ATV vs Mac Mini

I have been considering an ATV for my main TV in our home to be used for usual reasons, pull content off itunes, video and audio, and then to begin to stream rented content from itunes store as well along with maybe consider third party sources, netflix, hulu etc.
I know I can do all this with an ATV, but can I do this with a mac mini? would I have the same functionality say with front row etc?
thanks.

have a look at this to see some comparisons
http://web.mac.com/gartside1104/ATV/atv-vs-mini.html

Similar Messages

Does the iPhone Remote control a Mac mini in the same way as ATV?

My ATV1 has packed in.
Rather than having my MBP switched on just to listen to music through a new ATV to my hifi I am thinking of using a Mac Mini in the same way as ATV1.
Does the iPhone Remote work with the Mini the same way as it does with the ATV or do you need to use a mouse and switch on the screen?

If intending to use the Mini s a home theater system,
you may want to consider getting Rowmote or Rowmote Pro
app for the iPhone and the companion app for the Mac.
Not only will you get Apple Remote functionality, but
you will also get trackpad and keyboard functionality
as well. This will make it even easier to navigate the
Mini on the TV.

Is it possible to stream a rented movie from iTunes on my Mac Mini to my Sharp Aquos Smart Tv

The TV sees other machines on the network just fine, the Mac Mini doesn't appear in the list on the TV. Trying to get rid of the Windows laptop and just use the Mini, but it is not visible.
Every other thread I've read suggests using an HDMI cable or even an ethernet from Mini to TV but I would like to just leave it all wireless (if possible) since 40' of cabling is not practical!

is that the only way?
I failed to mention I am posting for a friend, I have an Apple TV myself but don't want to come across as pushing more Apple products
Airplay is no doubt the way to go aside from an ATV but I'm looking for something that will allow the Mini to connect to the TV through WiFi and carry on...
The search continues!
(thank you for replying my friend)

Mac Mini and thunderbolt/vga to LCD TV

Hi All,
Here is an interesting one......
I have just taken delivery of 5 new Mac Minis which have the thunderbolt port on them. The Mac Minis each connect using displayport tb/vga adapter to a switch then on to 5 LCD TVs.
The HDMI/DVI is not used.
In this config, if I start a Mac Mini the display will not route through the Thunderbolt/vga adapter to any of the TVs (even though I have selected them on the switch). The display seems to want to go through the default HDMI port.
If I connect a standard PC monitor to the tb/vga adapter and reboot, the screen shows correctly on the monitor. If I then change cables without a reboot, the LCD TVs show correctly!
I can add the PC monitor as a second monitor using HDMI/DVI and ensure that the outputs are mirrored AND that the VGA display is the primary. However, on reboot it's as if the details are all forgotten!
Searching around it seems that there are issues with Mac Minis and VGA connections to LCD TVs. That said, I wanted to put my environment out there and see if anyone had an ideas.
Interestingly enough, with older Mac Minis (without the tb/vga) it works perfectly well, indicating a problem with the new Mac Minis.
Thanks for ANY ideas!!!!

Hey Spost!
You have explained exactly what happened to me last night. I was afraid it was part of the 10.8.3 update or the latest ATV software update that hit this week. I tried from my macbook pro and the airplay from 10.8.3 and the atv software worked fine.
Previously my mac mini was connected to a monitor in my basement but last night i made it "headless" and moved it to my "server closet" airplaying prior to the move worked great ... then last night 4:3 Green Screen.
My guess is the computer needs to be connected to a external display in order for airplay resolution to figure itself out. Via Logmein i could see that the Mirror mode wanted to use the resolution that fit the mac and not what was best for the Apple TV ... Even forcing the change made the setting go right back to this mac.
Looks to be a bug in a plist file that apple would need to fix as many people run headless mac mini's and now wish to AirPlay to their Apple TV's without the need for a external cable run.

