Media Center Question

[JaceTheAce]

My father would like to buy a Mac Mini dedicated as a "Media Center" for the living room and install some kind of control interface software that allows you to select songs with a remote on the television. It'd be a menu interface on the TV that will allow you to select lossless audio files on the Mac to be played on a pretty decent system (he's looking at B&W and Paradigm).

One thing I'm concerned about is audio quality out of a Mac Mini sound card running into another audio component (the amp) and out to the speakers.

Does anyone here have any experience with this? Or should he look into those touch screen systems with the 500Gig Component-size MP3 player?

Any recommendations are greatly appreciated!

 

[jcPanny]

MAC mini

One concern with the MAC mini might be lack of hard drive space or upgradability.
You might be better off with using a device like the squeezebox2 to stream audio from a PC or MAC to the receiver.
Another option would be an iPod and a new receiver with the iPod connection capability. An iPod is a lot cheeper than a Mac mini and you could use it in your car.

 

[JaceTheAce]

Thanks for the reply - that actually is a much better solution. He wants to be able to have his MP3's/lossless audio at home for other people to use while he's in his car with the iPod. Having an iPod as a dedicated audio source wouldn't allow that.

I am shocked that the Squeezebox is that inexpensive!

 

[jake51s]

Check this out, it won't stream, but you can stick a 500GB drive in it and it will function like an HTPC. Plays back mp3, ogg, avi, divx, etc... scales to 720p and 1080i, optical and digital outs, and even has an fm transmitter if you want to take it in a car.

Link

 

[thoward4444]

Windows Media Center

You should also check out Windows Media Center. I have a Media Center PC with over 500gigs of storage and all my songs are compressed using Windows Lossless compression. I stream all the data to my XBox 360 (you can also use a regular Xbox with the Media Center Extender disk). The user interface is fantastic and the 360 outputs audio over a digital optical link and video in 720p over component connections to my receiver (Yamaha RXV-2600).

I also use if for all my pictures and standard def TV. Unfortunatly, Windows Media Center will not support Cable Card (HD over Cable) until Vista is released at the end of the year. I just use my cable box for HD TV right now.

 

[jcPanny]

Thanks for the reply - that actually is a much better solution. He wants to be able to have his MP3's/lossless audio at home for other people to use while he's in his car with the iPod. Having an iPod as a dedicated audio source wouldn't allow that.

I am shocked that the Squeezebox is that inexpensive!

For significantly less than the cost of a PC, you can buy a second iPod ($300) for use specifically with the receiver. The iPod's software makes it easy to add/remove tracks from it buy connection to any existing computer in your home. HTPCs are great, but they are not easy to setup, use, and maintain.