When I purchased my first Mac I quickly transfered over all the media files from my old windows based machine and was excited to finally view the content on an operating system with strong media capabilities.
I opened up Quicktime and found a movie in .avi format that I wanted to open. Unfortunately, Quicktime didn’t know what to do with the file and told me I needed to go and find plugins to open the movie. After I found a plugin that would allow Quicktime to play .avi movies I launched the movie again.
Sure enough the picture came in and I was almost convinced that finding quicktime plugins wasn’t too bad. Then I realized.. the audio for the movie wasn’t playing. Quicktime needed another plugin for the audio portion.
ENTER VLC
If this experience sounds similar to you, fear not! There is a wonderful and small FREE media player out there that has everything built into it to quickly play almost any media format.
After struggling with finding quicktime plugins to play all my media formats I cam across VLC. I download the app, installed it, and opened movie after movie after movie without any trouble.
VLC is a wonderful free application. In addition to having a Mac version, the software also comes in Windows and Linux versions. It plays DVDs, CDs, music and video files, and can even stream video across a network or over the internet.
Give VLC a try and check back here atmaciverse.com with RSS for ways to get the most out of your new free Media Player.
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Last weekend I was very disappointed with the NCAA when I opened up my laptop and hoped to watch some of the NCAA Tournament games that were not being broadcast on my television over the live internet broadcasts.
I navigated to the NCAA tournament website that has been advertised all across the internet and clicked on the link to watch a game.
A new window appeared but instead of streaming video, I received noticed that my browser wasn’t supported. It mentioned that I could try with a Mozilla Firefox browser so I quickly opened firefox, cut and pasted the URL, and hit enter. TOTAL DISAPPOINTMENT!
Even Firefox was not capable of viewing the streaming video for the March Madness games. How dare the NCAA mock me by putting all the games on the internet but not even thinking about us 7% of the market that use Apple computers.
Although at the time I didn’t search further, I didn’t give up completely. Today, I was pleased to find that a solution to the March Madness problems of Mac users.
WATCH NCAA MARCH MADNESS ON YOUR MAC
Joost, an application that delivers video over the internet, was proudly announcing that this year they’re include a “test” version of the March Madness streaming games. I quickly downloaded the beta version of their software and entered my username and password.
After click explore I instantly noticed the March Madness section of their shows. The first 4 games of the sweet sixteen match ups were listed for this weekend. Game times were listed and I plan on navigating back to test out Joost and its March Madness streaming video.
We’ve discussed in previous articles about how we wanted a little more from AppleTV and mentioned how to create a more powerful media center. One item that adds some additional enjoyment to your media center is the Nintendo Wii.
We also mentioned ways to sync up your wiimote to your Mac and use it as a mouse. If you combine these two ideas and add in an HDTV you get one impressive media center that you can control with point and click technology. Lets face it, although bigger, the wiimote is just a lot more impressive than the mac remotes.
While the Macmini is the cheapest Mac you can buy to sync up to your HDTV, any Apple notebook would work great for this situation. I personally hooked up my Macbook Air to my HDTV using the microDV to VGA converter that came with it.
You may need to find a converter from the miniDV or microDV video out from your Mac to what ever video inputs your HDTV receives. I know many will HDTVs have either a VGA in or a DV connector. The Macbook Air comes with converters for both.
After you connect your computer to the TV with the cable and correct converters, just tune your television into that video input and power up your mac.
While you don’t have to actually connect your Wii to your TV, be sure to place the IR Sensor bar is above your TV and connected to your Nintendo Wii. The next steps include connected your Wii to your Mac.
To do this you’ll need to download Darwiinremote. Its a free application still in beta that allows you to use your bluetooth technology on your Mac to connect the wiiremote to the computer. After downloading the file to your Mac connected to your HDTV, launch darwiinremote and follow these steps:
- Be sure that Bluetooth on your Mac is turned on and in discovery mode.
- Click the Find Wiimote button
- The system will prompt you to click the 1 & 2 buttons on your wiimote, click them simultaneously.
- Darwiinremote should find your Wiimote and sync it to your mac.
- Click the IR Sensor Button
- Power up your Wii so that the IR bar receives power.
- Select Mouse Mode On on Darwiinremote
- Minimize Darwiinremote
You should now be able to point your wiimote around the HDTV and the pointer on your Mac will follow your movements. Click the home button to pull up front row and start accessing your media content. Download movies to rent through iTunes or stick in a DVD and enjoy it on your HDTV.
You can customize the various button functions on your wiimote through the preferences on darwiinremote to differen’t mouse clicks, or keyboard shortcuts.
One great advantage of your MacWiiTV is that you can still enjoy all the functionality that you get from a normal Mac computer in addition to custom mouse controls using the Wiimote. If you want to browse the web you can pull up Safari and use a bluetooth keyboard to help navigate to different websites or pull up the onscreen keyboard.
- Click the apple icon on the menu bar
- Select System Preferences
- Select International
- Click The Input Menu Tab
- Select Keyboard Viewer
- Click the Flag on the Menu Bar
- Click Show Keyboard viewer
- Click the maximize button to increase the size of the keyboard.
The addition of the Wiimote to your new home media center adds some unique ways to interact with your television without the need for a mouse and keyboard. Additionally it allows you to take full advantage of your Mac media center and still use the complete features of OS X while sitting on your couch.
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Apple recently unveiled a software update to Apple TV, calling it Apple TV Take Two. Remember the joke that Microsoft would get it right at version 3 (whatever “right” meant)? Whether that will be true of the Apple TV or not remains to be seen. In the meantime, we can build our own Apple TV Take 3 today with the following recipe.
- Mac Mini
- HDTV (Preferably one with DVI Inputs)
- Elgato Systems Eye TV www.elgato.com
- Wireless Keyboard and Mouse
- External Hard Drive (Optional - But Recommended)
I think you’ll find that the above setup, while more expensive than just an Apple TV, it’s really what people where hoping for when the Apple TV was announced. While the Apple TV is a nice hardware channel to iTunes and its content, the above system is more of a real media center. Not only do you get iTunes, but also Eye TV turns your Mini into a Tivo-like super device for your cable/dish and over the air HD signals. Add to that a mini can play DVD’s you can begin to see the extra value the above recipe brings to the table. By replacing the Apple TV with a Mac Mini, you are able to increase your channel count to not only iTunes, but iTunes, cable/dish, over the air HD signals, your own DVD’s, and all the video content that is available on the web. Much of that content you would be able to store on the Mini or an external drive for later viewing pleasure, or convert it for your iPod/iPhone. Don’t forget though, a Mini can also do everything else a normal can do, and it’s all connected to that big HDTV.
Again, I admit it’s a bit more expensive, but isn’t that what economic stimulous packages are for?
Apple recently announced at Macworld 2008 that they would start renting movies from ALL the major motion picture studios. With all the excitement many people forget that you can still buy movies on iTunes. Movies are for sale from Paramount, Lionsgate, MGM, as well as all the studios currently owned by Disney.
Paramount seems to have the largest library. All of these studios are also renting some of their features while just offering others for sale. Fox, Sony, and the other major studios have started to allow rentals through iTunes (requires version 7.6) and these movies will be viewable on the computer, ipod, iphone, and apple tv.
To access movie rentals open the iTunes store and go to the movie section. There will be a number of areas advertising movies for rent. Feel free to browse through the available movies by content categories or searching for a title that you hope is currently available. The library is continually being updated so you may have to wait to watch a certain movie on your new iPod Touch while riding public transportation into work.
