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WJMoore · 10:24 PM

I'm moving house and setting up a home theatre from scratch. My current setup is a Power Mac G5 with an EyeTV hybrid and a 24" Dell LCD. This works well as I can play any video, any music and watch and record TV all at the one place. However the new place will have the computer in a different room and I'm planning to buy an LCD TV.

Ideally I'd like to be able to do all lot of of this on the new setup too. Music and movies are a must, photos would be nice, other things like weather and other internet enabled services would be great too. So the question then becomes how to get the music and movies (photos would be good too) from the computer onto the TV. The most obvious choice is an Apple TV as it will no doubt work seamlessly and have a beautiful interface. However being limited to QuickTime formats and a lack of supported extensibility (I would like to tinker with the device) is a bit of deal breaker and then's there's the high price.

A friend referred me to the Popcorn Hour A-100 (aka Network Media Tank) which is a Linux based device with vast format support, web services, built in BitTorrent client. It also has media server software for Mac OS X. Its big limitation is the lack of WiFi but It has a great price.

So I was wondering what people's thoughts were. What are others using? Any recommendations, that kind of thing.

hyteckit · Feb 4, 2008, 11:14 PM

Do what I and lots of Mac users are doing. Get a $599 Mac Mini and plug in your EyeTV hybrid.

ginoledesma · Feb 5, 2008, 01:30 AM

There is another alternative. You could spring for an XBox 360 and get more functionality. It's a great companion to any LCD/HDTV, is priced less than a Mac Mini, and can get lots of media streamed from your Mac using Connect 360. Slap in an HD-DVD drive and you'll also be able to watch commercial high def movies.

The PS3 can do this as well, but I think the XBox 360 is generally a better deal overall.

GORDYmac · Feb 5, 2008, 03:31 PM

Prior to AppleTV, I used EyeHome for TV recordings, movies, music, and photos on my den HDTV. I was intrigued by AppleTV, and I bought it shortly after it was announced. For a long time both boxes sat on my mantle, and I toggled between them...AppleTV for music & photos (though, EyeHome did photos better), and EyeHome for EyeTV & movie downloads.

After Elgato announced their Turbo.264 hardware H.264 encoder, EyeHome went to the closet. Turbo.264 gets the EyeTV recordings to iTunes & AppleTV much faster than before. It also handles any videos that aren't in a native format already. My only continuing gripe with AppleTV is photo playback..it's still lacking.

I have also tried D-Link's DSM 320 network player, but it was awful. Netgear's box released with AppleTV (EVA 8000?) wasn't much better. Elgato's EyeConnect software gets EyeTV recordings & other content to these players simple enough.

WJMoore · Feb 6, 2008, 12:25 AM

@GORDYmac I hadn't seen that EyeHome before and it looks like its discontinued, however they do have the EyeConnect.

@ginoledesma The Xbox 360 is an option I hadn't considered, its a pretty good one but suffers from a lack of wireless still. I also considered a Playstation 3 but they're pretty pricey. If they had the twin digital tuner add-on available I'd probably be sold on it though.

@hyteckit The Mac mini is an option, I'd been avoiding it due to the cost but with my existing EyeTV hybrid it would kill many birds with one stone (DVR, DVD player, music, photos, web, the lot). Hmm its definitely worth further consideration.

Anyone know if its possible to get HDMI out of a mini? Or failing that if it will support the native resolution of an LCD TV (more than likely non-HD 1366 x 768).

GORDYmac · Feb 6, 2008, 05:06 PM

Yep, EyeHome is dead. It was good while it lasted...but it started showing its age about a year and a half ago, when newer codecs became prevalent. It is still good as an EyeTV client...I may move it to the bedroom.

I considered the Mac Mini/DVR option, but things broke down around HDMI. I could never get a clear understanding of how the Mini would output 1366 x 768 resolution from the DVI output to the TV's HDMI or Component inputs. The solutions sounded expensive.

