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MacMini as a media centre, opinions?

Irishman said:
Am I wrong?
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It's meaningless not for the reasons you listed, but because 95% (or more) of consumers don't buy the more expensive 7.1 audio systems (they're happy with 5.1), can't tell the subtle differences in dynamic range between HD audio and DD/DTS 5.1 (I sure can't, and I've listened carefully in a controlled environment) and most Blu-rays aren't mastered with 7.1 but only 5.1 (though I'm sure that number will increase as time passes).
 
Cave Man said:
It's meaningless not for the reasons you listed, but because 95% (or more) of consumers don't buy the more expensive 7.1 audio systems (they're happy with 5.1), can't tell the subtle differences in dynamic range between HD audio and DD/DTS 5.1 (I sure can't, and I've listened carefully in a controlled environment) and most Blu-rays aren't mastered with 7.1 but only 5.1 (though I'm sure that number will increase as time passes).
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Well, it's one thing to decry 7.1 as being unnecessary (which I agree with), but a totally different thing to dismiss the difference between lossy and lossless film soundtracks as "subtle".

I've not got anywhere near a "golden ear", nor am I one of those gents who are constantly looking for the next-big thing in audio.

However, I'm fortunate enough to have a Pioneer BDP51FD blu-ray player from over a year back that has built-in Wolfson Digital-to-Analog Convertors. For those who don't know, these are audiophile-grade DACs. They help the 2 channel stereo sound greatly for CDs. Blu-ray audio through the appropriate DACs is amazing. The long-story short is, I have my BDP connected via 5 channel analog connectors and optical as well. My 6 year old HTIB Yamaha receiver doesn't support the lossless formats. However, since I'm letting the BDP do all the decoding, I can toggle back and forth between the lossless soundtrack and the lossy one.

The difference is not subtle. More dynamic punch, wider soundstage. The sound really leaps out from your speakers in a very powerful way.

My wife hears it too. For XMas I'm getting her the Blu-ray concert of Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds at Radio City. Jaw-dropping sound, guys.

Check it out.
 
Another vote for Mac Mini + Plex here!

Been using this setup with a Samsung LED for half a year now and couldn't be happier. The new Plex media manager makes it even easier to get the right information for all your movies and TV shows.
If you've got a decent broadband connection you can use the wide range of streaming content, too.

I'm using a late '09 Mini with 2.26GHz, 2GB RAM and a 40GB Intel SSD and 1080p is no problem whatsoever (20Mbit to keep the file size reasonable). I actually never tried uncompressed BR rips because I don't see the difference anyways, plus the size would ridiculously high (easily 50GB depending on the length of the movie).
 
Cave Man said:
It has been a few years since I did this "testing" so things may have improved substantially. How much did your 7.1 system cost?
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I don't have a 7.1 system. I have a 5 year old cheap-ass Home-Theater-in-a-Box setup I originally got for $300. It's a 110 watt-per-channel rated receiver. The satellite speakers I've moved to bedrooms and upgraded to larger bookshelves that are admittedly mismatched (Polk S4s in the back, and Klipsch RB-51s in the front.

So, no great sums invested here.

I've got more in the TV than the audio components.
 
Osamede said:
Ditto here.

Of course there is always a "but" and that is that Plex is too inflexible. It is too dependent on automated metadata filling with no good manual option for tagging the video files. And right now the Plex auto metadata filing is f-ed. Hopefully they will sort it out, but no indication at the moment that will happen, as they are pretending to be non-commerical and acting as if they really dont know why IMDB no longer wants to give them free metadata.
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I came here to see if anyone else was having the same issue. It annoys me that with all these TV shows I've ripped from DVDs, to make them show up in Plex, I need to go and change the names of these files to include season/episode number, just to make them show up in Plex. It's nice that they want to go grab the info from a database and make it all pretty, but there should also be an option to simply display the files you have, as you have them listed, and if it can't look them up in a database, so be it.
 
MattG said:
I came here to see if anyone else was having the same issue. It annoys me that with all these TV shows I've ripped from DVDs, to make them show up in Plex, I need to go and change the names of these files to include season/episode number, just to make them show up in Plex. It's nice that they want to go grab the info from a database and make it all pretty, but there should also be an option to simply display the files you have, as you have them listed, and if it can't look them up in a database, so be it.
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there is. you go to Video Plug Ins (or maybe its applications) and hit "c" and Add Source and pick your video folder or harddrive
 
DaveNinja said:
there is. you go to Video Plug Ins (or maybe its applications) and hit "c" and Add Source and pick your video folder or harddrive
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I'm pretty sure I've already done that. I don't think that's the issue. According to them, the files for TV Shows (movies too I'm assuming) have to be named in a certain way, or Plex server just ignores them. That's stupid and shouldn't be the way it works.

