Mini Media Mac

Apr 27 2009

Building a mini DJ

The media capabilities of the Mac mini make it quite the party animal. This certainly isn’t the only way to rock the party with your mini, but it is the only way I’m going to detail for you here.

What you’ll need

  • Your mini
  • Wireless option of your choice (Bluetooth/Airport)
  • Another Mac (a laptop preferred) or Bluetooth phone for wireless control
  • Video projector, preferably with DVI input)
  • Mini-jack to RCA cable
  • Amp/mixer and speaker system
  • USB mic

The projector and audio hardware are available at many rental stops. If you have any ties to a college campus, they are ideal places to rent projectors inexpensively.

miniDJ Building a mini DJ

If the rental guy fails to mention it, I should say that video burn-in is death to projectors, so you’ll want to have a screen saver going on your mini.

So, let’s put it together. It is a good general rule with audio equipment to start with all levels at zero. In order to get all the preamp equalization we can from iTunes, you’ll want to bring your iTunes and speaker-output levels to about 75% and adjust the mixer or amp accordingly.

I’m not going to get too deep on software here, but you’ll want to run a remote control solution. For Bluetooth control from your mobile phone, grab Salling Clicker ($19.95) or Romeo (Free). To modify the playlist, and iTunes, from another Mac get iHam on iRye (Free) or netTunes ($19.95). Each one of these are well documented, so I’ll leave you with those.

Now, to give you a voice we’ll use a USB mic. Utilities like LineIn can help mix your mic with the music. And, I don’t want to encourage too much of this, but this mic will open up the floor for some karaoke, provided you bring the music. Oh, and please don’t send me any tapes.

Put it all together and you’re rocking. And this is just the beginning. Don’t get bored – there are plenty of visuals out there, many of which are controllable live via keyboard shortcuts.

Brian

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Apr 27 2009

Peer-to-peer broadcasting over iChat AV

Bill Douthett (Digital Bill of Wizards
of Technology fame) and I are big fans of film director Kevin
Smith and his Jersey Trilogy. When news hit recently that Smith would be
appearing in a 3 episode story arc of “Degrassi:
The Next Generation”, I was stoked. But, Bill…not so much.

“WTF is ‘Degrassi’?”

Degrassi in its various forms is a curious Canadian television phenomenon that
was a favorite of Kevin Smith’s while he worked as a clerk at the Red Bank,
New Jersey Quik Stop he later made famous. He also made reference to Degrassi
in nearly every one of his films. You’d think a show given that kind of attention
would be more famous but it isn’t even all that big here in Canada, and even
less so in Fort Lauderdale, FL where Bill lives. It does broadcast there but
on the N and on a delay
of several weeks…and who wants to wait weeks to see Jay and Silent Bob battle
Canadian Ninjas? Not Bill, I can tell you that.

ichatavwiring Peer to peer broadcasting over iChat AV

The solution involves iChat
AV, an ADS
Tech Pyro A/V Link analog to digital converter (from here on referred to
as “the Pyro”), two broadband connections (for the sender and the
receiver) and little else. I connected the video and right and left audio out
from my VCR to the video and right and left audio in on the Pyro. Next, I set
the Pyro to Analog Mode and stretched a Firewire cable from it to the Firewire
port on the Mac. I then simply logged into iChat AV and specified the Pyro as
both my”camera” and my “microphone” in the Video pane of
iChat’s Preferences and, bikkity-bam, I was broadcasting whatever played
on my VCR over iChat AV. If you attempt this yourself, you may also need to
set iChat’s Bandwidth Limit to about 200Kbps, so you don’t overrun the person
on the receiving end (never a bad idea when video chatting over DSL or other
bandwidth-limiting connections).

ichatavprefs Peer to peer broadcasting over iChat AV

ichatvideomenu Peer to peer broadcasting over iChat AVWhen
Monday night rolled around, I just emailed Bill in the morning to let him know
that at 8:30pm PST he should be on iChat awaiting an invition for a One-Way
Video Chat and that was that. When the show was about to air, I selected Bill’s
iChat screenname and sent the invitation via the Buddies menu. Once he accepted
he was able to watch the episode “virtually live.” There were a few
problems with the signal dropping off, but if the person on the sending end
of the rig keeps a close eye on the preview window, it is easy to see when trouble
occurs and simply re-invite the receiver.

After the show was over, we found that this method also worked for broadcasting
VHS video cassettes and even DVDs. Granted, the video is heavily compressed,
but if you just want to get the idea across and share a movie with a friend
online, this is a pretty cool way to do it.

videobrodcastchat Peer to peer broadcasting over iChat AV

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Apr 27 2009

mini Home Theater – on the Cheap

If you had a dollar for every Mac mini home theater tutorial, you’d be able to pay for several of mine. Of the many good configurations out there, you can count on me to find the least expensive. What can I say, I’m cheap. And if you just paid $500 for your Mac, you probably are too.

So, today we’ll set up an econo-home entertainment center: mini cinema.

minicinema mini Home Theater on the Cheap

With the help of free software and a great deal on hardware from Amazon, we’re going to use your existing television and speakers to create a much improved sound experience. Even better, we’ll load your DVD collection on your mini for hassle free movie marathons.

The hardware

First up, the deal. This Philips USB 5.1 surround sound external audio solution has been spotted as low as $29 in the past. Right now Amazon is selling it for 60% off, at $39. Of course I can’t guarantee that it will be available for long.

What this thing gives you are optical and RCA outputs for front and rear speakers, an amplifier and a minijack headphones out and microphone input (something missing on the mini). There is conflicting documentation on Mac support. As of the time of publication, I have not been able to test the unit but it has seemed to work for others (see Amazon reviews).

Note: special thanks to a reader for the following info (from Philips support) on the Aurilium’s Mac OS Support:

The specifications for the PSC805 indicate limited functionality with a Mac OS, namely stereo sound only because the software is Windows compatible only. The device should be plug and play with the Mac as far as stereo is concerned, however.

If your’s works, drop me a line (brian AT macmerc DOT com). This isn’t the only solution to get high quality sound out of your Mac, though it is about $60 cheaper than other solutions with the Amazon discount.

Now, if you haven’t already, you’ll need to pipe your video into your TV. If you have a newer TV you might have a digital input allowing you to directly plug your mini in to your TV. If you’re not in that happy place, you’ll need this adapter to connect your mini via analog to your TV.

The Software

Okay, now for the fun. First, you’ll want to rip the best of your DVD collection to your Mac. Let’s hope you opted for the 80 GB hard drive. If not, you may want to invest in an external Firewire solution. The ripper of choice for the Mac is the free Mac the Ripper.

mactheripper mini Home Theater on the Cheap

This excellent free utility lets you selectively rip components of your DVDs (even protected ones) to your hard drive for backup and quick-access convenience*. Expect anywhere from 4 to 12 GB per DVD.

So, what do you do with your new collection of ripped DVDs? Play them in Matinee. This media player allows you to play ripped DVDs through Apple’s DVD Player.

matinee mini Home Theater on the Cheap

Enjoy the candy-smooth interface that includes library management tools for easy navigation between DVDs.

Now, wrapping it all up – we have video coming out your TV, an audio adapter granting you surround sound and some slick freeware running your cinema box. Thanks to careful planning and use of existing stuff, you can do this for as little as $39, and for hundreds less than most setups.

I can already smell popcorn.

* STEALING IS BAD. You should only rip DVDs you own.

Brian

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