So, entertainment is a huge part of our society today. TV watching, movies and stuff like that take up quite a bit of our attention. I’ve always been interested in making technology work for you whether it was on a consumer level or a professional level. Right now I want to focus on more of a consumer level because technically, that’s what watching TV at home comes under.
I’ve always been interested in media center options that are on the market and you’ll often see the PC side of media center computers. You never really see any major Apple stuff on the market other then the Apple TV which is more of an iTunes extender rather then an actual media center PC.
So, I have been searching along with my friend, Sean Noble, over the past few years to find some way to make a truly Mac based media center. Here’s what I came up with:
1) A simple cable/satellite set top box or DTV converter would do
2) Mac Mini base (I’m sure the base model would work great with a network hard drive or external to back up to)
3) Elgato EyeTV (if you so feel the need to DVR and your Mac Mini will certainly need the external then)
4) Your TV w/HDMI input
5) Surround sound receiver if you feel so inclined (I certainly do!!)
The set top box, you will probably need because most providers encode and encrypt their signal in such a way that you need to have their own set top box for things to work properly. Although, you may get lucky and find a TV that has a QAM tuner that works but for this media center, you are probably going to want to have the set top box anyway.
Then, get your hands on the Mac mini. The HDMI out helps keep cable clutter to a minimum while still yielding great video quality. That will go straight into the back of your TV.
Now here is where the magic happens…the ElGato EyeTV is the major part that ties this thing together. You can output your set top box directly to your TV for a “bypass” in case you don’t want to have you Mac Mini on all the time but, using the ElGato EyeTV, you can record the output of your set top box on your Mac Mini effectively making your Mac Mini both a computer and a DVR. The EyeTV accepts composite in with the ability to record up to 1080i! Not bad! It can even dual encode…meaning that it can record a regular TV version as well as an iPhone version at the same time!! Sweet! But it gets better. The EyeTV also comes with an IR blaster and can be synced with your set top box. That means, you can record something on whatever channel you want, and then have the EyeTV change channels and record something else. It encodes the video it records with it’s own software on your Mac Mini in H.264. Even if you don’t want to record with the EyeTV, it still gives you the ability to control live TV from your Mac. You can pause and rewind live TV, search their program guide, set up regular recordings, and then share then through iTunes. You can even stream live or recorded TV to your iPhone or iPad
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Pretty sweet set up right? And, as an added bonus, if you want to be able to control everything and have the extra money to spend, pick up a Logitech universal remote. The Harmony Series is a pretty sweet line of universal remote. The basic model, the Harmony 300, would easily control all of what I have outlined above
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. The only issue is that you would be maxing it out. And if you are like me, you’ll buy something else and want to control that too! As the price goes up, so does the number of devices the remote can control. The price gets pretty steep pretty fast but still, they make some really cool gear! For what I want to do, I would probably wind up with the Harmony 700 or the Harmony One.
Anyway, that’s my Mac media center! I may add to this later but that’s what I have right now. If you have any ideas or things you’d like me to explain or if you have ideas to make it better, feel free to comment or send me an email at jason@jasoncastellente.com. I’d love to hear from YOU!
