#Mac media center upgrade
#Mac media center software
#Mac media center Bluetooth
#Mac media center tv
#Mac media center mac

#Mac media center Bluetooth

So to that end, I'd definitely recommend considering a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse or trackpad.ДЄpple's Wireless Keyboard and Magic Trackpad are both fine choices, especially if you have a coffee table or some other flat surface you can use.

#Mac media center mac

If you just use your Mac mini as a repository for media files, you're wasting a large aspect of what it can do - actually work as a computer. But if you're looking for more networking oomph because you're going to be transferring large files to your new media center, it may be a good idea to go hardline instead, and use the Gigabit Ethernet connector on the back of the Mac mini. The Mac mini comes equipped with 802.11n Wi-Fi wireless networking, which is perfectly suitable for streaming video content over the Internet. If your Mac is equipped with Mini DisplayPort, check out this Apple tech note to figure out if it's audio/video capable. And only some of those carry both an audio and video signal, making them easy to connect with an HDMI adapter. Before Thunderbolt, Macs included Mini DisplayPort, which looks the same but isn't. If your Mac doesn't have HDMI but includes Thunderbolt, a Thunderbolt to HDMI connector will work just fine. Other Macs include HDMI connectors too - the Retina MacBook Pro, for example, as well as the new Mac Pro. That's one of the beauties of using a Mac mini as a media center - it's really designed to work easily with a television. If you're working with any Mac mini made since 2010, you just need to get an HDMI cable to connect it your HDTV.

#Mac media center software

You can certainly add software to do so - again, beyond the scope of this article, but something to consider. One note on Blu-ray Disc content: Apple doesn't include decoding software to enable your Mac to play back video content mastered on Blu-ray. If you want to be able to ingest Blu-ray Disc content or if you're looking to save yourself money, there are plenty of external options available - and most, if not all, will work with the Mac. It's also pretty pricy for an external optical drive, and it's only capable of working with CDs and DVDs. It's slim, slot-loading and designed to complement the Mac mini and other Mac models.

If you have a library of DVD or Blu-ray content, it's possible to ingest it to your Mac, but you're going to need an optical drive to do it.ДЄpple's $80 SuperDrive is a great option. Ripping contentДЄnother thing to consider - the Mac mini doesn't have any sort of built-in optical drive. It's broader than the scope of this article, though - I'm going to save that for another time. You can buy an external USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt-based hard drive and follow these instructions to move your iTunes library.ДЄ Network Attached Storage (NAS) volume is another way to offload iTunes files, but there are a lot of caveats. If you hit a storage ceiling for your Mac media center, moving it externally is the best solution.

#Mac media center tv

Movies and TV collections will take up lots of space, and you'll probably find that the 500 GB and even the 1 terabyte of internal storage is insufficient. Media content - movies, TV shows, music, and more - will take up space. You can do the job yourself and buy good quality third-party memory from a variety of vendors.

#Mac media center upgrade

The basic 4 GB memory configuration should be adequate to serve up whatever media content you're going to be delivering through the Mac mini, and it's easily upgradable after the fact (the base of the Mac mini), so I wouldn't recommending paying Apple's penalty to upgrade RAM. Transcoding video is a pretty processor-intensive activity, and it's something that definitely benefits from having additional cores. But the quad-core system may provide a bit more oomph when it comes to ripping video from various sources, like DVDs. The basic Mac mini is a perfectly good system to act as the basis for your Mac media center. Your budget may guide you initially - perhaps you don't have the extra $200 or don't want to spend it, and that's fine.