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I have had my softmodded xbox for years, and have been running xbmc on it for a long time - I love that app for media and videos.
Anyway, I just found out today that xbmc is available on mac, pc, linex. I've got a 15" macbook pro - I just downloaded xbmc onto it and it works great. I've just got a bunch of questions:
1) can I watch bluray, hddvd, or other 1080p content on my macbook through xbmc? If so, how do I play a bluray or hddvd disk, since my understanding is that the superdrive does not play them. Is the answer that I'm suppose to download them.
2) in the appearance/display settings of xbmc, I did not have a 1080P option - the max was 720P or the 1440x960. So I did some reading, which said to use SwitchresX. I played with it and made a few custom res - one was 1920x1080@39hz and the other at 1920x1080@24hz. Now when I goto the display settings in xbmc, I see the 1920x1020 option, but only one and it does not tell me if it is the 24hz or 39hz - how do I do that. I can create any res with SwitchresX - what is the best resolution for watching 1080p movies (or does it depend on the projector/tv??). Also, when I chose the only 1920x1080 option in xbmc, the screen image is way too big for my screen which causes me to see only half the image - how do I make the image fit my screen if I want the 1920x1080 option. I also find that 720P is too small, as I then see my desktop behind xbmc app
3) with Switchresx, I already screwed up my laptop monitor twice (had to do some reading to get it back - I had to goto safe mode and delete some windowserver files). Anyway, Switchresx now will allow me to select the 1920x1080@39hz and 1920x1080@24hz as a option for my desktop - can I damage my laptop screen if I select these settings? I want to try it, but I'm slightly afraid after already screwing up my machine twice (and that was with going to a lower res, not higher).
4) are there any other app/software I need to use my macbook pro as a hdtv player for 1080p movies?
Thanks
Posts: 55
Joined: Sep 2007
dandandan012 Wrote:I have had my softmodded xbox for years, and have been running xbmc on it for a long time - I love that app for media and videos.
Anyway, I just found out today that xbmc is available on mac, pc, linex. I've got a 15" macbook pro - I just downloaded xbmc onto it and it works great. I've just got a bunch of questions:
1) can I watch bluray, hddvd, or other 1080p content on my macbook through xbmc? If so, how do I play a bluray or hddvd disk, since my understanding is that the superdrive does not play them. Is the answer that I'm suppose to download them.
2) in the appearance/display settings of xbmc, I did not have a 1080P option - the max was 720P or the 1440x960. So I did some reading, which said to use SwitchresX. I played with it and made a few custom res - one was 1920x1080@39hz and the other at 1920x1080@24hz. Now when I goto the display settings in xbmc, I see the 1920x1020 option, but only one and it does not tell me if it is the 24hz or 39hz - how do I do that. I can create any res with SwitchresX - what is the best resolution for watching 1080p movies (or does it depend on the projector/tv??). Also, when I chose the only 1920x1080 option in xbmc, the screen image is way too big for my screen which causes me to see only half the image - how do I make the image fit my screen if I want the 1920x1080 option. I also find that 720P is too small, as I then see my desktop behind xbmc app
3) with Switchresx, I already screwed up my laptop monitor twice (had to do some reading to get it back - I had to goto safe mode and delete some windowserver files). Anyway, Switchresx now will allow me to select the 1920x1080@39hz and 1920x1080@24hz as a option for my desktop - can I damage my laptop screen if I select these settings? I want to try it, but I'm slightly afraid after already screwing up my machine twice (and that was with going to a lower res, not higher).
4) are there any other app/software I need to use my macbook pro as a hdtv player for 1080p movies?
Thanks
1.XBMC does not have native support for Blueray or HDDVD right now, But you can encode your vids to x264 - mkv which is supported in 720p -1080p
2.- Pick your highest rez from osx normally no Switchrez , then in xbmc pick desktop setting or the rez you picked from osx.
3.Here is a copy paste from Apples site of
15-inch MacBook Pro
15.4-inch (diagonal) antiglare widescreen TFT LED backlit display with support for millions of colors; optional glossy widescreen display
Supported resolutions: 1440 by 900 (native), 1280 by 800, 1152 by 720, 1024 by 640, and 800 by 500 pixels at 16:10 aspect ratio; 1024 by 768, 800 by 600, and 640 by 480 pixels at 4:3 aspect ratio; 1024 by 768, 800 by 600, and 640 by 480 pixels at 4:3 aspect ratio stretched; 720 by 480 pixels at 3:2 aspect ratio; 720 by 480 pixels at 3:2 aspect ratio stretched
4.Can only think of 1 XBMC
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fpoil
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1) You need to have a blu ray (HD DVD) drive to play blu ray (HD DVD) disk and there is no such drive in any mac TODAY.
You can buy an external one but OSX doesn't support HDCP through dvi output (some people tried and successed to use a blu ray drive on OSX and play a blu ray disk on the internal screen of a macbook pro)
2) If your screen is not a Full HD screen (ie 1920*1080), your image will always too big for your screen. The best thing to do is to choose the native resolution of you screen for xbmc (called desktop resolution).
Anyway, your screen will always downscale 1080p movies to fit with its own native resolution.
It's like that, if you try to play a 1080p stuff on a screen (or on a video projector ....) which is not Full HD, the device will always downscale the image.
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Thanks for the replies guys. I played around yesterday and now have mnore questions:
1) with switchresx, I created the suggested res (which is on a different thread talking about 1080p) of 1920x1080@24hz, and I deleted the other twqo I previous created. I then went into osxbmc and sure enough found the new res I created in the appearance/display settings and selected it. I then went to hardware settings, which said I was running 1902x1080 @ 59.xxx hz. Why woulod it now run at 24hz if that was how I setup the res in switchresx?
2) talking about 24hz on a res of 1920x1080, is that better than 60hz?? I thought the hz meant how fast the PC has to scan horizontally at, and the higher the number the fast and better. I thought 480i was at 15hz, 480p and 1080i at approx 30hz, and 1080p at about 60hz. Would thus the 24hz res I setup not be more like 1080i vs 1080p? And when I go to osxbmc and see that my actual res is at 1920x1080@59hz, I assume I am actually looking at my screen at true 1080p?
3) when I set my res in osxbmc to 1920x1080, the image was too big, so I went to screen calibration. The problem is that the image is so big that I can not see the adjustment arrows on the edges and the mouse does not allow me to go past the screen edge; on the bottom right arrow, I can see it though there seems to be an invisible wall where the mouse can not pass and thus I still can't adjust the screen calibration. Is there some keyboard commands that will allow me to setupo it up since the mouse will not work?
4) similar to the issue above, even if I set the res in osxbmc to match my native resolutiuon (1440x960), the image looks great and xbmc takes up the full screen, but the mouse is unable to pass the last 2" of the screen (almost like an invisible wall exists) - I read this may be a bug - is there a way to resolve this
5) the replies said to select the "desktop" res in osxbmc, which would be 1440x960. But what do I do if I want to feed my macbook to a true 1080P projector and get true 1080P vs a downscaled 1440x960? Wold I set the res in osxbmc to 1920x1080 and only see part of the image on my actual laptop screen but the whole true 1080P image on my external projector?
6) if I save x264 vidoes on my softmodded xbox, and then someone make a link on osxbmc to play them; the xbox and mac are both network connected, so can I not somehow create this link?
Thanks
