Who's interested in a Mac Home Theater forum?

[byocrysis]

Wow what a great thread. I am planning on buying a Mac Mini for just this reason in the upcoming weeks, but after browsing through this forum I feel that my knowledge on the subject is completely lacking. If you could please indulge my lack of knowledge on the subject and answer just a few questions it would be greatly appreciated:

1. I have heard a lot of talk about XBMC and PLEX, what are the advantages of these programs over front row and which would you recommend and why?

2. I currently have exhausted all my optical audio inputs on my home theater receiver (only two available one to PS3 and one to XBOX 360), is a standard red/white to headphone jack a reasonable alternative, or should I re-prioritize my components that deserve optical.

3. I currently store all of my music and movies on the Mac Pro I am currently typing on, on a separate hard drive designated solely for media. I am connected to an Air Port Extreme Wirelessly and the Mac Mini will be as well, is there any advantage to an external HD connected to the Mac Mini with all of my music and movies or would it work just fine streaming from my Mac Pro over the network?

Thanks for your help, and I hope I have not been a repeat questioner of previous topics in this forum.

 

[danny_w]

Wow what a great thread. I am planning on buying a Mac Mini for just this reason in the upcoming weeks, but after browsing through this forum I feel that my knowledge on the subject is completely lacking. If you could please indulge my lack of knowledge on the subject and answer just a few questions it would be greatly appreciated:

1. I have heard a lot of talk about XBMC and PLEX, what are the advantages of these programs over front row and which would you recommend and why?

2. I currently have exhausted all my optical audio inputs on my home theater receiver (only two available one to PS3 and one to XBOX 360), is a standard red/white to headphone jack a reasonable alternative, or should I re-prioritize my components that deserve optical.

3. I currently store all of my music and movies on the Mac Pro I am currently typing on, on a separate hard drive designated solely for media. I am connected to an Air Port Extreme Wirelessly and the Mac Mini will be as well, is there any advantage to an external HD connected to the Mac Mini with all of my music and movies or would it work just fine streaming from my Mac Pro over the network?

Thanks for your help, and I hope I have not been a repeat questioner of previous topics in this forum.

I am in a similar quandary at the oment. I have an TV but can't really make use of it for video because I only have a 4:3 tv (although it is a very nice high-end 50" projection tv that I really love). I have an old Xbox that I converted to XBMC, and have used it on my monitor but not on the tv; I even have the component and optical cables to make it work well. Its menu system is lacking, but it plays just about everything well and is really cheap, but it is limited by the built-in 10/100Mb ethernet link, no built-in wireless, and no option for on/off control via remote (and it is loud to boot). However, it plays video_ts folders very well, something that I insist upon.

I have also tried XBMC and Boxee on the TV, but lack of a 4:3 setting is the killer here; I may revert to v1.0 so that I can run displayutil to set it to 4:3 mode (I heard that displayutil crashes on v2.x/Take 2 software). I may try this over the weekend.

I also have an old iMac G5 that I could use for Front Row (while will do video_ts just fine) but it has no remote, and is really bigger than I want for the living room. However, that is another possibility. Unfortunately the lack of IR may be a problem (I would want to integrate this using my Harmony IR remote).

 

[Cave Man]

1. I have heard a lot of talk about XBMC and PLEX, what are the advantages of these programs over front row and which would you recommend and why?

Front Row is based on QuickTime, which is limited in the codecs it can handle, has major problems with AC3 (Dolby Digital) passthrough and cannot handle DTS passthrough, and is poor at decoding. For instance, even if FR could open Blu-Ray format videos (m2ts) it does not have the muscle to decode them fast enough for playback. Plex, on the other hand, will work just fine on a 2 gHz Mini and deals with not only DD and DTS, but also True-HD and DTS-HD by downsampling on the fly to DD and DTS prior to passthrough.

2. I currently have exhausted all my optical audio inputs on my home theater receiver (only two available one to PS3 and one to XBOX 360), is a standard red/white to headphone jack a reasonable alternative, or should I re-prioritize my components that deserve optical.

