This is part 2 of 3 of my Home Entertainment Trilogy, where I detail out my journey to home entertainment awesome. You can read part one here.
In 2006 I screwed everything up by buying a Mac Mini. I intended to use it to stream media to a TV, only I forgot one thing.
I had no TV.
It would be more accurate to say that I did not have a decent television. I was aware that connecting a computer to a tube television was a terrible idea, but having recently purchased my first home, I needed a computer more than I needed a large flat panel LCD television.
When I brought the Mac Mini home, I ran all sorts of cables, bought a DVI splitter, and tried just about everything I could think of before I realized my obviously poor judgment.
I should have bought an iMac, or simply saved up for a new TV.
Choosing the Screen
Eventually I made right my mistake, and took the plunge. In 2008 I bought a 42 inch Sony Bravia. I rushed home, tore open the box and hooked everything up. Once I made my TV purchase the floodgates of new HD awesome and apps and online video amazing-ness started to pour out of the world. I downloaded the Hulu Desktop App, Plex, Boxee, and everything else.
After all of this it became quite apparent that my Mac Mini was three years old, and not able to provide the horse power required to run everything I wanted it to run, and I was really starting to look at the PS3 and blu-ray with envy.
I still wasn’t happy. The pieces were there, but the performance wasn’t. It was then I started to consider the (at the time) rumored new Apple TV.
Next Week – how I got my content organized and omnipresent (sorta).