Mac Mini 2008 1.83GHz, 1Gb Ram + CrystalHD - XBMC friendly?
#1
I have this:

Mac Mini 2008 1.83GHz, 1Gb Ram + CrystalHD card just bought off eBay, running 10.6.8

I just put XBMC on it and the 3.6.0 crystal drivers and simple tests are working well, e.g. big buck bunny 1080p plays hitch free.

My question is this - before I spend much more time (and possibly $s) on this, are there mini owners that can tell me - and note - this is ONLY FOR XBMC USE, I don't need to use it for anything else really... Indeed, most likely I will donate this to some good friends doing it touch, but I may also keep this simply as a spare/experimental machine to try things on before adding to my wife-facing machines....but I am after a really glitch free basic XBMC experience (i.e. don't need fancy HD audio or anything - jsut your usual MKV etc. playback, up to and including 1080p with 5.1 sound, over HDMI/Optical).
  • Is upgrading RAM over 1GB worth it? It's about $50 here to get 2GB going on. I have always found XBMC to be very easy on RAM but I don't know how much Snow Leopard is chewing..
  • How will performance of this compare to your typical ION type box in general? Both with respect to UI and video playing?
  • Can one use a Harmony 650 or similar easily? I really hate the Apple remote, need more buttons for me!!
  • Stick with OSX or go Linux (if that is possible)?

...and a huge thank you to the awesome davilla and all the others who worked on this, just by the way - as ever, love your work.
Addons I wrote &/or maintain:
OzWeather (Australian BOM weather) | Check Previous Episode | Playback Resumer | Unpause Jumpback | XSqueezeDisplay | (Legacy - XSqueeze & XZen)
Sorry, no help w/out a *full debug log*.
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#2
I used it for a long time... consider that up to 720 movies it works well without the crystal board. I had some trouble with some movies then, but generally speaking it was a quite good solution. Of course more ram is a benefit as well as a new cpu (I mounted also a t7600) but there is no visible increase in performance with video files.
I donno about linux, but for my point of view osx "something" positive, not a drawback.
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#3
1. I'd stick with just the 1GB of RAM since it's only for XBMC.

2. It should beat the pants off of an Ion box because you have enough power to CPU decode most things if the hardware decoder can't. Also, the GUI will be snapper, especially with heavy feature skins. Might not be massively snapper (I'm pretty happy with Ion/ATOM/ARM/low power alternatives myself, but YMMV) since SMBC runs so well on lower powered devices now.

3. Pretty sure you can. I don't like IR remotes much, so I don't really know how to set up other IR remotes. I'm sure there's some guides around.

4. I'd stick with Mac OS X on there so that you can do things like Netflix or any other video service that might not have a linux client yet, but you can easily dual boot a Mac with another OS. There should be a Bootcamp Assistant that can help you repartition the drive without having to reformat. There's lots of linux-based-OS's out there to choose from, including OpenELEC, that should work great on the Mac Mini. You'll have more control over hardware video decoding under linux (on Mac I think it's only h.264 that gets hardware decoded, though your CPU should be able to handle software decodes in HD).
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#4
Thanks Ned/gatto, I shall give it a try as-is then - nice to have a Mac platform to try things on anyway I guess. It seems on par for quietness to my ASRock ION330...my Shuttle XS35 is definitely more quiet though Wink
Addons I wrote &/or maintain:
OzWeather (Australian BOM weather) | Check Previous Episode | Playback Resumer | Unpause Jumpback | XSqueezeDisplay | (Legacy - XSqueeze & XZen)
Sorry, no help w/out a *full debug log*.
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#5
Ned Scott Wrote:4. ...You'll have more control over hardware video decoding under linux (on Mac I think it's only h.264 that gets hardware decoded, though your CPU should be able to handle software decodes in HD).

I'm going to expand on this just a bit as a warning.

CrystalHD can decode more than just h.264 on a Mac, but there are some issues that I have run into involving VC-1 video files inside MKV containers. Inside an m2ts container, they are decoded just fine. I have tested the MKV issue in both Windows and Mac...same problem. The video won't play, but audio plays just fine. If you turn off hardware decoding, the MKV files play just fine for the most part with software decoding (mine is a 2.0Ghz CPU). My solution so far has been to mux all the necessary files into m2ts containers for VC-1 movies since hardware decoding is more desirable for me.