With R&L analog inputs, you can only get Dolby Pro Logic II (5-channel) surround sound, which is limited in dynamic range and channel separation. DD and DTS are really the way to go. Free up one of those optical ports.

3. I currently store all of my music and movies on the Mac Pro I am currently typing on, on a separate hard drive designated solely for media. I am connected to an Air Port Extreme Wirelessly and the Mac Mini will be as well, is there any advantage to an external HD connected to the Mac Mini with all of my music and movies or would it work just fine streaming from my Mac Pro over the network?

While video can stream by wireless g if encoded at sufficiently low bit rate, there's really no substitute for connected drive (FW or USB) or by ethernet cable. Steaming of Blu-Ray video is impossible over wireless g - there's simply not enough bandwidth.

 

[yrsonicdeath]

Cave Man, any news on the subject of the thread?

 

[Cave Man]

I think the mods are still mulling it over.

 

[yrsonicdeath]

I think the mods are still mulling it over.

Well it's not bad news.

 

[Tilpots]

It will probably take a revamped Mini or TV (or both) to get this forum started. Hope it's sooner than later for the forum and the products!

 

[albusseverus]

Which Mac will do the job ?

Very interested in Mac Home Theatre.

Most of the so-called MacMini home theatres I've seen are actually using computer monitors.

I'm interested in whether a Mac can do HD to a real home theatre (projector or >46" televisions) and real surround systems - 5.1, 6.1, 7.1 DTS or LPCM for Blu-ray ??

Personally, I don't think a Mini is up to it, and I wonder if any Mac can do Full HD and at least DTS sound??

Prove me wrong (please), actual examples only.

 

[Cave Man]

Most of the so-called MacMini home theatres I've seen are actually using computer monitors. I'm interested in whether a Mac can do HD to a real home theatre (projector or >46" televisions) and real surround systems - 5.1, 6.1, 7.1 DTS or LPCM for Blu-ray ??

My Mini is connected to a Sanyo z2000 1080p projector by DVI/HDMI. Plays all Blu-Ray formats (H.264, MPEG-2, VC-1). Gotta have the right software, and right now that's only Plex (and XBMC). Looks real nice, too. Of course, none of the Macs will play Blu-Ray discs natively since they do not do the decryption and most likely do not have HDCP-compliant hardware.

Personally, I don't think a Mini is up to it, and I wonder if any Mac can do Full HD and at least DTS sound??

A Mini can do 1080p and handle DTS, DD, True-HD and DTS-HD (I don't know about LPCM), provided the last two are down-sampled to DTS or DD. Of course, all Macs are limited to 7.1 digital audio since Toslink specification maxes out at that. Plex does all this on the fly, then passes it out to your amp as optical data. It can also convert to analog on the fly.

Prove me wrong (please), actual examples only.

Here you go.

 

[albusseverus]

My Mini is connected to a Sanyo z2000 1080p projector by DVI/HDMI. Plays all Blu-Ray formats (H.264, MPEG-2, VC-1). Gotta have the right software, and right now that's only Plex (and XBMC). Looks real nice, too. Of course, none of the Macs will play Blu-Ray discs natively since they do not do the decryption and most likely do not have HDCP-compliant hardware.

A Mini can do 1080p and handle DTS, DD, True-HD and DTS-HD (I don't know about LPCM), provided the last two are down-sampled to DTS or DD. Of course, all Macs are limited to 7.1 digital audio since Toslink specification maxes out at that. Plex does all this on the fly, then passes it out to your amp as optical data. It can also convert to analog on the fly.

Here you go.

Excellent, thanks Cave Man. Pleased to hear you can get 1080p. Any idea of the data rates? The BD rips on the link you posted are HD-DVD rates, but I'm sure there are plenty of HD-DVD ports to BD at this stage.

Do you think a Mac Mini could do EyeTV at 1080p and 14 Mb/s? Eye TV seems to tax the Mac a little and it would be my main Mac HD source, I have a stand-alone BD player.

