Play 1080p Content on Mac Mini
By mr. Obsession in Applications, HDTV, Mac Mini
JULY 2008 UPDATE: I’ve recently begun using Plex (aka OSXMBC) and it eats up ANY 1080p material I throw at it. My full review is available here but the short version is a strong recommendation to anyone interested in playing back 1080p on their Mini. It’s amazing.
Until now, my Mac Mini’s limitations haven’t slowed down any HD material I’ve thrown at it. But, admittedly, I’ve never asked for anything beyond 720p playback. I recently began archiving HD material at 1080p however, using the .MKV file compression and I wasn’t sure if my Mac Mini could handle playing it back effectively.
Out of the box, VLC was stuttering and dropping frames…even as the only application running. So I began hitting up friends with similar set-ups and quickly found a solution that worked beautifully.
Using the latest stable build of VLC, I opened up the Preferences menu and made sure Advanced was selected. Then I headed to Inputs/Codecs > Other codecs > FFMpeg, selected
“Skip the loop filter for H.264 decoding” and chose “All”. This immediately improved playback exponentially and I’m now enjoying 1080p playback without a glitch.
The only caveat I’d add is that it does NOT seem consistent over a network (mine’s gigabit)…but my media is stored on a Firewire 400 drive attached directly to the Mini and that’s been aces so far.
I’m curious about your mini – what processor do you have and how much memory? I’m leaning towards a 2Ghz C2D Mini & upgrading the memory to 4GB. I’m just trying to figure out how well it will do for 720p and 1080p MKVs.
Bryan | Feb 5, 2008 | Reply
I’m using an older 1.66 GHz Core Duo with 1GB of RAM…you should be fine with the model you’re concerning.
mr. Obsession | Feb 5, 2008 | Reply
That’s encouraging. Now I just have to decide if I should wait for Apple to upgrade the Minis to Penryn processors and X3100…
Bryan | Feb 5, 2008 | Reply
I am cofused, some people are saying that the Mac mini wont play 1080p mvk’s. I just order my first mac mini to be used as an HTPC, and I am having second thoughts.
_doug
doug | Feb 9, 2008 | Reply
Doug,
It sounds like you’re looking for a definitive answer or guarantee about 1080p playback…and I’m afraid you aren’t going to find it here or anywhere else.
If you read through the forums at AVS and 123macmini, you’ll find lots of people who are playing back 1080p on their Mini successfully (just like I am). But you’ll also find users having problems.
If you are the type of person who needs a hard definition of what your machine can do, I suggest you simply refer to Apple’s specs (which I believe preclude 1080p) as the hard line against which you base your expectations.
Good luck!
mr. Obsession | Feb 9, 2008 | Reply
Mr. Obsession thank you, for your prompt response. I will let you know how I make out.
_doug
doug | Feb 9, 2008 | Reply
Ok, so I got the mini Mac D2C and I was able to play 1080 mks using VLC. one question when I plugged the mini to my Pioneer PDP 5080hd it picks up 1300X728 resolution which I am assuming is 720p. If I change the display settings to 1080p the fonts go smaller and when I try to play any 1080p mkv movie I get an error message that states that the computer is too slow, what exactly does that mean ?
does that mean that the mini can not handle it ?
By the way I hope that I am making sense here,
first time Mac owner and so far I like it.
_Doug
doug | Feb 22, 2008 | Reply
Doug,
I’m afraid my experience stops with my Phillips LCD, which isn’t much help with your set-up. That you are successfully playing back 1080p files via the native resolution seems to bode well, but I’m ill-equipped to help beyond this point.
Good luck!
mr. Obsession | Feb 22, 2008 | Reply
coreplayer pro is definitely one of the best for playing h264. you could also give OSXBMC a try
uncola | Apr 16, 2008 | Reply
Coreplayer’s great…if you don’t like sound (most of my 1080p files have AC-3 – which Coreplayer refuses to support).
And it’s worth noting that OSXBMC requires Leopard…which I don’t have.
But both were avenues I went down. Hell, I even paid for Coreplayer!
mr. Obsession | Apr 16, 2008 | Reply
WELL DONE! I have been working all day to try and get my 1080P video’s to work perfectly.
I was having perfect playback with local files but on my gigabit network I couldnt get it to play without skipping when it works fine on my other desktops. I found your site today and checked the “Skip the loop filter for H.264 decodingâ€? and chose “Allâ€? box. Now all my 1080P video’s are playing much much better over my gigabit network to my mac mini, im still getting a tiny bit of skipping but I think upping the cache size should take care of it. Thanks again!!
THANKS!!!!
Micro | May 11, 2008 | Reply
Thank you for such a great suggestion! It really does work… However, it does seem to cause problems when there is only a small about of movement on the screen, it’s almost as if it skips about 15 – 20 frames in one hit!
James Burland | Aug 19, 2008 | Reply
I’ve found that 1080p works ok, with Plex, but if the data rate goes above 12MB/sec it drops frames like a leaky bucket.
Adam Skelton | Sep 9, 2008 | Reply
Why isn’t this ffmpeg filter skipping a default setting for VLC? There must be a tradeoff for quality. Anyone noticed anything?
quazy | Oct 19, 2008 | Reply
Hello,
I run a Intel Core Duo 1,83ghz Mini (10.5.6) with 2GB and playback of 1080p is pretty dodgy. Not very smooth.
I have the latest VLC and followed your config change. Any ideas why it does not work?
Thanks,
Rob
Robbo | Feb 24, 2009 | Reply
Hi Rob,
I have no idea why you’re running into problems. The only solution I can offer is mentioned at the head of the article – try XBMC. It works exponentially better with 1080p files than VLC.
Good luck!
mr. Obsession | Feb 24, 2009 | Reply
I have a 2 ghz mac mini. i seem to run into a pause or a quick stutter every three to five minutes seems to be not happening fast action but moderate film speed. I am currently running with only 1 gig ram will 2 gig solve this problem. Am I missing something regarding the settings on the mac mini or is there a additional software i can down load. Now I am running plex and it seems to do this with 720 and 1080 mkv files. avi files perfect. HELP Joe
Joe | Jun 7, 2009 | Reply
Finally, a sollution that makes my mac mini play 1080p perfect! OMG ive been looking for this sollution for months, i had big trouble with skipping, and severe image distortion, but this web page how-to fixed it all. all my 1080p movies runs smoothly perfect now.
Tommy | Jul 23, 2009 | Reply
I just tried to play my first 1080p mkv file and on VLC it didn’t play well. Then I made the adjustments mentioned above and now it is playing very smoothly. Thanks…
Mac mini 1.6 c2solo, 1GB Ram, LG 42LH3000
alper | Aug 23, 2009 | Reply
Thanks for being kind enough to share this solution. It is very helpful!
Ray | Sep 20, 2009 | Reply
WOW! Works great! Why isn’t this off by default? Anyone know what it does, exactly?
Magnus | Oct 29, 2009 | Reply
Hey!
I got the same problem, the files did not run without lag. But when changing the ffmpeg to “all” it feels like I am loosing quality. Is there any way you can try it in steps? This feels like you are going from “full” quality to “low” quality… is there no in between?
Thanx!
linus | Nov 13, 2009 | Reply