It's a Mac Mini Adventure

It certainly has been a mini adventure, but one that spans several years in a quest for home entertainment. I think I may even be finally happy with that. With my new home I've been able to do some things I've always wanted to do. Since I left school I started to build my collection of stereos, TVs and other goodies. Recently I added two pairs of Mordaunt Short Genies with a matching centre to add to my 32" Samsung LCD TV.

I had a dilemma where I'd moved my PC away from close proximity to the TV which I was using to view videos with the VGA port on my TV and amp for my MP3s from the PC.

I had tried streaming to my xBox 360 using the Media Centre Extender, and although this works quite nicely for audio it can't cope with DivX movies even though the xBox has been given DivX support. There were a few products on the market which might have done the job, but then I thought "what is the most configurable, most likely to work how I want it work solution?" - the answer. A computer.

It needed to be small, be able to handle videos and music which all computers can. Be able to support DivX and other formats and ideally have a Media Centre like application with remote. The Mac Mini was my answer to that question.

Having a computer as a media centre is both a great thing and a bad thing. It's great as it's flexible but it's bad because it needs input through keyboard and mouse. There may be a way to disable this from the Mac I'm unaware of, but I added a wireless keyboard and mouse that works really nicely. The mouse even works on the material of my sofa.

See, for the smallness of the remote, the small keyboard and mouse are more powerful and easily stashed under the sofa.

All in all, I'm very happy with the purchase, a small media centre hooked up to my TV and amp for £500 that can also be used as a full on computer from the sofa. Throw in a 750GB external hard disc and I'm laughing.