JeanJason Posted November 16, 2012 Share Posted November 16, 2012 Does anyone have experience with playing back ProRes video files from a Mac Mini? I have four minis each playing a different looped 1080p video file. Playback was a nightmare, at first. There seemed to be so many processes running in the background, they interfered with playback. The video and audio would stutter, or the audio would completely drop out, never to return, until a reboot. So, I deleted all third party apps, turned off bluetooth in all its forms, turned off virus protection, turned off wifi, screensaver... In a perfect world, the mini would shutdown in the evening, and start-up in the morning and auto-play the looping file. But, I experience so many different issues, I gave up and am now playing the mini permanently. I'd like to strip down the mini further--remove anything not associated with video and audio playback. When I look in the console, I see all kinds of processes still looking for the internet. Does anyone have experience ensuring smooth playback from a mini? Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Riley Posted November 16, 2012 Share Posted November 16, 2012 Have you experimented with different formats? I presume you're using Quicktime X on a recent model? I've got an 18 month old 2.3 ghz i5 one with 8gb ram in and I just played back a load of high bitrate 1080p content just fine, with sophos, dropbox, rescuetime, time machine, chrome, office, evernote and mail open. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cameroncoats Posted November 16, 2012 Share Posted November 16, 2012 the audio would completely drop out, never to return, until a reboot.If you quit/force quit the 'coreaudio' process in activity monitor, OSX will relaunch it within a few seconds, and you should have output again. Not a solution I know, but at least it's faster than a reboot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gyro_gearloose Posted November 17, 2012 Share Posted November 17, 2012 If you're just looping some video, wouldn't a Blu Ray player not do the trick? It would be way more stable than a bunch of Macs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
badweasel Posted November 22, 2012 Share Posted November 22, 2012 Jean,I feel that the hard disk is the bottleneck here. Prores data rate is high (up to 330Mbps for 1080p 4444) and as you are finding out, the mac isn't making that data available in time. While trying to stop unnecessary processes may have some benefit, I would consider dropping the data rate or upgrading to SSD. Cheers, Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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