10/19/2021 0 Comments Media Servers For Mac
Enjoy all of your media, including videos, photos and music on aIn May 2005, iTunes evolved from a music player into a video library manager, paving the way for video iPods (October 2005), Apple TV (March 2007), and AirPlay video streaming (September 2010). FireStream is written for the Mac from scratch, with an 'it just works' philosophy, providing a true, seamless Mac experience. Huge new 2.0 update Introducing FireStream: the most advanced UPnP/DLNA media server for the Mac platform.Depending on the size of your iTunes library, it could cost as little as $150, or as much as $300, in either case much less expensive than a Mac mini. It can be used as both a media client and a.Today, I’m going to help you build a small, inexpensive, and ultra energy-efficient iTunes media server. It works well, and consumes a lot less power than keeping my iMac on all the time, but it’s still a full-fledged $700 computer — overkill for streaming videos to the Apple devices in my home.The VLC media player from VideoLAN is a free, open-source player that runs on Mac, UNIX, Windows and Linux. Media Server provides a multimedia service for you to browse and play the multimedia contents on Synology NAS via DLNA/UPnP home devices.Apple has resisted calls to release a standalone, inexpensive iTunes home media server for years: 2008’s release of Time Capsule came tantalizingly close, but couldn’t act as a standalone streamer. So when my video library became too large to keep on my iMac, I bit the bullet and bought a used Mac mini to serve as an iTunes server. Download and install Synology-developed and third-party packages directly from Package Center. Unless you stream all of your content from the iTunes Store, you probably have some space-consuming videos sitting in your computer’s iTunes library, where they can be accessed by client devices so long as both the server computer and iTunes are turned on.Plex Media Server runs on your Mac, PC, or compatible NAS device and serves your media to all of your Plex clients including Plex-enabled mobile devices and.Add functionality to your device with powerful collaboration, backup, communication, and management tools.If you need more storage and power, you can easily add a near-silent $90+ hard drive with 2TB-5TB of capacity…The Apple Option: A Mac mini ($500 and up)When my iTunes library outgrew my iMac, there was only one Apple-built option that made sense to me: a 1TB Mac mini. Although there are some important caveats you should understand up front, the Compute Stick can become a ~3-Watt video server using a $20+ microSD card, radically reducing the energy required to stream iTunes content in your home. For around $130, you can now get an iView-branded Compute Stick with a CPU similar to the 12″ Retina MacBook, bundled with a wireless keyboard and trackpad.It has an HDMI port on the back and can be connected to any HDTV in your house with a $5 HDMI cable. The Mac mini consumes less than 8% of that power (11W) when idle and 42% (85W) maximum.)You can get an entry-level, current-generation Mac mini now for $465, including a 1.4GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor and 500GB hard drive. (My iMac consumes 142W of power when idling, and 200W maximum. An energy-efficient Mac mini, even a previous-generation model, would save a lot of cash up front and hopefully enjoy a major power savings over time, as well.
Media Servers Mac From ScratchBut even if you go with a cheap Mac mini, it will still be a problem-free iTunes server for your home.The DIY Option: A Compute Stick Plus Additional Storage ($150-$300)Thanks to Intel’s release of the Compute Stick, you don’t need to spend $500 or more to get a basic, quiet-running iTunes media server — so long as you’re willing to accept an extremely basic computer that won’t reliably do anything else. Faster machines can run video game emulators and smoothly play back high-definition videos on the connected TV. Moreover, depending on the Mac mini you buy, it may be able to do lots of other things on an as-needed basis. You shouldn’t expect the Wi-Fi or Bluetooth to just stop working, your iTunes library to disappear from the network, or the computer to just not turn on after a few years of active use. Apple’s hardware runs near-silently, has great long-term reliability, and is typically trouble-free when it comes to running OS X and iTunes. ![]() Of the built-in 32GB storage space, 18GB is usable, which means that a 32GB card will give you 50GB of total space, with up to 146GB total if a 128GB microSD card works. (Note that iView’s packaging and marketing materials differ on the maximum microSD capacity supported some references say 32GB, others say up to 128GB.)Whether that’s enough for your needs depends on how you plan to use your iTunes media server. You can easily expand the storage space using microSD 32GB cards, doubling the capacity, for $20 and up. That’s roughly 1/4 the power consumption of my already impressive Mac mini at idle, and 1/10 at maximum.Bluetooth 4.0 and 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi are built in, along with 32GB of storage space, and 2GB of RAM. Power is supplied via an included micro-USB wall adapter, but Compute Stick is amazingly efficient: when it’s idle, it draws only 3W of power, with a maximum power draw of 8-9W under stress. This is necessary to charge the remote’s integrated lithium ion battery, as well as to set it up as a wireless device within Windows. Once it’s charged and wirelessly paired, you won’t have to do this again an included USB wireless dongle will let it operate independently, while an included micro-USB to USB adapter can be used to connect a USB hard drive. Some TVs may require you to connect it to the port labelled HDMI 1, while others will not.After the Compute Stick is connected to your TV and wall, you’ll need to plug its combination keyboard and trackpad in using an included mini-USB cable. The hardware part is fairly easy: once it’s unpacked, you can just plug it directly into an HDMI port on your TV, and then into the wall with its wall adapter. At that point, you may want to consider the Mac mini instead, as you’ll get a more powerful machine (albeit with less storage space) for the price.Unlike the Mac, which will arrive with OS X ready to go after a really quick Wi-Fi and Bluetooth setup process, the iView Compute Stick will take a little work. Apple provides an iTunes library moving guide here, but it’s mostly intended for Mac-to-Mac or PC-to-Mac transfers. Reformatting the external hard drive as exFAT will make it easier to access the drive on either a Mac or PC. Once the computer’s all set up, you’ll want to grab the latest version of iTunes from here for free and install it.Although PC-to-PC iTunes library transfers are fairly easy, the single biggest pain point for Mac users will be moving the content of a complete iTunes library from a Mac to the Compute Stick’s PC hard drive. The keyboard is small, but surprisingly capable, and the trackpad is similarly tiny but entirely functional for occasionally navigating the Windows 8/iTunes environment. Control permissions in mac for terminal installsYou can put that card into an SD Card adapter, plug the adapter into your Mac’s card slot, and drag-and-drop individual files to transfer them between platforms.
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