moonlettuce
April 15th, 2010, 06:37 PM
Hi
Have been around and around here but not managed to join my dots up. Beginning to stress as Im well into my 14 day cool-off period for the mac mini etc, so feel like I need to be fast-tracked.
Id like to use my computer, watch TV, and stream media to 2 separate TV sets.
I have the HDTVs at opposite ends of my flat:-
One in liv room (Panasonic TH37PX70B plasma) is near home theatre amp, roof aeriel socket, internet connection, airport extreme, and mac mini (Leopard).
The other in our room (Panasonic TX26LXD70 LCD) has Apple TV, speakers (and another ariel socket).
The Airport signal is strong at Apple TV end, but the two rooms also have an ethernet cable between them. Apple advised me to connect (for hypothetical use with iTunes - which in reality I want to avoid completely) wirelessly, and not to use the ethernet cable. But I didnt understand why they thought the cable would not speed things up.
My medial files (set for VLC) are all on external hard drives. I managed to transfer some to Drobo-S (Fat32 formatted - as Im transferring from PC and still looking back... but happy to partition Drobo for another format if I can work that out too).
Whats fastest and easiest (but most efficient/high quality) way to get Drobo to stream for Boxee on my mac mini, and/or to the Apple TV? I have a laptop I can use to screen control the mini so dont have a monitor for the mini just the TV. Not even sure which are optimum cables to use, as Panasonic TVs' settings appear more geared towards PCs. My home theatre amp (Yamaha RXV440) is older but it has an optical sound input (along with many other weird and wonderful inputs and outputs which - if I knew more about these - might be very useful.
Or -maybe better - is there a way of using Boxee on the AppleTV-end HDTV to make the TV act like a second display (with audio) for the mini?
The Drobo and Apple "manuals" are far too basic to help me; but I find most of the help online and in forums is over my head. Please, if you are able to help, avoid acronyms and feel free to write as if explaining to a small child (although maybe no need to be quite as iNfantilising as the Apple literature - GROAN)
Many many thanks
M
Have been around and around here but not managed to join my dots up. Beginning to stress as Im well into my 14 day cool-off period for the mac mini etc, so feel like I need to be fast-tracked.
Id like to use my computer, watch TV, and stream media to 2 separate TV sets.
I have the HDTVs at opposite ends of my flat:-
One in liv room (Panasonic TH37PX70B plasma) is near home theatre amp, roof aeriel socket, internet connection, airport extreme, and mac mini (Leopard).
The other in our room (Panasonic TX26LXD70 LCD) has Apple TV, speakers (and another ariel socket).
The Airport signal is strong at Apple TV end, but the two rooms also have an ethernet cable between them. Apple advised me to connect (for hypothetical use with iTunes - which in reality I want to avoid completely) wirelessly, and not to use the ethernet cable. But I didnt understand why they thought the cable would not speed things up.
My medial files (set for VLC) are all on external hard drives. I managed to transfer some to Drobo-S (Fat32 formatted - as Im transferring from PC and still looking back... but happy to partition Drobo for another format if I can work that out too).
Whats fastest and easiest (but most efficient/high quality) way to get Drobo to stream for Boxee on my mac mini, and/or to the Apple TV? I have a laptop I can use to screen control the mini so dont have a monitor for the mini just the TV. Not even sure which are optimum cables to use, as Panasonic TVs' settings appear more geared towards PCs. My home theatre amp (Yamaha RXV440) is older but it has an optical sound input (along with many other weird and wonderful inputs and outputs which - if I knew more about these - might be very useful.
Or -maybe better - is there a way of using Boxee on the AppleTV-end HDTV to make the TV act like a second display (with audio) for the mini?
The Drobo and Apple "manuals" are far too basic to help me; but I find most of the help online and in forums is over my head. Please, if you are able to help, avoid acronyms and feel free to write as if explaining to a small child (although maybe no need to be quite as iNfantilising as the Apple literature - GROAN)
Many many thanks
M