Mac Mini, Synology, Apple TV, iTunes - where to start

Hi Everyone,
I am new to the apple forum. To be honest I am new to the whole Apple thing, being a Windows bod I managed to resist the Apple gravy train for several years before giving in and falling inline.
Now I find myself with an iphone, ipod touch, ipad 2, mac mini and apple TV 4 although not all in use yet... This brings me to my question.
What is the best home setup for sharing?
let me set the scene.
3 years ago I modernised my house and put in cat5e structured cabling throughout, all back to a comm rack in the loft. at the time I set up a powerful quad core server. I used to run my own AD domain, Exchange server (don't ask). Now the server runs Windows 7 professional with 8 HDDs running raid 5 mainly running windows media centre and I was using my xbox 360s as extenders. The view was to use Xbox's around the house to access my media. Never quite got there and things have moved on again.
After running the big Windows beast 24x7 for about 18 months I wanted to scale down again, improve data resillience and provide a simple user interface for my other half.
So after doing some initial web trawling armed and dangerous with a very small amount of knowledge and realising that I already had an amount of Apple kit to contribute towards an iTunes based mulitroom solution. The red mist came down and with credit card in hand I did some retail therapy. Not the female handbag and shoes type but the proper male tech kind.
I already had
1 x ipod touch 64GB
1 x iphone 4 32GB
1 x ipad 2 64GB wifi
And to complement the set I now have;
1 x i5 2.7GHZ, 16GB RAM, 2TB HDD Mac mini (this is the latest version which I upgraded to 2 x 1TB internal drives)
1 x 4th gen apple TV
and non Apple kit
1 x Synology DS212+ with 8TB storage raid 0
1 x Onkyo TX-NR515 AV receiver
So now comes to the ask. How best to use all of this over my home wired network?
I'm thinking I will use iTunes, I want to have some form of data backup between the Synology and the Mac mini (I want to shut down my windows server)
I also want to be able to control it all from the ipad/ipod and push media (audio and video) around the house.
The mac mini is currently plugged into one of my TVs via the AV receiever and the thought was to use the apple TV in another room, and depending of how it goes buy another 1 or 2 for other rooms.
So I have all this kit and not sure where to start and I'm not a mac expert. I know I can't use the synology box on it's own as you need itunes for the apple TVs, I don't know whether to use the Synology or the local Mac storage for the primary itunes library and then to backup to the device is so how (time capsule thing).
I don't want itunes to organise my media as I don't like the way it shuffles files around, so thinking of keeping the media files in a folder structure I am familar with and pointing iTunes at that. I also have a large amount of video files that I will probably have to convert to be capatible with iTunes, but not sure of the best way to do this, if I need to at all.
Sorry for the long waffle. Would be interested in any views, suggestions, ideas or examples of your own set ups. In return, for what it is worth I will let you know how I get on.
many thanks for your input

