2010 mac mini vs 2011 mac mini for htpc

[theSeb]

Ok. First of all let me tell you a little bit about my setup and how I do things. I have a large collection of BRs and some DVDs. I am very particular and OCD about my home theatre and I do not download movies. I am busy ripping my movie collection using makeMKV and it is currently at just over 4 GBs. I do not encode these to watch on the TV. I keep the mkvs on a Synology DS1511+. I encode these into an iPad friendly format to watch when I am out of the home so I end up keeping two copies of every movie and TV episode. I plan to watch the mkv files on a mac mini running XBMC, unless someone can find me a better solution. I have had countless issues when trying to watch mkv files using some of the streamers that you've mentioned and ended up returning them and the reviews that I've read state that the readers I haven't had a chance to try have the exact same issues that you're saying the Mac mini has.

I need something that plays back mkvs perfectly with a nice front end that has media info and the mac mini fits the bill. The only movie that I am having problems for playback from mkv is Apocalypto and I cannot understand why. It stutters throughout most of the movie. The original BR plays perfectly fine. I've tried ripping it and playing it back on various computers and it does not help.

In the tests that I've done, XBMC does a great job of playing the movies being streamed from my NAS. This is something that I find unacceptable in the normal streamers that you mention.

 

[dh2005]

Ok. First of all let me tell you a little bit about my setup and how I do things. I have a large collection of BRs and some DVDs. I am very particular and OCD about my home theatre and I do not download movies. I am busy ripping my movie collection using makeMKV and it is currently at just over 4 GBs. I do not encode these to watch on the TV. I keep the mkvs on a Synology DS1511+. I encode these into an iPad friendly format to watch when I am out of the home so I end up keeping two copies of every movie and TV episode. I plan to watch the mkv files on a mac mini running XBMC, unless someone can find me a better solution. I have had countless issues when trying to watch mkv files using some of the streamers that you've mentioned and ended up returning them and the reviews that I've read state that the readers I haven't had a chance to try have the exact same issues that you're saying the Mac mini has.

I need something that plays back mkvs perfectly with a nice front end that has media info and the mac mini fits the bill. The only movie that I am having problems for playback from mkv is Apocalypto and I cannot understand why. It stutters throughout most of the movie. The original BR plays perfectly fine. I've tried ripping it and playing it back on various computers and it does not help.

In the tests that I've done, XBMC does a great job of playing the movies being streamed from my NAS. This is something that I find unacceptable in the normal streamers that you mention.

XBMC is great. Has been for years. I'll not argue with you about that.

Just so I understand: are you ripping these Blu-ray discs 100% untouched (i.e. the output file is 20-to-40GB)? I shall operate on the assumption that you are.

Apocalypto has a very high bitrate, as I recall. You might be hitting the ceiling. Have you tried reducing the HD audio to SD, but leaving the video stream untouched? Give that a try. If that makes it work better, then I'd say you've found the upper limit of your machine's decoding capability. If it doesn't help at all, transcode it with Handbrake. If even that doesn't work, I'd say there's something wrong with your ripping process. Which decryption software do you use?

Also, .MKV - while its certainly a versatile container - can be tricky when it comes to subtitles, in my experience. Watch out for that. You might be better ripping your discs as BDMVs or .ISOs.


I don't stream from a NAS myself, so I can't comment directly on the capability of my streamer in this domain; but I'm certain that many users do use PCH machines in this manner. Have you ever visited the forum?

http://www.networkedmediatank.com/

Ask around. Either in the Shout Box, or open a thread. I don't work for Popcorn Hour, so it's no odds to me whether you look into it. Just some friendly advice.


If we discuss this further, it should probably be via PM.

 

[theSeb]

Just so I understand: are you ripping these Blu-ray discs 100% untouched (i.e. the output file is 20-to-40GB)? I shall operate on the assumption that you are.

Correct. Hence why I have a NAS with many TBs of storage.

Apocalypto has a very high bitrate, as I recall. You might be hitting the ceiling. Have you tried reducing the HD audio to SD, but leaving the video stream untouched? Give that a try. If that makes it work better, then I'd say you've found the upper limit of your machine's decoding capability. If it doesn't help at all, transcode it with Handbrake. If even that doesn't work, I'd say there's something wrong with your ripping process. Which decryption software do you use?

