Mac Mini and high quality 1080p playback?

[roguegeek]

Hello people. I'm ripping all of my Blu-Ray disks down using MakeMKV, then I'm throwing them through Handbrake to make a more optimized (but still very high quality) MKV with all of the trimmings and stuffings (1080p, multiple subtitles, multiple audio tracks). I know I can build a Windows-based HTPC from scratch to hook up to my HDTV that will be strong enough to play back this kind of high quality 1080p content. Would probably run it through something like Boxee or XBMP.

Instead of putting together a Windows-based HTPC, is a new 2.26GHz Mac Mini with its NVIDIA GeForce 9400M GPU strong enough to play this content back smoothly? Has anyone actually tried this content on that machine (or a new MB or MBP which has the same GPU)?

I've tried this content on an older 2GHz Intel Core Duo MBP with the ATI Radeon X1600 GPU and playback was anything but smooth, but maybe that's to be expected on an older machine. Thoughts?

 

[spinnerlys]

I can play 1080p .mkv files fine with my 9400M (but on a 17" 2.8GHz MBP with 40-60% CPU usage), but the bigger the bitrate the more lagging you will get though.

 

[roguegeek]

I can play 1080p .mkv files fine with my 9400M (but on a 17" 2.8GHz MBP with 40-60% CPU usage), but the bigger the bitrate the more lagging you will get though.

Bitrate really is everything and I completely understand that. What are the general bitrates you are playing your 1080p content at?

 

[spinnerlys]

Bitrate really is everything and I completely understand that. What are the general bitrates you are playing your 1080p content at?

Only around 1.2MByte/s.

 

[roguegeek]

Only around 1.2MByte/s.

Wow! Really? That's so small. Yeah, now I'm even more nervous.

 

[spinnerlys]

Have a look here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/850469/

There it is said that 20Mbit/s seems to be the limit, which is only 2.5MByte/s.

 

[brentsg]

Maybe I'm missing something here.

I have ripped probably 150 HD DVD and Blu-ray titles and I've yet to find anything that makes my Mini (2.26) stutter with Plex. I don't do anything except rip the raw *.m2ts file either, so they are full bitrate.

 

[psxp]

Maybe I'm missing something here.

I have ripped probably 150 HD DVD and Blu-ray titles and I've yet to find anything that makes my Mini (2.26) stutter with Plex. I don't do anything except rip the raw *.m2ts file either, so they are full bitrate.

Same here.. I have used several downloads that are 1080p and stream from my DLINK NAS over powerline LAN All works great!!!

 

[Cave Man]

Yeah, as long as you extract the AC3 or DTS cores during the rip, any current Mac should play the m2ts files just fine. Even my 1.66 MacBook Air (rev C) plays them fine in Plex.

 

[Cloudane]

Yeah, another vote for Plex here. 1080p MKVs have been a bit stuttery on my Mac Mini (early 2009 model) using VLC and I thought that was the end of it (too slow), but Plex plays them perfectly. It's magic

 

[RasterScan]

Yes, Plex is great! I too have an early 2009 Mini running at 1080 and have no problems playing high bit rate HD video.