Great thread all! I have been wrestling with this very topic for several months now. I've read every thread I could find on the topic, asked questions etc but still have not come to a final decision. But I am getting close ... I think.
First, a little background. I am starting from primarily pc household and converting to an all Apple infrastructure. From the Apple world, we already have 2 iPhones and 3 iPads. New iPhone 5 on order and ... today at last Apple has announced the new iMacs. Exactly what I have been waiting for and so my intent is to purchase one each of the smaller and larger as they come out next month and the month after. My router is beginning to show signs of age and so I would also like to move to an Airport Extreme. The PC hard drive housing my iTunes library is nearly full and so I need to move the library to a new location, preferable an external, networkable location and I've been looking at the Synology 1812 for this purpose. So, in the end I have or would like to soon have:
3 iPads
3 iPhones
2 iMacs
1 AppleTV 3 with a plan to one or two more. If they would only add the Amazon Prime app and RF remote capabilities it would be nearly perfect.
2 PS3s and 1 XBox360 but I much prefer the ATV interface for media. PS3 remains the place for the Amazon app because ATV doesn't provide.
1 Airport Extreme
House is already wired and homerunned with Cat-6
Plan to add Synology 1812 with 3 or 4 3TB drives to start and use the Synology Hybrid Raid
Open items or questions for me:
1. Will I have any issues if I purchase the Synology, move the iTunes library from my current PC to it and then remove the PC from the picture once I have an iMac in place? I understand that Apple does not utilize the same hard drive formatting structure as pc but I am not sure this would matter for an external device accessed over a network.
2. What am I going to serve with? I like iTunes and I am used to it. I would like something that works well with the ATV and it does that. Plex seems to have potential but would then make ATV useless unless hckd. All of my music is in iTunes now, including ripped, iTunes purchased and Amazon purchased. I have put many tv shows and some films into it as well, utilizing Handbrake to do so when needed.
3. Synology for storage, backup, redundancy etc but from where do I want to manage media / serve from? I realize I can do it from one or even both of the iMacs. I had been thinking that I wanted a low power, always on solution that would negate the need to have an IMac always on, something similar to the HP MediaSmart Server I've been using at home for a number of years, albeit clunkily. This is where I thought the Mac Mini might come in (once I learned that the Synology iTunes server was really not a true iTunes server). Low power, always on, can be running iTunes on it etc. But this thread and aschmid's comments have me rethinking this. Maybe I won't be shutting down my iMac all that much and maybe it isn't difficult to wake it so that it can address serving duties.
4. How would I address the storage of home videos vs films and tv shows? I don't want iTunes managing home videos ... do I? Still want them sitting on the Synology - right? Did you all create a separate folder on the Synology for home videos? I know there is a default videos folder. there. And are you serving via iPhoto, Aperture or something else?
5. How about photos? I would like my photo library housed on the Synology as well. Is that served via iPhoto or Aperture to the ATV? How are the mutiple entry points addressed? Everyone in the family is taking pictures, videos etc and all of iCloud turned on. How do I insure that a clean copy of every picture and video taken with any iPhone, iPad, digital camera, digital camcorder etc all ends up centrally located and accessible on the Synology without it becoming too manual a process?
Sorry about the long windedness of this. I got on a bit of a roll once I began typing. This has been on my mind for some time and I am happy to have come across this thread.

Mac mini server with Apple remote

Hi,
Bought my mac mini server november last year, and much to my surprise, with it came an Apple remote. Not the latest one but the flat all-white one.
This weekend I have redeployed the mini in my house and want to start using Frontrow, however my remote does not seem to work with the mini.
I have tested the remote with a number of other maca and atvs, there it works fine.
Any pointers appreciated
Pim

That is really strange, the remote is not list as being in the box on the Mac mini Server's Specs page!
I believe it used to be, there was definitely a pre-formed space for it in the box
Have you checked the battery since it is an old model?
I mentioned i worked perfect with any of the other Macs in the house
You can use Mac Help in the Help menu of the Finder. Go to Index>A>Apple Remote for troubleshooting and pairing instructions.
Not sure if this is the issue, since the server version does not have an optical drive, I was wondering if it has an IR eye
Pim

Apple TV with Nas or Mac mini?

Hi all
i have a couple of Apple TV units, both work fine. My only issue is my home broad bad speed is pitiful (live in a rural area) and I have to leave a movie buffering for a few hours before starting to watch.
I Can just about live with this for new purchases, but obviously the atv's will only keep the most recent content - so previous library content has to to through the motions once more.
So, i'm happy to let my library, and any future purchases trickle down on my terrible broadband, but then I'd like that content to be available on the atv's via my home wifi network.
Do I get a Mac mini with an external 2tb harddrive and have it all there?
OR
Do I get a Nas drive (no experience with these at all)?
if I go for the mac mini, do those little bt handheld keyboard/trackpads work ok?

I have just helped the boss setup a system along these lines.
We have a Mac mini with an external RAID5 system (he has a lot of purchased media), all the media he has purchased from the iTunes Store is downloaded via iTunes and stored on this drive. I have setup iTunes Sharing on the same Mac mini and connected multiple Apple TV units via iTunes Sharing to it.
He has a nice fast WiFi in his house and all the Apple TV units can stream full 1080 HD media from the Mac mini with no problems.
I have also set the Mac mini to auto-download new purchases from the iTunes Store.

