mini as HTPC

I may have posted about this before but I can’t quite remember. If I have, you probably haven’t read it (you, of course, being the mythical “you” reading. Kinda like the mythical “they” we all know about.) so there’s no harm in my posting it again. Mostly because I think I’ve found a fantastic solution for really using a Mac to run your home theater.

I’ve been using a mac Mini to be a replacement for a stereo system and DVD player for some time. I have a base model mini hooked up to a large external hard drive and I put all my music and videos on the drive. Using FrontRow, which has been greatly improved in many ways (but is frustrating in others), and a Universal Remote (the RF20), I was able to make it completely painless to use.

But I still had to pay for expensive cable to get HD on the nice LCD my wife bought me for my birthday. So before I launch into that discussion, let me digress a bit into the wild and wooly world of digital and analog cable. Bear with me because I think the discussion will be worth it.

Some terms to know before we continue:

• Analog Cable: the old skool cable standard
• Digital Cable: (wikipedia.) The good stuff. Digital signal broadcasts the channel. HD channels are all digital and many other stations are, as well.
• Clear QAM: Digital channels that are broadcast “in the clear.” They are unencrypted, meaning you do not need a cable box to get them. All you need is a QAM tuner.
• QAM tuner: (wikipedia.)

a device present in some digital televisions and similar devices which enables direct reception of digital cable channels without the use of a set-top box

With those definitions out of the way, we now have the groundwork of what we need to know to get our mini acting as a cable tuner and a DVR.

My interest was purely for the digital channels; those that broadcast in HD, mostly for our prime time shows like Heroes and House (and Lost, but that show is a lost cause - awful pun intended) and for college basketball when it goes to national television. As such, I’ll be focusing only on the digital channels.

I tried a couple of different solutions before I finally settled on the one I have now. First, I tried the Elgato EyeTV hybrid but it didn’t do QAM tuning, so there were no HD channels available. I then tried the Pinnacle HDTV Ultimate, because it promised to be “hardware ready for QAM.” Silly me. I thought “ready” meant “ready” but it actually meant “not quite ready, but it will be once we figure out how to do the software for it.”

Finally, I settled on a relatively new and untested product, the HDHomerun because it was actually ready for QAM tuning. If you buy it from Elgato, you get the EyeTV software, which is essential for making it worthwhile. The HDHomerun has 2 tuners, so if you’ve got 2 coaxial cables to connect to it, you can get 2 tuners working. In other words, you can watch and record different channels or you can connect an antenna and a cable line at the same time (or you can do variations on the theme). It works wonderfully! I use the EyeTV software to program and tune it. I’ve got my programs scheduled to record. EyeTV also encodes the saved recordings for either use in iTunes or via a slick web interface specifically for the iPhone and iPod touch. It’s very nice.

An unexpected benefit of the HDHomerun is that it’s a network device. Meaning that other computers on your network can connect and watch television using the tuners. It was nice to watch the MLB playoffs while I was studying at my iMac. If you’re savvy enough, and have enough upload speed on your internet connection, you can even access your cable from anywhere on the internet. You’ll need to figure out port mapping for your router, but that’s really a simple task. The reason I haven’t done it yet is because my upload speed stinks.

I had to upgrade my mini to 2 gigs of RAM for it to be able to handle the streams and I had to buy a new router to handle the wireless traffic. But it was worth it. Within 2 months, I’ll have saved enough to pay for the equipment.

There’s word that if you’ve got cable internet, unencrypted digital channels will come through without paying for cable, even basic, at all. I’m not brave enough to try and I like having the analog channels avaiable. It’s cheap enough to keep it around, but if you’re looking to save even more, you can cancel your cable entirely and just keep your cable internet around.

All in all, a worthy upgrade to my mini and home theater setup. I haven’t had a moment’s regret since I decided to do it. My wife misses her really easy DVR’ing, but she’s more than happy enough with the nearly $100/month we’ll be saving to make the hassle worth it.