- It’s a Mini Adventure – Remote and Rowmote
One advantage the TViX had over the Mini is that it had an integral LCD screen which, while not perfect, did enable me to browse my Music Library without having my TV switched on. In order to browse Front Row (or Plex) I need to be able to see the menus, which means either switching [...]
- It’s a Mini Adventure – iTunes
When I had the TViX setup, my iTunes music lived on an SMB share that I could access from my laptop (for ripping CDs and updating my iPod) and from the TViX (for playing through the amp). It worked pretty well on the TViX side, but relied on the network share always being mounted. [...]
- It’s a Mini Adventure – Plex vs Boxee
Although, as mentioned previously, neither Boxee nor Plex fulfill the requirements to be my main media centre front-end, they’re both extremely feature-rich when compared to Front Row for video playback. Although, with Perian installed, Front Row can play pretty much any video codec you can throw at it, iTunes will still only load certain file [...]
- It’s a Mini Adventure – The Basic Functionality
At this point, it’s worth revisiting my initial reason for doing this project in the first place and to look at the initial requirements. The point of this project was to have a universal media player that would cover all the basic living room requirements and that, crucially, wouldn’t require lots of button pressing and [...]
- It’s a Mini Adventure – The Initial Setup
The Mac mini is going to be run like a set-top box, which means no mouse or keyboard. The main interface is going to be from the Apple Remote control, navigating around a TV set. Consequently, there are a few things that need to be done to ensure that this experience is as trouble-free as [...]