Multimedia
With
Mini Mac
With the introduction of the iMac G5 and
its accompanying remote control and Front
Row media-browser software, Apple hinted
that the Mac was ready to add a new skill to
its resume—multimedia center. But the iMac wasn’t
really up to the task of replacing a cabinet full of audio
and video gear. Among other things, the iMac’s display
was too small for a large room, and its very high resolution
meant that TV shows, which are broadcast at a
lower resolution, ended up hazy and pixelated.
What the job required was an inexpensive Mac that had
the same multimedia features as the iMac but didn’t have a
display. Apple provided such a product with the Intelbased
Mac mini. Unlike the original mini, this Mac supports
infrared remote control; includes Front Row (the
latest version of which can also play shared media); and
offers digital surround-sound audio output, four USB
ports, and an optional dual-core processor. Is this Mac the
answer? It still has some shortcomings, but when outfitted
with the right peripherals, the mini performs
admirably as the brains of your home media center.
The Audio Video Connection
Standard TV
Most modern standarddefinition TVs offer three types of video input—antenna or coaxial cable, composite, and S-Video (see “Cables and Connectors” for the full variety of options). You can connect the mini to either of the latter two ports with Apple’s DVI to Video Adapter ($19; www.apple.com). This adapter converts the mini’s digital DVI signal for use with analog composite video and S-Video cables (not included). If you have a spare S-Video port on your TV, use it—S-Video offers the better picture quality of these video sources. When you boot the mini, it will recognize the adapter and adjust the resolution to 800 by 600 pixels. The picture will be a bit squished and fuzzy, but clear enough so that you can see what you’re doing as you pull down menus, open folders, and navigate through applications.
HDTV
Because high-definition TVs have digital inputs and wide screens, they are ideal for watching content such as DVDs or HD movie trailers. But connecting the mini to an HDTV can be a bit of work in some cases, due to the variety of HDTVs and inputs available, as well as any finessing required to get the mini to fill the entire screen. Typically, you’ll need either a standard DVI cable or a DVI-to-HDMI cable, but some older HDTVs don’t have those ports. For more on connecting a mini to an HDTV, see “HDTV Woes.”
Stereo
The mini’s audio output is actually two ports rolled into one. It lets you connect the mini to analog stereo equipment or powered speakers, using a mini jack-to-mini jack cable or a mini jack to RCA cable (also known as a Y-cable because of its shape). But the mini can also send out a digital 5.1-channel signal from the same port, using an optical (or Toslink) digital audio cable. Because of the port’s size, however, you can’t use a cable with a standard Toslink connector on both ends. Instead, you’ll need a cable with a snap-on plug tip for the mini, such as Belkin’s PureAV Digital Optical Audio Cable with Mini-Toslink Adapter ($30; store.apple.com) or Griffin Technology’s Xpress Cable ($20; www.griffintechnology.com).
TV Time
If you’re planning on using the Mac mini as a TiVo-style digital video recorder (DVR), for both playing live TV and recording programs to watch later, you’ll need to add some hardware capable of converting video to a format the Mac can understand, and software that lets you control and watch it. The Goods Elgato (www.elgato.com), Miglia (www.miglia.com), and Plextor (www.plextor.com) all sell compatible hardware that comes with Elgato’s EyeTV 2 software (mmmmh; macworld.com/1239) for watching live TV, recording TV programs, and creating schedules for your
recordings. Each product connects to your video source and, in most cases, uses a built-in hardware encoder to convert the signal to MPEG-1 or MPEG-2, and passes it on to your mini via USB 2.0 for viewing or recording. In my testing, these devices delivered a picture slightly inferior to that of a regular TV signal when zoomed to fill the screen. Some artifacts were evident, but the resulting picture was very watchable.
Digital Divide
The software makes it easy to change channels when you’re using any EyeTV-powered hardware with analog cable TV, an antenna signal, or even free over-the-air HD signals with the $250 Miglia TVMini HD (mmmmh; macworld.com/1507), which the Core Duo Mac mini has the horsepower to run. You can change the channels either manually or by scheduling recordings via integration with the TitanTV listing site (www.titantv.com).
