Andrew
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Registered: 5th May 04
Location: Skoda Octavia Estate, Ford Puma
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I have a MacBook which is a pretty cool bit of kit. However, i'm now wanting to use the machine mainly for HD video streaming and run many geeky videos.
My question is, before i go and spend £25ish on a converter and HDMI cable, does thw Mini DVI port carry Audio? I assume not and if this is the case it's time to trade in the Mac and get a Dell laptop with a keyboard light and most of all, HDMI output.
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Dan Lewis
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Registered: 31st Jan 05
Location: Leicestershire
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even if it dont just use a 3.5mm jack to the tv
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John
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Registered: 30th Jun 03
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It doesn't carry audio no.
Stereo audio from 3.5 jack ftl.
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Cosmo
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Registered: 29th Mar 01
Location: Im the real one!
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quote:
Originally posted by John
Stereo audio from 3.5 jack ftl.
Laptop for streaming HD video ftl.
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Andrew
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Registered: 5th May 04
Location: Skoda Octavia Estate, Ford Puma
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I just wanted to plug a single cable in 
To be fair, i can sell the Mac, buy a Dell and have change.
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Andrew
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Registered: 5th May 04
Location: Skoda Octavia Estate, Ford Puma
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quote:
Originally posted by Cosmo
quote:
Originally posted by John
Stereo audio from 3.5 jack ftl.
Laptop for streaming HD video ftl.
I have 3 TVs i use, a caravan in Wales, my parents TV, my bed, my bed at the parents.. you get the drift. So there's no point having a media centre really.
Have my main rig with 8GB RAM etc for all my shit which i do from time to time RDP into from the laptop.
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John
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Registered: 30th Jun 03
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quote:
Originally posted by Cosmo
quote:
Originally posted by John
Stereo audio from 3.5 jack ftl.
Laptop for streaming HD video ftl.
Wasn't slagging macs on this particular occasion, just stereo audio 
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Cosmo
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Registered: 29th Mar 01
Location: Im the real one!
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John - I know you werent, was pointing out Laptops just arent the best for streaming HD files. Even my old (well 4 years ish) struggles to stream a 4gb HD file at times.
Andrew - I understand the reasons, but generally laptops arent the best for HD files....lack of hard disk space, lack of outputs, etc. et.c
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John
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Registered: 30th Jun 03
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Wireless struggles big time with streaming hd.
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Andrew
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Registered: 5th May 04
Location: Skoda Octavia Estate, Ford Puma
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I've a couple of servers mate that replicate over the BB connection so disk space is not a problem.
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Andrew
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Registered: 5th May 04
Location: Skoda Octavia Estate, Ford Puma
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quote:
Originally posted by John
Wireless struggles big time with streaming hd.
N technology 
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Cosmo
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Registered: 29th Mar 01
Location: Im the real one!
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Im talking wired 
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Andrew
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Registered: 5th May 04
Location: Skoda Octavia Estate, Ford Puma
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Anyway you two, stop being gay and finding something to pick on
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Cosmo
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Registered: 29th Mar 01
Location: Im the real one!
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Anyway, to answer your question....I use a mini-DVI to S-video convertor, and then a 3.5 jack to 3.5 jack for sound.
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Andrew
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Registered: 5th May 04
Location: Skoda Octavia Estate, Ford Puma
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Cheers dude!
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Cosmo
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Registered: 29th Mar 01
Location: Im the real one!
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Quality is good imo once you mess with the size settings and get it looking good on the TV.
My Mac does struggle to play HD films though.
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John
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Registered: 30th Jun 03
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TV not got dvi or hdmi cosmo?
They are a million times better than s-video.
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Cosmo
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Registered: 29th Mar 01
Location: Im the real one!
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They are, and they have both, but I already had the converter to hand so didnt bother getting a new one.
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PaulW
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Registered: 26th Jan 03
Location: Atherton, Greater Manchester
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I have no issues streaming HD files (upto 16Gb MKV files) over wifi at home, nor do I have any issues playing 1080p files on the laptop that way...
Stream from the storage box to laptop via Wifi (using NFS share), then connected to the TV via the VGA.
1080p plays fine no issues (running at 1920x1080 output)... And the Wifi is just standard G class, not N.
Admittedly I'm not running a Mac, but either way if the hardware on the Mac is capable of playing such files, then I can't see any issue in actually doing it.
[Edited on 23-04-2009 by PaulW]
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John
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Registered: 30th Jun 03
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How big are the files, I can't stream 1080p flawlessly over 802.11g.
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PaulW
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Registered: 26th Jan 03
Location: Atherton, Greater Manchester
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Well Transformers in 1080p is 13gb, and that plays without any issues. I just have the cache set to 8Mb for the media player, otherwise there is the odd bit of stutter.
The storage server is wired to the router, only the laptops in the house are accessing it via wireless. Just a bog standard Netgear DG834G router aswell.
Launched from console via
code:
mplayer -af volnorm=2 -vc ffh264vdpau -vo vdpau -fs -noslices -vsync -cache 8192 -display : 0.1 filename
(there should be no space after the colon on display ie :0.1)
[Edited on 23-04-2009 by PaulW]
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John
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Registered: 30th Jun 03
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That's impressive because i've not seen reports of anybody else playing 1080p reliably over wireless G.
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PaulW
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Registered: 26th Jan 03
Location: Atherton, Greater Manchester
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well it works fine for me 
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Andrew
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Registered: 5th May 04
Location: Skoda Octavia Estate, Ford Puma
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quote:
Originally posted by John
That's impressive because i've not seen reports of anybody else playing 1080p reliably over wireless G.
No pun intended but i backup Paul. You just need to change the cache settings in your media client. Not done it in Media Player but have done in VLC using the user interface. It's not ideal but does work.
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