[jonm42]

Well, just ordered a 2.26GHz+2Gb+120Gb. Will let you know how it goes!

[phrehdd]

rip or not, it's still 1080p --I think you are referring to the type of encoding? blu-ray media vs mkv conatiners with h264/dts/dd?

I don't know of many people trying to play full blu-ray rips on their mini's. Space/size would be a serious issue at 30-50g each 10-12g is about what you'll see for 1080p scene ripped mkv's.

I gather lots of people play different types of files. I have archived 1080p Main_Movie files at native resolution/bitrates with just AC3 and/or DTS. The files are often 17 to 23 gigs. The value of this is to stream full quality images via a front end.

I have played with compressed 1080p H.264, VC-1 converted into other formats and also back to m2ts files. From Vob Merge, Handbrake, RipBot etc. No matter which one, on a larger screen there is* a difference and it is noticeable. For some it may not be. I have seen DVD material converted to MP4 and look near identical. I don't think hi-def is as forgiving as is often stated by many. So, you'll still find some of us just wanting our m2ts archived file, vid as pristine as possible and no further lossee compression.

Cheers
-Phrehdd

[abom]

I have just 'tested' Killa Sampla, running XBMC under OSX on my Mac Mini (2.26ghz 2gb), its sluggish compared to my Intel quad core 2.6 ghz. Not very supprising since it manages to generate 75% load on my quad core.

It would be nice to have a properly encoded file as baseline though, I don't think this file is very representative since I'm able to play everything else aslong as I have my Mac Mini connected through ethernet (no wireless N router yet).

So far I am very happy with XBMC on my Mac Mini and it's going to replace my popcorn hour a110, which has problemen with huge files too because of its crappy network performance.

[User 34959]

It would be nice to have a properly encoded file as baseline though

I'm not sure if this is the link i'm after (can't test at work) but someones signature had a link a torrent file which contains few "regular" x264/mkv 1080p samples.

This is from Hitcher's signature http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=e65a2...b9a8902bda

I've been thinking about switching to Mini, but not sure because of possible lack of cpu power.

[BLKMGK]

1080p is fine, if you have a clip you want me to test, linky.

Sure!

http://tracker.hatters.org.uk/torrents/k...kv.torrent

Yup, Killa - and it is. However *MY* rip of that scene used to also spike my CPU pretty good until it was running 3GHZ - this on Ubuntu. I also saw drops in King Kong prior to running 3GHZ. XBMC has been improving steadily since then and last I heard 2.5-2.6GHZ was good enough in Ubuntu. If you run VDPAU then an ATOM, Celeron, or even a P4 was supposed to be good enough. With no accel though do not see 2GHZ being enough...

My library isn't "scene rips" or other pirated crap from anywhere else. I rip BD and DVD myself and encode them myself. I save maybe 40% on the file size and when played on a machine with enough power it looks great. Stating a resolution like 1080P means jack without the associated bitrate. Some of the Apple Trailers are 1080 right? Not representative of what *I* and others play....

[abom]

I'm not sure if this is the link i'm after (can't test at work) but someones signature had a link a torrent file which contains few "regular" x264/mkv 1080p samples.

This is from Hitcher's signature http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=e65a2...b9a8902bda

I've been thinking about switching to Mini, but not sure because of possible lack of cpu power.

That file is 720p, not quiet what I'm looking for.

Sure!

http://tracker.hatters.org.uk/torrents/k...kv.torrent

Yup, Killa - and it is. However *MY* rip of that scene used to also spike my CPU pretty good until it was running 3GHZ - this on Ubuntu. I also saw drops in King Kong prior to running 3GHZ. XBMC has been improving steadily since then and last I heard 2.5-2.6GHZ was good enough in Ubuntu. If you run VDPAU then an ATOM, Celeron, or even a P4 was supposed to be good enough. With no accel though do not see 2GHZ being enough...

My library isn't "scene rips" or other pirated crap from anywhere else. I rip BD and DVD myself and encode them myself. I save maybe 40% on the file size and when played on a machine with enough power it looks great. Stating a resolution like 1080P means jack without the associated bitrate. Some of the Apple Trailers are 1080 right? Not representative of what *I* and others play....

Well I think Killa isn't very representative, like I said, it manages to generate 75% load on my quad core 2.6ghz (i.e. 3 cores @ 2.6Ghz).

When I'm home, I will look for the file with the highest bitrate and see how that works for my Mac Mini.

[BLKMGK]

My understanding is that the ffmpeg code for multithread doesn't scale much past 2 cores so how you managed that load on a quad is pretty puzzling. Killa' is indeed high bitrate but if you can play it then there's not much you won't be able to play. I can play it with both VDPAU and software decoding without dropping frames other than the normal few at startup <shrug> None of my other encodes ever have issues. Before I tweaked things I *did* see drops in fast motion shots in other movies. The Planet Earth "bird scene" that Killa came from is probably one of the most intense out there no matter how it's encoded...

[abom]

Don't get me wrong, I agree with you: when your system manages to play Killa smooth, it will probably play anything you throw at it. It is just that I have watched a few 1080p movies on my mini sofar and I haven't noticed any other clips being sluggish.

