Home Media question!

[wicked23]

Ok so I know this has probably be covered a hundred times in different forums, but I just need some advice and suggestions. I have done a lot of searches on mac mini's, AT2, and media centers and I can't decide what to do.

I would like to have a home network that can do the following:
Store all of my itunes music, movies and pictures on the network and be able to access them via iphone4, macbooks, and ipad. I would also like to play my music through my receiver via airplay. I have 200+ DVDs that over time I would like to rip to storage. I would also like a back up system that uses time machine for my macbook but also back up to another hard on occasion and store it in a fireproof safe.

I have the following equipment now: Macbook, AEBS (running in bridge mode), AT&T Uverse internet connection, and AT2 available to buy from a friend for $50.

All of my network stuff will be stored in my family room entertainment cabinet where my router, AEBS, and receiver are stored.

So my question is what would you guys suggest I purchase to do this? Do I just purchase a Mac mini and run a large external hard drive 2-4T via firewire for storing the media with a smaller hard drive plugged into AEBS for time machine or do I just use an AT2 with a NAS?

Sorry for the long post but I am so confused and my brain hurts from trying to figure this out.

 

[thetruth1985]

What kind of tv do you have? If you are happy with 720p then by all means go for the apply tv 2 as it should do everything that you want. I have 4 of them around the house and my imac acts as the main media hub that stores all the media. I also have a 2tb hard drive connected to my apple extreme and that is used to backup my imac via time machine. You will have to convert all of your dvd movies to a itunes compatible format. Another option would be to get a boxee box. I like the one I have but I only have 1 =(

 

[MacDane]

Well, here's my setup for essentially the same thing:

Hardware:
Server: Intel Atom PC running Windows XP and iTunes (N270 CPU, 2GB RAM, Gigabit LAN)
Storage: USB2 HDD
Router: Netgear NWDR3700
Iomega NAS

Players:
ATV1, ATV2, various PCs and a MBP, iPhone 3GS/4 and iPod touch (4)

The server, NAS and ATV2 run via wired connections, the rest uses WLAN.

The NAS is used for PC backup/Timemachine.

A really simple setup, but it works very well. The PC has built-in RAID controller, and I'll probably switch to RAID very soon to protect my media from drive failure.

 

[wicked23]

What kind of tv do you have? If you are happy with 720p then by all means go for the apply tv 2 as it should do everything that you want. I have 4 of them around the house and my imac acts as the main media hub that stores all the media. I also have a 2tb hard drive connected to my apple extreme and that is used to backup my imac via time machine. You will have to convert all of your dvd movies to a itunes compatible format. Another option would be to get a boxee box. I like the one I have but I only have 1 =(

I have a 58" 1080P Plasma.

 

[thetruth1985]

I have a 58" 1080P Plasma.

Try playing some 720p material and 1080p material and see if you can notice a difference. In our living room, we have a 720p 3d plasma tv and it looks great 2 us. 2 of our bedrooms have 1080p lcds but we sit so far away that 1080p and 720p should be indistinguishable. There are people that only watch 1080p blu ray content so it really just comes down to how anal you are.

 

[rpenzinger]

You said DVD

I have a 58" 1080P Plasma.

You will definitely see artifacting on your 58" with a digital copy of a DVD. I have a50" and I can tell But I can live with it. Don't forget DVDs are 480p while your TV is 1080p.

 

[CylonGlitch]

You will definitely see artifacting on your 58" with a digital copy of a DVD. I have a50" and I can tell But I can live with it. Don't forget DVDs are 480p while your TV is 1080p.

I have a 50" 1080p and I can see the artifacts on some commercial DVD's. It really does depend on the authoring. I have since ripped all of my DVD's to iTunes and they, as far as I am concerned, just as good as the originals (or close enough).