Home Theater: Apple TV vs Mac Mini

[FanIn80]

Well I took the plunge yesterday and picked up a base level Mac mini. Got it all hooked up this morning, and man oh man is it ever nice. Hard drive upgrade (had an intel SSD kicking around) was rather interesting, but completely worth it in the end.

Don't know why I didn't do this in the first place. It's exactly what I've been looking for all this time.

[FanIn80]

I take back what I said about not using XBMC too, btw. I don't know what the hell I was thinking. It runs perfectly!

[Burninator]

How are you dealing with all your media? External hard drives or wireless streaming or...?

[FanIn80]

Originally Posted by Burninator

How are you dealing with all your media? External hard drives or wireless streaming or...?

I spent an hour yesterday and another hour this morning looking into this. You'd think it would be easier to find a reliable external HD with a FW800 interface...

I'm probably just going to build my own from an enclosure and 2TB HD from MemEx. External HD seems the logical way to go here, since I can now do everything I need to do directly on my TV. Just need to store the files afterward.

The only thing I'm concerned with is the quality of Netflix running in a browser plugin. It would be nice if they made a Netflix app and released it in the Mac app store. Mind you, now that I can usenet directly on my TV...

Edit: One of my favorite things so far is AirDisplay. I can actually extend the desktop of my MacBook Pro onto my TV, which makes doing homework so much nicer. I can watch an instructional video, or have the spec sheets and project files up on the TV while doing the work on my laptop. Cuts down the alt-gabbing quite a bit!

Last night, I had a spec sheet up on my iPad beside me, and the lecture video playing on the Mac mini (on the TV) while doing the work on my MacBook. I don't think I alt-tabbed once throughout the entire assignment.

[FanIn80]

OK, forget XBMC... Plex is where it's at! Holy cow.

[opendoor]

Yeah, Plex is pretty amazing. It's played everything I've thrown at it and there are a lot of nice interface and appearance options with the different skins you can download and whatnot.

There are a few little things that are kind of annoying, but for 99% of what I use it for, it's fantastic.

[Mtt48]

I have the WD TV Live. It's very good. I have it networked, plugs right into my tv and I have 2 externals hooked up directly to the unit. I can watch anything, plays any format I have come across and can play huge 1080p rips without a problem.

You can get the unit for under 100$ and I have found it to be quite good. The menu's dont look totally sick or anything, in fact they are very basic but it's a cheap solution and really does the job well.

[FanIn80]

Originally Posted by opendoor

Yeah, Plex is pretty amazing. It's played everything I've thrown at it and there are a lot of nice interface and appearance options with the different skins you can download and whatnot.

There are a few little things that are kind of annoying, but for 99% of what I use it for, it's fantastic.

I love that it has a Lynda.com app! I just plugged in my account info, and I can search for and watch any video right there. Much nicer than having to go to a website and load a video in a browser, etc etc. There's a Netflix app too, but I haven't tried it out yet. How awesome would that be?