Well, I took the plunge and opted for a base model Mini as several people in the know have said that it would easily cope with HD movies etc so there was little point in going any higher.  I pick it up from work tomorrow.  I also bought Applecare having been burnt once before by a laptop that was out of warranty.  My new BV-7 is still a few weeks away! With just the HDMI connector I hope to be able to watch recorded Eye-Tv programmes  and downloaded tv shows etc on the new tv.  I hope it can be as simple as that!  Cliff

Look forward to hearing how it goes.

OK, the plot so far! I've now got my Mac Mini configured and registered with Apple.  Plus I've paired it with a Mighty Mouse and a wireless keyboard.  I've downloaded Plex and paid for and downloaded Linkplayer as ordered to by Ed.  Everything now awaits the boys from Graham Donald's company to set up my BV-7 that is being delivered this coming thursday and for them to run an ethernet cable from my study and it's iMac to the mini at the other end of the house.  The cable tv people are arriving on tuesday to change my set-top box for a digital receiver and recorder ready to be fitted to the BV-7.  All that remains is for me to be helped to configure the mini to work on the tv and to be shown how to use Plex and Linkplayer.......over to you, Ed!!!  Fingers crossed!!  Clifft

clifft:

over to you, Ed!!!

Hope today's Camberwell visit went well ... wish I could be there on Thursday, but we will catch-up at the Melbourne event 

Ed~2

Cliff, you have a Beoport box as well?

p.

Phil, no I haven't because I only want to use the mini to watch Eye Tv recordings, recordings from dvds ripped to my iMac and any movies obtained from torrent sites.  I was assured by the B & O shop that with the new mini and its hdmi connection that I didn't need a beoport especially as I wasn't interested in accessing NMusic.  PLEASE don't tell me they are wrong!  Clifft

Hi Cliff,

behind your back (so to speak) Phil and I exchanged emails about your installation last night.

Between the two of us we will sort out what you need, but I do think I may need to make a house call rather than coach you over the phone.

I will call you at a more sensible hour on Sunday morning :)

I'm looking forward to your visit asap!!!  Hopefully we'll quickly nut this out and I can extend my tenure as a couch potato!!  We can then transpose the solution to Dylan in Perth!  Regards, Cliff  ps my wife is great at home baking!!

Hope it goes well Cliff - my BV7 hopefully also arrives this week. However large tax bill may delay MacMini purchase for month or two

Well, you have read my saga so far of my new BV-7 on the main site.  The Mac Mini is faring much better.  The boys installed it to the back of the set but couldn't get a picture!!!  Much fiddling around plus a phone call to Ed didn't help at all plus they were getting more and more tired after a frustrating days work.  Then, they discovered they hadn't plugged the HDMI cable in!!!  Success at last!!  Great picture of Mini desktop on the set.  Ed very kindly gave up his saturday and drove up to my place 1 1/2 hours away to make a house-call. He got the Linkplayer and Plex to work somewhat and I can access my EyeTv downloads, my internet movies and any movies I have ripped off from DVD's.  All play beautifuly on the BV-7 which is what I wanted!!  There are still come glitches such as not getting Linkplayer to display the menu but I am confident that Ed and Phillipe can fix that!! Also, I transferred some of my iTunes from my iMac to the iTunes of the Mini and they came across well but when I tried with a few more, even though I placed them in the same music folder they don't show up!!  That I am certain can be fixed with a bit of advice!  There is also an issue with N Music and N Radio playing easily when the tv picture is on but not when off.  Still the set-up with the Mini is looking like it will come right.  Many thanks, Ed and Phillipe!!  

Hi Cliff, as I drove away I kicked myself ... we should have left the analogue audio cable in from the MacMini's headphone port to the BV7 because we will need to reconnect it later ...

clifft:

There is also an issue with N Music and N Radio playing easily when the tv picture is on but not when off.

When the picture is on, the MacMini and the BV7 are in synch ... they are both using the HDMI connection for the audio.

When the picture is off, and N.MUSIC/.RADIO are selected the BV7 is looking for an audio analogue signal ... but the MacMini is still broadcasting on the HDMI.

