Posts: 5
Joined: Jul 2010
Reputation:
0
Unfortunately it seems that XBMC is converging to the same philosophy Apple & Co is using: to support only one type of file. In the XBMC case seems to be some sort of H264 file.
This forum is full with posts from people trying to bring them media library to an usable status.
On my side I have a full 2TB NAS on a wired Gigabit connection with Apple TV2, all kind of home videos from older mini-DV camcorders to newer AVCHD, all kind of avi and mov files from digital cameras or phones.
From all, only the videos I re-encoded using Apple iMovie play good in XBMC. However these movies play also in iTunes - AppleTV combination, no XBMC required.
All the other movies I have play like crap. They buffer every minute or so, they are out of sync and drop frames. Even a small 20 MB avi (1 minute of video) non-HD file from a Canon digital camera plays like a slideshow and buffers every 10 seconds.
I have also an Apple TV1 with XBMC 10 stable on it on the same LAN . I hate to say (and to see) that it plays the same video files much better than the AppleTV 2 and even it plays more types of files.
What is going on guys? Why small, low bitrate file plays bad and some 1080P video plays good? Are you giving up on supporting multiple formats?
I am not sure everybody is ready to re-encode them media library in a XBMC friendly format, at least I am not...
Posts: 30
Joined: Jan 2011
Reputation:
0
maxsql
Junior Member
Posts: 30
If you Need multi Format Playback ATV 2 isnt your best choice. Sadly the ATV 2 is on
Y able to hardware decode h264 videos - therefore other formats are played back not so well. So if you looking for a stable-all formats-playing XBMC solution go for a HTPC
That's just the way it is for this certain device
Posts: 2,145
Joined: Jul 2008
Reputation:
12
AVCHD will grind a 4 core CPU to a halt doing editing. TV was the easiest, but still requires CPU.
The AppleTV doesn't have CPU to decode it. Broadcom didn't provide support for anything than h264.
Build yourself a fast HTPC and it'll play anything you throw at it.
Complain at broadcom and everyone that decided h264 was the "standard" for movies. Because that's who they're making chips for. So that anything from cellphones to Apple TVs can play it. The Raspberry Pi will also do 1080p. But I doubt it'll even open your AVI because it's running a slowish ARM.
Code:
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON `xbmc_%`.* TO 'xbmc'@'%';
IF you have a mysql problem, find one of the 4 dozen threads already open.
Posts: 2,145
Joined: Jul 2008
Reputation:
12
My buying guide.
1) Figure out how much CPU you need to play X format.
2) Buy CPU >= CPU determined in step 1.
Everything else, is your choice.
Code:
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON `xbmc_%`.* TO 'xbmc'@'%';
IF you have a mysql problem, find one of the 4 dozen threads already open.
Posts: 31,445
Joined: Jan 2011
vp-xbmc Wrote:Unfortunately it seems that XBMC is converging to the same philosophy Apple & Co is using: to support only one type of file. In the XBMC case seems to be some sort of H264 file.
This forum is full with posts from people trying to bring them media library to an usable status.
On my side I have a full 2TB NAS on a wired Gigabit connection with Apple TV2, all kind of home videos from older mini-DV camcorders to newer AVCHD, all kind of avi and mov files from digital cameras or phones.
From all, only the videos I re-encoded using Apple iMovie play good in XBMC. However these movies play also in iTunes - AppleTV combination, no XBMC required.
All the other movies I have play like crap. They buffer every minute or so, they are out of sync and drop frames. Even a small 20 MB avi (1 minute of video) non-HD file from a Canon digital camera plays like a slideshow and buffers every 10 seconds.
I have also an Apple TV1 with XBMC 10 stable on it on the same LAN . I hate to say (and to see) that it plays the same video files much better than the AppleTV 2 and even it plays more types of files.
What is going on guys? Why small, low bitrate file plays bad and some 1080P video plays good? Are you giving up on supporting multiple formats?
