Storage Cabinets

Mac powered home theater systems are quite underrepresented on sites like YouTube. I thought I would share my work in progress to give a very simple overview of how I approached accessing my media in my living room.

I have BOXEE but have been too busy to play around with it. (Update: I removed boxee, not for me.) For now controlling the system with my iPhone seems to work well.

The system features:
-Brains: Mac Pro (3.0GHzX8cores – 18GB memory – 4TB storage (0:28)
-Sound: Logitech Z5500 (Optical in) (1:08)
-Storage: ReadyNas NV+ (3.6TB) (1:13) + XServe SAN (not seen) 10TB.
-TV: Samsung 50″ plasma (0:05)
-Remote: iPhone (0:02)
-iTunes library: 3.7TB
-3.5″ hard drive dock – For import/exporting large files.
-Everything that is geographically locked (ie: DVD players) are Region 1. It is far cheaper to import new stuff from North America than it is to buy it in Australia.
NOTE: For some reason my camera couldn’t pick up the visualizer… quite strange.

Updates:
-I updated the video cards on the Mac Pro to: Nvidia 8800GT
-Replaced last 750GB drive with 1TB
-Upgraded with 4gb more memory.

Update 2:
-Added a new 400MB/s 10GB PCIe Raid Tower (CalDigit HDPro): ~75% in formatted for iTunes playback.
-Downgraded out 4GB of memory in prep for Mac Pro update at MacWorld in January.
-Got $3000 in gift cards for iTunes from friends for Christmas, sadly I already own most of the videos/shows available on iTunes.
-Hid Mac Pro, HDPro Tower, Time Machine, HDD dock, etc inside cabinet as I like everything hidden.

Update 3:
-Added PS3 and XBox360… I’m not as big a gamer as I used to be but got them über cheap. As with everything else, they’re region 1 even though I live in Australia… So much cheaper to import everything than buy it there.

Duration : 0:1:45

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