The approach that Philippe and I are working on is to have LinkPlayer automatically switch the MacMini's audio between digital (HDMI) and analogue (the cable we tried and then removed).  This will be the program-driven equivalent of what you and I did yesterday ... change the MacMini's System Preferences -- Sound from headphone to BeoVision 7 HDMI - and get analogue all you need to do is switch BeoVision HDMI to Headphones ... with the cable we removed plugged in !!!!!

clifft:

Also, I transferred some of my iTunes from my iMac to the iTunes of the Mini and they came across well but when I tried with a few more, even though I placed them in the same music folder they don't show up!!

To move the music across you need to update the MacMini's library data base ... and how I did that was to do an import of the files under the iTunes File menu option of "Add to library"

I suspect you used Finder to copy the files ... we need to do both the files and the data base.

The easiest thing is delete the files you copied, and then do the "Add to library" process

Thanks, Ed.  I did as you suggested for the iTunes and over they all came!!  In fact, everything came over including my Podcasts and Movies!!  I had to wait ages for it all to go through!!  I find I can open and play films and tv programmes in the same way as I do on my iMac but apart from those you put across on saturday, I can't find the others on Linkplayer or Plex.  Obviously I am not putting them across into the correct place!!  Looking at the instructions for the BV-7, it clearly says you need an analogue feed to a link room.  Does that mean I am stuck with Composite and the interference I am getting?  If so, it will be a real disappointment having spent all that money to have an inferior picture in my link room!!  Cliff

clifft:

 I had to wait ages for it all to go through!!

Well you had at least 6GB of music :-)

clifft:

I can't find the others on Linkplayer or Plex.  Obviously I am not putting them across into the correct place!! 

You may recall we set up in the "Movies" home directory of the MacMini the following sub-folders/directories so that LinkPlayer's video, Front Row, and PLEX would find them:

1. "DVDs" for the DVD you had captured in VOB format ... those you will have to continue to drag and drop to VLC since it seems to understand the DVD menu structures; when I rip my DVD collection using Handbrake I don't transfer to VOB, but instead I transfer to a single file, for example my Andrea Bocelli's Tuscany performance is a single 1.23GB *.m4v file (whatever that is!); I have even duplicated some captures using a package called MakeMKV that produces *.mkv files - I believe these are more akin to a full DVD structure except they appear as a single file and unlike the *.eyeTV files they cannot be "opened" and drilled into to find the actual video segment; to be honest I still have not worked out what is the right/best capture method - *.m4v produces smaller files, however I suspect that *.mlv gives me the ability to have subtitles and/or multiple audio channels ... but I don't have a surround sound set-up like yours so I can't confirm this
2. "TV Shows" (I think) for the TVs shows you have recorded/captured (e.g. the two Tudor episodes) - here we created further sub-folders so that PLEX's synopsis and thumbnail processes would work
3. "Films" for films you had recorded ... e.g. the "Mo (2010)"
4. "EyeTV Archive alias" which points to the EyeTV recordings directory

Note that if a "film" or a "show" has a file name that does not match IMDB or TheTVDB respectively then the PLEX Movies menu or the PLEX TV Shows menu will not show the recordings.

Also note that even if the filename does match the IMDB / TheTVDB patterns you may need to type "C" when you have the source highlighted in PLEX's Videos menu in order to request a "Scan for New Content" so that PLEX discovers the material you have added.

clifft:

 Looking at the instructions for the BV-7, it clearly says you need an analogue feed to a link room.  Does that mean I am stuck with Composite and the interference I am getting?  If so, it will be a real disappointment having spent all that money to have an inferior picture in my link room!!

Yes, this is correct ... that you need an RF feed that carries analogue video and a MasterLink feed that carries analogue audio. 

However the Moire interference patterns you are seeing may simply be caused by an incorrect set-up of the B&O RF amplifier that was installed somewhere that we never found !  So I would wait until Graham's visit before deciding whether there is or is not a real problem in this area.

clifft:

Well, you have read my saga so far of my new BV-7 on the main site.  The Mac Mini is faring much better.  The boys installed it to the back of the set but couldn't get a picture!!!  Much fiddling around plus a phone call to Ed didn't help at all plus they were getting more and more tired after a frustrating days work.  Then, they discovered they hadn't plugged the HDMI cable in!!!  Success at last!!

