iTunes Library. As I had moved to the iTunes 9 Media layout all I had to do was change the media folder location in iTunes Advanced preferences, then goto File, Library, Organise Library and select Consolidate Library. This copied all the media from the iMac to the Drobo via the network share I had created. Once this was complete I checked that all files including podcasts, movies and mobile applications had been copied and that all my music was now referencing the Drobo – do this by right clicking on a track and selecting Get Info. At the bottom of the Summary tab a Where field details the location of the file.

Once confirmed I then removed all the media content from the iMac. Happy days, or so I thought.

Energy Settings
One of the choices to make with your Mini is whether to have it always on or to sleep when not in use. This will very much depend on what you want to do with the Mini. For me, even though I will be using it for remote access and for downloading media, I still want it to sleep when not in use. I waste enough electricity as it is without having a Mini and Drobo switched on 24/7. So the Mini will sleep when not in use. However, unless you have an Apple Airport Extreme or Time Capsule you won’t be able to Wake on Demand which is a feature that both these devices support for any Apple attached hardware. This means when I start my iMac and the Mini is asleep, my iTunes library isn’t available. When this happens, music won’t play and any downloads will also reside locally in a newly created iTunes library. Not good at all.

To get around this I’m making use of a little known free Mac tool called SleepWatcher. This is a command line tool that watches two scripts – .wakeup and .sleep and will run the .wakeup script when your machine wakes up and .sleep when your machine sleeps. My solution to the sleeping Mini was to have the commands in my .wakeup script to wake my Mini, create a mount point and then mount my music network share. iTunes would then work properly and my music would be available with downloads being placed on the Drobo.

So lets go through each of the steps and explain the scripts I now use. Firstly I downloaded and installed the SleepWatcher utility which comes in two parts. SleepWatcher.pkg installs the actual SleepWatcher command. SleepWatcher StartUpItem.pkg installs the daemon and also the sleep and wakeup scripts that are executed by the daemon. With both installed I was ready to create my wakeup script.

In TextMate I created a new file called .wakeup in my user directory i.e.

/users//.wakeup

so for me

/users/ian/.wakeup

Remember to make the script executable:

chmod 755 .wakeup

I wanted the file to wake the Mac Mini. To do this I installed the WakeOnLan command line utility in a scripts directory in my user folder. Using WOL command line allowed me to wake the Mini using the following command:

wol ip_address mac_address

where ip_address is the fixed IP address for the Mac Mini and the mac_address is the unique MAC address for the network adaptor in the Mini. To find the MAC address for a machine launch System Profiler (Apple Menu, About This Mac, More Info or Applications, Utilities and the System Profiler), select Network and then select the Ethernet Active Service. Scroll through the information displayed and under the Ethernet heading you will find your MAC Address. You could also download WakeOnLan which is a tool which will scan your network displaying connected machines and their MAC addresses. From the command line the wol command worked well but adding it to the .wakeup script did nothing. The Mini would resolutely stay asleep no matter what I did. Odd. I then created a shell script containing the wol command and ran the shell script which woke up the Mini. Odder. I then called the shell script from the .wakeup script…success!

So my .wakeup script as it stands is as follows:

#!/bin/sh
# ------------------------------
# Wakeup Script for SleepWatcher
# ------------------------------

# Wait for network connect
sleep 5 

# Wake Mini and Mount drive
/users/ian/scripts/mnt_mus.sh

The script sleeps for 5 seconds waiting for the network to be up and running and then launches the mnt_mus.sh script which wakes the Mini and then mounts the drive. The mnt_mus.sh looks like this:

#!/bin/sh
# ———————————————
# Wake Mini and Mount Script
# ———————————————

#Wake Mini
/users/ian/scripts/wol/wol ip_address mac_address
# Create Mount Point
mkdir /Volumes/music
# Wait for mini start
sleep 10
# Mount drive
/sbin/mount -t afp afp://username:password@mini.local/music /Volumes/music

So with SleepWatcher, WOL and the scripts above my Mini can sleep and when my iMac wakes, it will wake the Mini and mount the music network share. Happy days. A final step is to call the .wakeup script at logon/startup so that no matter what the event, the network share is mounted. This is easy to do. I copied the .wakeup script to a new file called login.command (creating a command file), made it executable, then added it to my Login Items in System Preferences -> Accounts pane. By making the shell script a command file it makes it accessible to the Login Items GUI. So when I start or wake my iMac the drive will be mounted and I can access my music.

