Comments on: Mac Mini + XBMC + Broadcom Crystal HD = 1080p video!

By: Bill Best

Bill Best — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 18:49:41 +0000

Which directions did you follow? I've tried and tried but I can't get mine working in OSX but it works fine on my Windows 7 bootcamp partition.

Phil : Thanks for the great article! I am also using a 1.6GHz /512RAM Mini as MediaCenter and had stuttering on some 1080p videos (not all). When searching for a solution I came across your article, bought the CrystalHD for 30$ and it solved it. Perfect playback of 1080p with only 23% CPU load. Much cheaper than upgrading to 2GHz which costs over 100$ If you can live without Wifi its the best thing you can do. Actually you can simply use a small USB wifi dongle instead. Only drawback for some might be that only XBMC currently supports the CrystalHD on Mac. Fine for me.

@Phil

By: Phil

Phil — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 15:39:45 +0000

Thanks for the great article!
I am also using a 1.6GHz /512RAM Mini as MediaCenter and had stuttering on some 1080p videos (not all). When searching for a solution I came across your article, bought the CrystalHD for 30$ and it solved it. Perfect playback of 1080p with only 23% CPU load. Much cheaper than upgrading to 2GHz which costs over 100$

If you can live without Wifi its the best thing you can do. Actually you can simply use a small USB wifi dongle instead.

Only drawback for some might be that only XBMC currently supports the CrystalHD on Mac. Fine for me.

By: Bill Best

Bill Best — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 02:32:16 +0000

Does anyone have any updates on Flash browser support for CrystalHD with OSX? It is working great in Windows 7..so awesome to play 1080p video on my 4 year old laptop. Best upgrade yet!

By: xavier

xavier — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 17:07:20 +0000

hello everyone
But thank you for this tutorial I followed to the letter and I can not properly install my card.
Here are the steps I followed:
I downloaded the archive crystalhd-for-osx-1.0.3.zip
I unzipped on the desktop in a folder named Crystal
I launched the terminal and drag the folder and I run Crystal guests command. here is what I entered in the terminal …
Thank you in advance to anyone who can help me

Last login: Mon Jan 17 17:48:55 on ttys000
Mac-mini-de-revaax:~ revaax$ /Users/revaax/Desktop/crystal sudo mv BroadcomCrystalHD.kext /System/Library/Extensions
-bash: /Users/revaax/Desktop/crystal: is a directory
Mac-mini-de-revaax:~ revaax$ sudo mv BroadcomCrystalHD.kext /System/Library/Extensions
mv: BroadcomCrystalHD.kext: No such file or directory
Mac-mini-de-revaax:~ revaax$ sudo chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions/BroadcomCrystalHD.kext
Mac-mini-de-revaax:~ revaax$ sudo chmod -R 755 /System/Library/Extensions/BroadcomCrystalHD.kext
Mac-mini-de-revaax:~ revaax$ mv libcrystalhd.dylib /usr/lib/
mv: libcrystalhd.dylib: No such file or directory
Mac-mini-de-revaax:~ revaax$ mv bcmFilePlayFw.bin /usr/lib/
mv: bcmFilePlayFw.bin: No such file or directory
Mac-mini-de-revaax:~ revaax$ sudo chown root:wheel /usr/lib/libcrystalhd.dylib /usr/lib/bcmFilePlayFw.bin
Mac-mini-de-revaax:~ revaax$ sudo chmod 755 /usr/lib/libcrystalhd.dylib /usr/lib/bcmFilePlayFw.bin
Mac-mini-de-revaax:~ revaax$ sudo kextload /System/Library/Extensions/BroadcomCrystalHD.kext
Mac-mini-de-revaax:~ revaax$

By: Gocho

Gocho — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 00:16:44 +0000

I installed the card, and using dharma rc1 I can’t select crystalHD as the render method, but there is a Allow HArdware acceleration (Crystal HD) checkbox… Is it the same result?

By: JeanLuc7

JeanLuc7 — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 08:35:11 +0000

Installed this device in my Mac mini early 2006 (cpu upgrade to 2.16 GHz). Well the device seems to work as my cpu usage drops down from 125% to 10-30%. But the frame rate also drops from about 20 to only 4. There must be something wrong. I tried the 1.01 and the 1.03 driver version with the latest XBMC nightly build (r31938). What’s my fault?

By: CB

CB — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 06:26:58 +0000

Just dropped a BC HD into a dual 1.83 mini running 10.6.3 with 1.0.3 and it drastically dropped the cpu usage (90% to 45%) with a much improved frame rate. I did notice that every once in a while, at video startup I get dropped frames, which others are seeing with 10.6.3.

Thank you for these instructions, they really helped keep the installation simple.

By: David Hoevers

David Hoevers — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 13:09:03 +0000

@Nelson What model do you have? One with a Geforce 9400m? 2GHz/2.26GHz?

By: XBMCFreak » Mac Mini + XBMC + Broadcom Crystal HD = 1080p video!

XBMCFreak » Mac Mini + XBMC + Broadcom Crystal HD = 1080p video! — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 12:54:52 +0000

[...] http://www.xlml.com/aehso/2010/01/13/mac-mini-xbmc-broadcom-crystal-hd-1080p-video/ Categories: Apple, XBMC Tags: Comments (0) Trackbacks (0) Leave a comment Trackback [...]

By: Daniel

Daniel — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:47:35 +0000

I’ve just installed a BCM970012 in my Mac Mini running OS X 10.6.2 with kernel extension version 1.0.3. Works like a charm.