I Need help to build nice looking HTPC mac for Plex, Kodi & more

[Valdhor]

The biggest problem with players like the Raspberry Pi and Apple TV is sound. They don't pass through DTS-HD MA 7.1 sound tracks. I have both a RPi2 and ATV4.

So, I thought I would build a HTPC Hackintosh. I will also offload my home automation and Transmission duties to this box. My FreeNAS box holds all of my media as well as runs my Plex server (Amongst other things).

My biggest question is how to control the HTPC. I have been told that the Manta USB IR receiver works but then I'm limited to the Apple Remote. I can't seem to find out if the Flirc USB IR Receiver works. If it does then I can use any remote I like (eg. Harmony). Does anyone have any idea?

 

[khriswithak]

The biggest problem with players like the Raspberry Pi and Apple TV is sound. They don't pass through DTS-HD MA 7.1 sound tracks. I have both a RPi2 and ATV4.

So, I thought I would build a HTPC Hackintosh. I will also offload my home automation and Transmission duties to this box. My FreeNAS box holds all of my media as well as runs my Plex server (Amongst other things).

My biggest question is how to control the HTPC. I have been told that the Manta USB IR receiver works but then I'm limited to the Apple Remote. I can't seem to find out if the Flirc USB IR Receiver works. If it does then I can use any remote I like (eg. Harmony). Does anyone have any idea?

I have a Flirc connected to my macbook pro 2011 and it works with my Harmony Smart Remote. I'd assume it would also work in a hackintosh as long as your usb ports are working.

 

[Valdhor]

Before I go ahead and buy a Flirc I wanted a confirmation that it does work. You know what assume means.

 

[Mockiteur]

Good point about the audio.
I installed Kodi on my iMac and it plays mkv files with DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD the latter to my surprise because some titles with TrueHD don't have sound in VLC.

So the main reason to build this HTPC is to have everything in one place and I gotta say the Kodi app works great with the iMac and I'm sure it'll work great with HTPC, too.

I'll sit down this weekend and figure out parts I wanna put in this thing.
I really don't wanna buy a graphics card because I'm not going to game on this thing but at the same time I'm worried that CPU won't be enoug :/

I have to figure this out.

–T

 

[Valdhor]

I really don't wanna buy a graphics card because I'm not going to game on this thing but at the same time I'm worried that CPU won't be enoug

I have all of the parts for my build except the SSD (Which has somehow been lost in the post) and I do not have a video card. I have it on good authority that the built-in card will do fine with 1080p from the HDMI port. As I don't have a 4K TV that will be fine. The only thing that appears to be a problem is sleeping (Or wake from sleep) with the 530 on board graphics. This will probably be fixed in a later update so I'm not concerned (And the power cost for having the box not sleep is probably less than $10/year so I can't see a good reason to get a video card yet).

 

[khriswithak]

I have all of the parts for my build except the SSD (Which has somehow been lost in the post) and I do not have a video card. I have it on good authority that the built-in card will do fine with 1080p from the HDMI port. As I don't have a 4K TV that will be fine. The only thing that appears to be a problem is sleeping (Or wake from sleep) with the 530 on board graphics. This will probably be fixed in a later update so I'm not concerned (And the power cost for having the box not sleep is probably less than $10/year so I can't see a good reason to get a video card yet).

I haven't tested it yet as I don't have a Skylake build at the moment but it looks like there might be a possible workaround to the HD 530 sleep/wake issue.

If you go into Terminal and enable Hibernate Mode by entering sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 25
then it might resolve the problem (at the expense of a few extra seconds before the system is ready for use).

Again, I haven't tested this but I saw on another thread that it's worked for a few people so I'm excited if this works. Give it a try when you finish your build.