MacHeadz,

I have a dilemma. Want to put a TV in the bedroom of our newly renovated house.

Problem is, the bedroom is tiny and we want to put the TV on the wall, so I've arranged for a co-ax socket to be put in for the Foxtel.

Then it occured to me......it would be nice to be able to play DVD's, too.

Went looking for LCD's with built in DVD players, and they all seem to be generic brands and I have no idea how good or otherwise they are.

Then I thought.....the old iMacs have DVD drives, are LCDs and would look uber-cool hanging off a wall!

Possible?

Which model iMac? If flat panel/G5 model, I reckon it could be much better used for something else instead as a $50 DVD player Although you could use Front Row to good effect to play other media - you'll of course need an external TV tuner and remote of sorts to control things.

I think in the end it'll come out too complex - you'll have cables everywhere and as mentioned the iMac deserves a better life! I'd consider a cheap-o LCD TV and one of those compact DVD players (about 1/3 size of normal).

JB

an early iMac G5 or G4 with eyetv wouldn't be too bad, plus you can connect it up to wireless (if you have the technology) and have another internet point around the house - can be very handy!

These are the ones I was thinking -



How cool would that be hanging off the wall? We'll have a co-axial and a power-point outlet on the wall to attach it to, and wireless b-band would be fine although really, I wanna keep the internet out of the bedroom (no jokes pluheeze!)

So, how to connect to the Foxtel digital to the thing, that's the question.

Would eyeTV be a plug-and-play solution?

hmmm that's the only problem, no device I know will allow you to do it directly, unless you can output from your foxtel box into RCA, you can get an RCA eyetv set up going I think?

I know for sure you can use co-axial out of the Foxtel box to hook up to another TV. Just a matter of whether that "other TV" can be an old iMac somehow.

You can try http://www.elgato.com/ - but I don't think they support playing foxtel through them - someone on here might know differently or know a way round it!

You can plug foxtel (or anything) into a Hybrid or one of the models with an analogue input, but it won't let you easily change channels etc... you have to do that on the foxtel box.

Good luck trying to hang a G4 iMac from a wall, the bases are rather heavy, and the tray-loading optical drive means it needs to be sat flat to work.

Yeah, they are heavy, but if I can hang my 106cm Plasma from the wall, the iMac shouldn't be too much of a stretch.

Have you tipped yours up to see if the slot load will still work?

It looks like you'll need an analog tuner for the mac, to tune into the modulated rf signal from the foxtel box.

You might want to consider an infra-red repeater and a universal remote control so you can change channels on the foxtel box from the bedroom.

I recently retired my G5 to the bedroom as a media machine - with the front row remote, 2.1 Altec lansing speaker set (not expesive for decent quality sound) and USB HDTV with eyetv software it is IT and THEN SOME.

Would highly recommend this option - it's so good, if we did not have 2 youngsters I would splash out and run the lounge with a mac as the central media center.

Pickup a 2nd hand G5 on ebay, $199 for HDTV USB with eyetv and a set of speakers with decent bass or a subby and you are rocking.

- Downloading movies or TV - no worries
- DVDs - no worries
- HDTV - no worries
- Record HDTV - no worries
- Picture shows - no worries
- Music - no worries

One stop very polished media shop... the front row remote makes it all come together and sing once your laying back cutting a grove on the bed or snugglin' under the covers ;-)

ps: a mac mini core solo would do the job cheaply as well and just get a cheap plasma or LCD.

You can get a bracket for an imac to hang on the wall/remove the stand.