Saturday, 3 November 2007

HTPC - The long, ardous and expensive quest!

All I want to be able to do is archive all my movies, TV shows and PVR recordings to a machine from which I can watch it. I don't want to have to plug in different units, encode them to different standards or use differing disks for each media. All I want to do is sit in front of the TV and press the remote to play the files.

After an expensive quest, including a £400 Sony PS3, ending in a collection of odd units which won't play the files I decided to try the Mac Mini I bought some time ago [July 19th] and have never used. I researched it and installed something called Media Central on there, threw a couple of files at it and 'BAM!' plays them without issue! So at this point I starting throwing all my files at it to test it and it works on all the differing formats I have.

Coupled with an Apple Remote [more on that shortly] it's an excellent one box silent solution! So I've moved the 1.83Ghz downstairs, purchased a 2Ghz unit [that I'm writing this on now] and looking for another for the missus to play her PC games on when dual booted with XP. So I'll be buying a 3rd Mini on Monday!

Now I ordered the Mini on Wednesday and chucked an Apple Remote into my basket without checking, the 2Ghz model ships with remote *sigh*. Nevermind though. at least I have a spare now :)

Happy days, I'm currently catching up on all those shows I've been missing at long last.



H4rri
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