[OSX-Users] Re: Hacking an AppleTV to make a good HTPC

[Paul André]

Essentially silent, even when churning away. If you're reading from/ 
writing to DVD all the time expect the usual noises though.

-p-

On 24 Aug 2009, at 14:20, Sina Samangooei wrote:

> The budget is forcing me to be creative that is somewhat enjoyable  
> in itself, so im gonna stick to it.
>
> This does mean getting a new mac mini is out of the question.  
> However, buying an old one… thats not actually that bad an idea, how  
> are they noise wise?
> - Sina
>
> On 24 Aug 2009, at 14:16, Andrew Paul Landells wrote:
>
>> I use a Mac Mini for all my PVR needs, too.  The Elgato EyeTV  
>> software is incredibly well-written and adding more TV tuners/hard  
>> disks/hardware encoders is trivial. If you can afford the extra,  
>> I'd definitely go down the Mini route. If you're on a budget, you  
>> may want to consider acquiring one that's a couple of years old.  
>> Even the earliest Intel ones have enough grunt to do the job.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> On 24 Aug 2009, at 13:40, David Millard wrote:
>>> Not quite the question you asked, but I had exactly the same  
>>> requirements and have gone the mac mini route - although in my  
>>> case I also didnt want to have to faff about to much to get it  
>>> working (although both Boxee and Plex are quite good for a bit of  
>>> faff when you feel the need :-)
>>>
>>> As you can probably guess its a very good solution, and the key  
>>> things for me are that it is very quiet and has very modest power  
>>> needs. I personally felt it was worth the slight overhead.
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>> Dave
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 24 Aug 2009, at 11:35, Sina Samangooei wrote:
>>>
>>>> So, I've been toying with the idea of building a nice HTPC  
>>>> recently which can:
>>>>
>>>> - Decode h264, mpeg, music, dvd playback etc.
>>>> - ... at 720p
>>>> - ... quietly
>>>> - handle some couch web browsing
>>>> - turned on over night for perfectly legitimate file downloading
>>>>
>>>> First thoughts were a mac mini. Yes fine, pricey but it works as  
>>>> an upper limit of £500 for this task at least ;-)
>>>>
>>>> Building it from scratch is another option. The Zotac mini-itx  
>>>> board with nvidia's ION chipset, which can apparently handle all  
>>>> of the above with no fans at all: http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=53#ION-ITX-C
>>>>
>>>> The problem is that after you've got the case, the optical drive,  
>>>> the 80Gb laptop hard disk and 512Mb memory you've basically built  
>>>> a £300 -> £350 PC. Add bigger external drives and a DVP solution  
>>>> and the price quickly escalates
>>>>
>>>> Still a little pricey, so I've looking at the hacked apple TV  
>>>> path. It would seem there is a big community of people adding  
>>>> browsers, torrent clients as well as getting them working with  
>>>> external hard disks, optical drives as well as DVPs like eyeTV.  
>>>> All in all this would cost more in the range of £250.
>>>>
>>>> So the price is right, also its a shiny shiny mac. But is it  
>>>> actually any good? Does playback stutter? It seems like a fairly  
>>>> underpowered machine, but is it enough? Has anyone done anything  
>>>> like this with good results?
>>>>
>>>> Cheers
>>>> - Sina
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> --------------------------------------------------------------
>>> Dr. David Millard (dem at ecs.soton.ac.uk)
>>> University of Southampton
>>>
>>> http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~dem
>>> --------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>> -- 
>> Andrew Paul Landells        Systems Administrator & Programmer
>>                           Systems & Networks Group (B32/3057)
>> Email: apl at ecs.soton.ac.uk  School of Electronics & Computer Science
>> Tel:   023 8059 6879        University of Southampton, UK. SO17 1BJ
>>
>>
>>
>> -- 
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>
>