Problems playing 1080p (Mini 2010)

[Pajaro]

Hi, I recently bought the new Mac Mini (unibody) and I have to say I'm completely disappointed with its performance playing 1080p videos (.mkv format). I'm using Plex (with the hardware acceleration binary) and also tried XMBC but it's impossible for the Mac Mini to play 1080p smoothly and without lagging. The average weight of the archives I use is 12 GB, therefore a high bit rate.

I'm really surprised about this because I thought the mini was more than capable of playing 1080p with its hardware. Maybe I should upgrade the RAM or try something else??? Does anyone know how to play any 1080p video with no problems???

Thanks in advance.

 

[shadowarachh]

it's a bit different but I had an atom ion rig and got it to play large .mkv files using vlc. just make sure to turn on gpu hardware acceleration in the settings as it's off by default.

 

[indg]

it's a bit different but I had an atom ion rig and got it to play large .mkv files using vlc. just make sure to turn on gpu hardware acceleration in the settings as it's off by default.

there is no gpu acceleration for vlc on the mac as of v1.1.3.

i've played numerous 12GB+ 1080p mkv videos on the mini with no issues (vlc). this is on a stock 2.4ghz mini with 2gb of ram. the problems you are experience are not typical.

 

[Pajaro]

It seems that the problem was no related with the mac mini, actually it was my TV (sony bravia). I played with the settings of the TV and found an option called "Movie Mode". I turned it off and the movie started playing without lagging. Don't know what's that option for but it was the culprit.

We should start to spred this because I've seen a lot of people in the same situation. There is a problem when using bravias as screens for computers. The solution sometimes is related with the "Motionflow" as I've red in some forums. I Hope this helps other people in the future!

 

[indg]

i've heard of similar problems before. sometimes it's better described as a "jittery" motion, like it's dropping frames or pauses for a millisecond repeatedly, likely caused by the video signal being out of sync.

some tv's have "gaming modes" that speed up image response to prevent ghosting or tearing, which may help with the "lagging" picture problems. i don't know what motionflow does, but it must have been doing some heaving image processing in an attempt to make the pic look better, but actually made it look worse in your case. either way good to know.

 

[shadowarachh]

sorry for the misinformation. I'm new to Mac as of two days ago!

on a separate note, I always turn off motion flow. I think it looks terrible.

 

[ajsimeon]

I've been playing around with my sony bravia tv as well. All the settings I tried jittered but what made it silky smooth was changing the refresh rate of bravia to 24hz instead of 60hz in the display option. After that I was able to do any kind of setting like cinemotion and other adjustments.

 

[mangrove]

If I understand your problem, I have 8GB RAM in the new Mini and have no problems.

I must say though that I will soon be upgrading the HDD to SSD because I truly believe the 5200 rpm HDD even with the RAM I have is the real bottleneck for me, even though on movies I get no problems.

You did not say what GB RAM you have, but if its 2GB then get one stick of 4GB and if that proves too small then you can put another 4GB stick in it.

Hope this helps, but I have to admit I am a novice.

 

[ajsimeon]

^ I felt a serious performance bump upgrading the ram from 2gb to 5gb with the added 4gig stick I bought. Almost to a point where I don't think an SSD is necessary for me. I have an intel x25m in my macbook pro so I understand the speed of it but for my needs for my mini, I can't justify buying one at the moment because I was pleasantly surprised how much better speed I'm getting with the added ram.

 

[Baby Mac]

... then get one stick of 4GB and if that proves too small then you can put another 4GB stick in it.

The advice I have seen is to use matched pairs for RAM, not one stick of 4GB, which sucks if you buy two 2GB strips and then want to add more RAM later. But I cannot speak from personal experience, since I have not used mismatched RAM before.

PS: I'm glad the problem was not the mini.