The mac mini stylized with a lowercase mini is a desktop computer made by apple inc. With an hdmi cable, you can connect to your hdtv as an extralarge monitor, or even use your mac mini as a dedicated home theater server for streaming your itunes music and movie collection. Were living in a truly golden era for home theater, as the most. Using a mac mini mediacenter is one of the smartest move i have made. Hires music files are available for download from a number of websites. Mac mini audiophiles and purists or home theater mac mini htpc folk may prefer the optical minitoslink option built inside of the minis dualfunction sound jack. Todays mac mini offers other advantages as a media server. Loosing a bit of money in the process too, trying out different solutions. With incredibly easy to use interface and appealing design, you will instantly gain access to your multimedia content like never before. Presonus studio one 4 artist recording software suite pc mac code. Kodi is available as a native application for android, linux, mac os x, ios and windows operating systems, running on most common processor architectures. I am considering either an intel nuc or a mac mini.
A journal following the conversion of my home theater to center around a new 2009 mac mini. Only i got my mac mini when they still had an optical drive. Top 10 best htpc software for your tv media experience. This is an important distinction to make, as the vast majority of applications made for pc usage are meant to be used on a desktop with mouse and keyboard and the user sitting close to the screen. The audio measurement and analysis features of rew help you optimise the acoustics of your listening room, studio or home theater and find the best locations for your speakers, subwoofers and listening position. Htpc software is short for home theater pc software.
Not all of them are free you know many years ago i had the original. Home theater media center guide apple mac upgrades. Carefully read and follow the installation instructions to successfully install the software. Plex home theater systems has provided an easy way to shop for hundreds of home theater products such as plasma televisions, lcd tvs, projectors and projector screens, hdtvs and speakers.
We dont have any change log information yet for version 1. I have tried many different home theater solutions without being completely satisfied. New mac mini software home theatre macrumors forums. Media server downloads plex media server for windows.
Home theater setup software free download home theater setup. The right to use the pms software is provided as a part of the grant above to use the plex solution in accordance with this. These are usually smallercased computers, running some sort of media software. Plex may make downloadable software or a mobile applications available through or as a part of the plex solution for use in connection with your personal media management pms software. The mac mini comes equipped with all of the software included in the os x lion bundle, apples newest operating system released in july 2011. It is one of four desktop computers in the current macintosh lineup, serving as an alternative to the allinone imac, and sits below the performance range imac pro and mac pro the mac mini is apples only consumer desktop computer since 1998 to ship without a display, keyboard, or mouse. It is a powerful entertainment center for windows, linux, android and mac os x that is capable of playing most available media file types.
I do love apple products, so i am in a way biased after much testing in regards to the best htpc on the market, when it comes down to it, i think the mac mini is a solid contender for the best htpc on the market today. Ready to upgrade your mac mini home theater to latest operating system offering from apple. If there are any mac mini htpc owners out there, id love to hear from you and what youve learned, any. I bought the 2012 mac mini to act as a home theatre and double as a computer for my small children to play with and learn. If i were to get a mac mini, i would use bootcamp and windows for my htpc purposes. Please use the method that is applicable for your device. Gives you the power to shop for home theater systems online. This free software for mac os x was originally developed by plex.
Read on for tips and tricks to get the most out of your machines hardware and software, as we transform a 2009 mac mini into the ultimate htpc. It comes with macos which has a variety of utilities and small apps, photos, itunes, imovie, garageband, pages, keynote, and numbers. Mac os also includes a variety of apps for creativity and productivity, so you can get started right away without buying and installing lots of other software. With four thunderbolt 3 ports builtin, mac mini supports. Photo theater helps you turn your photos and music into stunning home movies. Mac mini home theater the mac mini is a small form factor computer.
This is a demonstration of my home theater mac mini and the various control and software options. Rew is free room acoustics analysis software for measuring and analysing room and loudspeaker responses. If youre already familiar with macs, youll recognize many of the features of os x lion and catch some new additions to apples newest operating system. Lets outline the feature set of the mac mini as it pertains to home theater pcs. Flip4mac perian vlc 64bit handbrake hotspotshield for streaming netflix and tv shows outside of the us vuze dropbox flash safari plugin. We see how the latest version of the mac mini stacks up against the prior generation for use as a home theater mac. You can add as many background music and subtitles as you like for your personalized home movies and share home movies on apple tv, youtube, iphone, etc. I also need it to host plex server, and operate sickbeard, couchpotato, sabnzb, etc. Yep, everyones talking about using the mac mini as a home media center, and theres a reason why.
I was wondering what software people install on their new lion mac minis for home theatre use. Sometimes publishers take a little while to make this information available, so please check back in a few days to see if it has been. This one is for advanced users that want to set up their home theater computer to link to their television. Home theater pc drive your tv and media experience with a media pc. For each platform, we offer a stable and development releases. The programs installation file is generally known as plexhometheater1. If you configured your mac mini 2018 with 10gb ethernet, learn which cables to use and how to maximize transfer speeds.
In his final apples and oranges comparison, he tackles the value of software bundles. Plex home theater is a comprehensive software solution for transforming your plain old mac into fully featured home theater mac. It appears that there is an issue with plex and the apple remote where any button presses while in plex continue on to the operating systems default behavior. Clips is a free ios app for making and sharing fun videos with text, effects, graphics, and more. Its a great time to upgrade your home theater system with the largest selection at.
Now that the hardware is setup, its time for the software. A small overview of the features can be found on our about page. Indeed, the updated unibody mac mini is notable as apples first computer to include an hdmi video port to connect to a television or other display. Just click to download and install on your mac or ios device. If the cable from your external display, hard drive, or other device doesnt connect to the thunderbolt 3 usbc ports on your mac mini, you might need an adapter. Everything else i access through the appletv and use home sharing for it to see all the content in itunes on the mac mini. Front row allows you to stream media from other systems in a home network as long as it is in an itunes library, though moving data across. It sports an hdmi port, which allows you to jack the computer directly into your tv or hdmicompatible av receiver. Part one of how to turn a mac mini into a home theater pc with a few easy steps. A special minitostandard tos link adapter or cable with a mini end is needed.
Another week another mac clone mac htpc the mac mini htpc. Plex home theater for mac 32bit download 2020 latest. It is particularly popular as a home theater solution. So its handy if the odd time i have a dvd i want to watch, i pop it in and watch from the mac mini on the tv. If you cannot find any software on our website for your product, it may be because the software of your product cannot be updated via usb. The mac mini is a perfect candidate for such a setup. When apple announced they were upgrading the mac mini 2010 to include a hdmi port, i put my older mini on ebay and sold it for 400. For normal users we recommend installing the stable releases. There are hundreds of builtin effects including themes and transitions to make the movies look dazzling. Hi all, do you think apple ever give us a apple tvlike theatre app for the new mini. Personally, what i did, was to download and test all this on my desktop before i went out and purchased the mac mini. Dan frakes compared the mac mini to a dell, and then responded to reader comments. Mac mini software for mac cnet download free software.