Read:
http://wiki.plexapp.com/index.php/Plex_Nine#File_Naming
 
DoFoT9 said:
oh come on. stop spreading RIDICULOUS crap. my 2006, Core Duo, 2.16ghz MacBook Pro will play uncompressed 1080p rips fine using Plex. :mad:
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I might very well ask you to do the same. But, then, I'm not as rude as you are.

The 2009 Mini could not do this. No it couldn't. No. It. Couldn't. Take it from me. I've owned one.

I spent more than a week arguing with a handful of members who insisted that "1080p" video worked fine; only to discover that they were all transcoding or remuxing their files to lower the bitrate and/or that their playback stuttered a bit, but that they didn't mind.


You cannot assume that people coming to forums have the same standards as you. Which is why, in my posts, I expressly addressed both 100% Blu-ray dumps and transcodes. You did nothing so specific. You simply said that your rips "play" and that the manner in which they "play", you consider, is "fine". What does that mean?

I can "play" Crysis on my 2006 desktop PC; with all the settings down at minimum, at twelve frames per second. If I consider that "fine", do you not think that I should bother to mention the finer details when advising somebody else...?


EDIT: For the record, I don't want the public debate of several months ago to reopen. It's all been said. If you've got a problem with my opinions, send me a private message.
 
MattG said:
I'm pretty sure I've already done that. I don't think that's the issue. According to them, the files for TV Shows (movies too I'm assuming) have to be named in a certain way, or Plex server just ignores them. That's stupid and shouldn't be the way it works.

Read:
http://wiki.plexapp.com/index.php/Plex_Nine#File_Naming
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you have to do the proper naming if you want the tv shows to show up properly in the "TV Shows" section (where it shows episode information), but you can also just view them in their folders/directories through Video Plug Ins.
I have Generation Kill in my TV Shows folder but the plex media server wont see it (even though its on theTVCB.com) so i cant view it through TV Shows, i have to go to Video Plug Ins and find the Generation Kill files. kind of like how it is on XBMC if you dont do the scraping.
once we can manually fix/add stuff to the plex media server, things will be easier
 
dh2005 said:
I might very well ask you to do the same. But, then, I'm not as rude as you are.
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wow. hostile. ok ;)

*stuff*

EDIT: For the record, I don't want the public debate of several months ago to reopen. It's all been said. If you've got a problem with my opinions, send me a private message.
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i dont have a problem with your personal opinion, nor your experiences.

to begin with - we are talking about the 2010 mini here, which CAN play 1080p rips perfectly fine. i am well aware of the 2009 problems, which have to do with its ability to decode DTS properly. the video component itself is not the problem here, and i do not see your problems relevant to this thread.

secondly, i said uncompressed 1080p rips. this means they are..well.. uncompressed. 100% dumps, as per your terminology. and i refer "fine" as being able to watch it without any stutters - using Plex. sure, frames are dropped (as i play over the network), but i dont see that as a relevant point.

in any case, experiences vary - they are totally different machines. but as far as i am concerned, a BD "dump" should not have any problems playing on a new mini, not that the OP seems concerned about that.
 
Please read my earlier post again (the one you got in a surprisingly "hostile" twist about, yourself...).

Firstly, you'll note that I used the word, "unprocessed", rather than "uncompressed". You will also note that I was openly commenting on the 2009 Mini, and thereafter stating that the 2010 Mini could be up to the task, but that I didn't know for sure. What part of that is "RIDICULOUS crap"? It's entirely factually correct. Seems to me you were just spoiling for a fight.

Do you know for sure, about the 2010 Mini? Do you own one? Have you run high-bitrate HD media files, of different video and audio codecs, and found them to be flawless without exception? If not, you shouldn't be making statements on which other people might rely.

"1080p" this, "1080p" that... if it were up to me, there'd be a boycott on "1080p" in this forum. So, so many people habitually misunderstand it that it almost has no meaning.

1080p is the resolution, alone. There are many other facets to a video stream that determine the power required to play it. This is why, for instance, the "1080p" video stream on The Orphanage is around 11GB, and the "1080p" video stream on the Transformers disc is close to 30GB. Yes, it's a longer film - but it's not three times as long. There is more video data in every frame, making the stream of a larger size and 'harder' to play.