I'll give it a try and see what happens. The decryption and ripping to mkv is all done by makeMKV.

Also, .MKV - while its certainly a versatile container - can be tricky when it comes to subtitles, in my experience. Watch out for that. You might be better ripping your discs as BDMVs or .ISOs.

I am not too concerned about subtitles. This is only something that I think about when I am ripping a movie that contains subtitles that are part of the normal movie... for example Kill Bill. In those cases I find which subtitle track is the correct one and only include it when ripping.

 

[dh2005]

I am not too concerned about subtitles. This is only something that I think about when I am ripping a movie that contains subtitles that are part of the normal movie... for example Kill Bill. In those cases I find which subtitle track is the correct one and only include it when ripping.

That'll work most of the time, but you need to watch out for forced subtitles within an optional stream.

For instance, in District 9, whenever the aliens speak, their subtitles come from within the English subtitles track; they do not have a track of their own. The alien subs have a 'forced' flag on them, which makes them appear whether that track has been switched on or not. So, you need to keep the whole of the English subs track, and make sure that the flags come across when you rip it. Otherwise, you'll lose the subs and you'll need to rip the disc all over again.


You may already be aware of this. Just a tip.

 

[jmpage2]

Actually, MakeMKV will automatically detect forced subs within any ripped/main subtitle tracks (for example it automatically selects all english tracks for ripping and forced sub detection) and split them out. Sadly, it does not automatically set the forced=yes flag so you have to go in after the fact with MKV tools, find the correct subtitle forced track (using BDSUP2SUB, etc) and then mark it forced=yes in MKV tools, then re-encode the MKV. Fortunately there are not a TON of movies with forced subs, I think that out of my collection of 200+ BD discs I have about 20 with forced subs, most recently the Star Wars movies.

I am in a similar situation as theSeb. I have become disillusioned with streamers having gone through several, most recently Boxee Box (audio dropouts, media library issues, otherwise a solid player for the most part)..and before that PCH-A200 and others (Popbox, ick). I just rip the full BD to an MKV with the video and audio file (uncompressed audio track typically).

I am now looking for something with great library management capabilities (such as XBMC or Plex) that will play my BD rips without hiccups. I had been under the impression that the C2D Mini could do this, and am surprised to see comments that it cannot. The 2011 Mini would have problems with 23.97 FPS playback unless I went all the way up to $800 for the one with the better GPU, and I'm not too thrilled to see all of the issues with playback under Lion, but I suspect that under Windows 7 it would be pretty solid.

So, right now I'm trying to decide between a Mini or a BYO HTPC running Windows 7.... which would certainly be cheaper, but it's not a Mac.

 

[shortcut3d]

I've been very pleased with the 2011 Mac Mini Server as a Windows 7 x64 HTPC. It literally blows through everything. I manually enabled AHCI under Windows and now get perfect 7.9 scores in memory and primary disk; and 7.4 in processor.

CAUTION: If you plan to watch live TV using a CableCARD tuner like the HDHomeRun Prime or Ceton InfiniTV 4 USB, then some premium broadcast content suffers from the 29/59 frame rate bug using the integrated Intel HD Graphics 3000. I had various degrees of stuttering due to the 29/59 frame rate bug. Enabling AHCI made it bearable.

Thus, I'm switch the 2011 Mac Mini Server to be a media server and Blu-ray ripper in exchange for 2011 Mac Mini i7 with AMD discrete graphics as HTPCs. The dual core i7 with discrete graphics does not exhibit the 29/59 frame rate bug.

 

[The "Dude"]

I've got a 2010 Mac Mini server (2 internal HDD's instead of the optical drive).

I upgraded the ram to 8gb, and replaced one of the drives with an Intel 160gb SSD. I couldn't be happier with this thing as an htpc. Even before the upgrades it worked great.

However, the death of Front Row in Lion kinda pissed me off. I know all about Plex and Boxee, but honestly they aren't polished and are buggy as hell, and not very Mac like. Maybe Apple will release a similar app in the app store eventually....one can dream....

