Mac Mini Core Duo, Newer Technology miniStack v2, and Elgato EyeTV EZ
an informational article by Chris Hamady ©2006 C. Hamady
Originally published on 4-2-06 http://homepage.mac.com/chamady/MacMiniReview/
Note: The information in this article is for educational use only. Anything that YOU do to any computer(s) will be done at YOUR OWN RISK, and the author will not be held responsible.
Specifications
Newer Technology miniStack External HD 500 Gigabyte 7200 RPM drive Firewire/USB 2.0 1x USB 2.0 uplink port 3x USB 2.0 ports 3x Firewire 400 ports |
Terratec USB 2.0 TV tuner EyeTV 2.1 software Coaxial cable port USB 2.0 port and cable S-video, composite video input Composite audio input Remote control |
The Components
Ever since the day that Steve Jobs demonstrated the Apple media center software, Front Row, I have been looking forward to replacing my television's DVD and VCR player with an all in one media center device from Apple. On the very day that Apple announced their media center Mac Mini, I ordered one from the online Apple store. It arrived a couple of weeks later. Having installed numerous Mac Minis for schools and families, the only difference that I could find in the packaging was the inclusion of the Front Row remote control.
My plan was to put all of my music, photos, DVDs and home movies onto this thing. If I was going to do that, I would need a large amount of storage space. I checked around the web and decided to go with the Newer Technology miniStack with 500 gigabytes of storage.
The miniStack was designed to perfection. It was
created to be the identical form factor of a Mac Mini. You place the miniStack
in your entertainment system, and then place the Mac Mini on top of it. This
photo will give you an idea of the true size of the miniStack.
Next, I had to decide on a TV tuner/PVR (personal video recorder). I drove up to Ann Arbor and stopped in at the Apple Store in the CompUSA. All they carried was some manufacturer that I had never heard of before, and the Miglia Evolution TV. The Apple sales rep couldn't tell me what software the tuners shipped with, and he wouldn't let me open the boxes to find out. Having just read that Elgato recently released a universal binary version of their EyeTV software, I left without purchasing a tuner from CompUSA.
I drove back home and
started researching the Elgato devices.
The EyeTV EZ tuner works with analog cable or antennas, and also digital cable.
Unlike the EyeTV 200, the EyeTV EZ does not do any hardware video encoding. It
sends the video uncompressed to the computer in the YUV format. The EyeTV
software then uses the computer's 
processor(s) to encode the video to either mpeg-2 or
mpeg-1, depending upon the speed and power of your Macintosh. While the EyeTV
200 would have given me slightly better picture quality due to its ability to
do hardware encoding to either mpeg-2 or mpeg-4, the price difference was
rather significant (EyeTV EZ- $149.00/EyeTV 200- $349.00), and I was primarily
purchasing this device to time-shift television shows. I wasn't so concerned
with pristine picture quality. In the end, I went with the EyeTV EZ purchased
from Other World Computing. UPDATE- ElGato recently announced an EyeTV 250 with hardware
encoding that will sell for $199.00.
I opened up the box and found a very small tuner appropriately colored white and silver. My only beef with its appearance is the cheesy looking BRIGHT orange logo and writing on the top of the tuner. There was also a USB 2.0 cable included to connect the tuner to the computer, a remote control, software CD, and a proprietary connector that plugs into the front of the tuner allowing a user to record from video devices using an S-video cable or composite audio/video.
At the rear of the tuner are the plugs for the USB 2.0 connection and also the coaxial cable connection.
Setup
Setting up the Mac mini was truly an easy experience. I connected the Mac Mini to my Sony television using the DVI-S-video adapter and pressed the power button. I would have liked to have connected the Mac Mini to my television via component video cables, but as of this date, I can't seem to locate a confirmed DVI to component video adapter that will work with my setup. If anyone knows of such a solution, please email me at chamady AT mac.com.
A few moments after turning on the computer, I was happy to see the familiar Apple logo on my television's screen as Mac OS X began to boot for the first time. After going through the typical OS X setup process, I copied my iTunes and iPhoto libraries from my dual processor G4 to the miniStack and changed the iTunes preferences to look there for the iTunes library. One important item to note: the Mac Mini is CRAZY FAST. In almost every task it is much faster than my dual processor G4 1.33 GHz, and even seems faster than the 20 inch iMac G5 2.1 GHz that I use at work.
Setup- audio
I connected the Mac Mini audio output to the audio inputs of my Sony TV using a cable with an 1/8 inch mini plug at one end (connected to the Mini), the other end (connected to the television) via red and white RCA composite connectors. I used a second composite audio cable to connect the television's audio output to my Denon surround sound receiver. I used this configuration for two reasons.
First, I've had my receiver since 1997. While the audio quality is very good, the receiver lacks modern connections like optical inputs that support Dolby 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound (optical audio supports multi-channel surround sound and has much less noise in the signal when compared to analog). Secondly, by connecting the audio receiver to the television's audio output rather than the Mac Mini's, users can also take advantage of the audio system while watching regular television broadcasts (using cable TV directly and foregoing the Mac Mini and ElGato EyeTV EZ).
If you are interested in connecting your Mac Mini to a surround sound receiver with an optical input, you will need a toslink audio cable and adapter. You can buy one here:
Belkin PureAV Digital Optical Audio Cable with Mini-Toslink Adapter (Apple Store)
More information on this topic can be found on EveryMac.com and Macintouch.com
PVR
I connected the EyeTV to the Mac Mini using the USB cable, and went to elgato.com to download the latest EyeTV software. It was at this point that I experienced my first and only hurdle. It seems that the software that was included with my EyeTV EZ was not only a MUCH older version than what was currently available, but the included license code would not work with the latest universal binary build.
