A Windows Convert Queries You Mac HTPC experts

Welcome to the Mac forum. For a good start, you might want to read through the FAQ which should give you most of the basics you'll need to get started. Since I wrote the FAQ, if you have any questions or comments on it, please post it.

Regarding your question about front ends: most new Macs come with Apple's own program called Front Row. At this moment (before the Macworld show in a week or so), Front Row is very limited in the sense that there is very little to no configuration possible and Front Row cannot see or play any ripped DVDs on your hard drive.

However, that was the bad news, let's now look at the good news. Right here on this forum, a user, Squished Squirre, has written a program called DVD Assist that will let you play ripped DVDs in Front Row. BTW, in case you don't already know, most new Macs (excluding Mac Pro) also include a remote control that works with Front Row.

There are many, many other front end programs for the Mac, but most are still either in beta or not yet fully functional. Your idea of separating groups of films is probably something you would need to do yourself on the file server -- i.e., make a directory for each group and then put the appropriate VIDEO_TS folder in each. Nevertheless, I don't use a front end myself, so I am not really the best person to advise you on this.

Good luck and once again, welcome.

check out the new app called "Drive-in"

Content creation has little to do with home theater from the user side, the notion of integrating a Mac into the living room took a big step forward with the first mini which was what, just 2 years ago, and in that respect Windows had a head start.

Accessing it from the couch evolved a bit with the very tentative toe dip in the water called Front Row and the Apple remote, and then the core duo finally provided the affordable and quiet power we needed for high def. To expect something so nascent to be all-encompassing, to be geek and wife and kid-friendly so soon is, well, still just a little bit unrealistic. But, we just might be getting there...and things will change yet again--not necessarily for the better--come Macworld. Things may change dramatically...

When you get your Macs, live with this stuff for a while, Front Row, the remote, look into and download a few of the third party solutions, things like DVD Assist and Matinee, and see how far that gets you. I think there will be a lot that you will like from a user experience perspective--many of our complaints are from a more specialized or power user perspective, the typical early adopter frustration, though there still are some incredibly obvious things that still irk us. There isn't a one-size-fits-all killer Mac front end yet--because all of our needs and wishes will be different and are still being shaken out anyway. We had a taste of hopeful convergence when El Gato's EyeTV 2.3 was released--a real taste of Front Row integration--then bam--any hint of it gone in subsequent releases. That isn't something you would care about if you don't record high def and are just interested in accessing and playing back dvd rips from your home network.

Ignore 'Drive-in'--no regular of this forum advocates it. It's of no use to you if you've already ripped your dvds anyway to get rid of the junk studios force down your throat, to defeat region codes, etc. Nice in theory, like getting the Amazon data, inconvenient or tedious on SO many other levels--if you do play with it you'll see what I mean, and forget about just using the remote, you'll need a mouse.

Plus, there's no guarantee you'd even be able to share images across a home network without buying additional licenses for each Mac: "you must have a registered copy of Drive-in on every computer where you want to use your images" and "as long as each of your licensed versions of Drive-in is registered with the same registration name."

Your $50 bucks a pop would be better spent elsewhere, with developers trying to move things forward, building on what we can already do, rather than paying extra for the dubious privilege of being hindered and locked down even more.

Yes there is, but it isn't integrated into Front Row: DVDPedia, from Bruji.com

I am a highly satisfied user of its cataloging capabilities, but you can point to and launch a VIDEO_TS folder (or if you prefer just a preview). It doesn't have the exact level of integration you might wish for, but it is under active development, and the developers are VERY responsive.

It most certainly does. I have mine connected to a video projector, as well as my former Windows machine and I cannot see or hear a difference (well, the Windows machine is louder, but I was talking about the audio track). It may not have all the features you're looking for, but, OTOH, it doesn't have all the headaches either

And, as the others have said, the features will come.

You can certainly hide the computer with the gorgeous full screen mode, and yes it does work with the Apple Remote.
http://bruji.com/howto/fullScreen.html

It works great. I have a MacBook that I use as a HTPC, but it shares the same basic chipset design and gpu. The Intel GMA950 (GMA is short for graphics media accelerator) is specifically designed for this purpose. If you look at the specs from Intel's website (the Mac derivative is a custom application of the GMA950, here's a subset of the GMA950 specs that Apple supports):

Advanced Display Capability

Up to 2048x1536 resolution for both analog and digital displays
Consumer Electronic display (Digital TV) support
Display hot plug support to automatically detect new display connection while system is operating (CRT and DVI)
Multiple display types (LVDS, DVI-I, DVI-D, HDTV, TV-out, CRT)
Dual screen support through ADD2 digital video devices
HDTV 480i/p, 576i/p, 720i/p and 1080i/p display resolution support
Interlaced Display output support
16x9 and 16x10 Aspect Ratio for widescreen displays
2x2 Panel Scaler

Stunning Video Playback

High Definition Hardware Motion Compensation to support high definition hi-bitrate MPEG2 media playback
Up and Down Scaling of Video Content
High Definition Content Decode - up to two stream support
5x3 Overlay Filtering.

