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Trojita · 2011-06-25, 01:13

I was thinking about buying a Mac Mini to use XBMC with and I was wondering if anyone here could answer some questions that I had. I'll probably wait until the refresh of the Mac Mini comes at the end of July early August. I want a machine that would run XBMC when it turns on (which I believe all machines can). I'd like a machine that will play every video file the way that is intended. The XBMC device would be pulling most of the files it access off of a server connected to it on a LAN.

Does XBMC on a Mac Mini play every file type or codec, including all of the different audio codecs I see out there? Will it play HD Audio? I'd like to get the most out of my receiver and speakers while using XBMC, but I'm not sure if there was any limitations on the Mac Mini. I'm guessing the next Mac Mini would handle 1080p even at high bit rates.

I would have liked a device with XBMC that I could play Backup games on, but I'm guessing there isn't many emulators on the Mac or compatible controllers.

garyi · 2011-06-25, 02:07

In a word, yes.

**mmmfishies** · 2011-06-25, 02:26

You may want to be careful about getting the new model until its hardware decoding ability is evaluated. I'm using a mid-2010 Mac Mini with an Nvidia GPU running Ubuntu and VDPAU, and it easily plays anything I throw at it, usually with a very, very low CPU usage (~10-20%). A fast CPU will brute its way through some high-res/high frame rate content, but hardware decoding is where it's at.

You may be able to find a reasonably good deal on a mid-2010 model, and it'll do just fine with 1080P BD rips fed by a NAS using any codec (H.264, VC1, whatever). To get quality VC1 decoding, I had to switch to Ubuntu, though.

Rob

Trojita · 2011-06-25, 02:38

Why, was the VC1 not decoding fast enough?

So a Mac Mini with XBMC would play AAC 5.1, DOLBY HD, DTS HD and all that stuff perfectly through a receiver and 5.1 sound system?

**mmmfishies** · 2011-06-25, 02:51

Trojita Wrote:Why, was the VC1 not decoding fast enough?

So a Mac Mini with XBMC would play AAC 5.1, DOLBY HD, DTS HD and all that stuff perfectly through a receiver and 5.1 sound system?

I haven't explicitly tried the HD audio formats, so I can't comment on that. You may want to do some searches here to see how that's working for others. The rest of it, yes. I get nice, silky smooth 1080P video with DTS or Dolby Digital audio from my mid-2010 Mac Mini when played through my 5.1 receiver.

As I understand it, the issue with VC1 is with Apple supporting hardware acceleration of that codec. So many of the BD rips use VC1 that I wanted something that was more reliable, and VDPAU eats anything. Some folks are having good luck with raw CPU performance with 2.4GHz+ Mac Mini models in OS X, so your mileage may vary.

Rob

gatto_mannaro · 2011-06-25, 10:42

Trojita Wrote:I was thinking about buying a Mac Mini to use XBMC with and I was wondering if anyone here could answer some questions that I had. I'll probably wait until the refresh of the Mac Mini comes at the end of July early August.

if you don't need a native hdmi output (in another word, if you can hande separate toslink audio and video on dvi/hdmi) IMO the best choice is a 2009 mac mini, in this way you are sure to skip every compatibility trouble.

gf_4 · 2011-06-27, 11:31

A hint if you want to play music from iTunes and not from XBMC (which doesn't support iTunes very well by now):

I'm running XBMC on a mac mini (2010). Mac mini via HDMI to a 42" Flat TV. Toslink Audio to a Denon 5.1 AV Receiver. No problem with any codec so far. HD Audio should be ok since the Avatar HD Blueray file is playing fine.

I also use a iPad with the Apple Remote App as a remote commander to play iTunes music. iTunes is running in the background without any problem.

Since my Denon AV Receiver doesn't support decoding a digital signal (toslink) to the analog REC-Out (which is use for a active wireless sound system on my terrace -> JBL Control 2.4G) I got myself an USB Audio Interface (Speed-Link Vigo USB).

Now I have a Mac mini with two Audio Interfaces. I've setup XBMC to use only the digital output while iTunes and other Apps are using the analog output of the USB Audio Interface.

The iPad is my remote for iTunes and of course with the XBMC Commander App to controll XBMC.

