I sit in my house and look around at all my DVDs and CDs and wonder why I still have them all lying around. I mean, it is almost 2010 and for some reason no one has come up with a reliable Mac based media solution. Is it too much to ask for a central server where all of my music and movies are stored and can be accessed by all my computers but also all of my televisions? These days, I find myself watching more shows on my computer, but I also rip them to my iPhone and then watch them on my 36" Sony Wega. Granted all of my electronics are over 10 years old with the exception of my DVD player. I still do not have Blue Ray or an LCD TV. My 15 year younger self would be very mad if he knew that I have not upgraded!!
I guess part of my problem is spending priorities. I'd much rather go on trips than spend it on new electronics. Despite the lack of new home entertainment electronics, my 2008 iMac and my new 2TB hard drive are screaming for a good solution for ripping all of my media to one place. I know if I leave 1TB for computer backups, I can still rip about 250 DVDs to the HD. I guess I can start there and then move the HD to a media computer that is networked?? I don't know, but Mr. Jobs, I am waiting for a better Apple TV (perhaps something that integrates Apple TV inside an actual TV.. since the Apple TV outputs are too advanced for my TV..). Actually, I am waiting for a better TV period.
So I guess I am just rambling about how old my home entertainment electronics are. Ideally, I want a new 42" LCD 1080p HDTV with a lot of contrast ratio, a storage solution for all my media that is digital, compact, and elegant, a new receiver with wireless speakers, and a way to play or rip HD discs and HD TV programming on the same system.
Any ideas, just let me know!
I am right there with you!
I need a system to store all my DVDs and CDs and I need the material viewable on my LCD TV.
There are systems out there but they sort of max out at 1000 discs and that is no good for me.
Plus there is no way to easily search those set ups>
Mr. Jobs has something in mind for you. There's a new Mac Mini that he's building out as a home server. It's got two 500GB HD's, and it's $999. Way too expensive, but does the job. The key for me, there, is the dual HD's. You'd be pretty pissed off if you spend all that time to rip your entire DVD and CD collection to your 2GB external drive and it crashed. I have personally lost four, count them, FOUR, HD's this year. Not good.
At any rate, the key is to build a system that has mirrored (RAID 1) HD's for your home file server. I'm using an old Dell P4 (3.2Ghz) system with 2GB of RAM that I picked up for $150. To that I added a $35 SATA Raid controller and 2 1TB Western Digital HD's, configured for RAID 1. All tolled it was a hair under $400. I hooked it up to my wireless router via Ethernet (1gb.. 100mb is too slow) and it's perfect. I store all of my DL'd TV, my music, and digital pics. The RAID array means that I never have to worry about backing it up.
There's lots of software and hardware to get stuff to your TV. Apple TV, the Popcorn Hour box, or WD TV Live, Roku, etc., or you can just watch on your iMac.
If you want to get really tricky you can poke a hole in your firewall and access the box remotely. There's lots of software to access your media via your iPhone or use remote access via an applet.
Joe