So you can see that it is not any old "integrated graphics chip" that we all came to disdain in the past. It works quite well on my MacBook. DVD playback, upscaled and deinterlaced to 1080p, while maybe not quite good as say an Oppo 981 (I haven't actually tested it against it), is very good. Good enough that I have no desire to purchase an upconverting DVD player, and will save my money for a BD or HD-DVD player--or wait until Apple offers a BTO BD drive in a Mac Mini. I have downloaded 1080p content to the MacBook, and it plays back superbly. Full frame rate and accurated color rendition. I see no problems with this chipset, when combined with BD playback. And I'm sure that Apple intended it that way. Couple that with full support for DD 5.1, and mini-toslink optical out, and you're good to go. Mini also has a Core Duo processor, soon to move to C2D, I hope, so it has the cpu horse power. It is in this area that Apple's move to Intel really shines.

Now none of this has any real bearing on the access to hardware/software integration for playback of HD files of the various formats. And we all hope that in the near future we'll get some indication of Apple's direction here. But not everybody is holding their breath, and for good reasons.

And for the future of integrated graphics, I spent a little time the other day looking at Intel's upcoming GMA3000 architecture, and it is a great upgrade to the GMA950, that includes what looks to be great gaming performance. If Apple was to leverage this technology in a Mac Mini, with a BD player this year, they could outcompete both MS and Sony in the console market, if only they had a software strategy in place. In any case, I'd look to the Mac Mini with a BD player to compete with all the stand alone BD or HD-DVD players in the upcoming year with the hardware they have. A bare BD optical drive only costs about $125 (from an iSuppli breakdown cost estimate on the PS3), and the Mini has everything else it needs (except for the BD playback software--come on Apple, show up here). So, once the logjam on blue diode lasers breaks, and the drive becomes more available, look to Apple to move in this direction.

Welcome to the Mac-side of life!

Not to sound pessimistic, but I too switched from a PC to a Mac (mini, core duo 1.8GHz). After about a month of frustration, I ended up stripping off the Mac OSX and loading WinXP MCE2006 with an external USB IR Receiver. Now I can play Xvid, AVI, WMV with a remote and all my ripped TS_VIDEO folder movies.

I am looking forward to an integrated SW frontend for the Mac that does what MCE2005 can do, which I why I keep checking this forum. It's just not there yet.

Rgds,

Jwehman

And what is your impression/experience of the hardware capabiities of the Mini as seen from the MCE side of things (using Boot Camp, I assume)?

Apple's DVD Player certainly does upscale. It does fine with progressive, film sourced material. It is not so good de-interlacing video sourced stuff.

Does DVDPlayer take advantage of the motion adaptive deinterlacing capabilities of the GMA950? I haven't noticed any problems with video sourced stuff, though I haven't played that many DVD's through my MacBook. Can you suggest a DVD that has these sorts of problems? And is your info based on personal use (and if so, what is your config), or consensus elsewhere? I'm not challenging your info here, just trying to learn.

Well, with Bootcamp drivers, everything runs great, outputing to a 37" 1080P LCD @ 1920x1080. A few codec downloads and I'm able to play all movie formats (including ripped DVD's with covers and info for each one). All driven with the remote (Harmony 880). I haven't seen a hiccup yet, though I haven't thrown much demanding material at it.

Problems I could see prohibiting people (tho not me) from using the mini is the lack of video upgrade capabilities. And the two USB tuners I tried didn't impress me (Haupage USB PVR2 and Adaptec - I returned both), but I already have TiVo and Comcast DVR to satisfy that area.

One thing that was cool was capturing the HD digital stream from the Comcast box and playing it back flawlessly, but that was only a "cool" thing and not practical from a real-usage point, since a lot of material is "copy-once" protected.

I'm on your side here: I think that the Apple DVD player is more than good enough. My view of video comes from my G4 PowerBook. On the Mini I have only played film, and it looks great. EyeTV sourced HD looks freaking fantastic.

I agree that much of the bad reputation of the Apple DVD Player probably comes from older versions and older Macs.

Uhh, in a word, no. There are plenty of us here who grew up with Macs and now with brand new Intel core duo Macs who still consider Apple dvd player app poor, even with the supposed adaptive deinterlacing capabilities of the 950. Ted, I'm not sure what HDTV or good upscaling standalone dvd players you have lived with (I forget, frankly, sorry) but there's still no comparison between the upscaling of an even average calibrated dvd player and what the Mac mini or Macbook can do--the former is upscaling via additional chips, algorithms and post-processing and the latter is the Mac itself "mating" and recognizing a higher display resolution. I'm not aware of any new additional processing applied by Apple dvd player app--and even if there were--my eyes tell me different. This will always be a hot button issue, with genuine and valid disagreement since our displays are different and are prone to reveal or overcome flaws differently, there are folks...still...within the dvd player forum who deny that a highly-rated upscaling dvd player makes any difference.