Moving the iTunes Library Database
While the iTunes media has been moved the Library database was still on the iMac. Although it takes up only a few hundred MB I wanted to move it so I could share the library file with iTunes on the Mini. The database file comprises of an XML file which contains all the metadata for your library, a Genius file and the Album Art folder. To move the database I closed down iTunes, moved the iTunes folder to a folder on the Drobo and restarted iTunes with the OPT key held down. This prompts you to create a new library or choose an existing library. I chose the library via the network mount and after a few seconds iTunes was up and running.

Sharing the iTunes Library Database
The final step in the process was to share the iTunes library between the iMac and Mini. I thought this would be simple but it’s not so straight forward. iTunes was built on the assumption that one iTunes would access one library and that’s it. You could share a library between two different iTunes but you must make sure that only one iTunes is accessing the file at any one time or you risk corruption. I don’t like those odds!

I could solve it by putting checks and locks in place like don’t launch itunes on Mini if iMac iTunes is running and vice versa but I’m sure there would be some scenario that would undo me. Therefore I’ve taken the safer route of having the Mini point to a copy of the iTunes database which is synced to keep it up to date. To automate this I’ve relied on SleepWatcher again.

On the Mini I’ve installed SleepWatcher and the .wakeup script calls the following script:

#!/bin/sh
# ------------------------------
# iTunes database Sync
# ------------------------------

# Sync Folders
rsync -a /Volumes/Drobo/music/"iTunes Library Files" /Volumes/Drobo/music/"mini iTunes Library Files"

Using rsync I copy the iTunes database from the folder iTunes Library Files to a separate folder called mini iTunes Library Files. The advantage of rsync is that after the initial copy which mirrors the file and folder structure, only differences in files are copied making the sync quick and painless. Therefore every time the Mini wakes the folder is synced. I created a symbolic link on the Mini to match the networked folder seen elsewhere and bingo – my library was being shared and up to date. I changed the settings on the Mini so it doesn’t download podcasts and I’ll still manage my library on the iMac but read below to see why this may change. I thought that was it but I still had one more issue. iTunes only updates the library files on exit.

To make sure I sync the most up to date library I have created a .sleep file on the iMac and Mini that will close iTunes on the machine sleeping. That script can be seen below.

#!/bin/sh
# ---------------------
# Close iTunes on Sleep
# ---------------------

#Close iTunes
osascript <<< "tell application \"iTunes\" to quit"

It's not perfect but again it's working well for me at the moment and means both computers are sharing the same media files with two different databases. If all the above is a bit too much then there is software like SuperSync or myTuneSync which will keep separate libraries in sync

Future Options
The scripts above are very much a 'now' solution. In the future I plan to consolidate down to the Mini plus one other machine. If that machine turns out to be a laptop then the Mini will act as the master for iTunes and I'll rsync all my music between the Drobo and the laptop so that my music is with me at all times. Extreme perhaps but I do want to access my music wherever I am.

Closing
Hopefully this third post in the Mac Mini series here at DigitalOutbox, although optional, will give you some hints and tips in how to manage your iTunes library and how to best manage your Mini if you want to be a bit more energy efficient. If there is something glaringly wrong or a better way of achieving the above then please leave a comment or drop a mail as I'm sure there are better methods and this is a learning experience for me.

With the first three posts out of the way it's now time to install Plex, but thats for the next post. What a tease!

In the first part of our Mac Mini Media Centre series we looked at Hardware and Connectivity. Now that the Mac Mini is hooked up to the HDTV it’s time to configure it for Media playback and install some essential software.

