Ask Jacob

Really it is true, I know many video professionals who use a MacBook Pro to edit HD video. This is particularly true now that they support 8 GB RAM in the 17″ MacBook Pro models. Where you may feel the difference is in large rendering and capture. In those instances having more cores and faster drives available will be a benefit. Most video pros will own a Mac Pro if they just have one system but the second system is often a MacBook Pro for mobile work and assembly of the footage.

- Jacob

There are probably many ways to accomplish your digital Jukebox project. You certainly can use your MacBook to play all your iTunes directly to a stereo. All you would need is a 1/8th inch to RCA cable like this one. Connect the line out from your Mac computer to the stereo.

Then you would just need to move your iTunes Library to the external drive by following these instructions from Apple regarding Moving your iTunes Music folder.
This would require you to keep your Mac connected to both the stereo and the hard drive, in-order for you to play the music. If that sounds OK to you then it is a fairly easy setup. Otherwise you may want to look at some wireless streaming options.

A truly slick option would be to use the cable above attached to an Airport Express. The Airport Express could be connected to the Wireless network in your house. Your router at home, that hosts the wireless network, would then have a LaCie network drive attached to an ethernet port. The LaCie 1 TB Drive would have your Music stored on it and then shared by the iTunes-compliant server component of the LaCie drive. All your MacBook Pro would need to do is play the music from the drive over to the Express, all wirelessly.

- Jacob

Panasonic and Cannon do a great job in producing Mac computer compatible HD camcorders. Take a look at the Canon VIXIA HF11 Camcorder or the VIXIA HG20 60GB HDD Camcorder. Both could be good choices for you.

One thing to consider though, still image cameras are quickly adding HD video capture to their feature set. If you are also interested in picking up a good still camera, one of those hybrid cameras may be your best choice. The Panasonic LUMIX DMC-GH1 was recently announced and it has video people and photographers equally excited.

- Jacob

The best solution for Apple computers that can’t use an internal modem, like your Intel iMac, is to use the Apple V.92 Data/Fax USB Modem.

The only requirement is that you have Mac OS X 10.4.3 or later, and a free USB port. As the name implies, this will work for faxing as well as Dial-up internet access.

Hope that helps,

Jacob

I recommend Elgato equipment and specifically the EyeTV 250 Plus tuner.

This will handle all the unencrypted Digital signals coming from your Cable company. It will not work with all channels however, as some channels are encrypted by your cable company to protect the content. This tuner will also work with the analog signals on your cable system as long as they continue to provide analog signals.

One of my favorite features of the Mac computer FireWire port is that it supports “Target Disk” mode (all but the B&W G3). You can put a Mac into Target Disk mode by turning it on while holding down the [ T ] key. After you see a FireWire symbol floating around on the screen you can connect your two Macs together with a 6-pin to 6-pin fireWire cable. The hard drive of the Mac that is in Target Disk mode will appear on the desktop of the other Mac. All you need is the cable, here is a link to an inexpensive Firewire cable, if you do not already own one.

The drive you bought may be USB 2.0 only, and that could cause problems with a older USB 1.1 found on some used Macs. The drive will work fine for the G5 and newer Macs. Make sure you format it via Disk Utility to be Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format.

The problem with side mounting a Mac Pro is that it is a little too tall to fit in a 19″ rack on it s side. The feet make it over 20″ tall. Most racks have more than enough room horizontally for the Mac Pro once you are past the mounting rails, so it is possible. In order to sideways-mount the system you will have to have side access to the rack. Then you just need a 19″ wide shelf.

It is not as convenient as having front removal/installation access to the Mac Pro but it will fit in just 6Us of rack space.

The files you watch via Quicktime or Windows Media Player are often different file types than the ones you are watching online. Most TV channel, in-browser, content is Adobe Flash format. This has been a sore subject with Mac users for many years. Flash playback on Mac computers has historically been a resource hog, quickly driving up the system fans and stealing system performance from other applications. Just recently Adobe has released a new version of Flash for the Mac that tries to address these performance issues. In my most recent testing I have found the performance of Flash 10 to be much better and more reliable. It is particularly better during the downloading phase of the process - that is where you’re experiencing the greatest issue of choppy video. Your computer is having issue caching the content from the website and trying to play that same video back to you. I would recommend that you update your copy of Flash here.

If that fails to help, or the site you are watching video from is not using Flash, then you may just need to pause the video playback and wait a few minutes until the video has fully cached in the browser. There is often a secondary progress bar indicating the amount of video downloaded.

It depends greatly on what TV you have, If it is a HDTV then you would want to use these two cables; Apple Mini-DVI to DVI Adapter and Digital Video Cable - 1 x DVI-D - 1 x HDMI - 6ft - Black.

For standard definition TV you would want to use Apple’s Mini-DVI to Video Adapter.

Regardless of your TV’s video connection you will need the 6ft Startech audio cable to transfer the Audio to the TV. You can always use the MacBook speakers, but those may not have high enough output for you.

There are two types of adapter cables that work for connecting MacBooks to an external monitor. The type of adapter you will need varies depending on what display connector your monitor or projector uses. Most new displays can use the all-digital signal of a DVI connection with a DVI to mini-DVI cable adapter. Older or less detailed displays use the analog Apple Mini-DVI to VGA adapter.

