http://digitalsandbox.us/wp-content/macmini.jpg” alt=“Mac Mini” />It has occurred to me int he few days since the debut of the Mac Mini that it is in fact perfect for integrating with a Home Entertainment Center. Some of you will, no doubt, remember my semi-coherent ramblings on how to set-up a Home Entertainment Center that could be controlled via Bluetooth. The major obstacles were finding a Mac that was fast enough and quiet enough to handle the job.
Enter Mac Mini.
The Mac Mini is eerily well suited for this task. It is small, very small, and sleek. It could be very easily integrated into a Home Entertainment setup without having to hide it away somewhere. There are also some instructions available for configuring MythTV, a popular Linux-based PVR setup, under OS X.
That isn’t to say that it is a perfect solution. There are some issues with it as well. Namely a lack of expandability. The 80 GB hard drive could filled rather quickly by the time you load up the programs and so forth. The other major issue would be one of getting the proper video capture device and sound output device. There are external options for these, but I am not sure how much they differ in cost.
Still the idea of integrating a fairly fast and capable computer into you Home Entertainment setup is very appealling. If you have a TV that supports DVI input, you also have a monitor for the computer to do actual work on if you choose. And I am sure that a HDTV capable tuner setup will be available shortly now that iMovie will support HD and Tiger promising more HD capabilities. Imagine the possibilities.
Posted by Danny on 01/14 at 08:01 AM
i was gonna come see if you had heard about the new mac stuff but I should have assumed that you would be way ahead of me in this game. I’m also excited about the iPod shuffle. Did you hear that Apple quadrupled their earnings this year! and not just because of the iPod and other spiffy stuff, their computer sales went up too. It’s a kind of vindication to me that Mac is and always has been the best.