Could my move to Mac be a step backwards....?

All, a few months back I bought a Macbook Air and I am very happy - so much so i want to move to Mac completely.

However, at this point for my home media centre PC I cannot see how this is going to be possible ....

I have a PC connected to my NAS (24TB of ripped dvds i own plus lots of music and recorded TV). This is running an application called SAGE TV which acts as media server and streams content across the house including the ability to seamlessly scroll a very pleasing library of my ripped dvds and then plays them with all the functionality of the DVD intact.

AppleTv is a nonstarter as it does even less than my Macbook air...
DVD Player can play the TS folders happily but the interface is crap and there is no library function. Not the fluffy intuitive and pretty functionality Mac is famed for...

Please prove me wrong but it certainly looks like once the hype is ignored Mac is not quite as good as everyone says....

Is there an app that can handle all my content seamlessly??

Give XBMC a try

About | XBMC

WoollyCoo said:

Please prove me wrong but it certainly looks like once the hype is ignored Mac is not quite as good as everyone says....

Click to expand...

All platforms have their strengths and weaknesses. For building a media center PC, Windows has some great media center capabilities built right in.

That doesn't make the Mac any less capable as a computer, but as a media center it needs third party software like XBMC or Plex.

But if your existing media center PC works well for you, why replace it?

Having tried the Apple TV 1, a Mac mini running Plex and XBMC, and an ATV2, and being a bit on the fussy side, here's my opinions.

From a UI standpoint and support of virtually every media option out there, Plex stands above the rest. BUT… I've found that streaming some media types often can be choppy and I've even experienced loss of audio sync. It seems to be more problematic with DTS audio, which has a much higher bitrate than AC3. It's also more problematic with MPEG2 video, which is typically the encoding used on DVDs. If you plan to use Plex or XBMC, your best experience will be with locally-attached drives, not streaming it.

Another quibble I had with Plex/XBMC was with anamorphic DVD rips that have "non-square" pixels. Anamorphic DVD videos are encoded at 720x480. For videos properly displayed with a 4:3 aspect (640x480), the video is "squeezed" to the correct ratio. For widescreen videos that should be 853x480, the video is stretched out to the correct dimension. The problem, and very few people notice it, is that Plex/XBMC don't make these adjustments correctly. TV shows that are supposed to have an aspect ratio of 4:3 are shown a bit too wide, and widescreen movies are a bit too flat. Few people notice it but I did and actual measurements confirmed it. It annoyed the living daylights out of me. There is a menu option to adjust it as needed, but really it makes no sense. Quicktime, iTunes, the ATV, VLC, and most every other player out there handles these properly and automatically.

Today, I use the ATV2. It takes some upfront work to convert everything to a compatible format, but it works and works pretty well. If you are completely set on not transcoding your media and want your videos to play in the correct aspect ratio, then using OS X as a media center isn't going to work at this point in time.