Organizing a Personal Media Library, Part 3: Sorting It Out

Finding it, it turns out, is only half the battle -- you've got to have an easy way to watch your movies and videos, share your photos, and listen to music.

Unfortunately, there's no perfect way to accomplish this task -- and by perfect, I mean easy, inexpensive and high-quality.

Your best bet starts with Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) iTunes and ends with an Apple TV or a separate Mac. You could use a Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Windows Vista-based solution or set up a Windows-based PC for use as a media server , but these will typically increase your cost and be even more difficult to configure.

If you're already a Mac user, the alternatives at this moment -- and this includes the new "Extenders" for Microsoft Windows Media Center -- will only increase the complexity of your project and not necessarily deliver much more than you can get with an Apple TV.

iTunes First, iPhoto Second

iTunes is by no means perfect, but as a digital hub that lets you organize and play music, video, podcasts and movies, it's hard to beat. It scales well, too. As long as you do a good job of naming your home videos, movies and songs -- the file names themselves -- the built-in iTunes search will help you locate what you're looking for.

As for photos, iTunes doesn't help you out. Your next best choice is iPhoto, and while there are other options available, iPhoto's seamless ability to work with an Apple TV simply makes it the better choice. Plus, by using Apple's Front Row application -- maybe even with another Mac (more on this in a minute) -- you can also view photos in easy-to-enjoy slideshows based on your iPhoto libraries. While we're on the topic of iPhoto, iPhoto '08 is even easier to use and better at organizing your photos than previous versions.

iTunes comes with another big benefit -- the ability to seamlessly integrate with iPods and iPhones. So, if you're a user of either device, organizing your personal media library around iTunes and iPhoto comes with mobile benefits with a capital B.

While you can organize your personal media library on your Mac itself, a better option is getting that content to the big screen TV in your living room. To do that, you'll want to make a choice between using another Mac or an Apple TV. First, let's look at the Apple TV.

Apple TV

The Apple TV is designed to be the bridge between your Mac and your TV -- even an HD widescreen TV. It has a high-quality HDMI port on the back -- as well as component video and audio ports -- and it has built-in WiFi that lets it easily sync to your iTunes library without wires. Whenever you add items to your iTunes library, the Apple TV automatically syncs with the new content. So, in terms of organization, the Apple TV is pretty fantastic. Enjoying slideshows from iPhoto via an Apple TV is a breeze, too.

With Apple TV, you can also view YouTube videos. True, with online video, you're not exactly adding to your personal media library, but the feature is there. If you're the kind of person who uploads videos to YouTube, this feature will take on a more personal meaning.

The downside to Apple TV is that you can't directly order new movies or songs from iTunes -- you've got to do that from your Mac and then let Apple TV sync with the new content. Plus, you can't surf the Web from an Apple TV.

The Apple TV starts at US$299 with a paltry 40 gigabyte hard drive, but Apple also offers a 160 gigabyte version for $399. The included Apple remote is cool, small and easy to lose between the seat cushions of your couch.

A Separate but Connected Mac

With a separate Mac mini, for example, you get many of the same benefits of the Apple TV, but a heck of a lot more capability -- with one niggling but important detail.

First, the benefits.

The Mac mini is a real computer, so it runs Mac OS X and does everything you would expect a Mac to do. By using it as a backup hard drive for your iTunes and iPhoto libraries, you can effectively store your media on another computer instead of a separate hard drive. Of course, you may need to upgrade the mini's hard drive (up to 160 gigabytes) or attach an external drive to it to get enough space.

In addition, you could configure it so that it would hold the media libraries for all of your household Macs, letting you share the iTunes content. If you've got children in the home, though, you'll want to be careful about giving them access to content that might not be appropriate for their ages -- not to mention the ability to delete items you may want protected.

By connecting a Mac mini directly to a TV and using the TV as a monitor, you get the benefits of running Front Row essentially directly on your TV -- or iTunes or iPhoto, for that matter. Plus, you can surf the Web, access e-mail , and use iTunes to buy new media. The key is getting a wireless keyboard so that you can input text from your couch. You can ignore the mouse often if you learn key commands, like Apple-Tab, which lets you select from open applications .

A Mac mini also has one other built-in feature that's supremely handy -- a DVD-ROM/CD-RW or SuperDrive, which will let you burn CDs or DVDs, as well as play them in lieu of a separate DVD player. This is handy for watching DVDs that aren't going to be part of your personal media library.

The downside of the Mac mini is that it's not designed to connect to a TV. It doesn't have an HDMI port, for example -- just a DVI-VGA port, which means that you may need an adapter, depending on your TV's ports -- which also means that your video quality may not be as sharp as it is in the Apple TV. This is that niggling detail I mentioned earlier.

Lots of Other Methods

For media pros, of course, there are other methods that rarely compromise video or audio quality -- and audio and videophiles don't mind spending thousands of dollars, hiring help, and integrating best-of-breed hardware and software.

For the rest of us, though, it's hard to go wrong using a combination of Apple-based solutions. Enjoy!

Organizing a Personal Media Library, Part 1: Getting It

Organizing a Personal Media Library, Part 2: Keeping It