Today our new Mac Mini arrived. We’re using it as our new media center, powering our Samsung in the living room. We watch a lot of movies so it’s somewhat cool to have PLEX on the Mac Mini. Plex for those wondering, is free OS-X media center software and it kicks the ever loving shit out of Xbox Media Center. I would have never believed it if I hadn’t used both extensively.

Anyway… it got me thinking about my old Mac Mini. Wow, that computer is really the computer that started it all for us.

Bryci and I moved to BC, we had next to nothing.. my PC died due to a power short caused by a storm. So my Windows box was dead and we were having rough times money wise. We didn’t have Bella started, hell.. we hadn’t even started GND yet. (GND was another network we started that still runs to this day, albeit without us involved) Times were tough for sure.

We decided to take a shot at a Mac Mini because it was small, simple and I had been meaning to try Mac out. B was already on Mac with her then macbook.. so it seemed like the logical choice. Wow, I was such an idiot. I had no Mac software, I had all these PC programs I was used to and now, i was forcing myself to not only learn new software but a new operating system as well.

I won’t like, I hated OS-X at first. It seemed so weird. then i started to see how much easier then windows it was… and how I wasn’t getting pissed at my computer nearly as much, and then… how the little useless Mac mini that was a little bigger then a box of pop tarts… was actually more powerful then my last PC. How can this be?

I started to learn size has zero to do with anything and the stigmas that I had regarding Mac versus Windows, were stupid. Both are great, both suck. It’s what is right for you.

I used the Mac Mini for a good year or so. I created GND using it, with B’s help. We ran the entire network from that little computer you see in this pic below.. to the left of the water bottle in the middle. Small, white, three inches high or so.

Later, as the pic shows… I went to A Mac Pro.. look at me, sporting the Captain America desktop in 2008. Sup.

(click for 2560 x 1600)

So.. where was I… oh yeah… the Mini.

Great little computer. Fucking fantastic to be honest. I upgraded to the Mac Pro for the simple reason I was starting to get into HD video editing and I needed more power. So I went from a Mini + 24 inch samsung to a Mac Pro + 30” Cinema HD screen. It was a great upgrade. Like got faster work wise, i’ll tell you that much.

I even streamlined the desk down.. it’s all i needed and sometimes, I miss the small simple desk. This desk was the balls for sure. Loved it.

So fast forward to today… I’m still on a Mac Pro, granted, my second Mac Pro.. newer model but I’m still doing HD video etc.

The Mac Mini arrives today and I had to compare it to the old one

(That’s an air purifier in the background btw, it’s not attached to the mini, heh)

I think we’re going to sell the old Mac Mini to Valerie for a steal of a deal. I upgraded the HD and the ram in it so it’s quicker then stock for sure. Not sure yet.. see if she wants it. (it’s yours if you do Val)

So that’s all the reflection for now. It’s good to look back sometimes, to know where you’ve been in the past few years, what you’ve accomplished or maybe the mistakes you made and how you learned from them. If I could go back, there are a few mistakes I made I would most definitely undo or not do. Kind of funny when I think about it… but that’s what life is, a lesson, right?

One last pic because it makes me smile.. Jack and a Bacon chew treat that we wish we’d never given him… who knew these leaked toxic color all over everything? hahahaha

I watch a lot of movies with @Bryci. We were using a Mac Mini (4 year old version) as our media hub but it didn’t do HDMI so it was a pain in the butt. We didn’t get proper dolby sound out of it for this reason as well. We switched to a Western Digital Plus, a small hdmi friendly box that comes built in with all the codecs you would ever need for playing videos you download or create yourself.

It doesn’t have a hard drive though.. so I attached an Aluratek hard drive caddy…

Which allowed me to just drop an HD in the caddy complete with movies or shows downloaded etc.. connected via USB 2. So if your drive got full of movies, no worries, new HD and you’re back and running.

Again.. the menu system was sort of lame. It would list a movie title, but tell you nothing about it. Not length, who’s in it, nothing. I had previously used a hacked xbox running XBMC and that was awesome, but again… I wanted HDMI output, full dolby sound etc.

So just yesterday Apple released new hardware. One of the items they released, the new Mac Mini. It’s a 2.5 GHz dual core Intel Core i5 with 3mb on-chip shared L3 Cache with 8 gigs of DDR3 1333MHz ram. Graphics wise, it’s running a AMD Radeon HD 6630 graphics processor with 256MB of GDDR5 memory. This little sucker will run our movie center quite nicely.

Yes, this is a seriously bad ass computer for home movies.

For movie organization, we use Plex. It’s probably the best media software I have seen, it’s free, and it’s pretty much the balls. LG tv’s now come with it installed, it’s that good. No matter what you’re running, Plex dat shit. > > > http://www.plexapp.com/

It also does weather, youtube, netflix, hulu… plugins like crazy. heh.. seriously, say hello to your new best friend if you watch movies.

