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The Mac mini is not just the smallest, coolest, most energy-efficient desktop around. It’s also the most versatile. With a plethora of ports, it’s ready to serve as the brain of your home media center, whether you’re into movies, TV, or music. Here’s what you’ll need to do:
Check Your TV
Most modern flat-panel televisions sport HDMI ports, which combine high-definition video and audio into a single cable. The Mac mini has HDMI built in, but if your TV does not, it may be time for an upgrade. Before you invest in a Mac mini solution, make sure that your television has HDMI ports to support the audio and video output.
Choose Your Computer
All Mac minis share the same small form factor, but there are various options for processor, internal hard drive, and RAM to choose from. Faster processors work better if you're going to be importing HD video or recording live TV, and larger storage helps you hold your entire collection. Tekserve can upgrade the RAM of any Mac mini we carry to ensure that your media center software runs without a hitch.
To Disc or Not To Disc...
Apple removed the optical (DVD) drive from the Mac mini. If you have a lot of DVDs, you can add an external superdrive to your media computer, or share a drive with another Mac or PC in your home. Blu-Ray playback is not supported natively, so if Blu-Ray is a big part of your plans, getting a stand alone player may be your best option rather than connecting it directly to your mini.
Choose Your Audio
If you already have a home theater audio system connected to your tv, any audio sent from the Mac mini will pass through to the TV's output and on to your audio system. The HDMI port supports surround signals, so if your media files are in surround sound, the signal will be correctly decoded by your receiver and passed to your surround speakers.
If you're interested in upgrading the sound from the built in speakers on your TV, but you don't want the hassle and expense of a full surround home theater system, you can get great sound for your media center pretty easily. A Bose or Audioengine 2.1 speaker system will give you accurate stereo sound with the low end rumble from a dedicated subwoofer, and both can be streamed wirelessly using an Airport Express or Audioengine wireless adapter. An Airport Express also lets you use Airplay to stream audio from iTunes on other computers or iOS devices, so this can make your media center a more versatile audio solution.
For audio purists, optical is the cleanest way to connect a speaker system, and the Cakewalk Digital Monitors support optical input directly without need of an amplifier for easy setup and deadly accurate sound. The Mac mini, Airport Express, and most HDTVs support optical audio out, so you can get accurate sound a number of ways.
Do You Want Live TV?
Whether with cable, satellite, or the old rabbit ears, (believe it or not, over-the-air TV can often give you a clearer signal for local channels than cable or satellite... as long as you can get the signal) you can easily add DVR features and full digital program guides to your setup with an Elgato EyeTV tuner. These products come with the great EyeTV software, which gives you all of the functions of a set top box on your Mac mini! There are currently three tiers in the product line, and which one you get depends on what type of live TV you want to use. For OTA (over-the-air, using an antenna) HD, the ONE reciever provides all of the DVR and channel listing features you need at a low cost. If you use basic cable, or would like to import video from other analog sources (VCR, camcorder, etc.) as well, the Hybrid gives you the added functionality you need. If you have satellite or digital cable that depends on a set-top box for premium channels, the HD DVR works in tandem with the set top box, allowing you to control the box, use its listings, and record the video directly to your mini. The HD DVR also includes a hardware transcoder that automatically converts your recorded shows to h.264, saving processor overhead and storage space while allowing you to export your shows to any iOS device. This is such a useful feature, and you should consider adding hardware transcoding to your media center even if you use the ONE or Hybrid, or even if you would like to convert other videos, with the Turbo.264.
Choose the Right Software
Mac OS X has a great user interface, but at HD resolution it can be difficult to control from your couch. Before Lion was introduced, Apple included a program called Front Row that allowed you to access your movies, shows, and music easily using the Apple Remote; as it has been removed, (although some enterprising folks figured out how to add it back to Lion) you'll want to use software that integrates all of your media into an easy to use interface. The good news is that there are many options available for free: XBMC, MythTV, and newcomer (Lion-only) Squire, among others.
You can use any of these, but our favorite choice is Plex. It's easy to install and set up, (see instructions for the server and client) supports multiple client computers, (great if you want more than one media center) and has many plugins to support streaming video sites, launch applications, and support various types of files. When you install the server, you can set up your media and plugins to add all of the features you want on your media center, then install and run the Plex client. We recommend setting up a strong password for the server during this process. Once the client is running, you can adjust the interface and settings in preferences, or add functionality in the channel directory. If Plex is going to be your primary interface, we recommend setting it as a startup item so it appears every time you boot up you mini.
If you've added an EyeTV product to your media center, you can use the included software to control your TV stations and DVR setup, and the setup is pretty straightforward out of the box. If you are using Plex, you can add a button to launch or switch to EyeTV from Plex (learn how here), and EyeTV's On Screen Menu can be launched to control your live TV with the Apple Remote.