Just saying, count me in the Mac AVS camp who has new Intel Macs, has tested the 950 in machines with 2GB RAM over DVI and VGA, to two different HDTV displays, an LCD and a DLP, and I still think Apple dvd player app sucks. My worst upscaling standalones, a Samsung 841 (which I just use for high res audio now) and a Toshiba SD592 (which is in a bedroom), are noticeably superior.

Just saying. Apple dvd player for convenience, for the kids, when you're otherwise multitasking and when you're not in a critical mood.

Agree completely, though, about HD from an EyeTV500 through the 950. Stunning, really.

The quality of the apple dvd player is indeed a hot button topic. I wanted to throw in my thoughts and observations. But before I even begin, it is VERY important that you see with your own eyes to judge what will bother you and what wont.

I currently have a mac mini core duo 1.66 - I run 720p DVI to my Mitsubishi 62 inch DLP. I previously had ( still have - currently in the closet ) a Oppo Digital OPDV971H - a VERY highly regarded upscaling DVD player.

I have NO problems what so ever with the quality of the Apple DVD player. I think it looks great. I have calibrated the TV with the Avia DVD as best as I could, and it really looks nice. I guess I am not as picky as I thought I was... Plus - the simplicity of having one box is just so nice.

Also, I playback Xvid, Divx WMV's ect - all through Front Row - w/ the apple remote just fine. ( Perian/AC-3 Codec and Flip4mac ) There is a occassional file that is a problem ( or it is a ogg or mkv - whatever ) So then I grab my bluetooth keyboard and mouse - and run VLC. I just don't seem to run into issues.

Also, DVDPedia, from Bruji.com looks very interesting and worth trying out for those of you looking for a DVD library software and a easy way to manage the library. Very nice. I haven't started to do this yet - but that looks very promising. ( esp. with remote and the use of the iSight camera for scanning bar codes ) - It will lanch a file or VIDEO_TS folders. If you want to rip the movie first - you can use handbrake to create a nice video.

Anyway, I have now had the Mac Mini be my HTPC for a number of months now - with no other DVD player or TV tuner. ( I have an EyeTV 500 - but I will often resort to HD torrents for TV shows. Just for convenience )

It is my one box solution and I love it.

I think with all this discussion about the Apple DVDplayer, we are forgetting that there are DVD player programs for the Mac. I use only VLC and am very happy with it. The Apple DVDplayer has some very nice features, but one feature that I hate - it does not let you skip past parts of the DVD. VLC lets you do that.

The point is that there are a number of DVD players and if one doesn't work for you, just try another one. It's unlikely that you will find one that is perfect, but that's also true in Windows. While there are now more Windows DVD players than for the Mac, I believe that will change. In fact, I know of one project right now to upgrade a regular player to a DVD player.

And, it's certainly not like we have to starve while waiting for better DVD players. For many people, as this thread shows, the Apple DVDplayer is fine. If you don't like that, just try VLC or Mplayer. Yes, Windows media players are more mature, but we're catching up fast.

I think that, in my case, I find the DVDPlayer fine because I have little experience with other players, having just set up my first Mac HTPC last month. The one comment above stating that there are better viewing experiences beyond DVDPlayer had me smiling, because I like to hear that there still is some upside to what I can see. So does anyone know if there is a comparative review of DVD players for the Mac? I could run a search and look all over this vast forum, but my sense is the comparisons are scattered about. Or does someone just want to post a list of players and features/comments so we can have a starting place to look?

And on another note, I did some research on Anandtech about HD playback and Intel hardware and gpu's Windows for BD and HD-DVD . It was very interesting--good starting point to understand the differences between the two media and formats, and intro primer on compression and its effect on cpu utilization and gpu needs. It would be nice to get that kind of analysis on the Mac side of things with the gma950 and other Mac gpu's. I think that one of the great things about Apple moving to Intel is that we can finally do some meaningful comparative analysis between the Mac and Windows platform. And seeing the differences between Windows and OS X when it comes to hardware implementation of things like HD title decoding. Maybe these sorts of comparisons can go a long ways towards motivating Apple to Do The Right Thing, and move forward aggressively in this arena.

The gist of the articles was that H.264 takes considerably more horsepower to decode than mpeg-2 and vc-1. The experiment was to find a cpu that didn't max out during a particularly tough scene, then trial different gpu's against that to see how much of a percent they knocked off of cpu utilization. The conclusion was that on Windows, you need at a minimum, an Intel E6600 (Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz, i believe) and some kind of gpu to be able to handle h.264 on BD, as it was the most demanding format. So it would be nice to find out, with Apple's harware config and OS X, what the minimum specs for BD h.264 decode on say, a Mini woud be. And a BD player. Anyone have any ideas here? Upcoming products?