The first setup issue is screen resolution. If you’ve got a 1080P HDTV then it’s a simple as plugging in your Mac Mini and you’ll get a full 1080P desktop without issue. If you’ve got a VGA inout then you shouldn’t have a problem either. If you’ve got a 720P HDTV then you may have some tweaking to do to get a full desktop display. Most 720P tv’s are actually 1388*768 panels rather than the 720P resolution of 1280*720. The Mini will pump out a 1280*768 resolution which gives you two options. Live with that resolution and you get a black border around your desktop which is ugly. Alternatively, goto System Preferences and enable overscan. This will remove the border but instead you see half the dock and lose the menubar. Although this sounds bad in actual fact you will be using software like Plex most of the time which can cope well with this scenario so it’s not an issue.

If your not happy with this scenario then a final option is to use SwithResX. With this utility you can tweak the resolutions outputted by your Mac. However care must be taken as this software is basically (my understanding so could be wrong) a hack and it’s easy to set a resolution that your TV doesn’t support, so leaving your Mini displaying a black screen. Always select a resolution via System Preferences so that you can easily use the up/down arrow keys to pick another resolution that works. If you boot and you get a black screen there is advice on the ScreenResX website – good luck!

While we’re sorting out the desktop, there’s a couple of other worthwhile tweaks. I want the Mini’s desktop to be clear of any distractions. By default a Mac’s desktop will show external drive’s connected to the machine. To keep the desktop clear, open Finder, select Preferences and under the General icon ensure that all desktop items are unchecked. Speaking of the desktop, select a great background picture that will look good on the TV. Right click on the desktop and select Change Desktop Background or goto System Preferences and select Desktop & Screen Saver. You can pick a folder of pictures and have the system rotate them on a set time or when the Mac wakes up. Another great way of keeping your desktop fresh is to use DeskLickr which is free app that will connect to your Flickr profile, tag searches or a DeskLickr group and set the desktop picture. Unique and pulls up some real gems.

When your media is playing you don’t want to be interrupted or have the system kick of any scheduled tasks or software checks on the internet. Therefore, goto System Preferences and in Software Update disable Check For Updates. You should do similar for any other software that may be running – set checks to manual and every few weeks check for updates.

Another potential annoyance is Bluetooth, in particular when a device isn’t detected. In System Preferences select Bluetooth, click on Advanced and uncheck Open Bluetooth Assistant option.

With those out of the way it’s time to get some essential software installed. Remember this is primarily a media centre so I won’t be installing many of the popular Mac app’s.

For video and audio playback the key is codec’s. There are a variety of essential codec’s that should be installed to make the most of any digital content you own. Perian describes itself as the swiss army knife for Quicktime as it comes with almost all the codec’s you’ll need to make Quicktime your goto player. Perian enables support for the following:

• File formats: AVI, DIVX, FLV, MKV, GVI, VP6, and VFW
• Video types: MS-MPEG4 v1 & v2, DivX, 3ivx, H.264, Sorenson H.263, FLV/Sorenson Spark, FSV1, VP6, H263i, VP3, HuffYUV, FFVHuff, MPEG1 & MPEG2 Video, Fraps, Snow, NuppelVideo, Techsmith Screen Capture, DosBox Capture
• Audio types: Windows Media Audio v1 & v2, Flash ADPCM, Xiph Vorbis (in Matroska), and MPEG Layer I & II Audio, True Audio, DTS Coherent Acoustics, Nellymoser ASAO
• AVI support for: AAC, AC3 Audio, H.264, MPEG4, and VBR MP3
• Subtitle support for SSA/ASS and SRT

While this add’s greatly to the flexibility of Quicktime it also brings a couple of issues. MKV’s take a long time to load in Quicktime as it likes to know the total length of a movie before starting. This isn’t the fault of Perian but rather Apple in how they’ve built Quicktime.

One codec issue is AC3 support. Apple doesn’t fully support AC3 and to set it up isn’t trivial. This blog post on Record and Reverie details the steps to enable AC3 support but it should be noted that this won’t work with all receivers.

