The state of HTPC on Mac OS X
HTPCs (Home Theater PCs or Media Center PCs) are all the rage right now, and for good reason. A computer with the right software and hardware add-ons can be a digital video recorder (dvr or pvr), a movie jukebox, a regular jukebox and much much more.
All you need to make this magic happen is:
- A Mac, PC or Linux Computer (you don’t need anything too powerfull so hopefully you can recycle something or find something cheap on eBay)
- A TV capture device
- A remote control device
- Lots and lots of disk space
- Some software to run the whole thing
Being a Mac nerd, my setup is centered around an old PowerBook G4 with a broken screen (but a working video out). I also have an EyeTV 200 by elgato, Keyspan’s Digital Media Remote, and a generic firewire hard-drive to store all my movies, music and recorded TV. The hardware is fairly straightforward there are a few options for Mac compatible TV capture devices and remotes, but all seem to be capable devices with decent support. The real trick to setting up a killer media center Mac is item 5: the software.
Linux users have the well-regarded open source projects MythTV and Freevo and Windows users have the well-featured though somewhat restrictive Windows Media Center Edition as well as a handful of proprietary solutions but for us poor Mac fanatics the options are not so well defined. Thankfully there is some movement in the Mac HTPC/Media Center world, but none of the available solutions is quite ready for prime-time.
There are plenty of good media players for the Mac with my favorites being VLC and MPlayer both open source, but for a true HTPC experience you need an software that will let you pick a movie, song or TV channel or recording to play from across the room with your remote. A little research comes up with the following options:
- Apple’s own Front Row
- The Center Stage Project
- iTheater
- MediaCentral by Equinux
- A Mac OS X port of the MythTV frontend
Though technically not supported on any hardware other than the new Intel iMacs and MacBooks, Front Row can be fairly easily tricked to run on any Mac running Tiger. It is final release and an Apple product to boot, so it is naturally the most polished of the bunch, but it lacks integration with EyeTV or any other TV hardware and tends to freeze up for 30+ seconds while trying to load previews for the movies I have ripped with Handbrake, which makes navigating somewhat… inconvenient.
The MythTV Frontend requires, naturally enough a computer on the network running the MythTV Backend, which is Linux-only. Since I do not have a MythTv box, I cannot comment on how the Mac front end performs.
Center Stage and iTheater are both open source solutions in different stages of development. Center Stage is a 0.5 release and iTheater is 0.1.1 as of this writing. Neither is ready to be used full time in your living room, but both hold a lot of great potential. I am a big fan of OSS projects and have great hopes for these. I only hope that the spliting of such a small market in two will not hurt the development and ultimate adoption of these two products.
MediaCentral is a relatively new free (as in beer) product from Equinux. It is currently at version 1.2 and seems to be extremely feature rich. In my limited testing I found the interface to be extremely sluggish on my 1.5 GHz G4, the video playback was jumpy on some of my files and it froze a little too frequently. One of the frustrating things about a fullscreen application like these is that without a mouse to wiggle (and no spinny rainbow ball) it’s hard to know if an application is frozen or just being slow.
So which of these progams to I use in my living room? None of them. Until one of these solutions matures to the point where I can use it and trust it, I will continue to make do with my makeshift solution involving a little applescript, a few good media apps and the finder with the icons and display font cranked up to max.
If you know of any other Mac OS X media center solutions, want to share your tricks for controlling your computer from the couch or have any other questions or comments about HTPC on Mac OS X, please leave me a comment below.
March 4th, 2006 at 3:32 pm
I, too, am searching for exactly this solution, and was quite dismayed to discover that the MythTV backend isn’t ported to Macs.
At the moment I have a tired old 20th century G3 tower hosting my music files and running Slimserver to serve them to a couple of SlimP3s around the house. I love the SlimP3s, but the server just hasn’t kept up with the growth of my library or network. I thought that last week’s announcement of Intel MacMinis might be the ideal time to upgrade that system and finally get a HTPC solution to boot, but now I’m starting to think that I should get a cheap PC and run Linux. My research also indicates that, surprisingly, Macs aren’t anywhere near the forefront of being home theater media machines, and I would hate to sink into a half-assed choice with current hardware only to have Apple finally roll out the much-rumoured DVR machine in a few months.
I find myself wondering aloud how Front Row + EyeTV might fare, though.
March 8th, 2006 at 2:31 am
I’ve been using a WindowsXP-based HTPC for a couple years now, using the Meedio software. I am finally deciding to switch to a MacMini-based one using MediaCentral. I think it is ready for the job. I am NOT going to use it for TV capture though. I have decided to revert and use my Sky+ set-top box for that.
I think MediaCentral has the chance to be ‘the one’ for us mac lovers. I am not convinced about Front Row at the moment.
March 8th, 2006 at 2:40 pm
MediaCentral is clearly the most polished of the available apps. In principal, I much prefer open source applications to freeware, but free is free. The video playback quality is still a deal-breaker for me, but I imagine these perfomance issues will be moot on a spiffy new Mini. Good luck with your new setup!
March 8th, 2006 at 5:14 pm
OK, as much as I would LOVE Apple to release a PVR inside FrontRow they simply will not do it, a large chunk of Apple’s revenue stream is based around people buying TV Shows thru iTunes, if you think Uncle Steve is going to introduce afeature that lets you grab the same shows for free you are dreaming.
March 9th, 2006 at 1:54 pm
You make a good point Josh, but I’m hoping that they realize that they’ll never gain market or mind share unless they do include PVR functionality. The iPod would not have sold a single unit if people could not rip cds and put them on there.
April 2nd, 2006 at 12:14 am
Ronan,
I’d like to know more what your setup is, and why you have AppleScript doing whatever it is you ask it to do…
I first setup a Windows-based HTPC with BeyondTV, but then switched to linux and MythTV because windows has never been for me. Linux was too much configuration for me, took 2 months to get it set up. And now I have a mini running the show. All in all, beyond TV was the best setup. I have never fully integrated a frontend for any of these, though I’d like to. Once EyeTV has both hardware encoding AND decoding, the ability to change the channel of your set-top box for a scheduled recording, and a full-screen program guide… I will be a very happy camper.
Until then, I think I’m actually a few days away on giving up on the whole home-brew pvr idea and paying the $6/mo for DirecTV DVR. I’d still use the mini for DVD, CD, mp3, mpeg, archiving, etc. I kinda have to since I sold all my DVD/CD/mp3 players. :)
DirecTV-EyeTV 200-Mac Mini 1.25-Sony Wega 27″ CRT
Klipsch speakers-Turntable-VCR
October 24th, 2006 at 1:00 pm
I’m using my PowerBook G4/800 (with a broken screen) with the EyeTV 200, the Keyspan remote, and a Logitech Harmony 659 remote (the harmony learned all the commands from the keyspan). I needed the IR receiver from the keyspan remote, as the Harmony doesn’t come with one.
For software, I have it switching between EyeTV 2.3.2 and MediaCentral 2.3.1. This works but the switch between the two softwares is pretty awkward. Supposedly MediaCentral will eventually add support for the EyeTV 200, then I can keep everything within MediaCentral.
I’ve read about situations where the integration with EyeTV already works, but they must have removed that functionality in later releases of MediaCentral.
I feel like I’m very close to having it all figured out. I already rely on this setup for my living room, I’m just waiting for the software to catch-up.