- Use mac mini as server how to#
- Use mac mini as server movie#
- Use mac mini as server install#
- Use mac mini as server full#
- Use mac mini as server pro#
Also like DivX, Flip4Mac will install a (somewhat useless) System Preference page. Just like DivX, you’ll have to run an installer and will need to restart once it is completed.
The WMV codec is completely proprietary, but thankfully there is an implementation of the codec for QuickTime called “Flip4Mac”. WMV support is a bit painful, but not as painful as trying to get DivX working for the first time. Log out, and then log back in and you should be able to play Xvid files in FrontRow. Drag the Xvid_Codec_….component file (again LEGO brick icon) into the QuickTime folder along with the other codec components. component “brick icons” which represent the other codecs you have installed. Open up “Macintosh HD” (or whatever you call your hard drive icon thingy on the desktop) and then open /Library/QuickTime. Just like with Perian, you will have to mount the DMG and then do a little leg-work to make things happen. First, download the Xdiv DMG from this link. Xvid in QuickTime is a little less ostentatiously supported than the DivX codec, however, it’s probably a little easier to deal with. However, the decoder should still work and this will allow you to play DivX files from within QuickTime more or less indefinitely. This means that you won’t be able to encode DivX content after six months.
Use mac mini as server pro#
As you may have guessed from the site, you only received a trial version of the pro codec. When it’s finished, you will have to restart and it should have completed the installation for you (no drag-and-drop necessary). This is one of those unusual Mac applications which requires a stern bout with an installer, a license agreement, and a System Preferences add-on. To gain QuickTime support (and hence, FrontRow) for DivX, we must download the DivX free codec from here. More and more high-dev encoders are moving to H.264, because of its superior quality and compression ratio, but a lot of things are still on the proprietary codec, DivX.
(note, if you installed Perian at this point and now have decided not to use it, you must navigate to the /Library/QuickTime and remove the ponent file, otherwise replacement codecs will be screwed up) So, as nice as just using Perian would be, quality lovers will have to forego the convenience. I didn’t have these problems with the same file and the actual third-party codecs. The motion appeared as if it was encoded progressive (with the actual “objects” on screen broken into horizontal lines), when the files had actually been deinterlaced in the encoding process. I experienced problems in frames with high motion. The problem is that Perian provides somewhat sub-par quality compared to getting the codecs direct from the source. Perian is quite nice because everything “just works” right out of the box (or brick, in this case). (if you get confused somewhere in those instructions, you can peruse the extensive, one and a half page README included in the DMG). Log out, then log back in and Perian should be installed. Then drag the LEGO brick file named “ponent” to the alias labeled “QuickTime”. To install Perian, first download and mount the DMG.
Use mac mini as server full#
A full list of the encodings supported by Perian is available at this page. Perian is open-source and can be downloaded here. With Perian installed, you should be able to play everything from DivX/AC3 to FLV to VBR/MP3. Perian is (self-described as) the Swiss Army knife of codecs. Now the easiest solution (by far) is to just install the Perian codec. The solution is to run through and install the third-party codecs required to make all of this work. But it would be so much more convenient if you could simply play arbitrary video files in FrontRow. You could just re-encode all of these files H.264 using a tool like FFmpegX. Also, if you’re extremely unlucky you may have a few old WMV-encoded files which you would like to play. However, a lot of video files are still encoded using DivX or Xvid. I’m not going to try to list them here, but the really big and common ones are H.264 and MPEG-4.
Use mac mini as server movie#
Out of the box, QuickTime (the backend for FrontRow’s movie playing capabilities) only supports a few video formats. So, rather than launch into some fascinating list of iptables rules and Apple alias quirks, let’s look at third-party codecs. However, one of the comments on the first article got my attention and it occurred to me that I didn’t really cover alternate video codecs at all.
Use mac mini as server how to#
In this next article in the series, I had been planning on going into detail on how to store your media files on a remote NFS share. In the first part, I ran through the basics on how to connect and configure your Mac Mini as the heart of your entertainment center.
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