[ctawn]

Hi there... I just heard of the XBMC implementation for the Mac and installed it on my Intel MacBookPro last night.

Been trying to wade through these forums for info, but I thought maybe some pros can easily answer these questions. Patience appreciated in advance ;-)

The MBP is hooked up (via DVI-to-HDMI) to a 50" Panasonic Plasma TV which I believe is 1080p but I'm not really sure. I have Sofa Control (IR software like Remote Buddy) installed and have a Logitech Harmony One set to mimic the Apple Remote. The Mac Book Pro is on a Wi-Fi network. I want to stream movies from multiple folders on multiple hard drives on my PPC G5 which is connected to the LAN with a set IP ethernet connection. I also have an iPhone 3G with the XBMC app now.

Here are my main questions so far:

1. Is there a manual for this or is browsing these forums the best I can do to learn this?

2. Is Samba sharing the only way to access computers on my LAN? Is AFP not supported?

3. Is there any limit to how many folders I can share on my PPC G5? In initial testing, only 2/3 folders actually showed up. I intend to add about 10 more.

4. What is the right way to set resolution so that when you play the movie it is in full screen on the 50" TV? I tried auto & a couple of the 1080 settings and although the resolution is crisp and perfect, the XBMC window is too large for the TV (cuts off). 720p 16:19 works ok but then the XBMC window is too small for the TV (maybe 80% of screen).

By the way, I am using the TV as a secondary monitor in OS X Display settings, not using Mirror mode. Does that make a difference?

5. Related to above, is there a way to resize the window itself?

6. Need basic control help with the Apple Remote. (I have seen there are more advanced ways to use the Logitech Harmony One but I want to stick with basics for now.) Main question: when playing a movie then hitting "menu" to get to other screens (when the movie is in a small window), how to I return to full screen movie playing with the Apple Remote.

7. How do I configure my router to use the iPhone app? Currently the MBP gets an IP via DHCP, which changes, but I assume the router needs to send some traffic to the MBP. What ports? I am not using UPnP (or whatever its called ;-) -- for other reasons).

Thanks guys.

[S80_UK]

Manual here... http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=XBMC_Online_Manual

Reading and patience you have to provide yourself...

Seriously - it will save you a load of pain if you do take the time. There's a ton of good info there including answers to many of your questions (which I am not qualified to answer myself).

[ctawn]

Thanks for the manual link. starting to look at it now. for the benefit of other newbies, here are a couple answers to my own questions. don't know if they are the best ones.

2 & 3: SMB seems just to be flaky. The better thing is to add the directory /Volumes/ to media sources and then mount network volumes with AFP (ie, connect to server and mount remote volumes). any other ideas?

6. if you hit menu and get to the bar of control icons that includes pause & play etc, the last one on the right returns to the normal movie display. Anyone have other suggestions?

4. seems best thing is to set external TV to full screen resolution in settings->appearance->screen and make the TV the primary monitor in OS X Display settings. Big disadvantage though: if XBMC hangs (which it DOES), there is no way out but to force power off the computer. cmd-opt-esc will not work.

7. lot of trial and error there. but in the end i could not get a password to work at all. in fact I think I may have had to blank out both the user name and password in the server settings to get the iphone connection to work. as far as the router issues goes, i was able to configure my router to give the MBP on which XBMC is running a fixed LAN IP using the Mac address, then port forward a port to it. I read elsewhere that ports < 1024 are reserved for admin or something, so port 80 wouldn't work (and why would it default to 80 anyway, that is used for web serving). so I used a port > 8000 and it works.
The biggest hope I have for development of this is to be able to run XBMC with my laptop as the primary display and show XBMC full screen on the second monitor.

5. still don't know, but don't think so.

[ctawn]

the main remaining serious problem is that if the TV sleeps or the MBP sleeps there is no way to wake it up. Have to force power off & restart the MBP. How have people dealt with this issue?

[jmarshall]

If your plan is to have XBMC running all the time, then it might pay to disable any OSX power saving features perhaps, though I don't think it's necessary - XBMC sends a "tickle" command while running to ensure OS X doesn't go and sleep on us.

I personally don't have a problem with it at all - if the TV sleeps, then I hit a button on my Harmony and XBMC wakes up again. I run on a Mac Mini though, so perhaps it's a laptop related thing?

Also, SMB works just fine - I connect to a linux server which hosts my passworded smb shares. Mounting them locally works as well if that's how you want to do stuff though.

Anyone else run XBMC on a MBP have some experiences with this?

Cheers,
Jonathan