Hi to you all,
It has been a long while since I have been playing around with my mediacenter and NAS due to other priorities
I decided to give it a go once again and wanted to buy a new system.
But then again I need another mediacenter for one of the bedrooms to work with the slingbox pro.
So far the best (read the cheapest solution to play 1080p)
I found, is upgrading my old system.
system: mac mini 2.1
cpu: 2.0 GHz (T7200) Intel Core 2 Duo
memory: 2 GiB of 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
I want to upgrade this system with the "Broadcom Crystal HD".
Questions:
-->
Which is better to use together with the Crystal HD (Ubuntu of Live) since I also want to make use of the Slingbox client functionality in Xbmc
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Should I buy the BCM70012 of BCM70015 (recommendation on google 70012?)
Thanks in advance for your advice.
Greets
thanks for the clear reply
any recommendation of the distro? ubuntu or live ...
I am guessing support for drivers is better in ubuntu?
Still no clear answer concerning the live vs ubuntu
I guess if I want to use the nightly builds, I cannot use the xbmc live ...
On the other hand maybe I should stick to the OSx version?
So anyone please ...
I don't see why you couldn't upgrade the live version to a nightly build, it is only ubuntu 10.04 at its heart afterall.
If you are going to go for ubuntu there is a (slightly outdated) guide on the wiki for doing a minimal install and then xbmc -
http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=XBMCbuntu
A quick question though, I have one of these Mac Mimi's floating about with what looks like the same spec as yours (it has a Nvidia 9400 if memory serve's) and I was wondering what you found performance like, if you have tested it, I was thinking of running it under the TV as just a media centre, and was curious.
I would go this way:
Try xbmc on os x - if not satisfied goto 2
Try xbmc on live - if not satisfied goto 3
Buy broadcom card
Well I installed the live version on my mac mini and it seems to play 1080p fine, although I will say I have not given it a huge workout yet.
Only problem was the broadcom STA driver, but I got around that in the end.
Now I have to see if I can get the IR working with a media centre remote (anyone know if this is possible with apples ir, I have read conflicting reports)
But as a base the mac mini seems to do everything fine so far without shelling out for the Crystal HD, but as I said its early days.
My spec is Duel core 2ghz (may be 2.2, I cant remember), 2 gig and a nvidia 9400. It has a old slow 80gig drive in it as its all I had, but it seems pretty responsive once booted.
@
Saner
I was happy with xbmc on my mac mini, also for playing 1080p, but ...
this was on the older version of xbmc
Since the release of xbmc Dharma the ffmpeg changes and when playing 1080p it stutters
However seems before the ffmpeg was configurated so it left out some important part in the 1080p file, but it was playing with no stuttering
Right now I tried to tweak some settings (cfr in wiki) in orde the play the same file again without stuttering
I figured however since it was not playing full 1080p corretly, I should buy the crystal hd card.
Hope all will play smoothly again.
I will try the BCM70015 first in the Osx version, since like this I need to less changes my settings for the moment.
I have a question for yo:
Are you sure you have the same specs?
Since you talking about an Nvidia graphics card in the mac mini, I think you have another version (version 3.1?) but the should be no disc of 80 Gb in it.
Check the wiki -->
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_Mini
As a graphics card I have the GMA ....
The 80gig's a replacement, I wanted the larger drive for something else so I put an old drive in it.
So far, so good, although the wifi driver is still causing me problems (urgh)
Thanks for the wiki link, I didn't know what model it was (due to it being given to me, and having limited apple experience).
for the curious ones ...
I went with OSx and Crystal Broadcaom HD