Also, I've never seen anything about Macs doing DTS, only DD on the optical out. You say Plex does DTS on the optical, as decoded analogue (??) digital or is it DD - what does your receiver show when it's playing the audio ? I see, it says pass-through on the Plex site, but can you rip to a DTS track? more than a straight DVD copy, say ?

There are plenty of BD drives for Mac Pros, so I wondered if someone had written a player for Blu-ray. Even the Blu-ray DD and DTS formats sound a lot better than DVD, but I'd like to see HDMI video & audio on the next Mac Mini.

I tried XBMC and wasn't impressed with the interface, but I'm not into ripping all kinds of stuff to the hard drive, mostly because I'd like DTS if I could get it. I'll have a look at Plex, that sounds like an improvement.

 

[Cave Man]

Excellent, thanks Cave Man. Pleased to hear you can get 1080p. Any idea of the data rates? The BD rips on the link you posted are HD-DVD rates, but I'm sure there are plenty of HD-DVD ports to BD at this stage.

Well, the Blu-Ray rips I have are just taken from the discs with encryption and HDCP requirements removed. So they should be whatever is the rate on the original disc (30 mbps or more for some scenes).

Do you think a Mac Mini could do EyeTV at 1080p and 14 Mb/s? Eye TV seems to tax the Mac a little and it would be my main Mac HD source, I have a stand-alone BD player.

I don't know. My local OTA broadcasts are only 720p or 1080i. I've never had a chance to do 1080p with my Eye TV Hybrid.

Also, I've never seen anything about Macs doing DTS, only DD on the optical out. You say Plex does DTS on the optical, as decoded analogue (??) digital or is it DD - what does your receiver show when it's playing the audio ? I see, it says pass-through on the Plex site, but can you rip to a DTS track? more than a straight DVD copy, say ?

If the disc has AC3, then the Dolby Digital indicator illuminates. If it's in DTS, then the DTS indicator illuminates. It really is DTS. When I open the m2ts files in tsmuxer it is either DTS or DTS-HD (or True-HD on some). Plex handles the passthrough, not OS X.

There are plenty of BD drives for Mac Pros, so I wondered if someone had written a player for Blu-ray. Even the Blu-ray DD and DTS formats sound a lot better than DVD, but I'd like to see HDMI video & audio on the next Mac Mini.

Still have to overcome HDCP limitation (along with decryption).

I tried XBMC and wasn't impressed with the interface, but I'm not into ripping all kinds of stuff to the hard drive, mostly because I'd like DTS if I could get it. I'll have a look at Plex, that sounds like an improvement.

Plex was a bit to get use to, but now that I know my way around it, it's not too bad. Front Row is limited in its abilities, thus the simpleton interface.

 

[badmac78]

I think the subforum/new forum would be very beneficial

I'm looking at pulling together an hd homerun / mac mini / atv theatre system. I have my eye on a new sound system. Knowing the right stuff to tie together (to get rid of cables) would be great. I've got the encoding piece down. I would like to hear more about other peoples overall setup.

 

[Cave Man]

Apple TV and Home Theater

Looks like the Apple TV forum has been expanded to Apple TV and Home Theater. Thanks to the Mods; now, everyone jump in!

 

[Doctor Q]

We have expanded the Apple TV forum to cover the broader area of Apple TV and Home Theater, including media centers and A/V equipment (as noted here).

There is overlap with other forums, including the Digital Video and Digital Audio forums and forums dedicated to specific Mac models, for example the iMac, eMac, Mac mini forum. It is up to the thread starter to choose the forum most appropriate for a given thread, since their interest may be in home theater in general or in topics not covered by other forums, or they may have an issue to raise about particular Mac models or A/V hardware/software that is suitable for more-specific forums.

The Post your Home Theater thread and any other pictures thread remain in the Picture Gallery forum. There is a "Moved" link to the Post your Home Theater thread in the Apple TV and Home Theater forum to help people spot it from both forums.

 

[JML42691]

Thank You!!