Mac Mini as XBMC?

Housey

Housey

Housey

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I was just about to order an Intel NUC for XBMC in my lounge, but with the suspected imminent release, finally, of a new Mac Mini I am thinking for around the same money this might be a better device? I've run XBMC on my MacBook Pro Mid 2010 and it works OK bar the odd stutter and frame drop, which I am hoping would not effect the Mac Mini. Is anyone running this on the current Mac Mini and does it work OK?
 
I'm using a 2009 Mac mini (Nvidia 9400). It drops the odd frame on really high bitrate 1080s, other than that it's excellent.

I know there were some 23.976fps issues with Intel HD graphics 2000/3000, might be worth holding off for a Haswell Mac mini as it's supposed to be properly fixed.
 
Yea, I am going to hold off until the new one arrives as I want Haswell and the higher end GPU that tends to come with. I linked up my MacBook Pro to my TV last night and bar the frame drops all worked fine, including sound via HDMI into my soundbar. However, those frame drops did get on my nerves with the 330M GPU in my Pro so I need to ensure that problem goes away with any device I chose. I'm happy paying 500 for a box, but not if it has flaws.
 
Raymond Lin said:
Last I check the current version of XBMC doesn't run on Maverick. You have to run Beta for it to work.
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v12.3 works fine. There was a workaround for v12.2 within a couple of weeks related to a change to the audio handling in OS X. Interestingly the devs still insist it XBMC works best on OS X 10.6!
 
The thing is, I don't need or want to get too clever with XBMC. I install it, add in the movie, music and tv series scrapers and that's it, it's all I need. Most of my movies are in 1080p MKV files stored on my NAS and I simply like the media artwork and menu systems it provides. I don't need iPlayer, Netflix or any of those things as they sit on my TV's already, I simply like XBMC's movie/tv stuff. I have found Plex to be a pile of dump, much the same for Synologies DS Video but XBMC just works. Aware this is a geek forum, but I'm not very geek with these things so if I like it and it works, the fact it doesn't allow for nigerial subtitles or doesn't decode shdsafglasdhglkhklhlkadshkladhsklfhadsklfhadskjl files is irrelevant :D
 
lol, i can totally relate.

Part of me want the XBMC interface but currently using a £99 Roku and it does everything I need....so splashing out £500 to basically do the same thing for pretty pictures....hmmmm just to be geeky?

I rather get another guitar lol
 
I use a 2008 MBP for pretty much the same thing (it runs Plex Media Server and Plex). However I use Rowmote via my phone to watch Youtube vids and look at pictures etc. Will be getting a new Mac Mini when it's released so I can dual boot and run some PC games off a WinXP or Win7 install too.
 
I'm with Housey - I like the ease of setup of XBMC.

Go back a few years and I was using a WDTV and a couple of external HDDs, but outgrew the size of them. It's was also a faff copying everything from the Mac to an NTFS formatted external so I could watch it. I was using the Mac mini as a server/download box, then one of the external firewire caddies stopped working. Made my own NAS with an HP Microserver, the drives out of the firewire caddies and FreeNAS. One of my friends did similar but as an HTPC using Windows and XBMC. Figured I'd try XBMC on the Mac mini rather than buy a newer WDTV and haven't looked back.
 
I'm using a Mid 2011 Mac Mini as an XBMC machine. It's running Windows because I found XBMC a little less reliable than I'd like (it'd lock up the machine if I left it for more than a couple of days without using it) in OS X but in either case the video playback is flawless.

I can't think of a better media machine really but they are a bit of an expensive solution. I use it for the same thing you want it for - to play back movies and TV shows from my NAS and scrape the folders and add the metadata nicely.

I've yet to see an "off the shelf" streaming unit that has as polished an interface and every smart TV that I've ever tried to stream with via DLNA works with some files and not with others. But I guess they're a bit of a "jack of all trades" solution.
 
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Was using a 2011 Mac Mini for XBMC myself. It was absolutely perfect, never had a problem with it. Only reason I stopped using it is because I thought it was put to better use elsewhere as it was somewhat under-utilised. Now using an HP Microserver (since the cashback deal is on again) with a graphics card supporting HDMI out. Not as sleek, but I wanted a NAS/XBMC combo.

So in short if you want to splash out for a Mac Mini, it's a great solution, just a lot of cash and to me it felt like a bit of a waste of a machine but it will do the job perfectly.
 
When do you think an announcement will be made for a new Mini? The rumours are it's supposed to be the end of this month. But there's the question of what will they update to. The same stuff currently in the latest machines? Or wait for Intels next tick/tock? Which there doesn't seem to be any word of for a while yet... And it better still be user upgradable or I'll be picking up one of the last ones that are since I have 16GB and a 256GB 830 that could go straight in.
 
OhEsEcks said:
When do you think an announcement will be made for a new Mini? The rumours are it's supposed to be the end of this month. But there's the question of what will they update to. The same stuff currently in the latest machines? Or wait for Intels next tick/tock? Which there doesn't seem to be any word of for a while yet... And it better still be user upgradable or I'll be picking up one of the last ones that are since I have 16GB and a 256GB 830 that could go straight in.
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Could be tomorrow if the internet chat forums are to be believed.
 
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