Just in case ...

gf_4

Trojita · 2011-06-27, 11:36

If the 2011 refreshed Mac Mini's have a graphics card that supports bitstreaming (If it is an Nvidia it would have to be around the 460 series or better) will XBMC on Mac then play the bitstreamed audio?

I'd like a player that could play the audio or ouput to the receiver properly

TRUE HD
DTS HD
AC3 5.1
DTS 5.1
FLAC 2.0 or 5.1

I'm not sure on the specifics of audio types, but I guess sometimes these audio files are turned into LPCM by the hardware and sent to the receiver uncompressed, or something like that.

I wanted to get a Mac Mini since it seemed like it was a neat little all in one device, had an IR port built in, and had a pretty reliant operating system. For my needs I don't know if it might be better to get the Mac Mini (Refresh 2011 if this fixes any of the problems) or build my own Windows or Linux box to put XBMC on.

Lynx · 2011-06-29, 22:24

I have a mac mini (mid 2010) and XBMC is working fine with 1080 (H.264 .mkv files) Dolby HD and DTS HD. I use the toslink to connect the mini with my Yamaha receiver and HDMI for my 42" LG TV.

I've had some troubles in the past with HD files but my solution was setting the refresh rate in OSX at 24Hz. The only problem now is that SD movies are not running smooth but I only want HD movies so it's not a problem for me. Nerd

CPU load is not much, 20% / 30% max. Frame drops are max 5 during a whole movie.

The mini also works as a time machine backup for my MB pro and as a share for all the other PC's.
I also use a app called AirVideo. With this app I can stream all the movie's and music to my Iphone via the internet. It even works fine with 3g on the Iphone.

I use a Harmony 555 remote to control XBMC.

A 2TB usb HD is used for storing the movies and music.

The mini is running 24/7 (power consumption of a mini is very low).

wipedalaer · 2011-08-11, 23:27

Sorry if I may have missed any explicit threads on this.
Are any of the older Mac Mini models suitable for xbmc? For instance, would a 1.5GHz or 1.8GHz model work suitably for Group 4 or Group 5 usage? Initial intent is to move the DVD library to hard disc, stream from Netflix or similar, and use the TV for occasional web browsing. My guess is that I would need a 2GHz model to make it worthwhile.

I would not expect the Mini to do any other heavy lifting such as data backups, but perhaps stream to other devices in the house. Thanks in advance!

~~Ned Scott~~ · 2011-08-12, 03:54

wipedalaer Wrote:Sorry if I may have missed any explicit threads on this.
Are any of the older Mac Mini models suitable for xbmc? For instance, would a 1.5GHz or 1.8GHz model work suitably for Group 4 or Group 5 usage? Initial intent is to move the DVD library to hard disc, stream from Netflix or similar, and use the TV for occasional web browsing. My guess is that I would need a 2GHz model to make it worthwhile.

I would not expect the Mini to do any other heavy lifting such as data backups, but perhaps stream to other devices in the house. Thanks in advance!

A rough guess would be any mini made in at least the last 4 years should have more than enough umph to do all that and more. I'm sure someone will reply with a more detailed report, since the mini has been a popular choice for HTPCs for some time now.

fanclub · 2011-08-15, 17:46

i have a mid 2010 mac mini running osx 10.6.7

as has already been mentioned in this thread, the hardware decoding on osx is rather questionable when it comes to VC1 m2ts files (or mkv remuxes with a VC1 video track)... i am therefore considering a switch to ubuntu for true vpdau support

my question relates to the apple remote - will this work in ubuntu out of the box? or perhaps with minimal tweaking?

whilst vpdau is important to me, i personally consider having proper apple remote support to be more important in my particular situation. this is actually my second xbmc htpc and is only being used in the bedroom... my main rig is running windows and it will handle anything i throw at it, so it's not a total dealbreaker if my bedroom htpc cannot handle VC1 as efficiently as i'd like

TLDR: will the apple remote work on a mac mini w/ ubuntu + xbmc the same way it does in osx xbmc ?

thanks for your help! Smile

User 34959 · 2011-08-15, 20:50

There are couple of threads at Live forum. I couldn't get it working properly, but it doesn't mean that it isn't doable.