There is also a third adapter, called an Apple Mini-DVI to Video adapter, that allows you to connect your Mac to your television. If you travel often, it may benefit you to buy both monitor cables and the TV cable, so you can always connect your MacBook.

I am a big proponent of using your Mac for TV watching and recording. Most times I recommend the EyeTV 250 Plus because it has a hardware encoder for recording analog video. In your case you want to watch TV on the road, (figuratively; not when driving I hope), and for that I would recommend using the ultra portable EyeTV Hybrid. It has many of the same features as the 250 Plus but is about the size of a pack of gum. You will not have the internal hardware encoder but the EyeTV Hybrid is USB powered and would work in many remote places.

Both units ship with the EyeTV software, which makes all the EyeTV products shine in the Mac TV market. Both units will need a cable connection or an external antenna. Most TV antenna will work for Digital TV over the Air signals with the EyeTV system but you should look for one that will travel well.

Like any complex system, an Apple-enabled home entertainment system can be configured more ways than could ever be described in a short article. The basics of using all Apple equipment (with an EyeTV for good measure) makes it easy to add components as needed. The base of your setup is the central iTunes server. To keep prices low while protecting your iTunes library, look at the Drobo external drive enclosure.

Once you have a new destination to store your library., copy it over and then use Apple’s alternate iTunes library instructions to associate with the new library location.

Start sharing that Library and make sure that iTunes will always startup when the computer is turned on by [option] clicking on the iTunes Dock icon and selecting “Open at Login.” For adding new TV content I recommend using an EyeTV device. Most cable companies prevent you from importing shows off the DVR. An EyeTV 250 Plus will let you take control of your DVR needs without fighting the copy protection of most cable content.The EyeTV software will take care of getting your iPod Touch content in proper format and allow you to export Apple TV ready iTunes files. Consider adding an Elgato Turbo.264 Video Encoder to help speed up your video conversions on that G4 tower.I know there are many more options for you but starting with a good media server and building from there is the best way to start.

The Apple TV is a special device that connects to HD TVs allowing you to view your iTunes and iPhoto content from your TV. The correct way to connect your MacBook to the analog ports on your TV is with the Apple Mini-DVI to Video Adapter and the S-Video cable and mini stereo jack to RCA cables you mentioned. You may also use an Apple Mini-DVI to DVI Adapter with a DVI to HDMI cable to connect to the HDMI port on your HDTV, if you have one.

I have a similar setup to what you want at my home. I use an Intel iMac as my main system in the office. It houses all the family pictures and music. I also use an Elgato EyeTV system to record TV and share it via iTunes. As long as you have a modern version of iTunes running on every computer, you should be able to share it via a single source iTunes library. I would recommend using an Airport Extreme base station as your router.

http://www.powermax.com/parts/show/a-mb053ll__a

Also, you will want to have Leopard installed on all the computers that can handle it. This will allow you to use Front Row on all your Macs, not just the ones that came with an Apple Remote Control.

http://www.powermax.com/parts/show/s-mb022z__a

Also, having Leopard will enable you use the AGP G4 as a headless computer (ie no display) . An AGP 450 G4 will not run Leopard well, so Tiger is the best OS you will want on it. Don’t worry, Tiger is fine for what you are doing. You will have to use a monitor at first to set up the Media server computer. As soon as it’s running Tiger, go to the Sharing section of System Preferences. Under the Services tab, enable the “Apple Remote Desktop” service and set the Access Privileges to allow the main user to do everything. Leave the Guest and VNC sections uncheck-marked.

You can now remove the display from the AGP G4 and connect the computer to the Airport base station via an ethernet cable. Also connect your Office computer via ethernet to the base station. With Leopard running on the Office computer, you can see the AGP G4 as available for screen sharing. Click on the Screen Sharing button and enter the Username and Password for the Administrator account on the AGP G4. You will have full control over the AGP G4 from your office Mac. You then can turn on File Sharing and setup the iTunes on the AGP G4 to be the master library for your home.

On the AGP G4, make sure that you have Sharing turned on in the iTunes preferences. All the other Macs just need to have the preference enabled to “look for shared music.” When you set up your Apple TV, you will have to pair it with the iTunes running on the AGP G4. You will also need to enable photo sharing in iPhoto if you want to share pictures.

Once the server has all the files sharing that you plan on serving, you can then test the connection on your other Macs. Using the new Front Row application that comes with Leopard, just change the source to the AGP G4. You should be able to browse the Apple TV-like menu system to find the media you want. You can also use iTunes and iPhoto to browse the remote media. I think you will find it very responsive on a home network.

You could use a Plasma screen as a computer monitor, but it would be so blurry you would not want to do much work on it. Here is a way to visualize it. At the highest broadcast level of HDTV, 1080i, you have a picture of about 1920 X 1080 pixels. An Apple 23″ LCD (Apple 23″ Cinema Display) has a resolution of 1920 x 1200 pixels. If your HDTV is bigger than 23″ but has the same 1920 x 1080 resolution, then the picture will be enlarged but with less detail. If you are seated far enough away from the screen it could work, but that adds a distance strain to working with the display. Also many Plasmas will not work well with computers on a hardware level. Your Mac mini can take up to a 23″ Apple display which is close to the resolution of HDTV. A 23″ display makes a good TV as well as a great display.