# Building/buying a HTPC



## sinclair_tm (Mar 11, 2005)

I have quite a large digital media library. Most of it currently resides on my G4, stats if which are listed to the left. The rest is burned to DVDs and CDs because I don't have much room left on my 1TB drive. Now that I'm done with school and working full time, I'd like to expand my tech. I want to get an older Mac Mini, the last one with a DVD drive built in and upgrade the hard drive to at least 2TB, because it had the drive, and because it can run OS X 10.6, which is the last version of OS X to include Apple's Front Row (That and I hate Lion.). I'd attach it to my home theater system and use it to play video on my TV and sound on my surround sound. But they seem to be going for the same price or more than a new Mac Mini. If I went with a new Mini, then I'd have to find something like xbmc to do the function of Front Row, but xbmc doesn't integrate with iTunes's library well. I was also leaning toward Mac in general because I do have an iPhone and iPods I use outside of home. The other issue is for the price of a Mini I can build a nice PC and either run WMC or xbmc stand alone on it. But then I still have the iOS device sync issue. I do want to get a new family computer and am thinking about then getting an iMac, then using an AppleTV, but I'm not a big fan of just streaming to the TV, I've never had much luck with networks that can actually handle transporting HD quality data without playback issues. Also for the price of the AppleTV, there's the Roku, but I've not had much luck with finding info about streaming from your PC to it for playback.

Anywho, so I'm looking for advice, and info, hopefully from those that have done so, but my end goal is to have my video and music be playable on my home theater, hosted on a local device with a wired connection to my A/V receiver, with a Front Row/WMC/xbmc/AppleTV like interface with remote, and be able to sync with my iOS devices, and not cost me an arm and a leg. Please, enlighten me.


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## yustr (Sep 27, 2004)

You made me tired just thinking about a solution...

One possibility would be to put all the media on a central storage device like the Seagate 2TB drive I use. Didn't cost much ($100) and is accessible through my router. It shows up as drives (3 total - one public and 2 private) on all of my computers. So you could build a cheap HTPC/Mac-mini just to access the files. I'm doubtful a wireless connection could keep up with a HD data stream so you might have to copy the file over to the HTPC/M-m and manage it from there. As far as iTunes - it uses the Seagate as the library source and sync's fine.

All that said, I've not tried it with movies only music CD's. Not even sure how to do it with a DVD.

Note: Loading 250 GB was quite a chore.

BTW: Welcome back and congratulations on finishing school. :dance:


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## v-six (Sep 12, 2004)

I use a Mac Mini with my home theater, and it works out nicely. Nothing directly related to your questions, bu there's a few tips I've learned in the process 

Mine doesn't do a good job of passing EDID if I send video through my receiver first, so I feed it directly to the TV. I like doing all the switching through my receiver, so :facepalm:

The only downside to using a Mac as a HTPC is that you can't adjust your master system font size (you can on a PC). For that reason, I have to run it at 720P instead of 1080P. Otherwise things are nearly unreadable.

Get a mini-toslink to toslink adapter for 5.1!


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## JimE (Apr 16, 2009)

I'm not a Mac guy. In any case, you could go the low tech route and use a WD TV Live box or similar with external HDD's for storage. Or for that matter, upgrade the TV or AVR (or DVD player, or use an xBox or PS3). Many new mid to high end models have media over LAN support. You then simply need the media storage on the LAN or directly connected. The biggest deciding factor is the interface/GUI.


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## yustr (Sep 27, 2004)

Agree with Dogg - my Samsung B-R player can access the Seagate drive on my network that has all my music. The only problem is that it only sees MP3 files and most of mine are Apple Lossless. So I'd have to make a parallel folder with every one of the 75,000 songs converted to MP3.

On another related subject, how do you go about coping DVD's to a HD for access from a HTPC or network'd device? What software? Codec? Etc.


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## sinclair_tm (Mar 11, 2005)

The network drive idea sounds good if you have no problems with iTunes and another HTPC using it. Has anyone tried having two computers with the same version of iTunes point to the same network library? My router is acting up, so I'm thinking of replacing it, so I'll be sure to look into ones that support hard drives.
A Mini is still my 1st choice, if I could find the last one with a DVD drive built in for $450 or less. I'm planning on using Front Row, so fonts are that big a deal, since my experience has been that Front Row does a decent job at scaling menus.
That WD TV Live box looks nice. It seems to support more media formats than I can figure out on the Roku, but the Roku has more streaming options that I'd actually use, while the WD box doesn't. Also, the WD TV Live Hub looks nice, would it work if I used it as the network drive for iTunes, and the WD itself be able to play the music and videos right out of the iTunes library. Also, it says the WD can't play protected videos and music from the iTunes store, but can it play the DRM free music and videos from the store? I have no problems converting the music to DRM free, what little I have that is DRMed. The DRM videos on the other hand I don't know how to convert, and it's not that big deal anyway, because it's just a couple free music videos and movie trailers.
As for DVD to hard drive, it's been a long while since I've done it, but when I did, I used HandBrake. I'm not even sure if the program is still around anymore. I haven't had the hard drive space to put video to, so I haven't looked.
If I can get WMC, xbmc, the WD TV Live, or Roku to stream my music and videos from my iTunes library that is on a network drive, that just may be the way I go. This is good, keep up the discussion please.


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## JimE (Apr 16, 2009)

@yustr Depends on the device used for playback AND personal preference. Some players/devices will playback files still in DVD format, so all you would need to do is copy the discs onto the HDD. Some others will read them in iso format. Or you can RIP the discs and then convert to another format. The preference part, is which codec to use, which again, will partly depend upon the player and which formats are supported.

Personally, I use DVDFab for RIPing the discs, and AutoGK for conversion to Divx (avi). You could also use Handbrake to convert to mkv.

It's partly a matter of trial and error to see which works best in your situation.

@sinclair tm I have my media library on my home server. With iTunes installed on multiple PC's, they add had no issues reaching the library. And the iTunes version should not matter. The iTunes version is only relevant to the PC that is running it. The source (ie: media server) is doing nothing but supplying data, the app pulling the data does not matter.

The iTunes "library" is specific to the PC running iTunes and the account information that it is using. I don't think you will find any other app/hardware that will play media from a iTunes library.

Personally, I did away with my iTunes library so that I would not be reliant upon iTunes. All of my files are now simply available on my network to any PC/device on my network.


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## sinclair_tm (Mar 11, 2005)

I'm starting to lean toward a new iMac and a Roku using Plex, but it'll then only be able to steam video, and not music. Why you can stream one and not the other is beyond me, but that's my understanding of it. If Apple just sold a mini with a Bluray drive and 2 TB hard drive, then I'd be set.


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