George Tuvell

My new home media center

I’ve now gone 100% digital with all of my music, movies and photos – here’s how:

Step 1: I purchased a new Samsung 52″ HD LCD flat screen from Best Buy (they have outstanding offers right now due to the economic situation, and in some cases are offering up to 36 months free financing) I had the option of going with a plasma or the new LED (a combination of LCD and plasma), however LCD was the best option for me because it displays the most accurate picture from a computer, and there’s less worry about burning and ghosting. The exact model is LN52A650, and you can read more here.

It connects directly to the internet and has various widgets, such as weather and news feeds as well.

Step 2: I purchased the new Apple Mac Mini, and loaded it up with 4GB of RAM. I got the smallest hard drive offered because my plan was to use external hard drives to store all my media so that I could easily switch computers down the road, and stay flexible enough to switch from mac to linux or windows if need be as well.

I also got the wireless keyboard and mouse – well worth the extra investment and allows me to use the macmini’s browser on a 52″ display – pretty cool. It’s connected via HDMI to my TV for HD quality video too.

Step 3: Two 1 Terabyte external hard disks to store all of my media. I went with the LaCie 1 TB drives. I’m using 1 drive to store everything, and the other drive mirrors the primary to ensure I have a daily backup. Intego Backup is a great (free) application for doing this. I then configured my photo library and iTunes music to load from the external drive. Movies are also stored on the external drive. If my computer were to die, or I needed to upgrade my system, I simply swap out my computer for a new one and all of my media is ready to go.

Step 4: Misc other stuff: I installed Boxee (which I have been testing for about 6 months now). There are still quite a few glitches, but it’s really good for streaming internet TV. I prefer iTunes to browse my music library (using the gmote on my G1 to remotely control) Boxee is good for watching Hulu or NetFlix movies over the web, and that’s about all I use it for. For DVD’s that I’ve ripped I use VLC player - it’s great and plays videos that Boxee and other apps have trouble with.

I would ultimately like to drop my cable TV subscription for free internet video (and my NetFlix fee), however we’re still several years away from that being a reality. By that time my prediction is we’ll have to pay for internet video anyways…and it will be no different that the cable model we’re familiar with today.

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