Mac Mini (Mid 2011) AirPlay to Apple TV

Hi, everyone. First, thanks for reading my post. My question is about the Mac Mini and the new AirPlay feature that comes with OS X Mountain Lion. I've got a Mac Mini that I use as my media center. It has all of my movies, music, photos, etc. I use my Apple TV in my living room mainly for the GUI, but occasionally I need to remote-connect to my Mac Mini. Currently, my Mac Mini doesn't have a monitor - I access it through my MacBook Air using Screen Sharing. But I'd like to be able to see the desktop on my living room television through my Apple TV using AirPlay.
Currently, all that happens is that I'll get a green 4:3 screen through my Apple TV when I use AirPlay. The MacBook Air can AirPlay just fine, but no dice on the Mac Mini. I'm thinking it might be a resolution thing, but apparently I can only get my Mac Mini to go up to 1680 x 1050 (no 1920 x 1080). Furthermore, I'm thinking this is all an issue because I don't have my Mac Mini connected to a monitor. Before I got the Apple TV, I had the Mini hooked directly into my television with an HDMI cable and was able to get full 1080 resolution without a problem.
So, my questions are:
1) Has anyone ever had this experience with the Mac Mini and AirPlay?
2) Can anyone think of a better, more efficient way to hook up my media center?
Best regards and I look forward to your answers! Thanks again for reading and have a great weekend!
Steve

Hey Spost!
You have explained exactly what happened to me last night. I was afraid it was part of the 10.8.3 update or the latest ATV software update that hit this week. I tried from my macbook pro and the airplay from 10.8.3 and the atv software worked fine.
Previously my mac mini was connected to a monitor in my basement but last night i made it "headless" and moved it to my "server closet" airplaying prior to the move worked great ... then last night 4:3 Green Screen.
My guess is the computer needs to be connected to a external display in order for airplay resolution to figure itself out. Via Logmein i could see that the Mirror mode wanted to use the resolution that fit the mac and not what was best for the Apple TV ... Even forcing the change made the setting go right back to this mac.
Looks to be a bug in a plist file that apple would need to fix as many people run headless mac mini's and now wish to AirPlay to their Apple TV's without the need for a external cable run.

HDMI To VGA on the Mac Mini

I have a New Mac Mini and need to add a second VGA screen to the HDMI port will the Belkin Hdmi to Vga convertor be able to do this?

Thanks Guys
Just one last thing would the below be able to do it as well, just not sure which one to buy? The Belkin Or Kanex
http://store.apple.com/us/product/H9139VC/A/kanex-atv-pro-hdmi-to-vga-adapter-wi th-audio-support?fnode=3a

Can the can a Mac Mini connect to an Apple TV via Airplay?

I don't own a Mini, but was wondering if I could project (connect wirelessly) the desktop of the Mac Mini on to a tv screen via an Apple TV.

What are you trying to do? Do you want to be able to watch movies that are hosted on the mini from the various ATVs around your house? Or do you actually want to use the computer (for computing tasks) and use your various TVs as monitors? If it's the former, there is a native function built in to the ATV that allows you to do just that, without having to resort to a kludgy desktop sharing situation.
Your keyboard and mouse will need to be within range of the mini in order to work. The commands do not get sent back via the ATV. Alternately, you could install an app like Mobile Mouse on your mini, and install the accompanying client software on an ipad or iphone and control the mini from anywhere via your home wifi.

Home Sharing, Sleep Proxy, ATV3, Mac Mini 10.8.2

Hi All,
Every 15 minutes, my mac mini cuts off iTunes from my ATV 3. I've timed it.
The ATV and Mini are connected via Wi-Fi and n Time Capsule with the latest firware. Network is silly fast. (Ethernet is not an option for these two devices)
This issue appears to coincide with the Mini going in to sleep mode - as set by the defaults in Energy Saver.
I've read the "Troubleshooting Home Sharing" article and yes, wake for network access is checked. I've unchecked it, then re-checked it. In fact, if I go back to the ATV and hit Play again on my music playlist, it starts up again - meaning this activates the bonjour sleep proxy as expected, no?
So, how do I stop the Mini from cutting it off in the first place? Why does the Mini go to sleep, when an ATV is streaming from it? It seems to me it should be aware of this...
Yes, I suppose I could tell the Mini never to go to sleep, but this is not a good solution for the life of the unit and is a waste of power.
Worse, this is happening on a just finished bare metal install of 10.8.2 and latest iTunes update in this Mini (I wanted to start from scratch for other reasons)
Any advice is greatly appreciated.
Stu

Mine will wake too - the issue is it cutting iTunes off after 15 minutes.
I have just UNchecked the setting to put hard disk to sleep "if possible" and so far, ok. Power settings remain the same. the iTunes Library in on a raided firwire external setup (as it has always been), so maybe this will do the trick.
Will report back the results.

