A friend of mine has decided he wants a media centre/player. The only thing I can think of is the first gen AppleTV, but I'm not sure he'll be happy for me to open it up to stuff in a larger drive. These are the requirements:

Standalone - doesn't want to have to switch on the mac to stream to it
Be able to plug in a hard drive with content or store on it
Play iTunes purchased movies, DRM, doesn't have to play any file format other than the Apple ones
£200 budget

Is it me or is there nothing that fit's the bill? The issue is the iTunes purchased stuff, but he ripped all his DVD's and gave them away trying to go all digital and likes using iTunes.

Does it have to be Apple hardware?
If not, I suspect any SFF PC running iTunes would be okay, no?

Mark

Definitely, but this mate is not what you call techy so simple is key. It's his iTunes addiction that's really the issue, maybe I should beat it out of him. Then he could get a boxee box, Roku or WDTV.

The only option he's got is to find a 1st generation AppleTV on eBay and jailbreak it to get able to read stuff off an external disc. Only Apple devices can play Apple DRMed movies, so that means everything else is out. The current generation AppleTV has no storage built in so it can't work standalone and a 'vanilla' 1st gen Apple TV won't read stuff off an external disk. His chocies are essentially mutually exclusive. The only thing that gets vaguely close is a first gen AppleTV with aTV on it.

Either that or look for a second hand mac mini on eBay. One of those would be able to do all that - with some additional software - but you'll do well to get one of those for £200.

Jon

That's the problem right there - Apple DRM is made of fail.

However, I was under the impression that any player that can run QT can decrypt Fairplay. Have I missed something?


In which case his ripped films are illegal.

That's the conclusion I came to, was hoping I missed something.

I think the non streaming is the issue, otherwise it would be ps3 which is what I use.

He was thinking of getting a console so that we would be worth looking into, would the PS3 play drm itunes? Xbox maybe?



Erm.... yes

If he's still got DRM iTunes tracks, then suggest he upgrade to the DRM free version Apple offer.
All music tracks bought pretty much in the last 2 years are DRM free anyway.

As for any video tracks he's got, as he's ripped them himself (as opposed to DL'ing from iTunes) they're all DRM free anyway.
As for the DRM management of any iTunes sourced movies, I think they still have DRM management.



Why? Unless he's got more than 5 machines registered to his iTunes account, he shouldn't run into hassle enabling another to be registered to play back his DRM managed movie files.
So seeing as iTunes comes in both Windows and OS X flavours, his choice of hardware is pretty decent.

It's the movies DRM'd, is there a DRM free movie service? I guess the studios won't allow that.

Not that sells movies you'd actually want to watch, no.

I'm thinking of going down a similar route of having a media server attached to my HD TV, but still debating whether to spend the money on a Mac mini - which to be honest is a bit overkill (and expensive) for just a media server - or to look into comparable PC hardware.

The Dell Zino HD looks like a good option (some new ones on ebay starting at £230), and some models come with a built-in Bluray drive too (though they're over £400). Of course, any Mac or PC can run iTunes so it doesn't really matter either way to me which platform I go for. One thing I'm not sure of is the AMD processor in the Dell Zino HD - would this be fast enough on Windows 7?

I'm also considering the Fujitsu Siemens Esprimo Mini PC, which is about the same size as the older Mac mini - but that too is a little on the expensive side at about £600, so if I was spending that amount of money I'd probably go for a new Mac mini anyway. The AppleTV isn't really for me as the new model doesn't have any storage and the older model is limited in other ways - plus my internet connection isn't the fastest for streaming video.

Let me know what you decide to go for, I'd be interested in getting your feedback.

I think the only options I can recommend are a first gen AppleTV or 2nd gen if he still wants to stream from his MBP.

Well I have a Unibody Mac Mini attached to my TV and it's great, stick Plex on it and it's a winner. It also handles my other tasks, torrents, VPN server, playing my music through my home theatre. It is expensive, but it's a mac household it all works well together and plays nice. Also have AirVideo running on it so I can watch all my movies on the go on the iPad and iPhone.