Another essential codec to install is Flip4Mac Windows Media Component for QuickTime. Catchy. This enables playback wma and wmv files in QuickTime and allows you to view Windows Media Content in your browser.

Despite all the codec’s we’ve installed, sometimes QuickTime just doesn’t cut it. That’s where VLC Media Player steps in. This is an open source multimedia viewer, streamer and convertor. To be honest I only ever use it for playback and then you look at the features that’s not a surprise. The only drawback is the shortage of developers which has stopped the development of a 64 bit version.

iTunes is a great app for music playback but Spotify is a great companion. Spotify allows you to stream music for free from a large music library. With collaborative playlists it makes for a great music client.

The majority of internet video content is encoded in Flash so installing the latest version of Flash is also required. One word of warning if your new to Macs. Flash on the Macs is inferior compared to the Windows version. It’s pretty CPU intensive and likes to use up a lot of RAM. This was the case when it was owned by Macromedia and the Adobe purchase hasn’t made much difference. You should also get the latest Silverlight plugin from Microsoft as there is a growing amount of web video that requires Silverlight.

The final two app’s (for the moment) are Xmarks and SuperDuper!. I use Xmarks to sync bookmarks amongst all my browsers and it makes sense to make those bookmarks available on the Mini. I use Sync Profiles in Xmarks to make the bookmarks bar unique to the Mini and also keep some bookmarks exclusively for Work and vice versa. SuperDuper! is my backup tool of choice and it’s easy to backup the Mini to the Drobo so that I have a full disk image backup in case I need to restore. The image is actually pretty small as all of the media is stored on the Drobo and there are very few app’s stored on the Mini.

So that’s the Mini setup. Almost. The next post will detail some specific setup options that I’ve chosen to do to help share iTunes libraries amongst machines and also make the most of the energy saving features on the Mac as I don’t want to run the Mini 24/7. Once that optional post is out of the way I’ll take you through the setup and usage of Plex and that’s when the real fun begins.

Wanting to use a Mac as a Media Centre/HTPC? Then this is the guide for you. In the first of a series of posts we’ll describe how to hook up a Mac Mini to an HDTV. Future posts will show how to get the best out of the Mini, the utilities that we recommend and the great playback software available on the Mac but this post will concentrate on hardware and connectivity to your HDTV. We’ll also test some different methods to control the Mac Mini and some great software to get media onto your mac. The first question you may be asking – why a mac?

There are now a variety of technologies and hardware that will act as a media centre for your HDTV. If your a gamer then the Xbox 360, PS3 or the Wii can all act as good media centre machines. However you are limited to the codecs they support and navigating your own content via the software on the consoles which isn’t always the best. Another option is to use a fairly cheap Windows box as an HTPC. Asus and Acer do some cracking Windows machines for £200-£300 and Windows 7 is a great O/S for media playback, but for me it still doesn’t match OS X when it comes to features and stability.

Which Mac?
The natural choice for Mac fans is the Apple TV. This is a device which connects to your HDTV and allows for playback of your own media, rent/buy of HD films and TV via iTunes and a few other nice media features like streaming music, photo’s from other devices etc. However the Apple TV is £223 for a device which has wi-fi and a 160HD. Not ideal as agin it doesn’t support many codecs, although you can flash the Apple TV to install Boxee or other codecs. That leaves the Mac Mini.

This is a fully featured PC that currently (Jan 2010) comes with a 2.26GHz processor, 2GB of Ram and 160GB hard drive. Coupled with the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics card means it’s a great machine for playback of all music and video comeback up to 1080p. One other important feature – it’s tiny and most importantly for me is it’s silent. Drawbacks? Lack of Blu-Ray is disappointing when so many Windows machines come with that option and the price isn’t cheap. In the UK they are currently starting at £510. Not the cheapest but with a little bit of effort I think it’s one of the best options for a HTPC.

Video Connections
So you’ve bought the Mini – how do you connect it to your HDTV?