Check this video if you’re not convinced…

So in short.. things are good on the home movie front

So awhile ago Elgato’s turbo 264.HD for enhanced HD video editing.  This is a mac only option btw. Anyway.. it comes in two flavors, the software only version for around $50 from Apple’s app store, and that will speed you up huge, or you can spend a little more for the hardware version, which includes a USB dongle that has on board h264 encoding for mp4 export.

So the software is pretty basic, it opens, you drag/drop your video in the window and chose the export option you’re after.

I was doing a sample test to see how much faster it was. I exported the first one using the exact same MBps using mp4, it took 9 minutes, 15 seconds to export the first clip, not using the 264.HD dongle/software. Then I plugged it in, gave it a go… 3 minutes, 54 seconds so it was about 60% faster… so instead of a video taking an hour to encode, it will push it out in around 22 minutes.  Do I think it’s worth the extra coin to get the dongle? meh, depends on what you’re doing. For home use, no, the software version is worth the money and that’s all you need. For pro use, YES YES YES YES YES. it speeds you up, how much is your time worth?

this is with and without the dongle (hardware is dongle), compared to Handbrake and regular Quicktime export. Shorter bars are better of course. these numbers are seconds.. so first option, no dongle… 81 seconds, which is still lightyears faster than Handbrake or QT. With the dongle, sweet jesus, that is all I can say to that.

I don’t use Final Cut express myself, I didn’t waste my time with it, I use better options. I might blog about those some day.. we’ll see if I have time, it’d be a long ass post and you know me, i don’t like to talk much. if you use iMovie though, you can see how the 264.HD speeds you up, this above is with dongle btw. When you’re in iMovie, you go to to share/export/export option – 264.hd, then under that chose the option you want, including custom options you have created.

The software or hardware option offers many options for exporting videos, it’s sort of your all around answer to video exporting (not editing).

it’s pretty damn tight, yo. With that said, let’s break up the tech geek with some funny..

Hope you’re safe this long weekend!

Last week I ordered a 480gig SSD for my Mac Pro. My Mac Pro is a beast but I wanted to improve it more so. I wanted Photoshop to fly faster. I wanted Video encoding to be a little more responsive and of course, basic all around speed increase.

More pix of my current 12 core (24 thread) Mac Pro here.

I had read in countless places that adding an SSD as my boot drive would increase my speed by two to three times in some cases. Sure, not everything sees that speed increase, a major part of video encoding relies on your scratch disk speed (I have a dedicated raid set up for the scratch disk(s) for video encoding).

More on the raid set up here.

So today, my SSD is set to arrive and with that, it means I have to reformat a new boot drive, reinstalling every.single.application all over again. This is the suck of new system start up but if it’s as fast as they claim, then I am all about it. As always, I will keep you in the loop.

My bat cave is quickly becoming a cluster fuck of hard drives, computers, screens, you name it but it all serves one meaty purpose, churning out the goodness you’ve come to expect from the World of Bella. Bryci and I have been brainstorming the past two/three days and we have some big things coming for her in the future. I’d love to go into detail but it’s not for me to say just yet.. it hasn’t even happened yet.. so it’d be somewhat pointless anyway. No, no hints. You could guess but that’s all you’d have.. guesses. You wouldn’t be close.

Wait, if you guessed she’s going to be cloned by Aliens from the Planet Alpha Kryptix 4, then yes, you’re correct. An army of Bryci’s will soon be taking over life as we know it.

Fack. Can you imagine that? You’re shilling at home, playing xbox. You’ve just enjoyed a fattie and the door is kicked in. The smoke/dust clears and Bryci is standing there in some silver latex get up with some equally WOWZA make up. her hair is teased, her mouth is open just a little and the outfit is hugging her curves oh so tight in all the right places. She tells you she is there to take you as her slave.

WHO THE FUCK WOULD SAY NO?

Shit, sign me up for that. Oh.. wait.. no need. She already runs my shit. haha

Alright kids, back to work, enough slacking.

Arizona shooting trip. Day 11/24

Tomorrow is the half way point of our little adventure. Katie Banks arrives today as well so that’s cool! I start shooting her tomorrow, and I think she returns to Babe Chat on Thursday night and trust me when i say, you will not want to miss that show.

Bryci and I shot more today, god damn my camera loves this woman. =)

I’m pondering going for a swim right now, it’s 25 degrees Celsius here right now, that’s about 77. Not too shabby considering back home, it’s -20 area (C) or (-4F). I miss home though, I miss our Jack terribly. He’s easily the coolest pet I have ever owned. Little fucker rocks!

Ok, time for eats me thinks.. any suggestions?