KissaBoo

Apple Mac Mini: Small, quiet, record(?)

I'm a couple of days late, but I'll join the chorus in singing that when I first saw Apple's Mac Mini the first thing I thought was that it would be a great machine for those relatives I would like to get/encourage a Mac for but don't want anybody breaking the bank. The second thought, after my recent struggles to build a quiet PC that isn't really that quiet anymore, is that this machine would be a great base of a homebrewed PVR, Home Theater PC, or whatever you want to call it - and I speak with some experience of Apple design since my PowerBook is unbelievably quiet. The Mini is really only missing a few things.

First, the only video output is VGA/DVI and if you are like me, you don't have a TV yet that accepts DVI. However, I'm so sure that it ain't no thang but a chicken wing, that I won't even look to make sure there is an adapter that will allow one to use these outputs with the SVideo and/or composite inputs on your tv.

Second, 40 or 80 gig hard drives might be a little small, but honestly, if you are not saving HDTV they should be fine (I've been surviving with 40 for a while) and I'll bet that it isn't too hard to upgrade the hard drive on the Mini's, even if they are small.

Third, yes, even with RSS/BitTorrent and the possibility of ipTV, one still probably wants to record programming from cable or over-the-air. There are a number of hardware solutions to this problem, but I'll point to Elgato's eyeTV Wonder since it was recently announced (and I'll give eHomeUpgrade the credit for pointing me to it). Another problem of course is the remote, but there are plenty of USB / IR solutions to this or you can splurge for a product that costs as much as the mini and get the wireless Philips RC9800i.

Fourth, while Mac OS X is terrific and the Elgato software for example may be good, I wonder if a linux distribution like Yellow Dog can be tailored to be the perfect PVR OS.

Update: While there are probably a 100 articles about the same topic in that blog universe, I will add a link to this ehomeupgrade article, which I read after publishing this story though it mentions some of the same ideas, for two reasons. They actually mention a S-Video/composite adapter made by Apple and have a link to MythTV on Mac OS X.

Posted by shs4 at January 13, 2005 01:02 AM