+ Top FAQs with Plex - for more help please check the WIKI.
- How do I add internet video such as TED, YouTube, CNET etc?
- Internet sources are added using the App Store found in the Applications menu. See the following screencast for more info. vimeo.com/3315184
- One of the plug-ins has stopped working.
- If a plug-in stops working, it’s likely that the structure of the site changed. This doesn’t happen very frequently with most sites, but it’s a definite possibility. When this occurs, an entity we call the “Campfire Robot” springs into action automatically and tracks us down to let us know, and shortly thereafter we can push an update. As such, if a site stops working, the best thing to do is to check the App Store for updates. If you have automatic updates turned on, check your install history to see if an update got installed while you were getting coffee.
- I don’t see the Applications Menu Item.
- If you previously used v5 of Plex we suggest deleting the folder called Plex found in ~/Library/Application Support/. Many things have changed and a fresh install will ensure the best performance with Plex.
- How do I make Movies and TV Shows show up in their respective areas with poster art, plot info, etc?
- View this screencast for more info vimeo.com/2758185
A Quick 1080p Tip
For some reason, OS X seems to be reluctant to output 1080p to TVs, and usually defaults to 1080i. At first I thought it was the cable (a 50′ HDMI cable purchased from Eforcity for $40), but that turned out to work perfectly. The problem was that the only option for 1920×1080 that showed up in the Displays System Preference was interlaced.
However, when I checked the “Show displays in menu bar” option, lo and behold, there were two options. Both of these looked exactly the same, but when I switched between them, I found that one was 1080p and the other was 1080i.
I found this to be the case on both Macs I tried it on, so check your TV and make sure you’ve got progressive mode enabled!
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With my mac mini, it initially displayed fine on my 1080p Sharp Aquos, but when I switched it up (to make websites more readable at 15′) it would never go back. I ended up using SwitchResX to get the display to look correct again at 1080p.
On my c2d 2.0Ghz MacMini I ended up using SwitchResX to output 1080p to my Toshiba 42z3030. The first problem was getting it to display 1080p, with that solved i got a nice 1080p picture, but it was very off center. About 30 min later i had set up SwitchResX to solve both problems.
If this could be done without SwitchRes X it would be really nice, I’l make sure to try it as soon as I get home and report back!
And if you’re in europe as I am you don’t need to worry about the settings for progressive as long as you’ve got PAL setting enabled instead of NTSC.
Just out of curiosity…
I have been planning to buy my first Mac (mostly because your nice work on the XBMC port). I owned an original Xbox with XBMC installed in it, so I am familiar with the magic of XBMC, but sold it to my brother once I decided to buy a Mac Mini. Then “they” told me to wait for a new patch of Minis, which were _rumored_ to come out anytime soon.
I really don’t need anything better than a tool which can play movies up to 1080p. That’s it and then some web surfing etc from my couch (40″ LCD). Do I need to wait for the “Penryn” patch?
Do you think current Minis can handle 1080p (1.8MHz and/or 2.0MHz)? Am I better of with 1GB or 2GB when considering the usage (read above)?
Thanks to the crew at work on this project. *bows down deep*
@Kalamasa: Thanks for your kind words. The current 2.0GHz machines work pretty damn well with 1080p content, and will work even better once someone gets around to implementing one or more of the ideas in my post on 1080p. Mine has 1GB of RAM. That having been said, there’s nothing more frustrating than buying a piece of hardware, only to see a better piece of hardware come out for the same price (or less) soon afterwards!
Don’t know what the issue was with that comment…
My point was that the Mini will likely get an update in June at WWDC. This will likely see the product sold at the same price point, possibly lower, with all the advanced hardware.
If you have never used a Mac, and only want it for XBMC, you might not care at all about the update.
my mac mini c2d 2.0 ghz with 1 gb ram works perfectly with xbmc. ofcourse quicktime and vlc are horrible at decoding 1080p content and it stutters. if there was better hardware im sure this would be resolved. on xbmc codecs though it works flawlessly and i’ve not yet encountered any problems with 1080p content.
p.s. im confused about the main topic post…my display already shows 1080p output in its info bar (sharp aquos), so im sure its outputting this. althoguh in xbmc i only get an option for 1920×1080i, so im not sure if this means xbmc is reverting me back to interlaced or if my display is incorrect (and im quite positive my display is correct)
@Nadir: Ignore the “1080i” in XBMC, I need to change that string, it’s pretty meaningless. It could be that your TV plays better with the Mini than my Sony does. I’ve heard reports both ways, so it probably depends on the TV.
Hey Guys! For just $66 you can upgrade your 1GB Mini (2×512s) to 3GB (1×2gb + 1×1GB) That will help performance tremendously.
Hey, just a thought here, don’t know why it came to mind but I thought I would throw it out. With the next gen mac’s out in the near future there is a slight possibility of blu-ray drives. Last time I checked OSXBMC does not support DVD’s, but what would it involve to support Blu-Ray play back? I couldn’t imagine anything better, ok yes I can, then OSXBMC playing my DVD’s, Blu-Ray disks, and network media.
Don’t bet on the mini supporting Blu-Ray. Up until a few months ago, there were rumors of the mini and appleTV merging into a single media box, but with the 2.0 update, that seems unlikely at this point.
The mini is not meant as a HTPC and Apple is unlikely to give such features given the current price of the unit.
I would also venture to guess support in XBMC would not come any time soon. The ability to play a disc would likely use OS code and wouldn’t be very open to third party developers.
On topic of the main post, I have much the same problem. I have a sony XBR2 LCD Rear Projection Unit and it also states that its only displaying 1080i at max. I’ve messed around with SwitchRes to try and get everything right (even in 1080i mode or 720p mode overscan would crop out the menu bar and regular view was leaving a 2 inch gap from the screen). I’ll see if switching to 1080p does the trick being that I’m still having some problems with Switchres (Things are skewed on the screen).
All that we really would need to get BluRay on a mac mini, I think, would be a release of a slot loading BluRay drive from Apple. I think that the Rom now is really just the same thing thats in a mac book pro, I may be mistaken, if they put a BluRay drive out for the MBP then it should be a rather easy swap to get one into a mac mini…in theory of course.
I’ve had good luck with DisplayConfigX. Might be a bit of a sledgehammer for the job but it has helped me get some monitors on the right page.
Is the mini proving to have the horsepower for 1080p h.264? Which CPU in the mini?
Also this could be an interesting alternative to the mac mini, particularly if more horsepower is needed: http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?p=180119#post180119
I am planning on buying a mac mini at the end of the month to plug into my 46″ samsung lcd, osxbmc is mature enough now to retire my xbox. Should I hold off until June? I have a bit of a history of buying new hardware just before it it becomes defunct (starting way back when I brought a Pentium 200 cpu 6 weeks before they released the MMX extensions (yes I’m that old lol) not to mention buying an Atari ST just before the release of the Amiga 500). I really don’t want to make the same mistake again if I can help it.
Well all rumors announce a new mac mini but with Apple you never know…
To be sure, wait for the WWDC
I like to watch Macrumors buyer’s guide…it currently shows the Mac Mini as “DON’T BUY - UPDATES SOON”
http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#Mac_mini
Hi there.
First of all i’am French, so excuse me for my English.
To start, i want to say thank you elan, you saved my Mac Mini. Why ?
Because i was totally bored about that FrontRow thing, and i was really close to install Windows on my Mac in order to see for a better Media Center. But now, i can stay on OS X !
Now, i want to ask you about a bug on XBMC with the Aon skin. But i don’t know if it’s a XBMC bug or a Aeon bug. Just take a look here :
http://xbmc.org/forum/showpost.php?p=177579&postcount=1313
On my Mac Mini with a GMA950 i have this bug too. But on my MacBook Pro, everything is fine. What do you think about it ?
@Soner
Its a bug with Aeon/Mac Mini integrated graphics card. The author of the skin is hopefully going to fix it in the next release in about a week.
I just brought a mini, I know a new mini might be coming soon but the resale market on the mini is so strong I don’t think I’ll take much of a hit.
The damn (or only mine) mini cant output 1080p OTB.
I had to use switchresx to map the 1600 to 1920 resolution. that sux0rs because xbmc (and many other apps) think i got only 1600 res
damn mini - so poor.
@elan! GREAT work, XBMC is one great APP!
1080p works pretty good on my 1.83GHz Mini with 1 GB RAM.
I only have problems with high bitrate x264. Over 10-15Mbit it drops some frames.