Mac as a client for HD playback (question for current users)

[fyodor]

Hi,

I'm considering getting one of those zippy newly-price-reduced mac minis to use as a sage client. I had some questions for current users.

1. How is video playback handled in the mac os? Is there graphics card acceleration? What type of rendering engine does it use? How do the faster mac minis handle playback of mpeg2 1080i content? Can you direct me to any third party references on this?

2.Are there any limitations on the playback of server-delivered content? Has anybody used one of these to successfully play back recorded QAM/ATSC/Firewire programming.

Thanks much
F

[mohanman]

The mac mini works great as a media extender. With the following exceptions that I have noticed (I have the 1.66 dual core and 2gb memory)

1) There is no remote support for MCE remote, or other multiple button remotes in Os/X. You need to use vista or XP to take advantage of that.

2) There is no usb-uirt support yet (but that would be only for the sagetv server)

3) There is no direct eject button for the disc drive. So you could make an entry in the top most menu of sagetv and call it "eject cd", and route it to a batch file that can eject. However, running that will cause exclusive front view to be turned off. There may be another work around I am not aware of.

4) Playing back 1080p files may be slightly difficult. I have had good success with VLC player (plays back everything fine), but other file players seem to stutter.

Once the HD extenders come out, which I hope they do soon, those will be my extenders along with a nice DVD HDMI upconverting player (unless the extenders have a built in one, which I hope they do also)

The mac mini will then become my server with Xp or Vista.. Or I may use Os/X if they do come out with usb-uirt drivers.

Hope things helps
Lates!
Mo!

[fyodor]

Have you tried playing 1080i content within sagetv-note that 1080i is in a lot of ways more problematic than 1080p.

[mohanman]

I have not, as I couldnt get the stupid intel drivers to go to that resolution for some reason. Didnt want to play around with power strip

[fyodor]

Sorry-I should clarify. Have you tried playing back content that was recorded at 1080i (e.g. HD TV recordings)

[mohanman]

Yes, and they play back just fine as long as I use VLC player. I think others including sage gave me some problems
Mo!

[drewg]

Originally Posted by fyodor

Have you tried playing 1080i content within sagetv-note that 1080i is in a lot of ways more problematic than 1080p.

I'm considering getting a new core2 Mini, and I'm pretty curious about this as well.

Using my wife's core2 macbook, which I assume is the same hardware as the new mini (Intel GMA950, 2GHz core2 duo) I'm able to drive my 1080i CRT quite easily. Setting up the display was absolutely trivial; they even have a nice "overscan" button you can use which somehow magically made the desktop fit perfectly in my heavily overscanned screen. It beats the heck out of setting up a machine with an Nvidia card under Windows or Linux!

I haven't quite figured out how to use the mini as a client (media extender?) for sage, so I did my tests using an old 1080i program recorded by MythTV a few months ago from CBS, which Sage treated as a video. The video playback was jerky, with interlacing artifacts. However, playing the video using VLC was silky smooth, but required enabling a deinterlacer to remove the interlacing artifacts (even when playing on an interlaced display).

Perhaps this was not a fair test, since I played it as a video. I noticed that Sage forked off a copy of mplayer to play the video. Does anybody know if it also uses mplayer to play recordings? Eg, should I expect it to do better on a recording than on a video?

Thanks,

Drew

[fyodor]

I'm pretty sure it plays mpeg2 the same, regardless of whether you are viewing it as a video or TV.

[guho]

I can't get smooth MPEG-2 1080i HDTV full-screen playback on 46" 1080p lcd using a brand new MAC mini 1.83GHz Core2Duo. In a small window, playback is silky smooth. Any settings to fix this? If this can't be fixed, it is unacceptable as I just bought this MAC mini to be used as a media extender (and serving double duty as SageTV Firewire Network Encoder, http://www.hugolyppens.com/SageTVFir...rkEncoder.html). I wonder if someone from SageTV could comment on whether this has been tested in their labs. I tried both SageTV Mac Client and SageTV Mac Placeshifter with identical results.

