Digital Home Thoughts: Media Center Macintosh Project

"Ever since the day that Steve Jobs demonstrated the Apple media center software, Front Row, I have been looking forward to replacing my television's DVD and VCR player with an all in one media center device from Apple. On the very day that Apple announced their media center Mac Mini, I ordered one from the online Apple store. It arrived a couple of weeks later. Having installed numerous Mac Minis for schools and families, the only difference that I could find in the packaging was the inclusion of the Front Row remote control. My plan was to put all of my music, photos, DVDs and home movies onto this thing. If I was going to do that, I would need a large amount of storage space..."



I have to admit that I've considered doing this myself. The Mac Mini seems perfectly suited for use as a Media Center PC, at least in form factor, if nothing else. The obvious limitations are the media center functionality (no built-in TV tuner support in Front Row), and the lack of massive storage space. Chris has found workarounds for both of these, but now that you can install Windows XP on an Intel Mac Mini, why not use XP Media Center Edition? Of course, MCE isn't "officially supported" by Boot Camp, so we'll never know...or will we? Stay tuned.