Quantcast

$50 Media Center

eaterofdog

eaterofdog

ass grabber
Sep 8, 2006
8,294
1,541
Central Florida
I work as a sys admin for a newspaper that is 97% Mac. We had a Mac mini that had a failed ethernet port and had the hard drive and memory stripped out. I requested and was given these remains.

I dug around in my crap and found and old Lacie external CD firewire case with a bad drive. I removed the drive and replaced it with a 200 GB hard drive. Connected this to the mini with a short firewire cable. I installed a 512 chip that I had around (glad I didn't sell it.) Installed 10.4.8. Mini is now up and running.

I have ordered cables (hdmi to dvi, mini jack to rca) to connect this to my 42" plasma and ordered a bluetooth mouse to control the mini from the couch. $50 total.

What I can do now is use MacTheRipper to copy our favorite DVDs to the hard drive and play them on our TV using DVD Player. The mini will hold 25-40 native DVD movies. We can also play games.

Sweet.
 
binary visions

binary visions

The voice of reason
Jun 13, 2002
22,098
1,144
NC
Nice work!

I've been working on a home theater PC lately myself, all spare parts and stuff I've been given. Only thing I spent money on was $15 on the case and powersupply (not exactly a price error but more like a combination of deals/coupons that wasn't supposed to be used the way I used them :D).

Got it all set up, just have to hook it up and I'll have a media center, essentially free!
 
LordOpie

LordOpie

MOTHER HEN
Oct 17, 2002
21,022
3
Denver
I have a Mac G3 and a couple of Windows computers at work laying around that I will eventually turn one into an HTPC. I just haven't bothered yet.

Nice job with your MacMini.

That's the great thing about recently obsolete computers... they're still powerful enough to be very useful :)
 
eaterofdog

eaterofdog

ass grabber
Sep 8, 2006
8,294
1,541
Central Florida
The Mac mini is only 18 months old. It is, however, quite useless with no network connection.

I was just thinking that I also have a analog video to dv stream converter somewhere. I could capture things in iMovie and save them as DVD images in iDVD for playing or burning.
 
eaterofdog

eaterofdog

ass grabber
Sep 8, 2006
8,294
1,541
Central Florida
Having been in sys admin for a while, I really, really hate any kind of protocol to protocol adapter. 95% of the time they are a giant PITA and generate tons of support calls. It may be okay for home use, I'll have to check it out.
 
stinkyboy

stinkyboy

Plastic Santa
Jan 6, 2005
15,187
1
¡Phoenix!
eaterofdog said:
Nah. In DVD Player (Mac application names are so creative, the email client is called... Mail) go to File > Open DVD Media and select the VIDEO_TS folder. Then it plays just like a regular DVD.
Click to expand...

Ahh.. I've been burning with Toast before watching.

:imstupid:

No Front Row huh?
 
H8R

H8R

Cranky Pants
Nov 10, 2004
13,959
35
Total Heckler said:
Good call. I was pretty sure all of the Mac Mini's came with wirleless/bluetooth standard. Maybe thats just now. But what you suggested should work just fine.
Click to expand...
And I don't even own a Mac...

:monkeydance: I am priceless and adorable. :monkeydance:
 
H8R

H8R

Cranky Pants
Nov 10, 2004
13,959
35
eaterofdog said:
It's the first gen mini. No remote, bluetooth or wireless.
Click to expand...
Then wouldn't a $40 DVD player have been a cheaper option?


Oh yeah... you can play games. All of the 3 or so titles available for Mac.

:pirate2:
 
Total Heckler

Total Heckler

Beer and Bike Enthusiast
Apr 28, 2005
8,171
189
Santa Cruz, CA
With the newer Intel chip Macs you can play/do whatever you want. I have OSX and Windows. I only have windows installed for gaming, so everything is good.
 
H8R

H8R

Cranky Pants
Nov 10, 2004
13,959
35
Total Heckler said:
With the newer Intel chip Macs you can play/do whatever you want. I have OSX and Windows. I only have windows installed for gaming, so everything is good.
Click to expand...
I know.

This thread needed a dart thrown at the Mac, so I stepped up.
 
ragin-sagin

ragin-sagin

Monkey
Oct 2, 2003
390
0
NZ
I got a similar setup running through my lcd...but i think i got a crappy wireless keyboard. Its a microsoft and it only has a range of a few feet...anybody have a set up that can go reliably up to at least 15ft? Do the blue tooth have a better range?
This is rediculous, i basically need the wired sensor just a few feet from the keyboard and mouse. Useless!
 
eaterofdog

eaterofdog

ass grabber
Sep 8, 2006
8,294
1,541
Central Florida
ragin-sagin said:
I got a similar setup running through my lcd...but i think i got a crappy wireless keyboard. Its a microsoft and it only has a range of a few feet...anybody have a set up that can go reliably up to at least 15ft? Do the blue tooth have a better range?
This is rediculous, i basically need the wired sensor just a few feet from the keyboard and mouse. Useless!
Click to expand...
Yeah, those RF keyboards suck. Bluetooth works for about 30 feet. USB adapters are about $10.
 
ragin-sagin

ragin-sagin

Monkey
Oct 2, 2003
390
0
NZ
eaterofdog said:
Yeah, those RF keyboards suck. Bluetooth works for about 30 feet. USB adapters are about $10.
Click to expand...
Oi. The tosspot at the store said the bluetooth was a "really weak signal" and this setup was much better. I will return pronto and try a bluetooth one.
 
Changleen

Changleen

Paranoid Member
Jan 9, 2004
14,351
2,462
Pōneke
We used to have a 2.4GHz radio wireless keyboard and mouse by Kingston (I think) and that would work all the way across the house through several walls.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom