Yes Virginia, the Mini can play Blu-Ray (rips)

[DoFoT9]

I have a few simple questions......

- What mini do I need in order to play Blue ray using plex? Will the 1.83 core 2 duo work with the ram maxed out?

- I currently have an imac as a desktop...My Library of videos will be coming to that machine...The mini will be plugged directly into my router....Imac is wireless... What is the most efficient and easiest way for the mini to work with my library? Should I just have an external drive on the mini and move everything on that over the network? Or just keep everything with the Imac on an external and have the mini pull everything off that...What do you guys do? What size drives are you guys running?

- no experience on this but apparently the 1.83ghz should play it fine, the 2ghz will definitely play it though.

- you will need at least 802.11n transferring wirelessly, since the mac mini doesnt have that then you would need it to be connected via gigabit to the router. i am quite certain that the imac will have enough bandwidth to transfer the data through wireless to the router wirelessly.

 

[mix123]

- no experience on this but apparently the 1.83ghz should play it fine, the 2ghz will definitely play it though.

- you will need at least 802.11n transferring wirelessly, since the mac mini doesnt have that then you would need it to be connected via gigabit to the router. i am quite certain that the imac will have enough bandwidth to transfer the data through wireless to the router wirelessly.

Since the imac might be shut off, asleep, or the external HD shut off...would it make sense to just plug a terrabyte external into the mini and transfer from the imac onto that? Keep all video files on that drive as opposed to having them on the imac's external? Can you leave an external HD on all the time? I would be wanting leave the external HD plugged into the mini on at all times....

Im just trying to figure all this out so any help would be awesome.

 

[DoFoT9]

Since the imac might be shut off, asleep, or the external HD shut off...would it make sense to just plug a terrabyte external into the mini and transfer from the imac onto that? Keep all video files on that drive as opposed to having them on the imac's external? Can you leave an external HD on all the time? I would be wanting leave the external HD plugged into the mini on at all times....

Im just trying to figure all this out so any help would be awesome.

of course you can leave an external drive on, that would be just like leaving your computer on!! it probably would be a better idea to have a tb external, maybe even 1.5tb (you can buy them these days for around $200US)

 

[Superman07]

WRT Plex: Is there a way to launch it from a remote control, and/or can you it be setup so it runs on startup to essentially turn the machine into a dedicated media device?

 

[Cave Man]

WRT Plex: Is there a way to launch it from a remote control, and/or can you it be setup so it runs on startup to essentially turn the machine into a dedicated media device?

Yes, Plex is supposed to be configurable so that you can launch it with the white Apple remote. It is in the settings menu and by default it is turned off. Once you turn it on, I believe you have to quit Plex and relaunch it once to activate it, but I don't use that feature so YMMV.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I am SO glad to see XBMC ported over with great passion to the Mac OS X platform. I have been an XBMC user on the XBOX for years. Since getting into HD content I had to abandon that aging hardware and go with PS3's. Sucky menu system compared to XBMC (or TV for that matter), but gorgeous 1080p HD. I've played with Plex on my iMac and now my MacBook AL and it's a gem in the making. I will wait for the next gen Mini which I'm certain will come and sack both my PS3's off and jump on the Mini setup. Can't wait!!! I've missed XBMC almost as much as my wife does!

 

[phrehdd]

- no experience on this but apparently the 1.83ghz should play it fine, the 2ghz will definitely play it though.

- you will need at least 802.11n transferring wirelessly, since the mac mini doesnt have that then you would need it to be connected via gigabit to the router. i am quite certain that the imac will have enough bandwidth to transfer the data through wireless to the router wirelessly.

Forgive my intrusion on this tangent but let's be careful on wireless. You can COPY nicely with 11n but don't expect to play content smoothly via wireless. What I have found -

Wireless on iMac, airport express both* are less capable than using an airport extreme as a wireless bridge. I use presently 2 airport extremes in wireless bridge mode now. One resides by my graphics station and the other with my TV and PS3. The PS3 takes the benefit now of wireless N. On playback, about 1/2 my movies play just fine. 1/4 have moments of judder and the last 25 percent ..I end up having to run a long cable between the routers.

Btw- yes, I am absolutely in the Plex mix now. It is by far the best of the front end/players for MAC. (I rarely use superlatives such as 'best' but it applies here easily.)

My adventures with Plex have only been on an iMac 2.0ghrz. The results so far have been great though, a few movies do have some screen issues. Ideally, a new Mac Mini will come out with a bit more power/mem or I'll have to swap a CPU on a present model. The challenge is that not all blu ray are created equal and judder, screen tears etc do occur that a 2ghrz or less machine should not be considered sufficient. (Might consider a hackintosh if the Mini doesn't pan out.)

Last - If one is absolutely keen on using wireless 11n, they should do some homework, there are other router set ups that are very good and a couple off strange hacks that allow one to add external antennas to Airport Extreme and I believe a combo N + external antenna for Mac Mini.