All it takes is USB cable or Wi-Fi.Smart Media Connect has been improved to offer a more stable user experience. From top, an Apple SuperDrive, the 2014 Mac mini, and an 8TB OWC miniStack driveEasy tools and tricks for transferring files, photos, software & more between your Android device and Apple computer. You can transfer your data quickly and easily to your PC using the supplied USB cable or via a USB Bluetooth adapter, select different analysis periods (day, week, month) The Media Server. Thanks to its wide range of functions, the free Veroval® medi.connect software for downloading on to your computer, provides you with a solution to every question. The medi.connect software for data transmission and local administration.Macs have good longevity and older units are usable for a variety of purposes other than day-to-day work. The old 21.5-inch iMac becomes a FaceTime “videophone” for Grandma. An old MacBook becomes a school laptop for one of the kids. Old Macs never die, they just get reused. If you have already downloaded the new Smart Media Connect software, then simply. Download the new Smart Media Connect software and follow the instructions.Also use the sound and media keys on the keyboard of the connected Mac to adjust.A media server is a computer appliance or an application software that stores digital media (video, audio or images) and makes it available over a network.Media servers range from servers that provide video on demand to smaller personal computers or NAS (Network Attached Storage) for the home. Support 4K/8K UHD and Wikipedia defines a media server as follows:Connect to Cardinal and Rice The Essential Stanford Software version of. Select a specific file with one click and you can experience the high-quality picture at will.Why Not Just Use an Apple TV?Why build a media server when an Apple TV can provide just about every type of media you’d want? There are a few good reasons: These are illegal and should not be used or installed. NOTE: Several of these alternatives provide third-party add-ons that allow free streaming of paid video content. Others that you may wish to consider include Emby, Kodi, Stremio, and Universal Media Server. Why Plex? It’s the most popular media server app for macOS.
Fairly recent Mac minis are listed on Apple’s refurb page. The minimum operating system requirement is macOS 10.9 Mavericks, so even an early 2009 Mac mini can fit the bill.Where can you find a used Mac mini? OWC often has pre-owned minis available. We chose one with the ability to run modern versions of macOS (10.15 Catalina and 11 Big Sur in particular).You don’t need a new operating system to turn a Mac mini into a media server. For the purpose of this article, we looked no further than the OWC website to find a Mac mini. There’s another very compelling reason to use a Mac mini – older models are inexpensive. You need to manually add your personal content to the server. It can’t take music from your Apple Music account or even “see” your iCloud Drive. Webhooks for connecting your server to your home automation systemEverything has been pretty straightforward up to this point, right? Well, Plex can’t grab your photos from the Photos Library, which is one big file. Live TV & DVR (add a tuner and antenna to record free over-the-air broadcasts) A Server Dashboard for keeping track of what you watch and how much bandwidth you use Mobile Sync for watching your media offline on smartphones and tablets Dhcp client id for macRather than using multiple apps to view different media types, you can do it all in one place. Add photosOne feature of Plex is that you can use it as a “one-stop-shopping” point for all of your media. Most of these drives have better specifications and lower price points than Apple’s SuperDrive. OWC has many external and internal drives that work with the Mac mini. If not, get an external drive for ripping DVDs and CDs. After selecting the folder as the place to export to, we let the Mac copy the images.Plex Server automatically and regularly scans folders designated as libraries. Instead, we used File > Export > Export Unmodified Original for Photos. For this example, we didn’t create any folders to assign photos to a particular genre or event. Next, we selected the images we wanted to move to Plex. The source? The Mac’s Photos library.We created a “Vacation Photos” folder on the miniStack and selected it as our library location. MacX DVD Ripper Pro takes advantage of GPU acceleration during the ripping process and is faster than HandBrake. It also seems to do a better job of ripping video at a higher resolution. MacX DVD Ripper Pro ($29.95) is a commercial app that is often able to do the job when HandBrake cannot. Making a personal backup of a disc you own is legal in most countries.If HandBrake can’t rip a disc because of copy protection schemes, another app might help. Many studios apply copy protection to their discs to prevent illegal piracy. However, you may need to do some searching to find album cover art. Phile Audio gathers the track info, album genre, and year of the release. One of the few remaining Mac apps is Phile Audio ($7.99, App Store link).Phile Audio ripping a music CD to the Music folder on the miniStackThis screenshot shows Phile Audio copying music from a CD and saving it to the Music folder on the miniStack. Several dubious open-source apps exist, but they usually won’t run on a Mac running a newer version of macOS.CD ripping apps were quite common before most people decided to start purchasing their music digitally. If you’re using Apple Music to store your tunes, you also have an issue – those music files are copy-protected. It wants individual music files, not one big file. A good idea is to make an exact copy of your storage drive. It’s especially important with a huge media library you’ve spent a lot of time digitizing from the original discs. Back Up The Content on your Media ServerReaders of The Rocket Yard know that we tend to emphasize the importance of having a good backup. Download the art, then drag and drop it to the Phile Audio user interface to add the album cover. A good example of RAID storage is the OWC ThunderBay 4 Mini (see image below). The array can withstand the loss of one or more drives without losing data. RAID uses a number of drives in a redundant array. The RAID alternativeOne other way to guarantee the safety of your media is to use a RAID array as your primary storage. Install the app on your mini, and then set up a schedule to have your data drive cloned at least daily. Media Connect Software Full Keyboard AndA Plex alternativeAs an alternative to using Plex, you can use the various Apple apps on your Mac mini instead. This is a powerful and easy way to control Plex without the need for a full keyboard and pointing device. Set up a RAID 5 array with four drives, and any one of the drives can fail without data loss.The Plex dashboard as displayed on an iPhone running Screens as a remote controlIn the screenshot above, you can see the Screens toolbar at the bottom of the Plex screen. Most importantly, it can be set up with RAID 5 (AKA block-level striping with distributed parity). Plex is a good all-in-one solution, or you can use the built-in Mac apps to organize and view your media. You won’t have all your media in one app, but can still control the Mac mini with our Screens solution.A Mac mini makes a wonderful media server, regardless of how you set it up. For YouTube or Vimeo videos, Safari (or your other favorite browser) is a great portal.This allows you to have a Mac dedicated to media, hooked up to your big screen 24/7. Want to read the news, books or magazines on a big screen, something you can’t do with Plex? Use the Apple News app. Want to listen to music? Just use Apple Music, or the Podcasts app if you want to listen to or watch podcasts.
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