Media to Perfection
I think I am finally done with the media centre setup. It’s taken a bit more than 2 years but now I have every component setup just the way I want to. And here it is:
First of all I have the TV. It’s a 46″ Full HD screen from Samsung.
It’s a very nice piece of work I must say. I have an HD-box connected to the tv but that’s not very interesting since this piece of equipment depends on the tv deal I have.
What is more interesting is the Mac Mini. The Mini is, of course, connected to the TV. It is also connected to my LAN on which I have a MyBook World Edition 2. On it I have all my music, movies and tv-series. The Mini streams all media from the MyBook.
I’ve even managed to setup iTunes so that it’ll always find the music on the MyBook after rebooting either of the systems. Very neat indeed.
The MyBook has shell access, FTP and a browser interface if ever needed. It is really a very slimmed web server/nas and it can be used for more than just storage. I have a web interface from which I can stream my music from anywhere for example.
The Mac Mini is also my designated DVD-player.
There is a 300mbps WLAN in the apartment which is capable of streaming HD and can handle band width-heavy games without breaking a sweat.
Finally, every piece of equipment that can emit sound (ie play music, movies etc.) is connected to my Denon Receiver. I don’t have a surround system, I don’t have the need for one, but I do have two very nice front speakers that are more than enough when watching TV or having a late night party.
Add to this some peripheral equipement such as my laptop , XBox 360 and Nintendo Wii and you could say that I’m a very happy camper.
I do see myself making adjustments to my current setup within a not too distant future. I already feel that the 1TB MyBook won’t be enough so I’ll probably exchange it for something a bit more scalable but there’s no rush really.
I almost forgot… Software.
As previously mentioned I run iTunes on the Mini to play music.
For video VLC is the stuff. I’ve tried Plex but it never worked quite like I wanted it too and albeit nice to look at it didn’t really give me any additional value that VLC didn’t apart from the ability to play rar-films but I’ll find a way do that with VLC.
