I recently sold a custom built HTPC that I used as a media center on my TV. I just purchased a new 55" LG LED tv and I am going to want to get another HTPC type setup. I was wondering who here uses their mini as a media center. It will mainly be used to watch movies, play music, and surf the web on my TV. I was also thinking about getting a blu ray drive and installing that into an enclosure to use on the mac mini so i can watch blu ray as well. Any input would be greatly appreciated.
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Thinking about purchasing a Mac Mini in the near future.
- Thread starter lickitysplit
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If memory serves, you cannot play blu-ray movies from the disk. There are some external drives that allow for the burning of the disks though.
You may also be able to rip them, but they take up massive amounts of space.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/548905/
You may also be able to rip them, but they take up massive amounts of space.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/548905/
Lots of us use mini htpc's. Take a look at the AppleTV and Home Theater forum.
Good luck with your setup. I think you'll love it!
Good luck with your setup. I think you'll love it!
So your saying that even if I bought a blu-ray drive, plugged it in via usb, and had a proper blu-ray video player installed i wouldn't be able to play a blu-ray from the disc?
Someone may be able to provide you more help on this subject, I know what W7 supports blu-ray playback but OSX doesn't because Steve Jobs is pushing digital downloads instead of physical disks and media. The external disk should be fine, you could burn and read data to the disks but from what I gather, the movie playback isn't supported because of the DRM on the disk. Here is a thread that is talking about Blu-ray playback.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/567391/
Short answer, no. There are no 'proper' blu-ray players for Mac OS playback of blu-ray disks. As mentioned, you would need to rip the disks using something like MakeMKV. From there you can playback the rip using VLC or PLEX (don't think you'll have 5.1 surround but someone will correct me if I'm wrong) or if space is an issue, you can encode using Handbrake to .mp4 or .m4v format.
Only way to play native blu-ray disks would be to boot up into Windows.
You can play Blu-ray discs, but you won't get the menus. It's a round-about way and inconvenient for many, but it is doable provided you have a beefy enough Mac (the audio is the problem, not the video). See my sig for the details.
If the source is 5.1 Dolby Digital or DTS, you will have 5.1 surround by passthrough to a DD or DTS capable receiver.
You can use Make MKV's streaming server to VLC for disc playback provided your Mac can handle the AC3 or DTS extraction from True-HD or DTS-MA tracks.
Thanks for the clarification Cave Man--don't playback my rips and don't have 5.1 surround system so was just going off what I thought I'd read.
Again, didn't know that but considering he's looking to get a Mini (not the most robust Mac), I'd guess this probably isn't an option.
Cool thanks for all the info guys. I had no idea that OSX blocked Blu-rays like that. I'm glad I posted up about that before I bought all the hardware and wouldn't be able to play them. I may have to just build another Windows machine for my HTPC since it will be such a hassle to get a mac mini to do that.
