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The new 1.83 ghz mac mini to handle 1080p?

P

paetrick

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 11, 2007
193
0
Hi, can the new mac mini handle downloaded 1080p movies? /I know apple homepage states that 128MB of graphicmemory is needed, but i got other who says their old mini plays 1080p without dropping frames - are the lying? :p

Please give me a correct answer, can the new mac mini (1.83 ghz core 2 duo) play downloaded 1080p movies/trailers or whatever without dropping frames?

Thinking of using it as htpc, but if it can't handle 1080p, mac mini isn't an option for it :p
 
Even my 2.0ghz Macbook Pro drops a few frames on some of the HD content from Apple's Quicktime site. But (on the Mac at least) decoding video is mostly CPU, so anyone with a 1.83ghz machine should be able to tell you how the computer performs.
 
I can confirm that the 1.83 C2D does indeed drop frames while playing full HD content. I use my mini as an HTPC and it is connected to a Full HD 37" LCD TV. I tried playing videos from here and the mini was constantly dropping frames in scenes with many moving objects or fast camera motion. 720p plays without a hitch though
 
Compile 'em all said:
I can confirm that the 1.83 C2D does indeed drop frames while playing full HD content. I use my mini as an HTPC and it is connected to a Full HD 37" LCD TV. I tried playing videos from here and the mini was constantly dropping frames in scenes with many moving objects or fast camera motion. 720p plays without a hitch though
Click to expand...

Daaaamn :(
 
I did another test by playing the 1080p files using VLC and they work much much better. Some files even don't have any dropped frames. I think quicktime taxes the CPU much more than VLC, that's why VLC doesn't drop frames but QT does.
 
Compile 'em all said:
I did another test by playing the 1080p files using VLC and they work much much better. Some files even don't have any dropped frames. I think quicktime taxes the CPU much more than VLC, that's why VLC doesn't drop frames but QT does.
Click to expand...

Okay, i really need it to be perfect with every movies in vlc, not that "some" drop frames. Thanks for testing :), btw the vlc movies you tried, are the . mkv?
 
Compile 'em all said:
I can confirm that the 1.83 C2D does indeed drop frames while playing full HD content. I use my mini as an HTPC and it is connected to a Full HD 37" LCD TV. I tried playing videos from here and the mini was constantly dropping frames in scenes with many moving objects or fast camera motion. 720p plays without a hitch though
Click to expand...

Couldn't the connection to apple's sever/your connection be a potential culprit for dropped frames in this situation, as well.

You might want to test content streamed/played directly from your HD. For instance, if you had your HD content on an external 7200RPM drive, and connected the HD via ethernet, you'd probably get great results (even on a Core Duo mini).
 
FatSweatyBlldog said:
Couldn't the connection to apple's sever/your connection be a potential culprit for dropped frames in this situation, as well.

You might want to test content streamed/played directly from your HD. For instance, if you had your HD content on an external 7200RPM drive, and connected the HD via ethernet, you'd probably get great results (even on a Core Duo mini).
Click to expand...

Apperently there is some slow down's in dowloaded 1080p movies as well on the 1.83 ghz.er =/, too bad... Because the 2.0 ghz can do it, but isn't worth it as a media center !
 
1080p downloads

You can try keeping the adverts - i think you need Quictime Pro for that function. I do that to test my bro's 1.66 Mini, I think that drops some frames in Quicktime - but I haven't tried in VLC.

THey're constantly working on improving playback of H.264 though - things will only get better!

F
 
FatSweatyBlldog said:
Couldn't the connection to apple's sever/your connection be a potential culprit for dropped frames in this situation, as well.

You might want to test content streamed/played directly from your HD. For instance, if you had your HD content on an external 7200RPM drive, and connected the HD via ethernet, you'd probably get great results (even on a Core Duo mini).
Click to expand...

I actually did this exact same thing with similar results, the 1.83 C2D still drops frames when playing 1080p content.

Care to try .mkv?!
Click to expand...

Link me to some to sample .mkvs and I can try them up for you.
 
It depends on (1) the codec in which the video is encoded and (2) the bit rate.

Generally speaking, the Mini handles MPEG-2 very well (including 1080) since the GMA950 has hardware acceleration for it. All DVDs and some Blu-Ray movies are encoded in MPEG-2. It will have trouble with high-bit rate (and some moderate bit rate) 1080 MPEG-4 H.264 because the GMA950 does not have HA for it, thus relies on the cpu for decoding. Many, perhaps most, Blu-Ray movies are encoded in this manner.
 
well if ur using quicktime it drops frames way mmore than vlc media or atleast on my computer i rely dont know why would anyone know if quicktime is actually slower or is it my computer
 
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