2011-08-13, 23:43
rickrude Wrote:I can't say I have ever had my atv2 crash due to RAM issues. I watched the entire back to the future trilogy back-to-back, which were between 10G and 14G each and it was flawless. Been using it since Feb and ditched my heavy loud HTPC for it. I couldn't recommend the atv2 for use as and XBMC box enough! Maybe it's your NAS or network that is the issue. Or perhaps its the AE build - it was pulled for a reason. I am running the following FYI.
Strange, most people cannot play mkv .264 HD files over a certain size without either buffering issues or crashing. I used the June AE build and currently on the latest nightly build (xbmc pre-11.0 git:20110808). Both builds crashed w/ HD mkv's. The AE build worked well, the developer did not want it published so it was pulled (claimed it wasn't ready, although it worked seamlessly, even had the navigation sounds). Shame as I was able to get "The Golden Compass" 12GB DTS-HD file to play for about 5 minutes through my McIntosh AVR until it crashed. It was pristine, quality as good as the original BD (took about 7 hours to handbrake on my 12-Core 3.33GHz Westmere Mac Pro).
Certain my issue isn't simply memory (system stats show ~20% or less mem free). My mkv's are encoded in 1080P (the aTV 2 accepts 1080 but outputs to 720, doesn't mean it will necessarily play). As I don't want two versions of an HD movie, I decided on handbraking my HD encodes in 1080 in full [reasonable] quality as I may move to a device that supports full 1080P/DTS-HD. If Apple doesn't update their aTV next mo. w/ the iPhone/iPod announcements (A5 updates usually pair) w/ at least 512MB RAM and an A5 processor, there's not much hope 1080 will be supported.
So question: What do any of you recommend as a replacement for the aTV 2 that supports 1080P, etc that isn't an HTPC (don't need an HTPC, I could always build one but it's overkill as I have a server for my media, just need a device with better hardware).
thanks for any advice
HW:
- McIntosh AVR w/ DTS/THX/DD/etc support
- aTV 2 w/ 4.3 (used Seas0nPass)
- XMB Pre-11.0 git:20110808-6b994c5
- Synology DS211 2-Bay NAS connected via 6 CAT RJ-45 to 2011 Airport Extreme Base Station w/ SMB protocol (aTV 2 in port 2, Synology in port 4, both static DHCP w/ required port mappings)