Thursday, April 20, 2006
Windows XP Media Center Edition on a Mac Mini
Posted by Jeremy Charette in "ARTICLE" @ 03:00 PM
"With the advent of Boot Camp and the latest Intel Mac firmware, there are suddenly more OS options for Intel-based Macintosh Hardware. So with that said, we are a big fans of Microsoft's Windows Media Center Edition 2005 and we are also fans of the intel mini. When we saw that Media Center wasn’t officially supported on the Macintosh hardware, we were a bit bummed. Strangely enough, the issue is rather simple: Media Center 2005 is on two discs and there isn’t an easy way to manually eject CDs. Windows Media Center is flexible enough to allow installation from many different forms of optical media. We tried a couple different methods and the best way that We found to do the job was to copy the Windows Media Center discs to one DVD."
Sure, you can use Front Row and EyeTV to turn your Mac Mini into a media center PC...but why bother? Skip all the hassle, install XP Media Center Edition, and be done with it! Quite a few folks have successfully done this, and report that the Intel Core Duo Mini runs MCE just fine. The one thing I need to see before I leap is the ability to support a USB HDTV tuner. Show me that, and I'm sold.
Sure, you can use Front Row and EyeTV to turn your Mac Mini into a media center PC...but why bother? Skip all the hassle, install XP Media Center Edition, and be done with it! Quite a few folks have successfully done this, and report that the Intel Core Duo Mini runs MCE just fine. The one thing I need to see before I leap is the ability to support a USB HDTV tuner. Show me that, and I'm sold.