Ignorance as to the difference between "Blu-ray 1080p" and "torrent 1080p" is extremely prevalent around here. Many members consider them to be the same, and they are not. And because the OP hadn't expressly stipulated his level of knowledge and intentions, I provided a balanced and factually correct point of view. My comments are potentially relevant (only potentially, which I acknowledged), which is why I offered them.


EDIT: ... and, by the way; I don't know how you came to hold the opinion that the 2009 Mini's problem was related to DTS, but it wasn't. I had problems with Dolby Digital and LPCM media, also.

And dropped frames are important to me, and I think you should be telling other people about that issue when you're advising them. It's entirely possible to watch media over a network without dropped frames (my $100US media streamer manages it very comfortably...), thus, it is worthy of note. It is a shortcoming of your own particular setup, and not the unavoidable issue that you seem to suggest. Whereas you consider this "fine", many other people do not.
 
Rad said:
I can play the raw files from a Blu-Ray disk ripped by AnyDVD HD on my Mac Mini 2010 in XMBC and Plex, preserving the surround sound.
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Thank you for this. I missed it, what with everything else going on.

Can I ask; is it necessary to reduce HD audio streams to their cores? And when you play the files, is the playback experience in any way different to watching the movie from disc? I'm thinking specifically about stuttering, dropped frames, artefacting, audio dropout, loss of audio-synch... basically anything that isn't "right".

Thanks in advance.
 
dh2005 said:
The 2009 Mini could not do this. No it couldn't. No. It. Couldn't. Take it from me. I've owned one.
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You seem to be very confident with your statements. Unfortunately, I have to disagree.

Generally I transcode my BluRay rips as well, simply because the file size of uncompressed (or transcoded or whatever you want to call it) movies is just insane and doesn't provide considerably more quality than a compressed movie that is only half the size. Well at least I don't see any difference on my 55" screen, so I'm fine with compressing them.

Anyway, I got the Sherlock Holmes BluRay last week and wanted to see if you're right in saying that the 2009 Mini can't play uncompressed movies.
Well, I ripped the movie made an .mkv of it (with a file size of 23GB) and fired up Plex.

No problems whatsoever on my 2009 Mac Mini with 2.26GHz. Average CPU usage is 87% (out of 200).

But that's just my two cents...
 
Transporteur said:
Anyway, I got the Sherlock Holmes BluRay last week and wanted to see if you're right in saying that the 2009 Mini can't play uncompressed movies.
Well, I ripped the movie made an .mkv of it (with a file size of 23GB) and fired up Plex.

No problems whatsoever on my 2009 Mac Mini with 2.26GHz. Average CPU usage is 87% (out of 200).
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The problem that dh2005 had was with HD audio (True-HD and DTS-MA). Your MKV files won't have those, but instead the AC3 and DTS cores, which are easier for Plex to transcode on the fly for analog audio, or for passthrough to a receiver capable of decoding those to 5.1 audio.

The real test of you Mini is to do a straight rip with the HD audio intact, then try to have Plex or XBMC play it without stuttering.
 
Cave Man said:
.
The real test of you Mini is to do a straight rip with the HD audio intact, then try to have Plex or XBMC play it without stuttering.
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So you're saying I should let Plex play the m2ts file(s) instead of a single mkv?

I was always under the assumption that .mkv files created with makeMkv are completely uncompressed because it literally is done in a view minutes instead of compressing it with handbrake which takes an hour if not more.
 
Transporteur said:
You seem to be very confident with your statements. Unfortunately, I have to disagree.

Generally I transcode my BluRay rips as well, simply because the file size of uncompressed (or transcoded or whatever you want to call it) movies is just insane and doesn't provide considerably more quality than a compressed movie that is only half the size. Well at least I don't see any difference on my 55" screen, so I'm fine with compressing them.

Anyway, I got the Sherlock Holmes BluRay last week and wanted to see if you're right in saying that the 2009 Mini can't play uncompressed movies.
Well, I ripped the movie made an .mkv of it (with a file size of 23GB) and fired up Plex.

No problems whatsoever on my 2009 Mac Mini with 2.26GHz. Average CPU usage is 87% (out of 200).

But that's just my two cents...
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HD audio will push your CPU usage over the top. Nigh-on guaranteed. I couldn't make anything run properly with HD audio.

I might also add, just because one Blu-ray rip runs fine doesn't mean that they all will. I don't have that disc (although I intend to buy it...), so I can't comment specifically on that video stream, but some Blu-ray streams have higher bitrates than others. For instance; in my testing, reducing The Hurt Locker to an .MKV made it work for me, but the same treatment for The Men Who Stare At Goats didn't fix it. It still stuttered occasionally.