 

[jmpage2]

I've got a 2010 Mac Mini server (2 internal HDD's instead of the optical drive).

I upgraded the ram to 8gb, and replaced one of the drives with an Intel 160gb SSD. I couldn't be happier with this thing as an htpc. Even before the upgrades it worked great.

However, the death of Front Row in Lion kinda pissed me off. I know all about Plex and Boxee, but honestly they aren't polished and are buggy as hell, and not very Mac like. Maybe Apple will release a similar app in the app store eventually....one can dream....

I do full BD rips, so Front Row was never going to cut it for me anyway. The real question now is whether Plex/XBMC under Lion is ever going to perform nearly as well as XBMC does under Windows 7.

It seems from the other response to my question that the 2011 model is really the way to go, it's just a painful choice to make as the mid-level 2011 unit is going to cost me double what I could pick up the 2010 one for.

 

[shortcut3d]

I do full BD rips, so Front Row was never going to cut it for me anyway. The real question now is whether Plex/XBMC under Lion is ever going to perform nearly as well as XBMC does under Windows 7.

It seems from the other response to my question that the 2011 model is really the way to go, it's just a painful choice to make as the mid-level 2011 unit is going to cost me double what I could pick up the 2010 one for.

The mid-level 2011 Mac Mini is a must only for Live TV because of the 29/59 frame rate bug. The Intel HD Graphics 2000/3000 with latest drivers does film mode near perfect, so that frame rate issue is mute. If you are just watching ripped HD movies the base 2011 Mac Mini will be fine with a memory upgrade. You can do the 2nd HDD and memory yourself for far less than Apple's BTO.

My experience was Plex / MythTV was similar. Not nearly as polished at the Windows 7 offerings.

 

[jmpage2]

The mid-level 2011 Mac Mini is a must only for Live TV because of the 29/59 frame rate bug. The Intel HD Graphics 2000/3000 with latest drivers does film mode near perfect, so that frame rate issue is mute. If you are just watching ripped HD movies the base 2011 Mac Mini will be fine with a memory upgrade. You can do the 2nd HDD and memory yourself for far less than Apple's BTO.

My experience was Plex / MythTV was similar. Not nearly as polished at the Windows 7 offerings.

The base Mini still has the 24.00 fps bug, nearly all BDs are mastered at 23.976 fps. That results in frame drops every 30-40 seconds. That might not bug you, but it sure as heck bugs me. Re-synching is not an option since I need multi-channel audio to work with my AVR. Also, the base level Mini does not have hardware capable of outputting HD audio, so it will never do it. .. at least the next model up has the faint hope this can happen some day, and probably works just fine doing this under Windows 7.

 

[shortcut3d]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)

The mid-level 2011 Mac Mini is a must only for Live TV because of the 29/59 frame rate bug. The Intel HD Graphics 2000/3000 with latest drivers does film mode near perfect, so that frame rate issue is mute. If you are just watching ripped HD movies the base 2011 Mac Mini will be fine with a memory upgrade. You can do the 2nd HDD and memory yourself for far less than Apple's BTO.

My experience was Plex / MythTV was similar. Not nearly as polished at the Windows 7 offerings.

The base Mini still has the 24.00 fps bug, nearly all BDs are mastered at 23.976 fps. That results in frame drops every 30-40 seconds. That might not bug you, but it sure as heck bugs me. Re-synching is not an option since I need multi-channel audio to work with my AVR. Also, the base level Mini does not have hardware capable of outputting HD audio, so it will never do it. .. at least the next model up has the faint hope this can happen some day, and probably works just fine doing this under Windows 7.

Missing remote checked the latest driver and said it was 23.96x fps and varied slightly with the latest drivers. Previously, the work around was to disable UAC (some kind of Easter egg). Very few cards actually hit 23.976 dead on when tested.

 

[jmpage2]

23.976 playback is something that has to be in the hardware, and with sandy bridge, it's not there. There are no driver workarounds that are going to fix it.

Now, there are plenty of ways to try to workaround the issue, such as re-sync of the video in software, but all of that stuff is pretty hit or miss, and of course, if you also use an AVR for audio it is further complicated. Apparently 99% of the people with a Mini for "HTPC" use, simply have the thing plugged into a cheap HDTV and that's it.

