An old Mac Mini for the home theater

Hardware, Home theater, Macintosh

A tremendous value.

When crafting my home theater the default assumption was that the enormous 55lb. energy quaffing Mac Pro would be the computer of choice. This has served me faultlessly for many years and one of the really nice benefits was that four large hard drives could be accommodated within the chassis where many movies were stored. For perfect streaming nothing beats hard wiring, no wi-fi to go down.

Interested in saving power and cutting intrusive bulk, I was reading about the latest M1 and M2 CPU-eqipped Mini’s and quickly realized that this was far more computing power than was required for the simple job of streaming movies. (The Mac Pro, of course, is total overkill, but it’s so inexpensive nowadays that economics are not an issue). So I searched around and came across this rather ancient 2014 Mac Mini on Amazon which, in its base configuration, ran me just $126. Sure it has no internal additional hard drive storage, but that was easily side-stepped with a cheap Probox like the ones I have been using for years. The old Mini is blessed with no fewer than four USB 3.0 sockets and a Probox is connected to each, meaning 16 external hard drives are accessible.

By the way, the availability of these old Minis on Amazon is spotty but keep checking and they crop up. You do not need more than 4GB RAM or the costly SSD option for streaming movies. The advertised image is incorrect – the 2014 Mini I received does not have a slot loading DVD drive. Mine came with a fresh installation of OS X Catalina (10.15). Here are the connection options on the machine:



Abundant connectivity.

Note the presence of an HDMI socket which is used to connect to the UST projector in the home theater.

The Mini has several advantages over the huge Mac Pro in this application. It uses far less power (6 watts idle, 85 watts max, compared with 125/285 for the Mac Pro), is easy to hide (you really do not want ugly computer boxes cluttering up a home theater), has HDMI built in (the Pro needs a suitably equipped graphics card) and, most importantly, comes with excellent Bluetooth 4.0 sensitivity. The BT in the Mac Pro is simply awful. Why is this important? Because you can hide the Mini away in a credenza, no status lights showing, and it responds perfectly to a Bluetooth mouse at 15 feet, where the Pro really struggles, even with an external Bluetooth ‘dongle’.

So if you are looking for an inexpensive, elegant computer solution for your home theater installation, this old Mini is just the ticket. Mine arrived in absolutely mint condition from a vendor named ‘iSpyDeals’. And should the small 500GB hard drive fail, it’s easily replaced. Why, you could even install a cheap SSD for even snappier performance. Just do not make the mistake of thinking that you can use this computer for heavy video processing ….

Here are the specifications and options for the 2014 Mac Mini which is still supported by Apple, if you like spending hours on the phone with a clueless ‘technical advisor’, one whose native tongue is anything but English:



Specifications.

Data Rescue …. to the rescue

Software

150 Blu Ray movies recovered.

One of the most frustrating aspects of Mac desktop computer ownership is Cupertino’s planned obsolescence policy, one which manifests itself in the endless – and mindless – ‘upgrades’ to the OS X operating system. These provide ‘features’ no one needs and ensure that old application versions cease working.

My movie HDD boxes, which contain some 20GB of movies plus 20GB of back ups had one of the 4 TB hard drives fail so I quickly procured a replacement and set to restoring it from the backup drive. The only snag is that the backup refused to mount on my desktop 2010 Mac Pro. Panic.

I fired up Disk Drill only to be told that my version of Disk Drill was outdated and required updating. I did as instructed only to be told after the update that now my OS was outdated and required updating. Some idiot at Disk Drill decided to share this requirement after the point of no return because, dear reader, I cannot update High Sierra as that’s as high as my Mac Pro will go without resorting to aftermarket hacks, something I very much do not want to do. I’m on OS X High Sierra, 10.13.6.

But I happened to have the old version of Disk Drill running on another Mac Pro so I inserted the apparently faulty backup disk in that machine, being sure to update nothing, and after 72 hours (!) Disk Drill told me it could maybe recover 15 of the 150 Blu Ray movies somewhere on that drive. Useless. I did run the recovery process out of curiosity and the recovered movies were but cut outs of the whole thing. Doubly useless. Yes, I know, Disk Drill will tell me how superior the latest version is but if they could also explain how I can actually run the thing I would be deliriously happy. So hasta la vista to another failed product, due to the raw stupidity of the developer.

I checked around for other recovery apps, suspecting that all that was wrong with my back up drive was a corrupted or lost file directory, as the disk was spinning away happily even though it would not mount in Disk Utility, and chanced upon Data Rescue which comes in both Mac and Windows versions. The Mac version is stated to work with OS 10.12 (Sierra) and later, so I downloaded a copy and ran ‘deep scan’ on the back up drive. A day later, lo and behold, all 150 movies were disclosed – even with the drive not mounted – and Prosoft hosed me down for $99 for a ‘single disk recovery’ version which I fired up immediately.



Data Rescue ‘deep scan’ gets under way.

$99 is a whole lot less than re-ripping 150 files whose average size for a Blu Ray movie is some 27 GB. 9 hours and fifteen minutes later I had the new WD HDD full with 149 of the 150 Blu Ray movies. Just one had gone AWOL. Checking a handful showed the content to be full and uncorrupted and the new disk drive was back in service, allowing us to watch Hitchcock’s ‘To Catch a Thief’ in all its glory on the 120″ home theater screen.



Data Rescue has recovered almost everything some 9+ hours later.