EDIT: The debate that I had several months ago is being recounted out of context, here. I'll summarise it, if I may.


I was advised by a couple of members on this board that the 2009 Mini could run Blu-ray quality rips, and the Apple Store goon from whom I bought the machine gave a similar view. At the time that I received this advice (January 2010), hardware acceleration had not been implemented in Plex - and, let me tell you, at the time that I was given that advice it was outright lies.

I began to complain about this issue in May or so, and I was advised in the course of my complaints that hardware acceleration had since been implemented. I downloaded the new binaries, and the performance improved appreciably - but it was still flawed.

My 'crusade', in relation to this issue, was not against the 2009 Mini but against the excessively partisan advice that had influenced me in my decision to buy one. The 2009 Mini is a very serviceable machine, and I have no personal problem with it. On the contrary, there was a lot about that little computer that I really liked.


If the Plex binaries have been further improved to circumvent this issue, I would be pleased to hear it. But, four months ago, without the merest shadow of any doubt, the 2009 Mini could not, would not, and did not play unprocessed Blu-ray rips without stuttering. Honestly. If I were making it up, do you not think that I might've got bored by now...?
 
dh2005 said:
HD audio will push your CPU usage over the top. Nigh-on guaranteed. I couldn't make anything run properly with HD audio.
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I can't test that, but there's no reason to disbelieve you. Cave Man mentioned it as well. Since the audio codec is software rendered, the CPU seems to be the limiting factor in this case. The new Mac Mini comes with 2.4 to 2.66GHz. Might be enough, might not be.

dh2005 said:
I might also add, just because one Blu-ray rip runs fine doesn't mean that they all will. I don't have that disc (although I intend to buy it...), so I can't comment specifically on that video stream, but some Blu-ray streams have higher bitrates than others. For instance; in my testing, reducing The Hurt Locker to an .MKV made it work for me, but the same treatment for The Men Who Stare At Goats didn't fix it. It still stuttered occasionally.

But, four months ago, without the merest shadow of any doubt, the 2009 Mini could not, would not, and did not play unprocessed Blu-ray rips without stuttering. Honestly. If I were making it up, do you not think that I might've got bored by now...?
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Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that you're making this up, just trying to out what might have caused your Mini to fail on playing BD rips. As I said, I haven't tried with HD audio (which I cannot anyway) and only with a single BluRay till now.

Anyway, I compressed the original 23GB mkv file to a 10GB file (Handbrake) and the quality loss is not noticeable (put videos side by side on my 30"). No reason to keep the uncompressed files.
 
I shall respectfully disagree with you on the final point. I've done double-blind testing and never failed to spot the transcode.

If I appear prickly and quick to defend myself, it's because I'm all too often waging a war against the prevailing belief in this whole forum that, if Apple made something, it must be awesome. I say to that argument that the 2009 Mini was awesome in certain respects, but that it absolutely could not do something that a $100US media streamer from 2007 can do without breaking a sweat, and that this is disappointing and worthy of criticism.

Anyway; enough war stories.


I suppose the closest thing to a 'gold standard' would be an unprocessed Blu-ray rip of Avatar. I'm told on another forum that this is the movie with the highest average bitrate of any commercial Blu-ray release. If the Mini can run that, with HD audio, without so much as a dropped frame, the issue will be resolved (one or two problems with Plex and VC-1 streams aside, as reported by Cave Man).
 
This has been a really informative thread. Combined with another thread, it's kept me from purchasing the Mini Server Edition. I thought the extra "beef" of that system would be worth the $300, but I'm seeing here that the base model will meet my needs.

I'm currently using the PS3 to play my video files. Will the video quality be drastically different with the Mini?

Thanks for the help.
 
Media Player Vs Mini MAC

I'm sure some pp love to use mini MAC as HTPC...

But i'm telling you... with that set up... I have to turn it on every time when my wife wants to use it. I'm tire of it, I got us a media player (DUNE PRIME 3.0 from AMAZON) Man! it made my life so much easier...

So my 2 cents, if you have a non-technical partner get a HD media player
 
Nothing here solves the problems of a non-technical spouse. With multiple pieces of equipment and a Harmony One remote everything still gets out of sync, requiring my manual intervention!

I could find nothing in an out of the box media center that did everything I needed. I still need the flexibility of a computer to handle the video/audio/photo media from the server and streaming from Netflix, the TV networks, and other sources. And the potential is there to add more sources in the future.
 
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