ok let me explain i purchased a mac mini intel solo core computer and i would like to take my collection of movies and copy it to a external firewire drive and then run them in front row i know i can do this now i have two questions 1. is there a video online somewhere that shows the insides of the lacier external hard drive for the macmini so if i spend 200.00 for the 160 gig model i could then disasemble the unit and upgrade the hard drive to 500 gigs and i would like to use this drive unit because the mac mini can sit on top of the unit 2.and if not can anyone recommend a kit for fire wire to place a full size pc hard drive in it no serial ata please
first off.. i dont know how you would run the dvds off the external via front row.. there may be a hack or some cheat for it.. usually it wont read anything but dvds. for your enclosures.. http://www.123macmini.com/accessories/guide/enclosures.html
thank you and if you would like to know how to run external drives on front row here you go connect any external drive firewire enabled to the mac mini then once the drive icon appears on the desktop creat a alias of this drive on the desktop then copy the alias to the movies folder in mac os x then go into front row and you can now access the drive from front row and use all of your videos in front row
Took me a while, but I finally understood your last post. Punctuation is the key my friend. Granted, I don't have an external HD on this machine. What I did end up doing is dumping a few of my VIDEO_TS folders into the "movies" folder. Front Row found the folders, but stated that there were no video files in those folders. What format do they need to be in? Edit: Ok.. I tried it with an MPEG I had in there. Dumped it into the "Movies" folder. Got it to work. If I need to rip to MPEG, which would mean I would compress and lose quality and be more of a pain, then I may as well just rip the VIDEO_TS folder. You are getting an internal HD and getting an enclosure, at that rate it would be much cheaper. Pick up a drive or two at a good price and just store the VIDEO_TS folders. To help with this issue, Equinox has released MediaCentral2. This finds all the VIDEO_TS folders in your HD, WITHOUT you having to dump or make aliases of your files from the external. I know this works because I have another mac that is on that system. All my VIDEO_TS are on my external and MediaCentral picks them up. Well, that is it for now. Below is the link for the MediaCentral story. http://www.123macmini.com/news/story/497.html It does cost money, but it is only $29.95. Enjoy
yes but i use handbrake because handbrake converts my dvd collection right from the disk to mpeg 4 so i can use it on my ipod video as well as my computer cool huh