Mac mini times out internal requests

My mac mini (previous gen.) 2.26ghz running 10.6.4 times out connection requests on my local wireless from the following things:
AppleTV ("old," 40gb)
Remote iphone (4g)/ipad (16gb, WiFi) app
RemoteHD ipad app
I can link the mini to the ATV but am neither able to sync the Apple tv to the mini (port 3689!) nor can I stream media to the ATV from the mini (apple tv cannot connect). Both RemoteHD and Apple remote ipod/iphone apps timeout. I am able to set the remote app up initially but the connection times out when I try to load the library. The mini is connected via ethernet to Apple Airport Extreme 802.11n base station and the ATV is connected via wireless.
I can, however, get my media through Orb sharing (web based with local host) and set up a working remote connection with RemoteHD using its local port mapping wizard. I can also load the library to the MBP through iTunes sharing and share the mini screen through MobileMe's back to my mac.
On, with incoming connections allowed, or off, the firewall on the mini makes no difference.
I do have my library stored on external media. I noticed some posts suggesting that might be the problem. Based on the issue with RemoteHD, I don't think it's that simple. I need to find a fix anyway because my library exceeds the capacity of the mini.
I haven't monkeyed with any Airport based port mapping or anything because all functions worked fine with a g4 desktop (which also served the media from external drives) and currently work with my MacBook pro 2.4 ghz also running 10.6.4. The issue is isolated to the mac mini and the local wireless.
In the broad scope, these are minor but perplexing irritations that I'm currently working around. The most inconvenient is the ATV issue followed closely by remote control of iTunes. I'm willing to install something like NoobProof to manage that port problem if necessary, but I'm hoping to suss out exactly what's happening that's prohibiting me connecting via my local wireless so I can solve all issues at once.
If you managed to hang in there, thanks for reading all this and thanks in advance for any assistance and let me know if I can provide any additional information.

terwilliger-
Greetings and welcome to the Apple boards.
If Boece's advice does not do the trick, take a look at this document for other helpful information.
Luck-
-DaddyPaycheck

Loose connection between Mac Mini and Apple TV 2

Help! I have a new Mac Mini 2.5 ghz running Lion and Apple TV2 hooked up to my 32 inch LG TV.
Before I got the Mac Mini, Apple TV was running just fine on the same network with my Win 7 machine.
Ever since I got the Mac Mini and I run the Apple Tv at the same time. I loose connection on both. My cable provider replaced the router and all my other Win 7 machines run just fine on a wireless network. I might also add that when the apple tv and mac mini goes down, my ipad 2 goes down too. Of course, air play doesn't work . It comes and goes.
I have a 2nd Apple TV 2 and hooked that up to the same tv with the same results. I have called Apple many times. They are helpful but not been able to solve my problem. The cable provider and I have traced down to a conflict between the Apple TV, Mac Mini and the IPAD 2 .
Does anyone have any ideas what may be wrong?

I have had multiple ATV's, desktops, laptops, and i Devices all running at the same time without a problem. Typically on a network when you start 2 devices and the connection crashes it is an IP problem. Check the IP address on both devices and see. It is usually easiest to have the router assign IPs automatically using DHCP. The router, computers, and ATVs should also be set to DHCP.
If everything is set to DHCP try disabling DHCP and assign fixed IPs to each device.

Help: do i really want an Apple TV or a Mac Mini?

