A few people asking by email and in comments about my home PVR setup so here’s the dish:

  • The Mac Mini. The hub of the whole setup. There are two specs but buy the maxed out one:
    • 1.83Ghz Dual Core. The CPU needs to be this fast to decode 1080i quality HD video streams (not common yet but they will be).
    • 1Gb RAM. Definately needs at least 1Gb to be able to play a DVD while recording from the EyeTV at the same time. Also note the graphics cards (Intel GMA950) on the Minis use system memory, usually somewhere between 64Mb-128Mb so OS X ends up getting < 1Gb at runtime.
    • Larger 80Gb+ HDD (you’ll need it!).
    • SuperDrive for burning DVDs.
    • 4 USB ports. You’ll use them for phone (iSync), camera (iPhoto), attaching your mates Mass Storage Devices (USB keys).
    • Firewire Port. Unfortunately the Mini does not yet do Firewire 800 but don’t worry, Firewire 400 is fast enough (faster sustainable transfer rate than USB 2.0).
  • Western Digital 500Gb MyBook Pro connected via Firewire. This is a sweet drive, living-room-pretty, plenty of space for media.
  • Elgato EyeTV 200. (via firewire) This is the analog TV tuner, comes with TIVO-like software. Elgato don’t make this one anymore - they now make the EyeTV 250 and EyeTV Hybrid (see < a xhref="http://faq.elgato.com/index.php/faq/more/453/_" mce_href="http://faq.elgato.com/index.php/faq/more/453/_">the Elgato FAQ. I’d go for the EyeTV 250 if I were buying now - it has two inputs, important for hooking it up to a dual feeds (see below)
  • Philips 32PF9830 LCD (PDF review). An absolute gem of a TV, the level of image processing this box does on the fly is incredible. Importantly it has a DVI input and the Mini recognises it as set the resolution correctly (to 720p). There a few pixels of desktop missing at the top and bottom. say 1/3 of the OS X menu bar but it is usable.
  • Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. I bought the white apple ones, but I’d imagine most would even work with the Mini.
  • NLT digital box. This is the bit I am least happy with but I have no choice in the matter. Basically NTL don’t want 3rd party boxes connected directly to their cable so they tie the decryption card to the box they give to you. Otherwise, I’d be able to buy an EyeTV DVB-C box and chuck the NTL STB in the bin. Anyhoo, I ended up:
    • Getting NTL to put a splitter onto the co-ax cable between the wall and your NTL Digital box. The splitter produces primary/secondary analog feeds. Plugin the master into the NTL box - apparently it needs that one to be able to decode the digital channels. Plug the secondary into your EyeTV box - it can use that to tune into the 15 analog channels carried by NTL.
    • Make sure your NTL box has two SCART connections - you’ll need them both, one to feed directly to the LCD, one to create a second link to the EyeTV tuner so it can watch whatever channel the NTL Digi box is currently tuned into (thereby allowing it to record that channel). Buy a (cheap) SCART-To-CompositeVideoIn cable for this. This is a bit sucky but to be honest it is rare that I want to record things that are not on the 15 analog channels so it’s not impossible to live with.

A few pieces of software you’ll end up using all the time from your sofa:

  • FrontRow - for your photos, music, dvd playback and video clips (works with the Apple Remote)
  • EyeTV - for using the Mac as a DVR (works with the Apple Remote)
  • Mac The Ripper - for backing up DVDs on your hard disk (needs mouse)
  • Matinee - for playing back ‘archived’ DVDs (needs mouse)
  • Firefox - for browsing de Internet (needs mouse). Casual browsing on any large LCD is decent, the fonts in OS X can be a bit small from 12 feet but its usable for bits and bobs. You wouldn’t work on it, put it that way, but I’d never want to as it’s in my living room…