Rumour-busting: The Mac Mini as an HTPC

[DoFoT9]

maybe a dual core A4 chip with on board decoding. that would be nice. too bad it probably wont decode VC-1.

Rather annoying that it took so long... but hey. Now that it's happened, I'm pleased.

TBH i am not fussed by HDMI. DVI->HDMI converters are cheap and DVI is till the real winner WRT computing. for the home theatre use apple did a very smart thing giving the new Mini a HDMI - and this one will support sound now too im sure of it!

 

[dh2005]

Sure. I have a DVI-HDMI cable myself, and it's perfectly fine for transporting video. But, if I'm right, the inability of DVI to pass-through audio meant that the Mini had to decode HD audio codecs on-the-fly, which suffocated its HTPC capabilities. Perhaps the HDMI output, combined with the new GPU, will make the 2010 Mini deliver where the 2009 Mini has failed me.

 

[DoFoT9]

Sure. I have a DVI-HDMI cable myself, and it's perfectly fine for transporting video. But, if I'm right, the inability of DVI to pass-through audio meant that the Mini had to decode HD audio codecs on-the-fly, which suffocated its HTPC capabilities. Perhaps the HDMI output, combined with the new GPU, will make the 2010 Mini deliver where the 2009 Mini has failed me.

if you were to put an optical cable (mini toslink) into the 3.5mm audio output jack, the Mini will passthrough the audio to any amp/receiver that you may have in your home theatre

DVI is technically capable of providing audio, but its only more for desktop devices unfortunately.

 

[dh2005]

Well, sadly, I don't have an AVR at the moment (or rather, I do, but my father's 'borrowing' it... for two years, and counting), so it'd need to be HDMI audio into my television.

 

[Nahmeanz]

So I did a little reading and I've read that only ATI's Radeon HD 5xxx series handles TrueHD and DTS-MA. No Nvidia chips including the 320m in the Mac Mini can handle HD audio.

 

[Cave Man]

What do you mean by "handle"? Do you mean decode or passthrough?

 

[portishead]

I bought a 2010 server mini, and It has played 1080p files just fine. It also passes through DTS/dolby to my receiver.

I have a PCH C-200 also which is probably better, but if plex/3rd part apps can fix 24hz/60hz better, and output full range levels then it has the potential to beat out the C-200. Of course, it's a lot more expensive. Also needs hardware acceleration which they are working on.

 

[tom.bcn]

Well, sadly, I don't have an AVR at the moment (or rather, I do, but my father's 'borrowing' it... for two years, and counting), so it'd need to be HDMI audio into my television.

Perhaps I misunderstood but without an AV receiver, how are you playing the uncompressed audio? Through your TV?

 

[dh2005]

No, no. You've not misunderstood at all.

At the moment, I cannot 'enjoy' HD audio because I don't have an HD AVR. However, it is my intention to buy one, so I'm not willing to transcode or remux my Blu-ray rips to remove the HD audio, to make them playable on the Mini.

Hence, if the 2010 Mini can pass-through the core track from an HD audio stream, and the video runs completely smoothly (nothing less than 100% of the time, for all files), then it could be just the ticket for me.

 

[tom.bcn]

OK. Makes sense.

When I get my Mini, it'll be connected by HDMI to an OK (I.E. by no means great) Sony AVR, and from that to my TV. Now, I don't have a BD drive to rip Blu-rays but I'll try to get hold of a pure BD rip to see if I can reproduce your problem.

To be honest, as I have a PS3, I'm happy to watch my Blu-rays on that. But I'm intrigued to see if this is a genuine flaw in the Mini-as-HTPC. In time, I'll keep you posted.

 

[Nahmeanz]

What do you mean by "handle"? Do you mean decode or passthrough?

it can't bitstream truehd and dts-ma

 

[dh2005]

Thanks. I'd appreciate that.

 

[jmpage2]

Much appreciated, mate. All that I ask, arising from this thread, is that the more senior membership of this forum takes the time to ascertain exactly what standard of media experience a poster is looking for when they ask for Mac Mini HTPC advice.

If the person wants to run standard definition rips and HD transcodes, it can do it comfortably.

If the person wants to run full-on, 50/60Mbps Blu-ray dumps, not necessarily so... let's see what the new Mini can do.

I've followed this thread with a bit of interest, but I think you are missing the point.

Few media streamers can currently handle HD audio streams. In fact, I only know of two that currently can (the Dune 3.0 and the X1). Soon the Popcorn Hour players should have this capability too... we can hope. XBMC on Linux or Windows can currently do this but it's tricky and not all hardware is supported. XBMC itself has no native DTS-MA decoding or bitstreaming.

Now, let's get back to your complaints.

First of all, Plex is perfectly capable of playing back a full BD rip, without problems. I have been testing with my 2009 iMac and it plays all of my full BD rips without issue.

What the Mac Mini cannot do (and most media players cannot do) is play back the HD audio tracks of any BD movies. It can't do this in XBMC either.

Now, you have two choices. One choice is to get a different HTPC or media streamer that better suits your needs for playback of your HD audio. The other option is to transcode said HD audio so that you have BOTH the original HD audio track (which will hopefully be available on more devices at sometime in the future) as well as a nice fat 640kbps AC3 track.

This is pretty trivial to do with Clown_BD as the ripping tool and requires only a slight adjustment in your workflow.

I can completely understand your frustration, but you make it sound like the Mini is totally incapable in this department, when it is anything but (overpriced yes, underpowered, no) incapable. You also would think by your posts that there are an abundance of media streamers that can play HD audio, when the reality is that hardly any do and most of the ones that do have their own issues.

Now the Plex developers have said that if it's possible they would like to add this ability in Plex at some time in the future. So, you can take their word on that or not.

 

[FireWire2]

I've followed this thread with a bit of interest, but I think you are missing the point.

Few media streamers can currently handle HD audio streams....

This is incorrect

ANY HD Media with Sigma Design chipset SMP383x or later supports HD audio. There are at close, if not more to 20 players out there will do just that
Kaifa, MNT, Tomacro, DVICO, DUNE, BeVIX, HD vision...

Just google it you will see