[andrew6]

Sorry for digging up an old-ish thread, but MatthewH12 did you get any response RE lag issues using a mySQL database?

I tried this using a TS410 NAS like nsviper above and also had some major lags when navigating menus/movie information etc.

[MatthewH12]

I haven' tried setting up a SQL DB again yet, waiting on the scanning lag to be fixed in the ATV builds.

[lucidthinker]

Cons
Much slower than a atom nettop for example
seems to be missing some hardware decoding capabilities
appears that if it is pushed too hard, like moving through menus or coverflow can cause it to crash
some times when playing content it will crash
sometimes slow to start playing content
requires the user to jail break the hardware to install
remote provided with atv2 is for lack of a better word a high concept remote, while extremely cool (I want to put on a black turtle neck when ever I use it) it is not the most user friendly remote for xbmc. Buttons have to have overlapping functions so you will have to remember things like having to hold down buttons for extended times to get to menus.

As claypigeon has mentioned above, navigating/controlling XBMC on atv2 can be a frustrating experience. I found a solution to that that works for me. If you have an iphone, ipod touch, or iPad you could try XBMC Commander. I have an ipad and I have found navigating through my movie/tv/music collection via XBMC Commander on my ipad MUCH faster and intuitive than trying to do the same directly on the atv2. YMMV. But, I have found XBMC commander to be an excellent way to control XBMC on atv2. I also use it to control my tivo via the tivo app and my onkyo receiver via their app on ipad as well. So, I can now control nearly all the gear I care about via a nice touchscreen interface. I just wish there was a way to control my PS3 for blu-ray playback from my ipad.

[threatdisplay]

i am running atv2 with the nightly build connected via ethernet directly to the router. media is on a hackintosh (os x 10.6.4) via nfs. i think the usability of xbmc with atv2 boils down to the choice in skins.

i am now on alaska revisited and it's awesome. i also set the default action of the select button to "choose" so it activates the contextual menu instead of just playing a movie so i can decide to look at movie information or whatnot.

i also have xbmc commander installed on my iphone and ipad but i have not had time to play with it much. i was initially not getting gestures to work... i'll look into it more when i have time.

[dukevim]

I use it as my main media box. It it perfect if you only get scene release TV, as it plays it back flawlessly, same with 720p movies (h264). To be fair I only have a 720p plasma, so I'm sure those with enormous 1080p screens will be disappointed.

Icefilms (SD), Hulu, Netflix all work great.

I have a Revo as well, but haven't bothered to set it up yet, as atv2 seems pretty much perfect.

[MatthewH12]

The only major issue I have is with media scanning. 95% of the time it refuses to do it, saying it can't connect to the server which is wrong as there's nothing wrong with the connection. Other than that I don't really mind it's quirks, considering the ios build is only ~6mo old, and the windows build is 2-3yrs old, they'll work out the kinks in time.

[threatdisplay]

The only major issue I have is with media scanning. 95% of the time it refuses to do it, saying it can't connect to the server which is wrong as there's nothing wrong with the connection. Other than that I don't really mind it's quirks, considering the ios build is only ~6mo old, and the windows build is 2-3yrs old, they'll work out the kinks in time.

i don't have any issues with scraping or scanning. it worked fine with smb and it does fine now also now that i moved to nsf. also should note that i'm getting better movie matches with "themoviedb" scraper than with the "imdb" scraper.

cheers.