by Noah Kravitz, Reviews Editor

22 August 2006

Home Media Nirvana: Mac mini, iPod Video, or a $70 Philips DVD Player?

I. The Backstory

Two things happened recently that led me to make my most recent electronics purchase. First, I killed my iPod. No, not on purpose for a YouTube video; I accidentally knocked it out of a second story window, whereupon it bounced off of the first floor roof and then crashed to the concrete patio below. The tough little guy - a black 5G 30 gig model - actually was found in one piece and even started playing again until I pressed the fast forward button. Then it freaked out and would only boot to the "Sad iPod" screen. Dead.

Second is that my wife and I missed an episode of a TV show we regularly watch. And we forgot to 'DVR' it ('DVR' being the term my employed-by-TiVo friend wants me to use to refer to TiVo-ing with my Comcast-brand non-TiVo DVR). Though I'm 90% certain that sharing digital copies of TV shows, even those originally broadcast on free TV, is illegal, I was curious. So I hopped on the Web, scanned a few Torrent sites, and found dozens of copies of said show available for download.

So these two events led me to a renewed interest in my ongoing search for the perfect home media center. Here are my criteria for judging contenders:

• Must be able to play media when my iBook is asleep, switched off, or otherwise unavailable.
• Must be able to play AAC and MP3 audio through my living room stereo (powered by an Onkyo home theater receiver). Protected AAC playback is not essential, as I rarely buy music from the iTunes store.
• Must be remote controllable with in-hand visual feedback - that is, I want to be able to browse my media files using the remote, without having to turn on a TV or monitor, or squint to see a tiny screen from across the room.
• Must be reasonably quiet, low-power, and inexpensive. Though a new Intel Mac mini is realistically out of my budget, I'll consider it here for the purposes of this article. More realistic, if not so small or quiet, is the old Power Mac G3 (Beige) Desktop sitting in my home office.
• New: Must be able to play Divx files, as that is the Torrent TV Show format of choice.

Note: I'm not saying that I have or will engage in, or endorse the violation of copyright laws by way of sharing digital copies of copyrighted material without consent. I might, however, be saying that broadcast TV networks (and record labels) should get over themselves and figure out a way to make their livings while also embracing the peer-to-peer age. In either case, take everything I'm writing here for research purposes only. Silly as it seems, most of it is illegal in the United States, EU member nations, and many other parts of the world.

Note Also: My living room DVD player has been on the blink for awhile now. It still works, but often requires two or three on/off cycles before it will play a disc. So add "Must play DVDs" to the criteria list above.

II. The Contenders

• 1. Apple iPod 5G 30gb ($299 new / $199 refurb) or 60gb ($399 new / $299 refurb)
  Pros: Portable, killer UI, can play at home through Bluetooth adapter
  Cons: No Divx support, Can't stream video wirelessly
• 2. Apple Mac mini 1.5 Ghz Intel ($599 new / $519 refurb) or 1.25 Ghz G4 ($300 used avg eBay price)
  Pros: Can handle all file formats and access online content directly, Small and quiet
  Cons: Requires adaptor for Composite or S-Video; Requires use of Bluetooth or WiFi remote with less than stellar UI
• 3. Apple Power Mac G3 desktop (free, sitting in my office)
  Pros: Free; Built-in Composite video and RCA audio outs
  Cons: Big, noisy; Slow processor may not support smooth video playback; Requires Bluetooth or WiFi remote as above
• 4. Philips DVP 5960 DVD Player ($69.95)
  Pros: Small, cheap, and quiet; Divx support; USB port for media playback from flash or hard drive
  Cons: Requires TV for media browsing; No AAC support

A few notes about the contenders: First, I didn't include home media receivers like the ElGato EyeHome, SlimDevices SqueezeBox, or Apple AirPort Express because they require you to keep a computer online to serve your media. Also, the EyeHome requires a TV screen for media browsing, and the Roku, SlimDevices, and AirPort Express can't play video. Second, the use of a Mac mini or PMG3 would require some sort of remote control with visual feedback - I have a Bluetooth cell phone and Salling Clicker software, and a Nokia 770 Internet Tablet that would fit the bill. That's cheating, I know. Third, the Philips DVD player requires a TV for media browsing and can't play AAC files. So it should be disqualified. But it's not because it's so cheap and cool that it's worth knowing about. Read on.

III. My Crazy Thought Process

First I tried setting up the old PowerMac G3 as a server. I put a big IDE drive and a dirt-cheap USB 2.0 PCI card in it, and hacked OS X onto it using XPostFacto. I plugged a USB WiFi adatper in, installed Remote Desktop Client, and put it on my home network. It worked, but the WiFi connection sometimes dropped out, transfer speeds were slow, and the darn thing was noisy as all get out.

Also, in order to get it hooked up to the stereo system I had to keep it on my media stand, which rendered my enterainment system noisy and ugly. Setting it to sleep when not in use (to cut down on the noise) required waking it back up when I wanted to use it, which is a minor pain in some ways and purpose-defeating in others. I could put it in the closet and run long audio and Ethernet (for better network performance) cables, but then there's still the processor issue: A G3 just won't cut it for DVD and Divx playback. Plus, browsing my iTunes library through the Web from the little Nokia 770 (running BrowserTunes on the G3) wasn't as fun as Ithought it would be.

As much as it pains me to say it, if anyone needs an old PowerMac G3 let me know: I'll harvest the big IDE drive and then send it to you for the price of shipping, or trade it with that IDE drive installed for a similarly large 7200 rpm IDE drive.

My next thought was to replicate the G3 setup with a Mac mini. The cute little thing is so ideal for a home media center, and the older G4 models are powerful enough to play DVD and Divx video (the latter with third-party shareware software) but also now as cheap as $300 in good condition on eBay since the new Intel versions have come out. My own quirks and preferences came into play here, though: For as much as the geek in me was excited to set up a streaming media system accessable by an uber-nerd remote like a Salling Clicker-powered Bluetooth cell phone or the aforementioned Nokia 770 system, the reality of the experience proved not so exciting.

Truth be told, I listen to a lot of music and watch a fair number of TiVo'd DVR'd programs on TV. I also spend a lot of time on my computer for work, and I'm trying to cut back on how much I use the computer when I don't really need to. As such, anything that employs a computer-geek-chic solution to make consuming media easier is a double-edged sword for me: As soon as the utility of something like a Mac+770 remote media server crosses the line from convenient to annoying (i.e. Having to manually wake the G3 up to listen to music stored on it, or wait for the 770 to boot just to use it as a remote control), the dream is crushed for me.

So even though a $300 eBay mini might actually be the ultimate solution for living room media serving, I don't think it's the best solution for my needs. Mainly it comes down to the lack of a feedback-enabled remote control: My homebrew solution taught me that I really don't like turning on the TV to browse and listen to my music collection, nor do I like relying on a less than slick/hacked together remote control to do the same. So that's two strikes against the mini solution. Strike three came when I discovered the Philips DVP 5960.

Read Part Two: A DVD Player with a USB Port?

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