Hi,
I have an iMac and Airport Extreme base station upstairs in the den. Downstairs in the rec room I have a 46" LCD HDTV.
I'd like three things.
1. I'd like to rent movies from iTMS (can't in Canada); and buy/rent American TV shows from iTMS (can't in Canada)
2. I'd like to be able to watch video files in the rec room that are on my iMac. (Currently I burn them to a DVD and watch them on my DIVX-capable DVD player, but the image quality ain't great.)
3. I'd like to be able to browse the web from my rec room
Trying to decide if I want an Apple TV or something else (like a Mac Mini). Here's my thinking:
Apple TV, PROs: awesome interface, HDMI out, can stream video files from my iMac or a hard drive on my Airport Extreme base station.
Apple TV, CONs: no movie rentals in Canada yet, no American TV shows in iTunes store in Canada yet, have to convert DIVX files to Apple TV compatible format, cannot browse the web with it
Mac Mini, PROs: can use Front Row to watch video files, can use Safari to browse the web in my rec room
Mac Mini, CONs: more expensive, no HDTV and 5.1 audio out
So my questions are:
Q1. is there any chance that Apple TV will provide me with access to the Safari web browser any time soon?
Q2. is the video output on a Mac Mini to my 46" LCD good enough; or is it crap compared to the HDMI out on Apple TV?
Q3. will iTunes store sell America TV shows in Canada soon?
Q4. will iTunes store rent movies in Canada soon?
Q5. will Apple TV support DIVX files soon?
Q6. if I buy an Apple TV will I regret getting the 40Gig version?
Q7. if I buy an Apple TV will I regret it because there's going to be a new PVR version of Apple TV next year?
ANY HELP OR OPINIONS ARE GREATLY APPRECIATED! THANKS,
slegge
Message was edited by: slegge
Message was edited by: slegge

Here are my stabs at answers
1) Probably not. This can be done but you'd have to hack it which isn't suggested.
2) It's the same output. The only difference between HDMI and DVI is that HDMI carries audio as well. A mini outputting at 1920*1080 will look as good as an ATV outputting over HDMI.
3 + 4) Who knows. My guess - unlikely.
5) Not likely. You'll need to pick up something such as Visual Hub to convert files to ATV format. On the other hand, a mini can play these files already.
6) That depends on how often your computer is on. In my case I own the 40 and don't mind it a bit - my mac mini is always on so it can stream anything from my mini to my Apple TV over my network. Streaming movies takes about five seconds to get started but after that I've had no trouble.
7) That's a possibility given that they've submitted patents for an idea such as that - but remember many patents never turn into anything.
Basically I think the mini vs. Apple TV comes down to $$$ and how badly you want to rent HD movies. A mini (via Front Row) can do anything an Apple TV can do plus a whole lot more (play many more formats, higher resolutions, etc.). The only thing it can't do is rent HD movies. I would have sprung for another mini if I could have afforded it.

Brand new 2010 Mac Mini issues....

I took delivery of my 2010 Mini this morning.
After initial set up I first noticed the clarity on the text is very poor compared to the AppleTV it has replaced? I also find the WiFi streaming of audio and SD video to be terrible, where the ATV which it has replaced was perfect, even when streaming HD!
Lastly, I find it very slow, having the "spinning disc" show up whenever I try and do something? Not what you want from a fresh machine which only has Firefox installed on it so far?
Has anyone else experienced these issues and can I rectify them? I feel like sending it back, the performance is awful for the cost of the machine.

David.Austin.Allen wrote:
Also, a few folks have mentioned that the cable plugged into the antenna was a bit loose. You might try opening the bottom, and making sure that the cable is properly seated.
http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repair/Installing-Mac-mini-Model-A1347-Antenna-Plate /3111/1
Thanks for that link.
May be coincidence, but having tried the Mini upstairs where another AppleTv was sited it crept up to 54Mbps.
Should've tried it downstairs again where it was only getting 11Mbps to see if that was still the case, but decided to check the connector - you can see the gold/brass coloured connector through the grill - using a blunt probe I touched it and it wasn't loose, but I applied some gentle downward pressure didn't seem to move, but now getting 54Mbps in the original site. Perhaps coincidence, maybe as I've disconnected the other wireless device, who knows.
Will see how it goes for a few days but if performance falls off may take it in to be looked at.

ATV vs Mac Mini

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