Mac Mini Media Center (M³C)

2009-09-12

So, after much procrastination I bought myself a new Mac Mini and have set up my Mac Mini Media Center (M³C).

Some observations:

• While equinux' TubeStick has a cute name and is much cheaper than Elgato's EyeTV, the hardware didn't work well for me (only received 16 of about 30 DVB-T stations), and the software is just no comparison to EyeTV, both usability and features are much better in EyeTV.

• Snow Leopard completely messes up the Apple Remote, and full screen video display seems to lag sometimes. Hopefully they'll fix this.

• I got myself an Apple wireless desktop, which works, but the next time I think I'd rather go for a keyboard with integrated touchpad

• Getting my Toshiba TV to display the digital video over a digital connection without cutting of the screen or black borders was hard. I used to SwitchResX and all looks good with these exact settings. Create a new custom screen resolution and enter the values for horizontal and vertical in the text boxes. Then reboot and see if you can select the resolution (good luck!).

  Vendor 5262
  Type 103.00
  
  H 48
  V 24
  
  Horizontal / Vertical
  1832		1024
  572		32
  44		10
  192		58
  28,1		50
  

• Running my own webserver (i.e. this weblog) on the Mac works fine so far, I just have to understand launchd some day so that I can make the services start at boot time. Well, another day ;-)