XBMC on OSX
by Kevin on Friday, April 25 at 4:20 PM GMT-4
It seems that my poor modded Xbox may soon see the end of its usefulness. I've been following the OSX XBMC site for a while now, testing the builds on my laptop in preparation for when it would be stable enough to move the mac mini out into the entertainment totem. Last build finally reached a point where it didn't crash (that often) and most of the required features were there.
After locating non-monster DVI-D cables in Halifax (not so easy), I dragged the mini out of its little cubby and gave it the Xbox's old place. Quite a size difference I must say.
Getting the resolution took a tiny bit of effort. Luckily my rear projection TV does properly report itself on DVI, but I still had to use SwitchResX to get it to the proper resolution. I have a lot of overscan, but XBMC allows you to counter that easily in the configuration.
XBMC in 1080i is glorious. I can't even look at it in SD anymore on the Xbox.
After locating non-monster DVI-D cables in Halifax (not so easy), I dragged the mini out of its little cubby and gave it the Xbox's old place. Quite a size difference I must say.
Getting the resolution took a tiny bit of effort. Luckily my rear projection TV does properly report itself on DVI, but I still had to use SwitchResX to get it to the proper resolution. I have a lot of overscan, but XBMC allows you to counter that easily in the configuration.
XBMC in 1080i is glorious. I can't even look at it in SD anymore on the Xbox.
I really only have two complaints so far. The first is that the apple remote does not have enough buttons. I've managed to get my Harmony 880 using the codes, but 6 buttons is not enough. The next version is supposed to address this though, so hopefully that is just temporary.
The second issue is that the mac mini really doesn't pump out the sound. No line-out means I have to use the speaker jack. It's just not loud enough, and the one thing that doesn't seem to work is the amplification in XBMC at the moment. I'm not sure that is the proper solution for quality anyway. I may need to invest in a decent USB sound card to get what I want, but for now it's fine.
The second issue is that the mac mini really doesn't pump out the sound. No line-out means I have to use the speaker jack. It's just not loud enough, and the one thing that doesn't seem to work is the amplification in XBMC at the moment. I'm not sure that is the proper solution for quality anyway. I may need to invest in a decent USB sound card to get what I want, but for now it's fine.
