The new Mac Mini is the talk of the cybertown. One of the big questions is whether it can cover duties as a homemade DVR. My Mac Mini DVR verdict was no. Brent Evans gave it a mediocre review but had some hope for it as an extender. I want to see what it will cost to actually make the Mac Mini into a fully fledged DVR.

The Mac Mini

Let’s start with the Mac Mini itself. I don’t think the high end Mini is worth it. The processor’s the same, there’s a little more memory (which we’re going to upgrade anyway), and the larger hard drive is nowhere near big enough. So let’s put the $599 Mac Mini in our basket.

Upgrade the Hard Drive

That 120GB is going to disappear pretty quickly once we start recording in HD, so let’s add at least 1TB to get our Mac Mini DVR rolling. We’ll use the internal drive for the OS and keep our media on the external. I went with a $150 Lacie external 1TB hard drive that connects through Firewire, USB, or eSata. The shiny black form factor looks cool, but doesn’t match up with the mini. In any case, I plan on hiding the external devices. Iomega does make a 500gb Hard Drive that matches perfectly with the Mini, however it seems to have a loud fan (the last thing we want in our homemade DVR).

Remember to add some memory

Since the $599 Mini only has 1GB of memory, we’re going to upgrade. Big time. For $60, we’ll add 4GB of memory to keep those large HD files silky smooth.

Tune in to TV

With no way to connect to cable or an antenna and no expansion slots on the inside, we’ll have to add an external tuner. I decided to go with the Elgato EyeTV 250 Plus for about $175. To be realistic, you’re going to need at least two of these so that you can watch and record two different shows. It’s a shame there are no dual-tuner external options (which would save a ton of cash here). Why the more expensive EyeTV 250 Plus? It unloads the heavy lifting of video recording from your CPU. If I’ve got important shows recording, I need to KNOW there’s going to be no stuttering because of an overloaded CPU.

UPDATE: I looked into five other external tuner options that would work with a Mac Mini DVR.

What’s left?

We’re going to need a few misc items to polish off our homemade, Mac Mini DVR. To get audio out to our receiver, we’ll need an audio adapter. Luckily, the Mac comes with a mini-DVI to DVI adapter. If you need to take DVI to HDMI, that’ll be another adapter. The mini needs a remote now. Apple’s remote lacks the functionality for our full on media-center, but you can’t go wrong with a Harmony One - picked best universal remote by ElectronicHouse.com.

The damage

Starting with the $599 mini, adding the hard drive, memory, and two tuners… plus the remote and adapters lands us at just over $1300. No tax or shipping is included in this price. Is it worth it? Of course, if you’ve just gotta have a Mac Mini as DVR!

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