[sandor]

Originally Posted by guho

I can't get smooth MPEG-2 1080i HDTV full-screen playback on 46" 1080p lcd using a brand new MAC mini 1.83GHz Core2Duo. In a small window, playback is silky smooth. Any settings to fix this? If this can't be fixed, it is unacceptable as I just bought this MAC mini to be used as a media extender (and serving double duty as SageTV Firewire Network Encoder, http://www.hugolyppens.com/SageTVFir...rkEncoder.html). I wonder if someone from SageTV could comment on whether this has been tested in their labs. I tried both SageTV Mac Client and SageTV Mac Placeshifter with identical results.

are you trying to record at the same time as watching a second file? you could be reaching the limits of the 2.5" drive in the mini.

i use a macbook coreduo and a macbook core2duo as clients and placeshifters all the time for OTA HD (as a client they can drive a 50" 1080p LCD). have you maxed out the ram in the mini? the Intel chipset shares main ram for the vram, i have 2 GB in both macbooks...

[guho]

Originally Posted by sandor

are you trying to record at the same time as watching a second file? you could be reaching the limits of the 2.5" drive in the mini.

i use a macbook coreduo and a macbook core2duo as clients and placeshifters all the time for OTA HD (as a client they can drive a 50" 1080p LCD). have you maxed out the ram in the mini? the Intel chipset shares main ram for the vram, i have 2 GB in both macbooks...

Thanks for getting back to me. My Mac Mini has the stock 1GB RAM ( Two sticks of 512MB I think). 2.5" hard drive is not used since I was not recording at the same time and even if I did the bits would flow over the wired network to my SageTV server. I know the Mac mini hardware can play 1080i smoothly on a 1080p display full-screen, since I tested it yesterday with the VLC media player. Perhaps the media player inside SageTV MAC is simply no good and fails to use whatever hardware MPEG-2 decoding acceleration support exists within the Intel GMA950 integrated graphics of the new Mac Mini. Now what I have to do is choose the show I want to watch, minimize SageTV Client/PlaceShifter, access the SageTV recording drive over the network in Finder and click the recording file to watch it in VLC. Very annoying. I hope Sage releases a fix soon (even though it would put the Mac Mini in competition with their upcoming HD media extender) as it is the fair thing to do.

[sandor]

i'm assuming you are working with a wired network? i'll try to look into more this weekend, but i'm sitting at home watching Grey's Anatomy from last night on my macbook (2 ghz core2duo - the older one is a 1.83 coreduo) and it is working very well via both placeshifter and client. this is over 802.11/n... hmmm what does your CPU usage look like? i've got about 35% usage on my system with placeshifter...

do your server version numbers and client version number match? i have noted some issues when i update the server software, but not the placeshifter/client software... ill keep thinking and testing... which do you use more, placeshifter or client?

[guho]

Originally Posted by sandor

i'm assuming you are working with a wired network? i'll try to look into more this weekend, but i'm sitting at home watching Grey's Anatomy from last night on my macbook (2 ghz core2duo - the older one is a 1.83 coreduo) and it is working very well via both placeshifter and client. this is over 802.11/n... hmmm what does your CPU usage look like? i've got about 35% usage on my system with placeshifter...

do your server version numbers and client version number match? i have noted some issues when i update the server software, but not the placeshifter/client software... ill keep thinking and testing... which do you use more, placeshifter or client?

To answer your questions: versions match, wired 100MBit/s network, use placeshifter more. Difference between MacBook and mini is that mini has weak integrated graphics GMA950. But the hardware is capable of HDTV playback as proven by the VLC media player. Also I think the GMA950 has MPEG-2 acceleration.

[sandor]

Originally Posted by guho

Difference between MacBook and mini is that mini has weak integrated graphics GMA950.

nah, the newest macbooks still have the GMA950 Intel chipset -->

Chipset Model: GMA 950
Type: Display
Bus: Built-In
VRAM (Total): 64 MB of shared system memory
Vendor: Intel (0x8086)
Device ID: 0x27a2
Revision ID: 0x0003
Displays:


have you tried re-installing the client? there has to be something wrong with the software setup, especially since the video plays fine in VLC..... =/

[sandor]

if you are using placeshifter, try disabling the "Video Post Processing" in the settings menu. It doesn't make a difference (in my eyes) in terms of video quality, but i don't have it enabled, and don't have any stuttering/problems with 1080i video.

I'll look into the client a little more too.

[guho]

I find SageTV placeshifter runs really poorly on my mac mini under Leopard. Full-screen 1920x1080p 60Hz is a slideshow and it freezes easily

Bottom line: recommended not to upgrade to Leopard until Apple releases a decent service pack. Also SageTV should ensure it does at least as good a job of HD playback as VLC under the same circumstances. VLC playback is nice and smooth.

[flavius]

Sage client / placesshifter full screen mode under Leopard is broken.