[Evin]

Hi!

Can anybody please tell me which Mac should be bought to gain flawless 1080p-Playback?

I've read some threads which were reffering on the MacMini. Some said it works/worked/will work. What about the iMacs?

Will the small 2,4gh-Modell work (beside the "poorly" encoded, "Bird-Scene")?

Thx!

[theocal]

I was about to post something similiar....

I want to buy a mac mini exclusively for XBMC use over a 40' latest Bravia.

I currently dont watch much 1080 media but I want to have a setup ready for it.

Will the 1.8 current mac mini (with 2gb) cope with the 1080 mkv files?
is the extra cpu power of the 2mhz worth it?

[djungelmums]

I have a Mac Mini 1.86Ghz 1Gb RAM (They didnt have 2Gb stock so ill have to install another 1Gb later on) and i use XBMC. It works great, i can play 1080p without any noticable lag. Its fantastic

[tetrakis]

I'm waiting for the impending mac mini update. I'm assuming that no matter what it looks like (it seems it will look dramatically different) it will be better than the current model in terms of handling 1080p video. Although people like djungelmums can play 1080p on the current model well enough.

[Evin]

So, the actuall iMac with 2,4ghz and 2gb Ram will do the job without any problems?

[jeremymc7]

So, the actuall iMac with 2,4ghz and 2gb Ram will do the job without any problems?

Mini works fine, even up to 1080P. iMac provides a bit more breathing room. Pro provides substantial breathing room.

Depending on your source material and compression type/package the Mini is likely all you'll need. In some cases it hickups but I have no issues.

As always remember OSXBMC is still beta and there are many improvements that will be made to lower the overhead needed to get ideal performance.

[achoke]

I have used xbmc for the past 5 years. I have updated it probably every 3-4 months since my introduction to the magnificent product. I am using a version 1.4 xbox now...at least i think so, its been so long since i modded it. The mod is a hard one...(snicker snicker)...with the xecuter 3.

I mainly stream music, pics, and VOB. I am happy with the system now, except a few things. First, the dvd drive is going bad sometimes it will freeze up xbmc during play. Second, i am not using it up to its potential. I am just using plain vga cables out of it. The quality is good enough for me now, but I always want better. I know i can get better cables, but it seemed useless if i couldn't get HD quality.

I have been researching osxbmc for the past few days. It also appeared in lifehacker.com days after my interest began(note: this site rocks and always has relevant articles to my nerd life).

I now think I have come to the conclusion that I need to get a MacMini.

I considered building a hackintosh. Maybe a old Dell I have laying around work. It just seems that having the warranty through apple with legit os is the way to go hands down. If someone can put together a build list for a hackintosh that will support osxbmc, run faster than a macmini, and cheaper than a macmini I may consider it even more.

Can anybody help me come to a conclusion on where to go with my HD needs.

I am mainly a PC guy, but have played with Ubuntu and some other linux builds. Macs are new to me but i always like new things and macs seem to be producing some beautiful machines for years and i might finally take the the deep deep jump into the Mac world. I misewell do it so all of these damn photoshop tutorials that are done on the mac don't piss me off(haha).

Sorry for babbling. Normally I don't post in forums. I'm mainly a window shopper sometimes registered to search for information.

Thanks in advance...I have used xbmc for the past 5 years. I have updated it probably every 3-4 months since my introduction to the magnificent product. I am using a version 1.4 xbox now...at least i think so, its been so long since i modded it. The mod is a hard one...(snicker snicker)...with the xecuter 3.

I mainly stream music, pics, and VOB. I am happy with the system now, except a few things. First, the dvd drive is going bad sometimes it will freeze up xbmc during play. Second, i am not using it up to its potential. I am just using plain vga cables out of it. The quality is good enough for me now, but I always want better. I know i can get better cables, but it seemed useless if i couldn't get HD quality.

I have been researching osxbmc for the past few days. It also appeared in lifehacker.com days after my interest began(note: this site rocks and always has relevant articles to my nerd life).

I now think I have come to the conclusion that I need to get a MacMini.

I considered building a hackintosh. Maybe a old Dell I have laying around work. It just seems that having the warranty through apple with legit os is the way to go hands down. If someone can put together a build list for a hackintosh that will support osxbmc, run faster than a macmini, and cheaper than a macmini I may consider it even more.

Can anybody help me come to a conclusion on where to go with my HD needs.

I am mainly a PC guy, but have played with Ubuntu and some other linux builds. Macs are new to me but i always like new things and macs seem to be producing some beautiful machines for years and i might finally take the the deep deep jump into the Mac world. I misewell do it so all of these damn photoshop tutorials that are done on the mac don't piss me off(haha).

Sorry for babbling. Normally I don't post in forums. I'm mainly a window shopper sometimes registered to search for information.

Thanks in advance...

[achoke]

whoops...where is the edit button?

[fonso]

A mac mini should suffice for your HD needs. It takes very little space on your table / set-up rig, packs some serious power, and best of all, it's quiet. I've been a PC person since the days of PC-DOS, and over the course of the last 2 years, have seen all the PCs in my house get replaced by one kind of Mac after another.

