To complete this lab, use the following steps: 1. The media converter in this lab already has a fiber SFP module installed. Most media converters use SFP ports so they can convert multiple form factors.The High-Speed Data Transfer, Pass-Through Charging, and 4K Media Hub All The Ports You Need. From top, an Apple SuperDrive, the 2014 Mac mini, and an 8TB OWC miniStack driveModel Number: A8383 PowerExpand 8-in-1 USB-C PD 10Gbps Data Hub. Managed hubs: Hubs that can capture Statistics about network traffic and. 3.MAC (media access control) address: A unique address assigned to a piece of. Drag the Media Converter to the bottom shelf of the rack in the Workspace.
New Nintendo Switch OLED Accessories Releasing October 8th. What’s a Media Server?New Deals at Nyko Click here for our Weekly Specials Latest News/Announcements. Read along to see how we were able to transform a 2014 Mac mini into a home media server. 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. Media Hub Free Streaming OfWhy 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. In this article, we’re using a Mac mini as the hardware and Plex as the application to organize the media. Live at the paradiso dvd torrentYou can stream online content and make use of the media you’ve already bought and paid for. Have you made a large investment in music CDs and movies or TV shows on DVD or Blu-Ray? Don’t buy that again in a streaming format – use that investment by copying the physical media content to your server.With fast internet service and purchased physical media, a media server running Plex offers the best of both worlds. With a local media server, there’s no delay or concern about bandwidth. That could make streaming movies, TV shows, and music almost impossible. 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. Click To Tweet Why a Mac mini?Why use a Mac mini instead of a Mac with a built-in screen? You probably have a large-screen TV to watch your content on, and the mini can use that as a “monitor”. ![]() Mobile Sync for watching your media offline on smartphones and tablets This provides additional features, including: Setting Up Plex1 ) Download a copy of Plex for Mac (64-bit) from the downloads page.What the Plex Media Server app does for youYou may see an enticement to buy a Plex Pass. After a clean install of macOS 10.15 Catalina, we got to work setting up Plex. If not, get an external drive for ripping DVDs and CDs. Aren’t you glad you have that 8TB miniStack attached to your media server?Your vintage Mac mini might have a built-in optical (CD/DVD) drive. 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) 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. Let’s start by copying our photos to the miniStack so we can view them in Plex. Rather 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. 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. Shortly after the images are copied to the folders, they appear in the Plex Photos timeline (see screenshot below).You may have issues ripping copy-protected DVDs and Blu-ray Discs. 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. It wants individual music files, not one big file. Add musicYou can rip CDs into Apple Music, but that won’t help you with Plex. MacX DVD Ripper Pro takes advantage of GPU acceleration during the ripping process and is faster than HandBrake. 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. 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. Whatever storage drive you use, be sure to purchase a second one for backup purposes.To automate backups, use a proven backup utility like Carbon Copy Cloner ($39.99). 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). It’s available in Thunderbolt 2 and 3 versions, has four drive slots, and supports fast SSD drives. 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. Want to watch TV or movies? Use the Mac TV app. A Plex alternativeAs an alternative to using Plex, you can use the various Apple apps on your Mac mini instead.
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