Hi
I thought an aTV would be a good small Mac. Well, it is 256meg and crippled.
XBMC worked good on it, but runs 10x faster on a Core duo 2.0ghz with 1G memory!
And I get all the Mac Stuff to play with too!
So, anything I should watch out for with a real Mac vs aTV and XBMC?
Oh, BTW, anyone wanna aTV?
philhu Wrote:Hi
I thought an aTV would be a good small Mac. Well, it is 256meg and crippled.
XBMC worked good on it, but runs 10x faster on a Core duo 2.0ghz with 1G memory!
And I get all the Mac Stuff to play with too!
So, anything I should watch out for with a real Mac vs aTV and XBMC?
Oh, BTW, anyone wanna aTV?
Hehe, actually only 4x faster
philhu Wrote:Hi
I thought an aTV would be a good small Mac. Well, it is 256meg and crippled.
XBMC worked good on it, but runs 10x faster on a Core duo 2.0ghz with 1G memory!
And I get all the Mac Stuff to play with too!
So, anything I should watch out for with a real Mac vs aTV and XBMC?
Oh, BTW, anyone wanna aTV?
did the same thing today too actually. mac mini in the living room, appletv demoted to the bedroom... time for the old xbox to go in the closet i guess.
Yes I soon found the limitations of ATV, hi def vid being one of them. It lives in the bedroom now.
philhu Wrote:Hi
I thought an aTV would be a good small Mac. Well, it is 256meg and crippled.
XBMC worked good on it, but runs 10x faster on a Core duo 2.0ghz with 1G memory!
And I get all the Mac Stuff to play with too!
So, anything I should watch out for with a real Mac vs aTV and XBMC?
Oh, BTW, anyone wanna aTV?
Heh...just send it my way. I have one on the same TV as my Mini (09) but there is pressure to move the ATV to our other TV. While I recognize that the Mini is in principle better, faster, etc...there's something about the ATV that I almost prefer. I don't want it to work as a computer. It has xbmc, nitoTV, usb hard drive, smb, afp, perian, etc...and plays anything (except 1080p) I have just fine. It's a great little system, as is the Mini.
For what it's worth the Apple remote on the ATV works better for me than the remote on the Mini when running xbmc. For some odd reason xbmc's remote helper doesn't ever work right for me. It starts xbmc now but then the other buttons don't work. Probably something to do with the keymap but it's gotten so confusing that I prefer using the ATV for XBMC.
philip
Well, the mini is cool. It 'feels' like 10x faster
But...
1) Rowmote doesn't work
2) I can't get my dvi to hdmi to fill my screen. I Turn off overscan, it has a 2" border on my 65" set. I turn on overscan, I lose the menus and sides/bottom of the screen. Apple should somehow allow the overscan numbers to be entered. Assuming EVERYONE has the same overscan need is dumb. I tried SwitchResX and the other one for fixing this, but thet don't do squat with DVI/HDMI output.
3) I hated the ATV menu system, but at least it HAD a menu system. To use a mini as a media center, I need to use a mouse to select itunes or xbmc. What we all need is a launcher that can run as full screen and let you select 3-5 programs from the menu and when the program completes, back to the launcher, which by the way, would be remote compatible.
4) I reboot my mini, it says the "server isn't responding" to SMB automounts. But I do them manually, they work. This screws up my XBMC *and* iTunes.
Goodies....
I *DID* connect the audio optical output, great, but no AC content found
OSXVNC is cool
philhu Wrote:Well, the mini is cool. It 'feels' like 10x faster
But...
1) Rowmote doesn't work
2) I can't get my dvi to hdmi to fill my screen. I Turn off overscan, it has a 2" border on my 65" set. I turn on overscan, I lose the menus and sides/bottom of the screen. Apple should somehow allow the overscan numbers to be entered. Assuming EVERYONE has the same overscan need is dumb. I tried SwitchResX and the other one for fixing this, but thet don't do squat with DVI/HDMI output.
3) I hated the ATV menu system, but at least it HAD a menu system. To use a mini as a media center, I need to use a mouse to select itunes or xbmc. What we all need is a launcher that can run as full screen and let you select 3-5 programs from the menu and when the program completes, back to the launcher, which by the way, would be remote compatible.
4) I reboot my mini, it says the "server isn't responding" to SMB automounts. But I do them manually, they work. This screws up my XBMC *and* iTunes.
Goodies....
I *DID* connect the audio optical output, great, but no AC content found
OSXVNC is cool
1-Rowmote works fine for me though I prefer the Apple remote. Use that.
2-Does your HDTV have a setting like "just scan" or whatever. This exists in my Samsung 52" HDTV and the Mini fits perfectly. On our Sony it has a similar setting. Basically, unless you use a VGA cable it will depend on your HDTV as to whether or not you get the perfect fit. SwitchRez and similar programs are hit and miss.
3- Have a look at Plex which is similar to XBMC. You can launch programs from within it (like Front Row for example). Just have it start at login time and you can stay in it. It's not quite what you want but then again the ATV is very nice in that respect.
4- Drag your smb mounts into the login startup programs. That will do it (it works for me from a DNS-323 and from an AEBS with a Drobo).
Did you send me the Apple TV yet
philip
Try the Launcher plugin - no idea if it works on an OS X system.
Obviously XBMC will start with Menu or Menu hold on the remote.
aaronjb Wrote:I believe Remote Buddy lets you use the remote to start programs etc, and can be configured to pretend to be a keyboard in order to control XBMC once you're in..
http://www.iospirit.com/index.php?mode=v...256ba948ca
Try Air Mouse on the iPhone/iTouch. It will do what you want and more.
philip
Thanks guys.
I will try all of these and get back to you.
Great ideas!
About screen filling:
My 65" is a Mitsubishi, and does not have 'Just Scan'. I do know what it is, my upstairs 42" Samsung has that. I tried the switchres and DisplayRes stuff, both were misses and caused black screens
Apple needs to allow you to put up a pixel map test screen and then type the numbers of missing pixels into the overscan setting, which would fix this for the thousands of people having this problem. My ATV *DID* fit perfectly on this screen, so Apple DOES know how to fix this. It is very frustrating
To fix the scanning issue do what I do. Turn on overscan in system preferences.
Then in XBMC go in to settings -> appearance -> screen -> video calibration
You can then shrink the screen to match your tv, using the handy guides in the corners.
Works fine for me
Soul Wrote:To fix the scanning issue do what I do. Turn on overscan in system preferences.
Then in XBMC go in to settings -> appearance -> screen -> video calibration
You can then shrink the screen to match your tv, using the handy guides in the corners.
Works fine for me
Great idea for XBMC, it is the desktop and Hulu desktop that then are unuseable.
I will agree that 80% of the time I am in XBMC anywayz though.
It is just so wierd that Apple 'got it right' for the AppleTV but not for the Mac Mini. I would love to just move over the AppleTV video configs to the Mac Mini, but that is above my intelligence level
I tried both switchrez and DisplayRezX
After playing/setting/rebooting countless times, I usually get black screen or most options are greyed out.
The problem is that I am using HDMI from the fullsize DVI connector on my Mac-Mini, so this should NOT be a problem.