These DVRs fall short in comparison to a dedicated TiVo, however, when it comes to digital cable or satellite TV decoder boxes. A stand-alone TiVo includes an infrared blaster—a device that relays an infrared signal from the TiVo to a cable or satellite receiver, using two LEDs—for changing channels on such boxes. Computer based recorders don’t have this feature. And the EyeTV software lacks some of TiVo’s features, such as smart scheduling and program recommendations based on your tastes. On the other hand, it can convert recorded video to an iPod-compatible portable format—a capability not currently available to Mac-using–TiVo enthusiasts. To solve the channel-changing problem, you’ll need a USB IR blaster and Vidcan Media Solutions’ iEye Captain ($30;www.vidcan.com). The latter acts as an intermediary between EyeTV and the blaster’s software—turning the schedules you’ve created in EyeTV into iCal events via some clever AppleScripts, and then firing the blaster with the proper codes at the
time of each scheduled event. There are two such Mac-compatible IR blasters: IRTrans’ IRTrans USB (€99; www.irtrans.de/en) and studioZee’s USB Zeph-IR ($65; www.thezephir.com). IRTrans’ iRed software is easier to configure and use, but the Zeph-IR ships with far more preconfigured profiles for remotes (and Zeph-IR’s developer says that he’ll create profiles on request). You can save some money by buying a bundle
of iEye Captain and one of the blasters (see macworld.com/1479 for details). With either product, you’ll need to install the software, plug the blaster into a USB port, and either pick your remote from the blaster’s library of devices (if available) or configure it yourself. Once you’ve configured the IR blaster’s software to emulate your remote, you create your schedules in EyeTV, using each schedule’s Description field to tell iEye Captain what channel the program is on. iEye Captain takes care of the rest.
Flicks on Discs
TV is important, but let’s not forget that your Mac mini needs to play other types of video to function as a true media center. If your Mac mini is the only video component connected to your TV, it also has to function as a DVD player. Of
course, you can play DVDs on any new Mac, and it works just the same connected to a TV as it would hooked up to a computer display. Your experience will vary depending on your type of TV and stereo and the cables you use to connect them to the mini.
The Apple Remote and Front Row software let you launch DVDs, navigate their menus, and use basic playback controls (but they don’t provide slow-motion or frame-by-frame movie playback, which Apple’s DVD Player software offers). One fly in the ointment is that you can control only movie volume with the AV receiver’s remote control—the Mac’s overall volume controls (including those in Front Row) hold no sway over digital audio output. You can, however, control volume from within applications—using iTunes’ or DVD Player’s volume sliders, for example—but those options are not ideal.
Video from Afar
Front Row has no problem seeing or playing any QuickTime-readable video files in your Movies folder. One particularly welcome feature of Front Row’s latest version is its ability to play shared videos, as well as music and iPhoto slide shows. This is especially useful for the Mac mini, on two fronts: First, it makes turning the mini into a media center easier, since it can draw content from the rest of your network. Second, it allows you to set up the mini as a player, wirelessly connected to a media server with roomier hard drives—a good idea, since movie files can quickly fill up the mini’s small hard drive (60GB or 80GB).
Wireless World
Regrettably, this sharing feature doesn’t work as well as it should. File size, the speed of your network connection, and file encoding influence how successfully you can stream media from one Mac to another. In my tests I was able
to stream iTunes music files reliably and easily over an AirPort Extreme connection though it took Front Row on the mini a minute or so to see the other Mac and load its library. Streaming movies from that same Mac via Front Row proved impossible—Front Row gave up after a few minutes of churning away, claiming that the server had a problem. Boosting the wireless signal by creating an extended wireless network with an Air Port Express base station helped. This provided a strong enough signal so that I could stream music videos purchased from the iTunes Music Store. Alas, streaming longer programming often resulted in server errors or stuttering playback.
Plugging In
Creating a HomePlug network with two of Belkin’s Powerline
Ethernet Adapters ($60; www.belkin.com) worked much better. These small adapters plug into electrical sockets and send data at speeds of up to 14 Mbps over your electrical wires. The setup is a cinch: plug the adapter into a nearby
socket, string the included Ethernet cable between the adapter and each Mac’s Ethernet port, enable Ethernet in the Network preference pane, and choose Using DHCP from the Configure IPv4 pop-up menu. With the HomePlug devices, the mini was able to play iTunes episodes of Weeds and Lost, streamed from the remote Mac via Front Row. It choked, however, on a 90-minute Saturday Night Live collection from the iTunes Music Store. It also couldn’t play a 2.69GB MPEG-4 file of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, at 2 hours and 42 minutes, encoded with
HandBrake (free; handbrake.m0k.org). Before taking the next step and moving to a direct wired connection, I experimented to see just what effect Front Row had on the proceedings—as it turned out, it had a great deal more than I expected. I discovered, for example, that I could play previously unplayable Front Row streaming videos by opening them directly in iTunes. For instance, the SNL collection played over the HomePlug network when I chose it from the shared library in iTunes. Eliminating iTunes’ Shared entry items altogether yielded even greater success. I mounted the network volume that housed several movies and copied an alias of the SNL collection from the server Mac to the mini’s Movies folder. I then fired up Front Row, selected Movies, and chose that alias from the mini’s Movies entry. It played without a hitch. Using this technique, I was even able to open It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World within Front Row. It initially stuttered over the HomePlug network, but after 30 seconds or so, the video
played back smoothly.