I am not sure everybody is ready to re-encode them media library in a XBMC friendly format, at least I am not...
You're confused. The only reason XBMC for iOS is limited to decoding h.264 in hardware (for HD playback. Other codecs work just fine with SD resolutions and CPU decoding) is because
Apple didn't expose how to access the rest of the hardware decoder. This has nothing to do with support in the XBMC software and everything to do with
Apple hardware.
Posts: 5
Joined: Jul 2010
Reputation:
0
I am not sure we need a custom computer to play most formats. I had once the WD Live TV box (actually I bought it twice, but end up bring it back each time: the interface was bad, the remote was bad, the whole hardware looks like a joke) . That was the only box playing AVCHD flawless from a NAS. It could play most of my files if I good remember.
That box is also something like AppleTV2, about same price, I don't think it has a super-processor in it, but somehow plays video files very good. Unfortunately seems no XBMC was ever ported to it.
Posts: 31,445
Joined: Jan 2011
2011-11-17, 03:29
(This post was last modified: 2011-11-18, 16:17 by Ned Scott.)
vp-xbmc Wrote:I am not sure we need a custom computer to play most formats. I had once the WD Live TV box (actually I bought it twice, but end up bring it back each time: the interface was bad, the remote was bad, the whole hardware looks like a joke) . That was the only box playing AVCHD flawless from a NAS. It could play most of my files if I good remember.
That box is also something like AppleTV2, about same price, I don't think it has a super-processor in it, but somehow plays video files very good. Unfortunately seems no XBMC was ever ported to it.
WD Live actually has a better video decoding chip inside it (other specs/abilities aren't up to snuff for running a port of XBMC, I believe, but for raw video playback it takes the cup). In theory the ATV2 can decode a lot more codecs in hardware, but this has to be discovered the hard way. There's no public documentation on how to use the hardware decoder in the ATV2. Davilla got h.264 to work because there was some exposure/hints about it, and with a ton of hard work (plus he sacrificed 10 unicorns). It's a major reverse engineering project.
Like I said before, there is nothing on the XBMC software side that is only supporting one format. Work being done to get XBMC to run on iOS/ATV2 will help XBMC run on other ARM based solutions that aren't as restricted in hardware (much in the same way that past ARM projects helped the iOS port). While nothing has been formally planned, I think it is safe to say that we will see more XBMC ports running on small ARM or embedded systems in the future. That seems to be the trend with these kinds of things. Even smartTVs are starting to get powerful enough that they could someday run XBMC directly, with no additional box necessary.
Posts: 293
Joined: May 2011
Reputation:
27
Is there a tutorial for reverse engineering atv2 api? I have a lot of free time and would love to get my hands dirty with this.
Posts: 31,445
Joined: Jan 2011
2011-11-17, 06:50
(This post was last modified: 2011-11-17, 07:09 by Ned Scott.)
newatv2user Wrote:Is there a tutorial for reverse engineering atv2 api? I have a lot of free time and would love to get my hands dirty with this.
No. That's the thing with reverse engineering; there's no guide. It's all guess work, prodding and poking, trial and error. Sometimes people actually take things apart and desolder physical chips off of units to get data dumps, then painfully analyze the data. Sometimes they look for exploits to trigger data dumps. Sometimes they find clues in other products that use the same parts.
No offense, but if you have to ask for a tutorial then you probably have a snowball's chance in hell of helping in this area.
Edit: Just to give you an idea of how hard this is, the fact that Davilla figured out even part of the hardware decoding has shocked and amazed some highly talented programmers out there. We're talking about stuff that's probably harder to find than an iOS jailbreak exploit. I myself have a snowball's chance in hell of helping out with something like this as well :)
Posts: 293
Joined: May 2011
Reputation:
27
I am just interested in this kind of stuff but have no idea where or how to get started. That's why I asked for a tutorial.
Anyways, where in the XBMC codes can I check out this magnificent hardware decoding found by Davilla. I just want to learn something new. Thanks.