Mac Mini does 1080p with no problems. If you want to stream to it, you may want to experiment first if you have any friends who have such hardware to play with. I found out the hard way that a western digital firewire 800 mybook studio 500gb external hard disk I connected to my macbook pro nearly always hiccuped every minute when streaming to my mac mini. When connected directly to the mac mini, there were no such problems. I'm assuming that if you store your media on a PC hard disk in contrast to an external one and use this PC to stream to other computers, you should have no problems such as mine. Next time I'll be trying a 1 terrabyte time capsule solution with cat6 cables to ensure that every computer in the house is able to stream from a centralized hard disk without any bottlenecks, at true gigalan speeds.

If you want 5.1 surround sound, you need only buy a toslink cable with mini-toslink adapter (available at amazon.com or monoprice.com). These are 2 different items and not a single SKU. There are also some issues with 5.1 being broken with Quicktime + perian, but you there are now multiple references over the web detailing the easy fixes for these. Apple may have patched these problems by now. To avoid any potential pitfalls with Quicktime, I encode videos in AC3 under the matroska mkv extension for greater universal compatibility across most media programs.

The "deep, deep jump" into OSX isn't hard at all. You'll likely miss some things like cut and paste, but otherwise, OSX is without any doubt, my OS of choice. Learn the keyboard shortcuts and you'll be flying faster than you ever did under XP / Vista or whatever Windows OS you've been using up to now.

You may want to get a 2gb mac mini. I can't comment on the performance differences between 1gb and 2gb models as I've always worked with 2gb ever since. If you don't want to give Apple the leisure of making more money off you (Apple memory is expensive), you can buy memory from Newegg or other similar online vendors. The biggest difficulty is opening the mac mini's case and installing the ram yourself. If you don't have the patience for that, just pay the premium for the extra 1GB to save yourself the trouble. The best memory for most macs are Crucial, Corsair, Kingston, and OWC. Do note that you can use 3rd party ram for most, if not all macs, except for the Mac Pro, which requires very specific memory.

My set-up involves a wireless blue tooth mouse (I think the apple mighty mouse, whether wired or blue tooth, kinda sucks 'cos you have to left your left finger completely to properly make a right click. Get a third part one in my opinion) and blue tooth keyboard (this one apple does well), with the Mac Mini connected via DVI to HDMI cable to an LCD TV. The toslink cable goes from the Mini directly into your 5.1 receiver. A single Apple Remote with its two buttons and circular wheel can control XBMC very well.

[achoke]

FYI...I have a WHS Box on a gigabit network hardwired throughout the house.

You may have influenced me to have a talk with the girlfriend.

This is a must buy for me now.


I know osxbmc is only in early stages of developement, but people seem to be happy with it so far, and the potential seems great.

Can anybody else pitch in their 2 cents

Thanks in advance...

[d00f]

Now I'm curious.
I got a MacBook 2.2Ghz 2GB late last year and while XBMC has made it possible to play 1080p very, very well, I still see stutters at specific places in specific mkv's. It's repeatable. I'm not sure how then a 1.8Ghz machine can play these files flawlessly like some posters have said....

I'm curious precisely because I would love to get a Mini over a hackintosh or some other more expensive mac. Quiet operation is a must for my home theater but so is 1080p playback, and I've been worried that those two needs are not compatible.

Of course, it's probably not Apples to Apples (ha) comparison because my MacBook has Intel video while the Mini has ATI, right?

Are people really seeing "flawless" operation with 1080p and the Mini?

[theocal]

I would like to hear user experience from the current 1.83 mini, does it cope with 1080p ?

[jeremymc7]

Some people "may be" getting perfect results with their Mini's with 1080P and some people may just think they are, to their eyes. But if they think they are then it doesn't really matter.

In any case there are so many different possiabilities that I don't think anyone can get perfect results with all files, and file types under every scenerio. Just not possiable given the current situation.

A mini can still do pretty darn good in most cases.

Remember people that OSXBMC is still beta, there's a lot of room to improve performance with current hardware.

If you want perfection I'd think you'd really need a Mac Pro, but it's still not going work perfect in every case.

I'm pretty critical myself, and only use the 1.8 and 2.0 Mini's in 1080 and it's works real good (not perfect) much of the time.

[renegade]

The "deep, deep jump" into OSX isn't hard at all. You'll likely miss some things like cut and paste, but otherwise, OSX is without any doubt, my OS of choice. Learn the keyboard shortcuts and you'll be flying faster than you ever did under XP / Vista or whatever Windows OS you've been using up to now.

Why would you miss cut, copy, and paste? OSX has them. Just set it up in mouse preferences. Just set you right button(or whichever button you desire) as "secondary button".

As for the OP question, a 2GHz mini works very well currently, and should only get better as XBMC gets refined. As for iMac's they work just peachy also! Alot has to do with the encoding of your source material. You wont be disappointed with either.

[achoke]

Thanks for the input. I am still leaning towards a mini. I just wish they would come down in price. Does anybody know of any good rumors flying around about a price drop soon. I'm sure they are seeing an increase in sales with osxbmc taking off.