The Mini has two graphics ports – a mini DVI port and a mini DisplayPort. Apple has standardised on Mini DisplayPort in most of it’s recent hardware so it’s no surprise that the Mini is supplied with a Mini-DisplayPort to DVI adaptor. To connect your Mini to your HDTV you have the following options:

• DVI to DVI cable – plug into DVI port on HDTV
• DVI to HDMI cable – plug into HDMI port on HDTV
• DVI to VGA cable – plug into VGA port on your HDTV
• Mini-Displayport to HDMI adapter + HDMI cable – connect to HDMI port on your HDTV

Plenty of options and that’s obviously not all as the Mini-DVI port is there and can be used instead.

Audio Connections
That covers video but what about audio? None of the above cables will carry audio from the Mini-DisplayPort – thats what the Audio Out port is for.

This is a standard 3.5mm audio out port which also doubles as a digital out with the right connector. Search on Amazon or online for Mini Toslink to Toslink and you’ll find adaptors similar to the one pictured. Plug this into the Audio Out and you will now be able to hook the Mini up to an Optical in on your amplifier or TV via an Optical cable. This option allows for 5.1 sound to be delivered from the Mini. Note that to get 5.1 sound you must select 5.1 in each application. By default the sound will be output in digital, but digital stereo only. Taking DVD Player for example, goto Preferences and Disc Setup. make sure that Audio Output is set to Digital Out – Built In Output and check Disable Dolby Dynamic Range Compression. See screen below for example.

Later topics will cover the optimum audio settings for media playback software like Plex and Boxee. If you don’t have an optical in then you can make do with a 3.5mm to dual RCA (sometime called dual composite) cable which will give you stereo sound.

Input Devices
The Mac Mini is sold as a BYODKM machine – Bring Your Own Display, Keyboard and Mouse. Catchy, not! The display has been covered above. As for keyboards and mice, you can plug any USB keyboard and mouse into your Mini which isn’t ideal for a Media Centre device. Ultimately the Mini won’t need a keyboard and mouse day to day but for setting up, they are essential. I was lucky in that I had a spare Apple Bluetooth keyboard and mouse which once paired with the Mini has worked a treat. As already mentioned, for short term use any old USB keyboard/mouse will do. Another alternative is to set up the Mac Mini via screen sharing from another Mac. Easy to do as long as the Mac is already up and running.

Logitech do a few keyboards that work wirelessly and also include a touchpad but models that have been recommended elsewhere and are bluetooth include the diNovo Edge which looks gorgeous but should do at £139, the diNovo Mini which is a smaller keyboard and touchpad combo but still pricey at £119 and something you may overlook – the MediaBoard Pro for PS3 at £50. While it’s a bit bigger and less sexy than the other keyboards, it includes a touchpad and is far more reasonably priced. Note that these keyboards are built for Windows PC’s, not for Macs, so some keys are missing like command for example. I should also mention that Apple’s new wireless keyboard is tiny, gorgeous and would be ideal if only it had a trackpad as well. Maybe this year Apple?

Another option is to use an all-in-one remote like the Logitech Harmony range. The advantage with the Harmony range is that it will work with all your A/V equipment and also with your Mac Mini and it comes with profile support for some of the software you use on the Mac, like Plex.

Finally, if you use an iPhone then there are a few app’s that allow you to have total control of your Mini – this will be covered later in the series.

Network, USB, Firewire and Tuners
While the latest Mini comes with wireless N support I’ve chosen to hook mine up via ethernet. Despite the improvements over the years I’ve found ethernet far more reliable, less prone to variation which is important when streaming and it’s far easier to do Wake On Lan (WOL) with ethernet than via wireless. The final connection for me was to plugin my newly acquired Drobo via the Firewire 800 port on the Mini.

One last piece of hardware which many will consider is a TV tuner. Elgato’s EyeTV range has long been considered the best solution for Mac owners. I’m sticking with my Sky HD box for now, mainly for the live sport but over time I can see me using the sky box less and less so I may revisit this at some point in the future.

Boot Time
With the hardware sorted and your Mac Mini connected it’s time to boot, configure and install some software but that’s for a future post.