The Rationale

Two years ago my wife and I decided to give up our DirecTV subscription. The reason was simple, we didn’t watch enough television to justify the eighty dollars a month it cost. There were 5 shows that we would DVR regularly and the rest of the time it was on as background noise. Our son was 3 years old at the time and he dominated the daytime television with the Disney channel, usually not paying much attention to it either. It made more sense to purchase the 5 shows on iTunes and cancel the monthly subscription all together.

DirecTV – $80 a month x 12 months = $960 a year
iTunes – $30 a season x 5 shows = $150 a year

The savings allowed us to up our Netflix subscription from 3 to 5 discs and purchase new hardware. The project has evolved a lot over the past 2 years and I wanted to make a few blog posts to outline what we accomplished. To start thing off I’m going to dive right into the meat of the system and later post on all the software/hardware modifications I’ve made.

First Steps

The centerpiece of our setup couldn’t be more simple: a MacMini running FrontRow. The MacMini comes with everything you need, even a remote control, right in the box. Those with older televisions will need to get an s-video adapter as I had to. FrontRow is linked directly to iTunes, which is were you’ll be managing you television subscriptions. Rather than use a desktop computer to manage my iTunes library I decided to leave that task entirely to the MacMini, keeping all of my media managed by one computer. Screen sharing tools like VNC allow me to easily control the MacMini from my desktop while it sits by the television. Before the Mac is ready to be installed at the television, there’s a little bit of setup that must be done with a monitor, mouse and keyboard.

The most important thing is to set up remote access. Software like VNC will let you control the Mac from any computer in the house as if it were sitting on the desk in front of you. Directions on how to set up the Mac with VNC can be found here. Next, set up auto log in so it won’t ask you for a password every time you start up.

In the “System Preferences” panel click on “Accounts”. Then click on “Log in Options”. In the “Automatic log in” menu choose your user account.

Finally, if you choose to use wireless networking you’ll need to set that up too. While the Mini is set up on your desk you might as well sign up for the iTunes store and start subscribing.

Hooking the Mac up to the TV is pretty simple. Plug any adapters you need into the video out and then plug it into the television. Add some power and you’re in business. I tried using wireless networking at first but after I moved my movies to a network server, more about that in another post, I found that the wireless wouldn’t hold up through a two hour movie. Also, network activities like VNC are generally faster with a wired network. Once the Mac is hooked up to the TV all you have to do is press the “Menu” button on the remote control. FrontRow will launch and any Music, Movies or Television shows you purchase will be available in the appropriate sections.

Well not TV the device, TV the service. I have just made my last payment to the horrible bitch goddess that is subscription programming. I’m generally taken aback and amused by the reactions from people I talk to. The Gen X and Ys don’t care but the Boomers seem to think I’m some sort of social deviant. “You don’t want, ANY, tv? But you’re going to have an antenna, right?” Of course we will still have television shows, via iTunes and other <wink> thanks for the cash NBC </wink> downloads. This is kind of the point of my otherwise meaningless post. The digital download model just makes so much more sense. Why bother programming a DVR when I can subscribe? Why bother waiting for a rerun when I can just download from an archive? Why sit through commercials, aren’t you paying enough already? Sure, the television services offer “on demand” programming, but you have to pay for that on top of your monthly fee. But, most important, why pay $80 a month when you can get exactly what you want for $400 a year.

Over the past two years I’ve been making sporadic posts about my set top box. Now that the whole family is using it exclusively, I suspect I’ll have a lot more content to post about it as I tweak. The $80 a month that formerly went to DirecTV will now go toward iTunes subscriptions and enhancing my setup. Yes, I will be getting an antenna once I can afford the 40 foot ladder I need to install it. In the meantime, my first project will be to figure out how to integrate the television software with Front Row.

In my last media server update there were some concerns about Apple’s Front Row. I decided to try out some alternatives including iTheater and MediaCentral. Admitedly I am limited to a G4 MacMini, but there wasn’t much of a contest. iTheater definitely shows the most promise; the interface is georgeous, and its open source, which pretty much guarantees it will have the most features. However, iTheater is still very new and is more lacking than Front Row.

What attracted me to MediaCenteral was that it just works. That sounds like a simple requirement but unfortunately, with commercial software, that tends to be a lofty goal. Did I say commercial? Yes, MediaCentral costs $19.95, which I happily paid.

Like I said, MediaCenteral just works. I download lots of video, mostly podcasts, but some tv shows from less than relaible sources. I have avi files using a wide range of codecs and all of them play perfectly. MediaCentral also reads iTunes’ podcast list, something that Front Row had a lot of trouble with. By the way, if you have kids, having all their DVDs ripped to a hard disk is truly a beautiful thing.

MediaCentral is packed with other features as well. Though I’m just using it to play video at the moment, I plan on taking advantage of them. There’s the standard photos, music, and dvd player. There’s streaming video. The sources are quite limited, but I can see that changing as IPTV becomes more common. You can also browse the top 100 YouTube and Google videos. It even has skype built in. I don’t have a camera but, having parents that live in other states, I love the idea of video conferencing events from my living room.

Despite being proprietary, there is one way of expanding upon its feature set. There is a section called “Games”, which is just a standard Flash player. I found that the games it comes with, as simple as they are, are impossible to play with a remote control. However, you can add your own Flash apps, which don’t necessarily have to be games. As a Flash developer myself, I’m considering writing a weather app in the future.

All in all, MediaCentral is the best choice for a MacMini set top box. Though I see some heavy competition from iTheater in the near future, for now, it’s on top. Well worth twenty bucks.

Over a year ago, I posted a few entries on my quest to set up a media center PC. The plan was to use MythTV server and a set top client. Eventually I’d have set top PCs connected to every television in the house, download all my shows, and say goodbye to cable. Well, things got busy and I got side tracked but the dream never died.

A couple months ago my good friend Jay sold me his old Mac Mini. It’s the original G4 model but it’s plenty fast and came with a remote, Front Row (not meant to run on that machine), and TV adapter. I hooked it up, added my stuff to iTunes, and viola! Vidcasts on my TV.

There are a few down sides. iTunes is very limited in what formats it will play, so most of my tv shows not purchased through the iTunes store will not play. That’s a really big problem. Second, thanks to Apple’s DRM, I can not authorize this computer to play stuff I purchased because I have already authorized 5 computers. Another BIG problem. I’m looking for alternatives now and I’ll post an update in a week or so on what I find.