Seventh Heaven

Bought a Mac Mini and DiNovo Mini Keyboard.... Installed Plex and hey presto a seriously fabulous Media Centre!

Absolutely brilliant

Enjoy - hope it gets lots of use today, and in the future

I don't think I've slept since I installed it yesterday afternoon.....

Now I need a new AV Amp!

Post deleted by billford

Edited by billford (Sat 26-Dec-09 18:16:03)

Personally, I think that media centres are the way to go. I'm amazed more people don't make the switch to them. They are far better than a plethora of set top boxes and the rest. I've recently been toying with Plex and Front Row on one of my Hackintoshes, using an old MS IR receiver, Apple remote and Remote Buddy. It all works pretty well, but the dearth of decent TV options for Mac is a killer for me when it comes to anything other than dipping into it for its novelty value. I keep hoping that Apple might get serious with Apple TV/Front Row, but I suspect I'll be waiting a long time before they release anything quite as flexible as my WIndows7 based media centre.

Using the Windows box I can do everything the Mac OS based option does and watch and/or record any combination of Freeview and Freesat programming, including BBC HD (the box has a dual terrestrial and an S2 satellite card). I'm currently awaiting the arrival of DVB-T2 cards that'll give me Freeview HD to add to the mix. As it stands I can watch an AVI or whatever while recording three TV channels at the same time. Technically, I could record even more at once if I bought more cards. Of course, I can also pause live TV and the like as well. The whole ensemble has now replaced everything bar my Blu Ray player and it could replace that if I bought a Blu Ray drive for it. You can even get a selection of Sky channels over the internet on it if you sign up and pay a subscription.

If you want a recommendation for a new AV amp, I recently bought a Sony STR-DR800 from Richer Sounds. It's a great bit of kit for the money (Richer are currently selling it for under £250).

Hey thanks for the AV tip - I was in Richers yesterday looking at AV Amps - The Amps I've been looking at are the Yamaha 765 and Onkyo TXSR607 - The reason being is that I need to integrate the AV Amp into my existing Pre/Power setup which I don't want to get rid of. The amp needs to have at least two pre-outs (not zone 2 I'm led to believe) so that I can connect it to my line in on the preamp....

I haven't really checked out the MAC TV options other than the mini and Plex - I have to say though that since I installed it on Xmas eve I have not watched normal TV except BBC Iplayer via a Plex plug in.....

Hi, I have a Mac Mini Media Centre....

I use EyeTV Hybrid to digital terrestrial, EyeTV Sat for Freesat, means I can watch one channel whilst recording another. Have PyeTV installed so can access EyeTV stuff from frontrow.

I love it, my partner isn't so sure as sometimes, occasionally, it cannot be controlled from the remote, but hey!

I use Plex for online bits, with the iplayer plugin and more often used - the CH4 On Demand plugin...

Anyway - it's been up and running since September, and all works generally as expected..

Cheers

Joe

I have EyeTV too but I can't find the dongle....as soon as I locate it...It will become a feature of my media centre.....

In reply to a post by Desmond:

Personally, I think that media centres are the way to go. I'm amazed more people don't make the switch to them. They are far better than a plethora of set top boxes and the rest. I've recently been toying with Plex and Front Row on one of my Hackintoshes, using an old MS IR receiver, Apple remote and Remote Buddy. It all works pretty well, but the dearth of decent TV options for Mac is a killer for me when it comes to anything other than dipping into it for its novelty value. I keep hoping that Apple might get serious with Apple TV/Front Row, but I suspect I'll be waiting a long time before they release anything quite as flexible as my WIndows7 based media centre.

Using the Windows box I can do everything the Mac OS based option does and watch and/or record any combination of Freeview and Freesat programming, including BBC HD (the box has a dual terrestrial and an S2 satellite card). I'm currently awaiting the arrival of DVB-T2 cards that'll give me Freeview HD to add to the mix. As it stands I can watch an AVI or whatever while recording three TV channels at the same time. Technically, I could record even more at once if I bought more cards. Of course, I can also pause live TV and the like as well. The whole ensemble has now replaced everything bar my Blu Ray player and it could replace that if I bought a Blu Ray drive for it. You can even get a selection of Sky channels over the internet on it if you sign up and pay a subscription.

If you want a recommendation for a new AV amp, I recently bought a Sony STR-DR800 from Richer Sounds. It's a great bit of kit for the money (Richer are currently selling it for under £250).

Now you've got me checking out the Sony now!! I just need to make sure that I can connect it to my pre/power without any hiccup... And i've just noticed that Hyperfi are doing these for £200

In reply to a post by Desmond:

If you want a recommendation for a new AV amp, I recently bought a Sony STR-DR800 from Richer Sounds. It's a great bit of kit for the money (Richer are currently selling it for under £250).

How do these things work where you have an HDMI source (e.g. a Mac Mini) where no sound is passed over HDMI? Are you able to select an HDMI device but sound from a different audio input?