What's amazing to me is how many people claim to be big Mac Mini HTPC buffs, and yet I have not been able to get answers to the most basic of questions about the capabilities of the 2010 vs 2011 Mini for full BD rip 1080P playback either under OS X or under Windows.

While I love Apple hardware and design (and OS X!) it is seeming increasingly like the smart move for me to make would spend $400 on a beater HTPC box and just use that, since it would at least have all the capabilities that I need.

 

[Phantom Gremlin]

23.976 playback is something that has to be in the hardware, and with sandy bridge, it's not there. There are no driver workarounds that are going to fix it.

Do you have any pointers to other theads / forums that discuss this issue in more detail?

While I love Apple hardware and design (and OS X!) it is seeming increasingly like the smart move for me to make would spend $400 on a beater HTPC box and just use that, since it would at least have all the capabilities that I need.

Can you buy something off the shelf for $400? Or are you talking about what it would cost you to buy a kit of parts and screw the thing together? And with a kit of parts, I think Win 7 sets you back about $100 right there, correct?

 

[jmpage2]

Do you have any pointers to other theads / forums that discuss this issue in more detail?



Can you buy something off the shelf for $400? Or are you talking about what it would cost you to buy a kit of parts and screw the thing together? And with a kit of parts, I think Win 7 sets you back about $100 right there, correct?

There are quite a few threads about it at xbmc.org. If you do a google search on "sandy bridge 23.976" you will get several articles from places like Anandtech that talk about the continued problem with 24fps video output from Intel video chipsets.

However, a developer at XBMC just responded to a thread over there in the Mac forum saying that XBMC can fix this through re-sampling and it's a non issue. Not so sure I buy that as re-sampling has it's own problems.

$400 would be a DIY machine (consisting only of cpu, motherboard, ram, case and hard drive) plus the cost of the OS. However, it is widely reported that for HTPC use, the Mini is more capable under Windows than it is under OS X anyways, so I might have to cough up for a Windows license in either event.

 

[Osamede]

Library management is one thing, but for playback just use the VLC freeware: it does it all on the Mac Mini - and that's with the 2010 version. I cant imagine the new 2011 is any less capable.

I've had the Popcorn Hour box and its fine for what it is but GUI was just prehistoric. Browsing the web on that - forget it.

Getting the Mac Mini and having media player, speedy HTPC and powerful server all rolled into one is priceless. Its a totally different ballgame from a basic one-trick media player box. Different budget of course, but you get what you pay for. I'd rather have it in one box that to buy a media player here, then go out and buy a crappy Synology or QNAP NAS and then spend time to integrate them, update firmware, manage network and all that.

 

[jmpage2]

Library management is one thing, but for playback just use the VLC freeware: it does it all on the Mac Mini - and that's with the 2010 version. I cant imagine the new 2011 is any less capable.

I've had the Popcorn Hour box and its fine for what it is but GUI was just prehistoric. Browsing the web on that - forget it.

Getting the Mac Mini and having media player, speedy HTPC and powerful server all rolled into one is priceless. Its a totally different ballgame from a basic one-trick media player box. Different budget of course, but you get what you pay for. I'd rather have it in one box that to buy a media player here, then go out and buy a crappy Synology or QNAP NAS and then spend time to integrate them, update firmware, manage network and all that.

Library management is just as big of a "feature" for HTPC as playback reliability. As far as I know, the Mini will not do anything with a Dolby TrueHD track other than send it out as 2.0 channel stereo. While I understand a lot of people could care less, I rip the original BDs, include the HD audio track and expect it to work (whether it is converted to PCM, core audio extracted, etc).

The reality is that for $400 I have ordered components and OS to build a Windows 7 based HTPC that should be capable of playing back all of my media in XBMC with either PCM output or DTS core output. Additionally this box will be based on an SSD drive so boot, access, and search times should be much much better than they would be on a Mini with a 5400 RPM disk.

I have owned Minis before and my house is chock full of Apple devices, but in this particular case it is just not going to cut it.