WJMoore · Feb 6, 2008, 07:00 PM

Originally Posted by GORDYmac

I considered the Mac Mini/DVR option, but things broke down around HDMI. I could never get a clear understanding of how the Mini would output 1366 x 768 resolution from the DVI output to the TV's HDMI or Component inputs. The solutions sounded expensive.

This is where I'm at now. It seems there are cheap options that have their limitations but might work.

ginoledesma · Feb 6, 2008, 08:05 PM

I've seen other people's setups with a Mac Mini driving an LCD TV using a DVI-HDTV adapter. They look great enough, in my opinion, with their sets displaying nice 720p. I haven't looked too closely between 1080i and 720p to tell the difference, though. Thing is, only the video portion of the signal is carried in such a link, so if your unit is expecting audio to come from the HDMI cable, you'll end up with silence.

hyteckit · Feb 6, 2008, 08:15 PM

My 1080p LCD TV has HDMI, DVI, and VGA. No problemo. I just bought a mini-optical to optical cable to connect my Mac Mini to my receiver for 5.1 surround sound. I'm watching both TV and DVDs in surround sound with my Mac Mini.

WJMoore · Feb 6, 2008, 08:16 PM

I'm pretty sold on the Mac mini idea. A friend pointed out that HDMI caries a DVI signal so that's not a problem. As you point out there will be no audio in the HDMI out of the mini. I don't think this is a problem either since the audio from the mini will go via SPDIF to a receiver or amp.

WJMoore · Feb 6, 2008, 08:21 PM

Originally Posted by hyteckit

My 1080p LCD TV has HDMI, DVI, and VGA. No problemo. I just bought a mini-optical to optical cable to connect my Mac Mini to my receiver for 5.1 surround sound. I'm watching both TV and DVDs in surround sound with my Mac Mini.

Sounds exactly like what I'm after. What TV do you have, I've found very few with a dedicated DVI connector?

hyteckit · Feb 6, 2008, 09:12 PM

Originally Posted by WJMoore

Sounds exactly like what I'm after. What TV do you have, I've found very few with a dedicated DVI connector?

I have a Westinghouse 42" 1080p model. Pretty decent reviews and it's pretty cheap these days.

vmarks · Feb 8, 2008, 12:35 PM

I have the intel mini with dvi-hdmi cable connected to a 37" Olevia.

The Mac Mini can display the 1366x768 without a problem, but you have to adjust it with DisplayConfigX to get it to use the display properly. Backporch and frontporch settings are crucial.

It was a pain to get right, but once it's done, it's done.

WJMoore · Feb 10, 2008, 07:39 PM

Originally Posted by vmarks

I have the intel mini with dvi-hdmi cable connected to a 37" Olevia.

The Mac Mini can display the 1366x768 without a problem, but you have to adjust it with DisplayConfigX to get it to use the display properly. Backporch and frontporch settings are crucial.

It was a pain to get right, but once it's done, it's done.

That's interesting, I wondered if 1366 would work out of the box or not. I had a look at DisplayConfigX, what are the back/front porch settings you referred to?

vmarks · Feb 11, 2008, 05:26 PM

Backporch and Frontporch are used to define how the image fills the screen. What I found was that without using DisplayConfigX, I had an image that was the correct resolution, but that the edges of the image were cut off, and black borders surrounding the image - it didn't go all the way to the edges. Adjusting backporch and frontporch allowed the image to go to the edges.

vmarks · Feb 11, 2008, 05:29 PM

Incidentally, I also have a few UPNPAV devices (mine are snazio and webpro, but they're similar to the d-link dsm-520 and netgear eva 8000 series) - I don't like them. I have a friend who swears by them, but I really don't like that they don't do h264, and that they're 802.11g but streaming media to them always has stops and starts for buffering, and trying to fast forward requires it going all the way through the whole file first - even if it's reading off a USB drive.