One of the benefits of using a computer instead of a dedicated set-top box for you media center is that you can use computer applications to do just about anything on your TV, from playing games, to editing video, or even browsing the web. There are many applications that have been designed for the home media center that will make performing these tasks on your TV a much better experience. Web browsing, for example, is a lot easier to do in browsers like Kylo that are designed for use on a television. Games, whether made for the Mac (or even Windows, if you use Boot camp, Parallels, or VMWare) will run well on your media center, but the mini, although powerful, may require lower resolutions and texture settings to run the latest games at acceptable speeds. Remember, most TVs only have a resolution of 1920x1080 or lower, so it isn't necessary to run games at a higher resolution. You can get around these limitation use streaming subscription services like Onlive to play the latest games without running into performance issues. As long as your internet connection is fast enough, Onlive runs games on powerful gaming machines remotely and streams the action to you, so your mini's hardware is no longer an issue.
Control Your Media Center
The Mac mini was always designed to allow you to choose your input devices, which allows you to choose from a variety of options to control your media center. For starters, the mini works with just about any USB mouse and keyboard, and we recommend you have a set of wired input devices for initial setup and just in case anything goes wrong with your other input devices. For all but the smallest apartments, a wired keyboard and mouse are not the best solution for controlling your media center from the comfort of your couch. For full computer control, using a wireless keyboard and mouse are a good solution, but if you only rarely need a keyboard and mouse and you have an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch, apps like Remote Mouse let your device act as a trackpad and keyboard to control your mini wirelessly; this is a great way to easily control every feature of the mini without balancing a keyboard and mouse on your lap. Another intriguing option using your iOS device is a remote control app desined to work directly with your front-end software. Plex and others each have apps that directly control the interface itself, and the Plex app goes even further: as well as controlling your media center, the Plex app also acts as a client, allowing you to access all of your Plex content on your device directly. This makes it really easy to finish that movie in bed on your iPad! Finally, the Apple Remote is the lightweight and most 'tv-like' alternative to the full keyboard and mouse combo, especially if you use a front end like Plex. Although it won't allow you to do everything in OS X, most functions are supported by Plex and EyeTV, and you can even use this to control some Apple applications such as DVD Player, iTunes, and Keynote.
Store Your Media
Whether you're recording live TV, downloading music and videos from iTunes, or getting your media from another source, your library of media is going to take up quite a bit of space. A smaller library may fit on the mini's internal hard drive, but as your library grows, a larger drive may be needed. Adding an external drive is a good way to add storage space, and we carry a wide variety of drives that can give you as much space as you need. You'll need to make sure that any external storage is fast enough to stream large files, especially if you are recording tv shows at the same time. We recommend using Thunderbolt drives for maximum performance; the LaCie Little Big Disk drives are compact options for libraries between 1-2TB, and for truly massive libraries the Promise Pegasus line of Thunderbolt RAIDs will give you top-of-the line storage.
Ask Us How
Call us at 212-929-3645, email us at info@tekserve.com, or stop by the store, and we can help you build a media center solution to take your tv to the next level. We look forward to helping you!
 Mac mini |
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 | Download Remote Mouse (Mobile/TrackPad) for iPad from iTunes for $2.99 | $2.99 | AvailableDigital Download |
 | Download Remote Mouse from iTunes for $1.99 | $1.99 | AvailableDigital Download |
 | Download Remote Mouse from the Mac App Store | $0.00 | AvailableDigital Download |
 | Download Plex from iTunes for $4.99 | $4.99 | AvailableDigital Download |
 | Apple Remote | $19.00 | Out of StockCall for Availability |
 | Apple Thunderbolt Cable - 6ft | $49.00 | In StockShips in 1 business day |
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 | Apple AirPort Express Base Station 802.11n with Air Tunes | $99.00 | In StockShips in 1 business day |
 | Bose Companion 2 Series II Multimedia Speaker System | $99.00 | In StockShips in 1 business day |
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 | AudioEngine Premium 8" Powered Subwoofer (Semi-Matte Black) | $349.00 | Special OrderShips in 3-10 business days |
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 | AudioEngine A5+ Black Two-Piece Speaker System w/ iPod charging port | $399.00 | In StockShips in 1 business day |
 | LaCie 1TB Little Big Disk Thunderbolt Portable Hard Drive 7200rpm | $449.99 | In StockShips in 1 business day |
 | LaCie 2TB Little Big Disk Thunderbolt Portable Hard Drive 5400rpm | $549.99 | In StockShips in 1 business day |
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 | Promise Pegasus R4 4TB - Thunderbolt | $1,149.00 | In StockShips in 1 business day |
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 | Promise Pegasus R6 12TB - Thunderbolt | $2,499.00 | In StockShips in 1 business day |
| 29 products foundSort by: $ → $$$ | $$$ → $ | A → Z | Availability | |||