As for inflation, the last WD Red 4TB drive I bought 6 years ago ran me an inflation adjusted $183, whereas the new one was just $75. Not everything inflates in price! I use 5400rpm Western Digital drives; the 50% premium for 7200 rpm drives is money wasted for this application. Also, the less costly SMR drives are just fine. CMR is not needed in this simple use scenario. The differences are explained here.

So, if you are on Sierra or later then Data Rescue is recommended, based on my experience.

As for hard drives, statistically significant data (meaning thousands of samples) confirm that Western Digital drives, especially the ‘Red’ version, are far more reliable than those from competitor Seagate by a factor of 2x and, as luck would have it, the failed drive – it was completely locked up and would not spin – was a Seagate. So I’m sticking with WD in future.

Ultra short throw projectors

Home theater

For a huge image in the home theater. And huge sound to match.

Ultra short throw projectors have been around for a few years now and it’s probably fair to say that they are ready for prime time. I have been following the technology for quite a while and prices have been falling with quality rising, as is usually the case with new technologies. Now an UST projector capable of projecting a 120 inch diagonal image at 4K quality is affordable. I bought the LG CineBeam HU715QW which can be found for under $2,300, along with an Aeon ALR 123″ Elite Screen for a further $1,600. This screen is designed for use with UST projectors only and will provide a reasonably contrasty image with the room lights on.

A UST projector sits very close to the screen, some 12″ distant, projecting up at an extreme angle with optics and software providing the required keystone correction. This obviates the need for ceiling mounting and the related wiring complications. The Ambient Light Reflecting screen is coated with millions of triangular prisms, the upper surface parallel to the ceiling to reject ceiling light and the lower facet at some 45 degrees to accept and reflect the steeply upward pointed projected video.

Two words of caution. Do not chintz and use a white painted wall. The result will be ghastly. And be sure to install the projector and screen exactly in accordance with the manufacturer’s directions. You really do not want to correct for distortion using the projector’s built-in capabilities as any change from ‘dead square to the screen’ will degrade image quality. And UST projectors like the LG do not have zoom lenses, so your screen:projector distance has to be exact, meaning 1/16″ accurate. To get that right I used these two laser tools:



A laser level and a laser ruler. The latter is accurate to 1/16″.

While screen frame assembly is easy, stretching the fragile material and attaching it with the 108 (!) included springs is non-trivial, and on no account should greasy fingers contact the screen’s surface. Elite Screen provides a generous amount of sheet material to make sure this is the case, along with the spring stretcher hooks and two pairs of cotton gloves.



The installers mount the screen on the wall after stretching the fragile material onto the frame.

The sound system can be whatever you want. I used a Sonos Arc + Sub + two SL rear speakers, all wireless, for ease of installation and a high quality sound stage. You can easily pay four times more but I’m strictly an ’80/20′ man. Spend 20% of the maximum possible and get 80% of the quality.



The completed home theater.

The image quality is outstanding, provided care is taken to follow the manufacturers’ instructions for screen and projector. Are the blacks as black as those from an OLED LED TV? No. Is the experience more immersive? Immeasurably so. And don’t forget a small, silent refrigerator for ice cream and soft drinks.

My previous HT installation was in 2006 and used an Optoma overhead 480i projector and a 100″ screen. Quality was really good for the day and age, but the current UST setup has a 44% larger screen and sixteen times the definition. What’s not to like?



The 2006 installation used an overhead 480i projector.

Low sound volume from the Sonos Arc sound bar:

When first installed and even with the Sonos S2 app set to maximum volume, I was getting inadequate volume from the Sonos Arc sound bar on streaming movies through the AppleTV 4K using both Netflix and HBO. A check of the Sonos bulletin/chat board disclosed this is a common complaint with many throwing their hands up, blaming Sonos and deciding to sell the hardware.

Wrong. There are projector/Sonos conflicts at work here.

A careful reading of the LG projector’s manual disclosed a myriad of sound adjustments, one of which is mentioned in a rather low key manner on page 66/116 of the large manual, thus:



‘Pass Through’ barely merits a mention, but is a key setting with Sonos.

Simply stated, until ‘Pass Through’ is enabled (you do not want the setting to be ‘Auto’) on the LG projector, the projector overrides the Sonos’s sound controls and limits the maximum volume. Apparently this is also common with large screen LG and Samsung TVs. Enable ‘Pass Through’ and now the Sonos system will rattle your windows and burst your ear drums on anything much above 75% in the Sonos S2 app. I can think of no finer way to enjoy Hans Zimmer’s pulsating score or the glorious sound of the V12 Rolls Royce Merlin Spitfire engine in Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk. That costly Sonos Sub really earns its keep here.

Room tuning:

By the way, Sonos comes with a ‘Trueplay’ option which, when triggered, broadcasts a series of sounds over 60 seconds while you walk around the room waving your iPhone this way and that. This tunes the Sonos system to your environment and who am I to argue? It sounds just great after this strange procedure. And non-iPhone users need not apply as this only works with iPhones. Apple should buy Sonos and add something special to their mediocre selection of sound devices. Maybe ‘It Just Works’ is not quite right with Sonos, but it’s close.

Googie lives!

Architecture, Photographs

A vibrant time in America.

You can read about Googie architecture here. This futurist style from the middle of the past century is never less than fun but, as is the American way, many exemplars of the genre have been torn down.

Here’s a superb example which has been ‘repurposed’ by an interior design firm in Boise, Idaho, having started life as a gas station:


Googie at its best.

iPhone 12 Pro Max, processed in Photoshop and Lightroom to remove the telegraph poles and ugly wires.