I have a Mac mini 2012 and would like to use it in a RV and on the mini I wanna basically store movies on it and stream it to a Apple TV now I have no internet in my RV, now I do know I can buy a router and use that as a lan hub right? because a lot of times im on the road or in a park and thinking"I really want to watch a movie"but the park im at has no Wifi and I dont have a dvd of the movie
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Mac mini 2012 question
- Thread starter pspman71
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Yes. I have this travel router and it works great. You can even connect it to your phone's hotspot.
GL-MT3000 / Beryl AX
Beryl AX (GL-MT3000) is an OpenWrt multi-gigabit Wi-Fi 6 wireless router for frequent travelers and remote workforces to protect their digital assets and footprints online.
They even sell versions with cellular modems in them.
ok so I have some questions
1. if I get that router whats the difference between router and a reglur one that you get from Best Buy?
2. how do I hook up my appletv and my Mac mini that has all my dads in it
3. will I still airplay and stuff like that
1. if I get that router whats the difference between router and a reglur one that you get from Best Buy?
2. how do I hook up my appletv and my Mac mini that has all my dads in it
3. will I still airplay and stuff like that
I don't know if this has changed, but in the past you couldn't stream media on your Mac to an AppleTV unless you had a working internet connection. I had this problem more than once back when I had unreliable internet service in my rural location. And I'm not talking about streaming from Apple's servers or even streaming movies I downloaded from Apple. I was unable to stream the DVD's I had ripped myself that were stored on my Mac. Apparently, the AppleTV wants to "call home" before it will play anything. One work-around was to use airplay, that worked but is a bit more awkward.
Now this was a number of years ago and I was still using an AppleTV3 at the time, so maybe it has changed? But this was a known issue that was discussed in multiple threads here. If you can, you might try a test at home by disconnecting your router from the internet and see if it works.
Aside from that, a 2012 Mini should be fine as a media server like this, I did I myself for years with both a 2012 and 2014 Mini. Of course, the 2012 Mini is no longer compatible with recent versions of MacOS but probably not much of an issue if you're only using it for this.
Now this was a number of years ago and I was still using an AppleTV3 at the time, so maybe it has changed? But this was a known issue that was discussed in multiple threads here. If you can, you might try a test at home by disconnecting your router from the internet and see if it works.
Aside from that, a 2012 Mini should be fine as a media server like this, I did I myself for years with both a 2012 and 2014 Mini. Of course, the 2012 Mini is no longer compatible with recent versions of MacOS but probably not much of an issue if you're only using it for this.
Not sure if that's a question for me? If so, the issue I described has nothing to do with the router. Apparently, the AppleTV wants to contact Apple's servers over the internet before it will play movies in your library, even if it's connected to the Mini.
[edit] FWIW, found an old thread about this issue here
[edit] FWIW, found an old thread about this issue here
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Why not just use the mini instead of an Apple TV? Seems unnecessarily complicated.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
OP, you could simplify your wants significantly by just using the Mac Mini itself as "AppleTV":
Or get a dongle for the Airplay "sender" device (like phone or laptop) and then hook it to the TV to play from it instead of using Airplay.
Bonus: that 2012 Mini has an IR port, so if you pick up any IR remote, you can control playback with the remote.
- Put your media on that Mac mini (or on attached storage to it),
- Hook that Mini to your TV with HDMI,
- Play anything you want to watch direct from that Mini. No AppleTV required... thus no router required.
Or get a dongle for the Airplay "sender" device (like phone or laptop) and then hook it to the TV to play from it instead of using Airplay.
Bonus: that 2012 Mini has an IR port, so if you pick up any IR remote, you can control playback with the remote.
Personally, I think the remote control based user interface on the AppleTV is a better experience for watching movies, and if you already have one then it's only natural to want to use it. But you're right, the router does complicate things, and (unless I'm wrong) it won't work anyway with no internet connection. Thinking about this some more, I'll bet an internet connection is required because Home Sharing is based on your AppleID. Here's the sharing screen on the Mac
The AppleTV needs to authenticate via Apple's servers before it can connect to your Mac. Otherwise, the guy in the RV next to you could also watch your movies. 😁
The AppleTV needs to authenticate via Apple's servers before it can connect to your Mac. Otherwise, the guy in the RV next to you could also watch your movies. 😁
Apple's old Front Row app was perfect for this sort of set up. Too bad they canned it back in 2011.
My stereo cabinet 2014 mini is the music player and movie player (unless I have a physical DVD.) A 2012 would work just as well. HDMI directly to TV, or in my case to a home theater receiver. I use one of Apple's remotes usually. Or the mouse. If you have a Fusion Drive in the 2012 it will be fine, no need for an all SSD upgrade. But if you do want to you could put a pair of 1 TB drives in there. 7MM on top and any 2.5" format in the hard drive bay.
Before the 2014 I had a 2006 mini using Snow Leopard with Front Row. That worked too.
A 2012 mini can run Catalina, but Mohave is probably a better fit. Oh, and a warning. Open Core will let you run newer OS versions, BUT a program (including Music's visualizer) that goes looking for a newer version of Metal than whatever Catalina uses or an AVX instruction will die horribly. The 2012's CPU supports neither. Don't ask me how I know.
(The 2014 mini supports AVX but not newer Metal. I found that out the hard way too.)
Really, Plex is the solution to this. Far superior to Front Row and no need for Apple TV or router. Just put all your media on the mini, let Plex scrub the databases, then you're ready to go.
Yes, modern Plex is better than Front Row from 14 years ago. I run a Plex server on my 2010 mini for exactly this, but streaming to AppleTV etc around my house. I find it works well except when it doesn’t… even kept up to date it crashes or hangs at least every couple of weeks.
Your subjective opinion. YMMV. As I said, Plex still often crashes on me. Front Row never did, even 14 years ago.