Well, I've now got my BV7 III (thrilled with picture quality) and now the Mac Mini has arrived. Similar frustrations solved when realised that my HDMI ports seem to be arranged A,D,C,B rather than A,B,C,D. Beautiful picture will now set to emulating your set up with Plex etc before moving on to distributing to link rooms.

Wow, wish i understood all of this and that Elephant did Sydney house calls.......

While my system all works, have never been able to get linkplayer to work successfully. Beoport and BM link work fine for now..though im sure the possibilities with linkplayer are endless.....

Best Wishes

David

david coyne:

Elephant did Sydney house calls

well I do have rellies in Sydney ....

and a recent ebay purchase bombed (unpostable?!?!?) but the seller has offered to keep it if I call for a pick-up ....

however happy to talk on the 'phone (please don't call tonight ... I am into my second glass of red !)

or talk you through via emails :-)

Hello  There Ed/Mr Elephant

Well I wouldn't want to interrupt your glass of wine!!!!

How about you let me know when you are in Sydney next, and if you have time, drop by, I'm in the inner city. My need isn't urgent, Anders Odlund's BM LINK is working for now... but think LInkplayer might be the future proof option, funnily enough, into the future...

I'll be sure to supply red wine, champagne or any wine, should you find time to drop by...

Best Wishes

David

david coyne:

How about you let me know when you are in Sydney next, and if you have time, drop by, I'm in the inner city.

I'd be delighted to do so ... no immediate plans, but I will let you know when plans eventuate

I'm starting to get my system together - having a few problems with Plex9 & EyeTV but will work through these. My query is, which I'm not quite clear of from the Linkplayer config guide, can I get full Beo4/5 control of Linkplayer through the BV7 (have macmini connected to Beoport/BV7 as per linkplayer config guide) without an IR eye attached to the beoport? (ie I want to be able to hit PC on the Beo4 to bring up the linkplayer menu and be able to navigate up and down it etc with the beo4) & if not do I need to get the B&O eye or can I get a cheap and cheerful one that I can also conceal a bit more easily?

thanks

Yes you can control LinkPlayer without an additional IR receiver.

You'd need an IR Receiver only if you had a older TV.

Select Respond to PC via Masterlink in the preferences.

Also you should connect everything, start LinkPlayer and then only configure the PC source in the BV7 menu.

P.

Thanks for that Philippe,

Not got it working yet but think probably down to a dodgy masterlink connection to the beoport - work for the weekend!

Dylan

dylan:

Thanks for that Philippe,

Not got it working yet but think probably down to a dodgy masterlink connection to the beoport - work for the weekend!

Dylan

philippe:

Also you should connect everything, start LinkPlayer and then only configure the PC source in the BV7 menu.

P.

Just to clarify Philippe's point in case the problem is not a dodgy connection.

First of all get the Mac working.

Start Linkplayer.

Then, and only then, go to your PV7 menu and add PC as a source.

This is because of the handshaking that goes on the MasterLink when you add PC as a source to the BV7.

I have occaisionaly had to re-add the PC as a source to my BV8 to force the Mac and BeoPort and BeoVision to resynch and recognise each other.

Thanks for this. I definititely hadn't done this before having added linkplayer in last. However, this morning I re-added the PC to BV7 and still didn't work but am now wondering if I might have turned linkplayer off first. Will give it another go and hopefully avoid fiddling around with my masterlink junction box wiring.

Dylan,

Quit and Restart LinkPlayer,

On you Beo4, press TV.

Go to Windows > Console, and click Send to send me the Log.

I'll be able to see what happens (or what does not happen ;-) )

P.

hi,

i am very intrigued by this :

elephant:

The approach that Philippe and I are working on is to have LinkPlayer automatically switch the MacMini's audio between digital (HDMI) and analogue (the cable we tried and then removed).  This will be the program-driven equivalent of what you and I did yesterday ... change the MacMini's System Preferences -- Sound from headphone to BeoVision 7 HDMI - and get analogue all you need to do is switch BeoVision HDMI to Headphones ... with the cable we removed plugged in !!!!!

if i understand, it is possible to connect the mac mini via hdmi to a bv7 for high-quality video playback and to a beoport via the headphone jack for analog stero playback on n.music. this is great.

what is even better is if linkplayer can automatically switch the output to analog depending on the source that is selected. but does this mean that linkplayer must be somehow used to initiate video playback on the bv7 ? 

thanks,

scott