I installed the software found on the included CD, set it to use the miniStack as its storage drive, and faxed my invoice to ElGato to request a free upgrade. The included software was functional, but I found that recording content at medium quality was eating up a very large portion of the dual core processor cycles due to the fact that it was working through the Rosetta PPC emulation environment. The next day, I received an email from Elgato tech support with a download link to the latest build, as well as a new registration code for the universal binary. Unlike the older version of the EyeTV software, the universal binary used much less of the available processor to record at even the highest possible quality. Click HERE to see an example capture that was encoded using H.264 at 29.97 frames per second. I'm pretty much blown away by the quality of the recorded video.
Part of the install process included setting up a Titan TV account. The Elgato software uses Titan TV to list the available programs of your cable provider, as well as allows you to schedule recordings remotely. Once you log into the Titan TV website and select a program to record, the EyeTV software installed on your computer will automatically check the website to see if you have scheduled a recording. If you have, the show will be recorded, even though the recording was scheduled remotely while away from the home. When I am at home, I have the ability to navigate through a grid of available programs, and the ability to schedule a recording with one click of the mouse. In the picture below, the program with the bright red dot is scheduled to be recorded.
The included remote allows you to begin recording a
program with the press of the record button.
Once your show is recorded, you can remove any commercials using the editing tools built into the software. They aren't exactly Mac-intuitive, however. Rather than selecting a region and pressing the delete key, you select a number of regions to delete and then choose some unusual command called, "Compact."
It works as advertised. After you have your shows
edited commercial-free, you can export to video iPod with the click of a single
button. You can also pause live television. While the program is playing,
simply press the record button, and then the pause button. Pressing the pause
button a second time will begin to play the program from the point where you
left off.
DVDs
In order to rip all of my DVDs into iTunes for use in Front Row, I used HandBrake. HandBrake will take your DVDs and convert them to video files using either mpeg4 or H.264 codecs. Using the default settings in HandBrake (which I recommend) a typical DVD will take up between 500 to 1000 MB of hard drive space. You can find HandBrake here:
Ripping your DVDs using the default settings will result in a file that can be played back in full screen on your television, as well as on a video iPod. The quality is very good on the TV, but not perfect. If you want better quality, you might try experimenting with ripping using the H.264 codec.
After you rip your DVD, simply drag the resulting video file to iTunes. Once iTunes adds your video file to the iTunes library, that video will appear in Front Row under the "Movies" heading, as well as be available for transfer to a video iPod.
Final
Here is a picture of the final setup including a wireless Microsoft keyboard and mouse. While I'm not a big fan of most Microsoft software products, they make pretty good hardware.
CONCLUSION
Having used this setup now for the past 3 weeks, I have to say that I am completely and utterly blown away by every aspect of this experience. The only thing that I would change about this setup would be to have the EyeTV portion of this package fully integrated into Front Row. Here's a prediction- I'm guessing that Apple will purchase ElGato in the near future and do just that. Having Tivo-like integration in their "media center" experience would completely finish off this product.
In closing, I would have to say that the best part of this project was being able enjoy this entire experience in the world of Macintosh true plug and play. At no point during the project did any of the components not function as expected. This is why I use my Macintosh computers to their fullest, and I rarely turn on my Windows PC anymore. Time is precious. Apple is concerned with improving my quality of life. I appreciate that, and I applaud it.
If I had to rate this experience, it would be as follows:
Apple Mac Mini Core Duo Newer Technology miniStack ElGato EyeTV EZ Other World Computing Performance Overall satisfaction |
10 10 10 10 10 10 |
UPDATE: Windows XP
I wasn't sure that I should put this into my review or not, but I had the feeling that there might be a few people who wondered if I had tried to install Windows XP on my Intel Mac Mini. Today my OEM copy of Windows XP Professional arrived from http://www.newegg.com. It cost $139.00. I downloaded Boot Camp and the required firmware update. I updated the firmware, and created the Windows driver disk using Boot Camp. When I tried to create my Windows partition, Boot Camp told me that I needed to boot my computer off of my original OS X system CD and repair some directory errors. I did as instructed, but when I tried to reboot the computer off of the Windows XP install CD, no video showed up on the television via the S-video adapter. I ran upstairs, grabbed an old PC monitor, and connected it to the Mini. I forced it to restart again and was greeted with the Windows Setup screen. After Windows finished its installation process, I inserted Apple's Windows driver CD into the Mini, installed the Windows drivers, and set a static IP address. I rebooted the computer connected once again to the television via the S-video adapter. It detected the TV and booted up properly in Windows XP.
Long story short, my daughter sat next to me for nearly an hour playing Thomas the Tank Engine on the Mac Mini in Windows XP. Before I let her play, however, I patched my Windows install, turned on auto-updates, and downloaded and installed:
I also turned on terminal services in the system control panel so that I could connect to the Mini remotely from my laptop if I needed to. Microsoft provides the free Remote Desktop client application via their Mactopia website. The startup disk control panels in each OS provide you with an easy way of choosing the OS you would like to boot into. Long story longer, Windows runs on this Macintosh with less trouble than I have seen from traditional Wintel vendors.
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