Also, referring to SMB class NAS devices like QNAP and Synology as "crappy" is just highlighting your ignorance level. Those boxes are tanks with SMB class power supplies, 3 year warranties and actual support if your box dies and you need help recovering your data. I have a DS1511+ and never have any issues with it AT ALL. They came out with a patch that fixed TM backups in Lion about 2 weeks after the OS shipped, which is pretty damn good. Have fun with whatever storage solution you are using, but the Synology and QNAP stuff is not "crappy" at all. If you knew dick about storage you'd know that already.

 

[Osamede]

Also, referring to SMB class NAS devices like QNAP and Synology as "crappy" is just highlighting your ignorance level. Those boxes are tanks with SMB class power supplies, 3 year warranties and actual support if your box dies and you need help recovering your data.

Only ignorance would be yours as you're insulting me without ever stopping to think why I said what I said or to ask me. I've had the Popcorn hour and it was a nice toy - if I wanted to spend half my life on NMT forums, yes. The QNAP server I had struggled to do basic backup to a standard windows drive. My questions and those of others on the QNAP forums were ignored for months - until I went on an external forum and slammed them. Suddenly now QNAP turns up on that forum trying to spin - after ignoring its own users on its own forums. And no the problem was never solved either.

So spare me the self serving drivel please. Been there, done that not interested whatsoever. I dont mind an opposing opinion, but calling me names with no basis regarding a product that I sacrificed my own hard earned money for is just plain stupid of you - and pretty much reduces you to a zero in my view.

 

[qsoundrich]

The base Mini still has the 24.00 fps bug, nearly all BDs are mastered at 23.976 fps. That results in frame drops every 30-40 seconds. That might not bug you, but it sure as heck bugs me. Re-synching is not an option since I need multi-channel audio to work with my AVR. Also, the base level Mini does not have hardware capable of outputting HD audio, so it will never do it. .. at least the next model up has the faint hope this can happen some day, and probably works just fine doing this under Windows 7.

Can you explain what is in the up-level Mini that the base model doesn't have with respect to audio output? I assume one would need some sort of external (USB or Firewire) sound card to output 5.1 or 7.1.

 

[henchman]

Get a boxee bx, and stream to that from wherever your media resides using Vuze.
Super simple.

 

[jmpage2]

Get a boxee bx, and stream to that from wherever your media resides using Vuze.
Super simple.

I have a boxee box. It is "okay" but it has dropouts of audio and can't even convert Dolby-True to PCM (like XBMC does). Even core DTS now has dropouts.. very annoying.

Anyways, I bought parts for an HTPC, so problem is sort of solved for me.

----------

Can you explain what is in the up-level Mini that the base model doesn't have with respect to audio output? I assume one would need some sort of external (USB or Firewire) sound card to output 5.1 or 7.1.

base model, as far as I know does not support HDMI 1.4 and bitstream HD audio. The next level up one has bitstream HD audio (under windows), should support 23.976 much better, etc.

 

[Drag'nGT]

How does the Mini handle hooking up to the HDTV? Any under/overscanning issues?

I have no need or concern for ripping videos. So since all I'm doing is playing 720p and 1080p video rips... Both models should perform almost identically. Correct?

 

[shortcut3d]

How does the Mini handle hooking up to the HDTV? Any under/overscanning issues?

I have no need or concern for ripping videos. So since all I'm doing is playing 720p and 1080p video rips... Both models should perform almost identically. Correct?

I had over scan with both the integrated and dedicated graphics connecting via HDMI. I set the LCD TVs to full pixel and everything is resolved. The bootcamp Intel drivers have a setting for over / under scan correction. I did not see these settings in the ATI/AMD drivers. I installed the AMD CC drivers and have all the settings.

 

[Drag'nGT]

I had over scan with both the integrated and dedicated graphics connecting via HDMI. I set the LCD TVs to full pixel and everything is resolved. The bootcamp Intel drivers have a setting for over / under scan correction. I did not see these settings in the ATI/AMD drivers. I installed the AMD CC drivers and have all the settings.

Thanks. There really should be a fix on the company side to this over/underscanning issue.

My HTPC doesn't seem to give me the 1:1 pixel matching I want no matter what setting I've tried.