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nosaj72 · 2009-03-03, 16:14

Now that apple has finally updated the Mac Mini to have a better video chip and wireless N, would this machine be capable of 1080 h.264? Its speced pretty much the same as the new macbooks. Has anyone tried 1080p on those yet? I'm looking to replace my old XB with something for HD, and don't want the Apple TV if it can't handle everything.

Thanks,

Jason.

EMHMark3 · 2009-03-03, 16:30

Hm the *old* mac minis could handle 1080p h264, so I don't see why the *new* ones wouldn't. Dualcore decoding in XBMC FTW!

Geeba · 2009-03-03, 18:25

New ones are 2Ghz... old ones are 1.8 from memory... rule of thumb is 3Ghz for 1080p in XBMC...

afaik only Linux has GPU hardware decoding alowing slower CPUs to handle 1080 especailly 264.

cusquinho · 2009-03-03, 18:37

nosaj72 Wrote:Now that apple has finally updated the Mac Mini to have a better video chip and wireless N, would this machine be capable of 1080 h.264? Its speced pretty much the same as the new macbooks. Has anyone tried 1080p on those yet? I'm looking to replace my old XB with something for HD, and don't want the Apple TV if it can't handle everything.

Thanks,

Jason.

I think that's an awesome question. Mac Mini does not play most 1080p content, especially if we are talking about Matroska and high bitrates. The HUGE difference between the new mac mini and the old ones is the 9400M (ion) platform video card. I *know* ffmpeg still doesn't take any advantage of the GPU right now, and I also know there are on going works in that area. But isen't that the future Huh

Fffmpeg with GPU acceleration from the 9400M would make XBMC the best HTPC ever :-)

stevellion · 2009-03-03, 18:52

Yep, can't wait to hear if this is the answer to my prayers.

High bitrate 1080p in a neat little box, running XBMC.. Looking forward to a confirmation.

stuartmarsden · 2009-03-03, 19:39

It will support 1080p via GPU if you just remove that horrible proprietary OS and put Linux on there Big Grin

cusquinho · 2009-03-03, 19:44

stuartmarsden Wrote:It will support 1080p via GPU if you just remove that horrible proprietary OS and put Linux on there

not really since the issue is ffmpeg code for intel (both linux/macos) Tongue

tslayer · 2009-03-03, 19:45

What he is saying is that if you put Linux on there, you can use VDPAU.

The Linux version of XBMC has a new branch for VDPAU integration and is working quite well. So, stuartmarsden is correct in saying that if you put linux on, you will be able to play 1080p.

cusquinho · 2009-03-03, 19:49

tslayer Wrote:What he is saying is that if you put Linux on there, you can use VDPAU.

The Linux version of XBMC has a new branch for VDPAU integration and is working quite well. So, stuartmarsden is correct in saying that if you put linux on, you will be able to play 1080p.

Wow, very nice to know :-)

So you're saying that if we get the new mac mini, put debian and xbmc + vdpau we're good to go?

tslayer · 2009-03-03, 19:50

Yep.. probably Smile

stuartmarsden · 2009-03-03, 20:14

Sorry I was being a bit flippant in my response. My setup has a slower processor than the new Mac Mini (1.8 compared to 2GHz) and my graphics card is only slightly better (9500GT compared 9400M). I can play crazy encoded 1080p content like the killasample without my CPU going above 10% usage.

This is using the VDPAU branch http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=45525 on linux.

A lot of people there have even more modest hardware and can get smooth video. The new ION platform which also has NVIDIA 9400M and an atom CPU could be the perfect low cost HD platform for XBMC.

cusquinho · 2009-03-03, 21:13

I've tried to search with no success. Wondering, is there any work going on in doing something like this inside Mac OS?

pantherman007 · 2009-03-03, 21:23

I know the audio connection can be configured for S/PDIF output, but is there any way to get HD audio out of the new Mini? I'm concerned that it would be limited to traditional AC3 and DTS over S/PDIF since there's no true HDMI port. You can get DVI and DP to HDMI adapters, but I think they're video only.

Am I missing something?

occamsrazor · 2009-03-03, 21:32

The lack of GPU-acceleration in Windows and OS X XBMC is quite annoying, requiring much greater CPU requirements... I'm hoping the new Mac Mini will be capable of playing all 1080P H.264 files with just the CPU... but would be really great to get some kind of hardware acceleration.

BliBlaBlo · 2009-03-03, 23:29

Yes... would be great if there was hardware acceleration soon... Does anybody know how far it is away?
I would love to buy a new mac mini as HTPC... but hardware acceleration would make it so much cooler Smile