this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2024
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I had a Mac Mini as a media centre before I had an Apple TV.
Purposely bought a server model that fried both its drives, never to be seen again. It was not a happy experience, or one that I'd recommend.
The UI alone required both keyboard and mouse, you're forever dealing with on-screen alerts, none of the software is really intended for full screen use 100% if the time, etc.
On the plus side, you can have an on screen clock all the time if you want, something I've never achieved with the Apple TV.
Not sure why you're being down voted. I bought a 2012 Mac mini a few years ago and it ultimately became the media centre PC, but it was never perfect for the same reasons you said.
And this week the damn thing just died, absolutely no power. I presume the PSU died but yet to confirm. Now I'm planning to replace it with a Leader SN6 NUC I have around running some Linux distro with KDE and using the KDE Connect app to control it instead
Just in time to buy the new one! Coincidence? Probably.
I've had good success using old laptops and old desktops running Linux as media center devices. The hardest part is getting them to recognize Windows networks, and that's not very hard at all. I thought I'd be removing some headaches by replacing the Linux machine with an Nvidia Shield device, but it has just caused different headaches, and is pretty slow. I'm about to start shopping for hardware to build a slick little mini PC for integration into my home theater system.