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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.
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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
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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?
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gf_4
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.