Dumping Cable TV & Living Off The Land
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HARDWARE
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Stock Mac Mini 2.0 w/ 4GB of memory
External hard drive with 1.5+ TB of storage
EyeTV Hybrid USB Tuner
Cheapo amplified antenna from Monoprice
Some type of VGA/HDMI/DVI cable/adapter that matches your TV’s input
Optical digital audio cable
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SOFTWARE
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Front Row
- EyeTV Mod (launches live TV and organizes DVR’d shows)
- Understudy Mod (Netflix)
- Hulu Mod (launches Hulu Desktop app)
- Boxee Mod (launches Boxee)
- Plex Mod (launches Plex)
EyeTV (DVR software that comes with Tuner)
Boxee
Plex
Hulu Desktop
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NOTES
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- I’d love to use Boxee as the centerpiece of my system, but its inability to launch external apps is a dealbreaker.
- Most people forget about over-the-air broadcasts. It’s a pleasure to watch and record full, uncompressed HD signal.
- A number of the Front Row mods do not work on Snow Leopard yet due to minor issues.
- Hulu Desktop does not carry all of the shows that are available from the website.
I’ll be revising this on a regular basis, as the project is still evolving. I’m also certain that I’m forgetting to include something.
I’m seriously looking into doing something like this. However, I’m looking at using my PS3 as the centerpiece and having some sort of opensource media server sitting on an old G4 desktop I have. I just need to upgrade the G4 and figure out what flavor of Linux to put on there … leaning towards Ubuntu now that they have a PPC version, just because I’m familiar with it. I’m just at the research stage and not ready to take the leap yet. I still have a couple months on my FiOS TV contract anyway. :)
