.avi issue on ATV2
#1
Hello

I am a long time XBMC user... My primary setup is on an Asrock machine right now and works like a champ... I control everything on it with my Linux machine and move movies over to it via ssh and ethernet... Very smooth and very easy to use...

I have recently decided to jump on board with the new ATV2...

I jailbroke with green poison and got everything installed... Was pretty simple, bravo to the green poison guys...

So I now have my ATV2 hooked up to a WNR3500l Netgear router... It connects via wireless or ethernet... And the router will share a hard drive... I like my XBMC machine to be portable so the kids can watch movies when we travel, so the WNR3500l is kinda perfect... It shares NTFS perfect...

Now onto my issue... I am able to watch all my MKV files with no issues... Even the surround sound system works perfect and the picture is amazing (The XBMC guys did a great job)... But when I try to watch an avi (more specifically an HD avi) the image and audio is choppy... The size of the file does not seem to matter... I guess its a codex issue?

I have done some research and I have not been able to identify if there is a solution... It sounds like standard avi files work great, but all of mine are the HD XVID avi type... So I have nothing to compair it to...

Is their a fix for this or is this still being worked on?

Thanks
Shiloh
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#2
Correct. As mentioned in the FAQ, the ATV2 can only hardware decode h.264. It can software decode other codecs, but when you go to HD on those codecs it becomes too much for the CPU to handle alone.

In theory it should be possible to handle xvid/divx via hardware, but all attempts to do so have come up with nothing. This is because there's no documentation on how to access the hardware decoding on iOS. It's incredible that the APIs for h.264 decoding were found and made accessible. For all we know it might not even be physically possible to hardware decode other codecs, though the hardware chip Apple uses is one used in other devices that do support it. There's just no documentation for it on the ATV2/iOS, so it's all in the dark.

If Apple ever makes an ATV3 with an "A5" SoC/Processor it could be possible (the current ATV2 uses an A4 which is found in the iPhone 4 and iPad 1. The A5, in the iPhone 4S and iPad 2, has a more powerful CPU that can decode some HD xvid/divx files).

The good thing about this is that HD xvid and divx files are older, less efficient codecs, so going forward they'll become less and less common. H.264 is highly scalable and is used everywhere from internet streaming to bluray discs.

tl;dr version: won't work with HD .avi files
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#3
OK... That was pretty much what I was thinking... I was not aware of the processor problem, so thanks for adding that info...

I really apprecieate the reply...

thanks
Shiloh
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