Of course, this is only important to note if you are trying to preserve 1:1 quality with your Blurays. If you re-encode them to get smaller file sizes, etc; then you are most likely encoding them with h.264, and this becomes a moot point.
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#6
I gave this a whirl on my main tv/network last night.

I can't say the UI seemed noticeably quicker than my ION machines, to be honest, which was the main benefit I was hoping for.

I should have tried software video decoding, but I notice with the CrystalHD that the video plays very well...until you seek/fast forward. Once you come off FF, there is an extended period of very jerky video behaviour - up to about 10 seconds - before it all comes back to normal. This occurred with all the 720mkvs I tried, as well as Big Buck Bunny in 1080p.

(Snow Leopard 10.6.8, CrystalHD 3.6.0, the latest binary I could find).

So in all, I think I am happier with my ION machines with openelec, although it was kinda cool to haev a full desktop with browser etc. running in the background, but that's what I have (a few) laptops for really!

Is this typical of Crystal HD performance or something I have done wrong?

I don't have much VC1 material so that wouldn't affect me much I guess.
Addons I wrote &/or maintain:
OzWeather (Australian BOM weather) | Check Previous Episode | Playback Resumer | Unpause Jumpback | XSqueezeDisplay | (Legacy - XSqueeze & XZen)
Sorry, no help w/out a *full debug log*.
Reply
#7
That has been my experience as well. The interface is a bit sluggish, but certainly not unusable--it just screams on my new MBA, so that is my comparison. That said, I moved my TV system from an ATV2 with XBMC, so the interface is more than responsive enough for me.

Video playback is pretty good, and getting better with each Eden beta. Beta 2 has been pretty great, thus far. I still have problems with some MKVs, but they are the exception.
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#8
As in the seeking was an issue for you too? I presume that's a crystal HD issue.
Addons I wrote &/or maintain:
OzWeather (Australian BOM weather) | Check Previous Episode | Playback Resumer | Unpause Jumpback | XSqueezeDisplay | (Legacy - XSqueeze & XZen)
Sorry, no help w/out a *full debug log*.
Reply
#9
Yeah, the seeking thing is definitely something I have always experienced with the CrystalHD. The jerkiness is there for a few seconds then goes back to normal. Anytime I need to seek in a film, I use the XBMC Commander on my iPhone since it has a way to zip through a videos timeline. I still get the 5-15 seconds of jerkiness, but I guess I've gotten use to it.

I don't really see the interface being all too sluggish on my 2.0Ghz Core 2 Duo, but it certainly isn't as snappy as my desktop machine.
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#10
icedtrip Wrote:I'm going to expand on this just a bit as a warning.

CrystalHD can decode more than just h.264 on a Mac

D'oh, for some reason I forgot he was using the Crystal HD card with the Mac.
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#11
The jerky/train-wreak when seeking depends on what kind of Crystal HD card you have:

BCM970012- jerky when seeking
BCM970015- angels are singing!
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#12
Wish I'd known that before I got the 70012 - the money is not much but getting that stupid case open (well, actually very nice case!) is a bit of a pain!! - so with the 70015 playback is pretty much spot on?
Addons I wrote &/or maintain:
OzWeather (Australian BOM weather) | Check Previous Episode | Playback Resumer | Unpause Jumpback | XSqueezeDisplay | (Legacy - XSqueeze & XZen)
Sorry, no help w/out a *full debug log*.
Reply
#13
bossanova808 Wrote:Wish I'd known that before I got the 70012 - the money is not much but getting that stupid case open (well, actually very nice case!) is a bit of a pain!! - so with the 70015 playback is pretty much spot on?

Very much so!
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#14
Ned Scott Wrote:The jerky/train-wreak when seeking depends on what kind of Crystal HD card you have:

BCM970012- jerky when seeking
BCM970015- angels are singing!

Hmmmm....did not know that! May need to look into getting one of the 15s myself.
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#15
Been working on this a little bit: http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Bro...Crystal_HD

Though I hear the "train wreak"/seeking issue might be fixable in software, but the 15 also supports more h.264 profiles, DivX, and some other stuff.
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Mac Mini 2008 1.83GHz, 1Gb Ram + CrystalHD - XBMC friendly?0