I haven't checked yet...I will try later today and I will check on the CPU load on my quad while playing Killa aswell.

[leftkidney]

My 1.83 GHZ Mini has played every 1080p file I've tried just fine

really high bit rate 1080p - like 10mbps or higher x264 1080p files

because I have a macbook that has the 2.0ghz processor and the intel 955gma or 950gma not sure which one, and 2gb ram - but it wont play these files at all, it drops frames like a crack dealer drops crack when the cops are coming and in some cases it locks up

I havent tried linux yet but I ave tried other video players including vlc (which for high bit rate x264 content you have to change settings or it will drop frames anyways, I have changed these and still no luck) that wont play these

Video
ID : 2
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : [email protected]
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 8 frames
Muxing mode : Container [email protected]
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 1h 5mn
Bit rate : 12.3 Mbps
Nominal bit rate : 12.9 Mbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 072 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16/9
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Resolution : 24 bits
Colorimetry : 4:2:0
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.249
Writing library : x264 core 56 svn-667C

[abom]

A movie with the specs below played just fine on my 2.26ghz Mac Mini, average CPU load @ 130% with spikes up to 160%. Just for a test, I started a process in the background to generate some CPU load and it was then that I started to notice frames being dropped.

ID: 1
Format: AVC
Format/Info: Advanced Video Codec
Format profile: [email protected]
Format settings, CABAC: Yes
Format settings, ReFrames: 4 frames
Muxing mode: Container [email protected]
Codec ID: V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration: 1h 46mn
Bit rate: 14.5 Mbps
Nominal bit rate: 15.2 Mbps
Width: 1 920 pixels
Height: 800 pixels
Display aspect ratio: 2.400
Frame rate: 23.976 fps
Resolution: 24 bits
Colorimetry: 4:2:0
Scan type: Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame): 0.394
Writing library: x264 core 67 r1125M 10d6ef0

Sofar I am very happy with the performance of XBMC under OSX on my Mac Mini. Hopefully the future will get us VDPAU support.
Does anyone know if VDPAU support relies on Snow Leopard?

The only thing people should be aware of is that the Mac Mini only has a mini DisplayPort connector so it will not be able to play Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD audio streams.

BLKMGK, you were right, my quad core doesn't hit 75% while playing Killa, max is 48%.

[aaronb]

really high bit rate 1080p - like 10mbps or higher x264 1080p files

because I have a macbook that has the 2.0ghz processor and the intel 955gma or 950gma not sure which one, and 2gb ram - but it wont play these files at all, it drops frames like a crack dealer drops crack when the cops are coming and in some cases it locks up

I havent tried linux yet but I ave tried other video players including vlc (which for high bit rate x264 content you have to change settings or it will drop frames anyways, I have changed these and still no luck) that wont play these

Video
ID : 2
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : [email protected]
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 8 frames
Muxing mode : Container [email protected]
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 1h 5mn
Bit rate : 12.3 Mbps
Nominal bit rate : 12.9 Mbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 072 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16/9
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Resolution : 24 bits
Colorimetry : 4:2:0
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.249
Writing library : x264 core 56 svn-667C

I don't have any really high bitrate files, the first couple I checked were ~8mbps. They all play fine in Plex.

[toxicer]

I can run high bitrate (peaks@40 Mbit/s) Blu Ray movies (unconverted) without any issues on OS X. So far I watched three of them.The box has been upgraded with 4 GByte RAM.
I also installed Ubuntu 9.04 and a VDPAU enabled XBMC trunk which also works.
The CPU utilization on the Ubuntu install is way lower (~5%) than on OS X (~99%). Without VDPAU the 1080p movies aren't playable smoothly at all on Ubuntu.
However, picture quality on OS X is better and XBMC is more stable as I can use the normal version.
I am coming from the Linux world, love it and used it as an HTPC with VDR and MythTV since ages. This is my first MAC and I have to say how pleased I am!
I took me around two hours for getting the complete Ubuntu installation setup (compiling XBMC VDPAU trunk, installing vdpau libs, latest Nvidia drivers) and about ten minutes for getting a comparable result on OS X (download XBMC).
I didn't try the "Killa" example, yet but will do later.
Nevertheless I am just hoping that h264 GPU acceleration will soon be supported just because of the power footprint.

[jonm42]

...
Nevertheless I am just hoping that h264 GPU acceleration will soon be supported just because of the power footprint.

Snow Leopard, perhaps? Crossing my fingers.

[toxicer]

I wouldn't put too much hope on it. OS X is already supporting GPU acceleration but it is limited to Quicktime which is a shame. It would have been easy for Apple to open the API to external projects. It seems that Windows 7 is going the same way, at least in the last RC GPU support was limited to WMP.

[jonm42]

I wouldn't put too much hope on it. OS X is already supporting GPU acceleration but it is limited to Quicktime which is a shame. It would have been easy for Apple to open the API to external projects. It seems that Windows 7 is going the same way, at least in the last RC GPU support was limited to WMP.

How nasty would it be to make a Mac branch that used Quicktime as the playback engine, the same way there is a Linux branch to use VDPAU? Or is that getting too proprietary/closed?