Media Consolidation
As I become more of the borg and integrate more with Steve Jobs new world order - Read: become an Apple aficionado, I have decided to convert all of our video files of movies, TV shows etc to use through iTunes.
I have limited success with getting the Apple Remote working with the main media centre PC, it works sometimes then it drops off, but I have worked a 'work around' for this, I just reboot the router and it all seems to work then.
As much as I would like a Mac Mini for the main media centre for the time being I will keep the old Dell PC running to save costs.
My issue has been that avi, wmv video files can't be imported into iTunes, which means that I don't have full control of my media from the one easy to use interface.
So for the last couple of days I have been Googling all sorts of weird and wonderful solutions to convert these files to something that I can import easily into iTunes.
You just would not believe the trouble I have had on this issue, I have trialed Shareware and freeware and at first thought I was onto something with a freeware product called Handbrake.
But it took as long to convert one movie as it would take to watch it! Not to mention it was not particularly easy to batch process the videos I have.
Finally I stumbled across iSquint a cute little video conversion tool for the MAC.
So far so good, I have done a couple of test conversions and all seems cool, the quality has stayed the same, the average 2 hour video took about 15 - 20 minutes to convert.
And even better than that it batch processes the videos!
I said to the boy last night as I was trying to find something to do this that it was bloody difficult to find the right application and most non technical minded people would have just given up.
So there we go I will be converting video for the next week I would say based on the size of my library.
But then at the end of it it will all be iTunes enabled yippeeeee!
And I will be finally wittling down the good old video library and getting rid of stuff that I have not watched and will never watch either.
4 Comments:
You know, my MICROSOFT Media Centre (Windows 7) worked out of the box. With one remote control.
It can do full-res Blu-Ray, *any* video file in my collection, any song I have (in any format), plus do TV / PVR with Tivo-like functions, WebTV and FM and Internet radio. All with a really smooth 10-foot UI.
Sorry, Apple still got some way to go yet :-)
Yes but you have to have a license and a meaty pc to run the MS media centre
I agree that apple still needs to pull out an all in one solution
but i like the apple solutions thus far
Funnily enough, putting the meaty PC together plus the Windows 7 Ultimate licence is STILL cheaper than a Mac!
Doesn't have to be that beefy a PC. I just beefed up my video card and got a TV tuner, less than $300 total. And the software is free (for now):-)
I'll show you what it can do next time you come for dinner :)
ah but at the moment I am using an old pc to run itunes as the media centre and share the libraries over the network and use my iPhone to control it all.
I just need to download an app to run as my keybaord now so I dont have to use the big logitech keyboard!
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