Wired Up
Running wire—100 feet of Cat-6 Ethernet cable from one Mac to another offered improvements as well. In this wired world, all the iTunes television shows played within a shared Front Row environment. The aliased version of the full-length movie loaded via Front Row and also played immediately. But the shared version once again refused to load. It turns out that Front Row movie sharing works best when the movies you intend to share have been encoded with streaming in mind (an option HandBrake doesn’t offer). Even with streaming enabled, full-length movies shared via Front Row work only with a fast connection (a wired Gigabit Ethernet network), not over AirPort. And long movies exceeding two hours, for example—must be encoded at lower bit rates. (For details on how to best stream movies via Front Row, go to macworld.com/1480).
The Sweet Sounds
Video may be the first thing people think of when they consider setting up a media center, but another major aspect is music—be it in the form of iTunes, terrestrial radio, or even Internet radio.
Music to Your Ears
As you’d expect, the Mac mini offers access to your entire iTunes music library via Front Row. For basic playback and for picking items from a long list of songs or artists, it performs pretty well (and it will let you play purchased music—something other media players can’t do—as long as you’ve authorized the mini to play the files). But controlling iTunes with Front Row isn’t like using iTunes itself. Although Apple added new shuffling choices to the latest Front Row update, the software still provides no way to use iTunes’ browser or search field to find the music you want, and it can’t access the iTunes Music Store either.
Catch an Airwave
With the assistance of Griffin Technology’s Radio Shark ($70; mmmh; macworld.com/1527), your mini can also tune into and record local AM and FM radio. The Radio Shark plugs into a USB port, and you pick stations through its software, which also lets you record live programs and create schedules for recording upcoming programs. The Radio Shark’s reception can be finicky, so it’s worth your while to move it around in the hope of picking up a more reliable signal.
Net Sounds
Maybe streaming radio is your thing—this cool technology lets you listen to broadcasts far outside your geographical area via the Internet. Check out RadioTime (www.radiotime.com), a free Web-based service that offers more than 50,000 music, sports, and talk stations from around the world, channeling the stream through Apple’s QuickTime Player, Microsoft’s Windows Media Player, or RealNetworks’ RealPlayer (depending on the stream’s format). For
$39 a year, RadioTime will let you schedule and record programs as well. Here’s the bad news: the current (and final) version of Windows Media Player for Mac doesn’t work with RadioTime’s software and a majority of streamed radio stations offer only the Windows Media format. And the alternative, Flip4Mac’s free WMV component, which lets QuickTime play Windows Media content (www.flip4mac.com ), currently won’t work on Intelbased Macs at all (an upcoming Universal version will fix this problem). (but note that the drivers are not yet Universal). It also incorporates an infrared remote control for AV devices (see “Total Control”).
The Last Word
So how well does the Mac mini work as the centerpiece to your digital lifestyle? If you don’t need the assistance of an IR blaster to change channels—you access TV via an antenna or an unscrambled analog cable connection—a DVR running the EyeTV 2 software is an adequate, if limited, substitute for a TiVo DVR (and it comes without the latter’s monthly service fees). And while I’d love to see Elgato provide its own IR blaster option for the millions of people who do get TV from a scrambled cable box or satellite receiver, it’s comforting to know that you can cobble together the necessary parts and software—though doing so is a complicated job. In the kind of complex configuration that puts the Mac in the middle of an existing media center, Apple’s Remote and Front Row are barely passable options, providing the essentials but little more. Again, with the funds and the desire to do so, you can control the entire enterprise with an additional remote. Where the mini needs fundamental improvement is as a client for a larger media server. If you traffic exclusively in music or short-to-medium-length TV programs and videos purchased from the iTunes Music Store, you’ll get along fine sharing that media over a solid wireless network. But when you’re dealing with full-length movies, you may need to store them somewhere other than on the mini’s hard drive. You can share full-length movies via Front Row, given correct movie encoding and a fast network connection; however, some people may find this option more trouble than it’s worth. The current state of the computer as a media center bears comparison to the state of portable digital-music–player technology just before the release of the iPod. Today, as then, the pieces exist to create much of the experience you desire, yet they remain scattered. You can assemble a multimedia center with a small computer at its core, but it takes time and money, and the result doesn’t provide the convenience or quality of traditional AV gear. I’m putting my money on Apple as the company most likely to one day put those pieces together.
