[jaycjayz]

Platform: AppleTV 2
Version: 5.0.2 (4250)
XBMC Build: XBMC Git:20120702-f3cd288 (complied Jul 2 2012)
Install method: Firecore & SeasonPass

http://pastebin.com/ggSjL8BG

Ok, hopefully I am doing everything right so far.

I have a Synology NAS server. I have been using the same server in my home for a year now with no issues whatsoever. I used to stream the movies from the NAS box to my Samsung TV. I recently upgraded my receiver, and can no longer stream the movies to my TV. I started looking for alternatives, and considering I already owned a AppleTV, I decided to jailbreak it and try XBMC.

The first file I played was excellent.
Container: MP4. Size: 4GB. Resolution: 1920x864. Data rate: 2928. Total Bitrate: 3333. Frame rate: 23. Audio bit rate: 404. Channels: 6. Sample rate: 48

The second file I played was choppy.
Container: AVI. Size: 2.5GB. Resolution: 1280x720. Data rate: 3031. Total Bitrate: 3479. Frame rate: 23. Audio bit rate: 448. Channels: 6. Sample rate: 48.

The third file was also choppy.
Container: AVI. Size: 4.35GB. Resolution: 1280x720. Data rate: 3992. Total bitrate: 4376. Frame rate: 23. Audio bit rate: 384. Channels: 6. Sample rate: 48

So I tried a 4th file which played perfectly:
Container: MKV. Size: 4.58GB. Resolution: 1280x720. Could not find the other data on the MKV file.

So it seems that my issue is with AVI files, but not totally. I tried a 700mb AVI file. It played perfectly. Then I tried a 1.5GB AVI file. It also played perfectly.

I have tried streaming these files using NFS and UPnP. Both ways give me the same problems.

I read around before posting my problem. Based on the recommendations from the other posts, here are my settings:
Render method: Auto detect
Allow hardware acceleration: check
Sync playback to display: check
AV sync method: audio clock
allowed error in aspect ratio to minimize black bars: none
Audio output: Optical/Coax
Speaker configuration: 5.1

If I didn't mention a setting, I haven't touched it.

I also changed the apple tv setting to 16 bit audio as suggested in another post.

No matter what I do, I cannot get these certain files to play properly. I should note: All of these files worked immaculately before transitioning to XBMC. And they still work if I use my Samsung Blu-Ray player as my streaming device. No issues whatsoever.

I am using the confluence skin if that matters.

Let me know if you need anything further from me. Hopefully we can get this resolved.

[Ned Scott]

Sounds like the avi files are HD, and XBMC will always use software decoding on avi files (iirc, even regardless of codec inside). Software decoding isn't enough to handle HD, but is enough for SD.

For XBMC to be able to playback an HD file it should be in something like an MKV container (there's a few others that also work, like MOV, OGG, and others) and use h.264 as the video codec.

[jaycjayz]

So let me make sure I understand.

This is a known issue. There is nothing I can do on my end other than re-encoding my files. No settings that I can change.

Is this something that could be possibly fixed in a future build?

In another note: ever since I SSH'ed into my AppleTV, it refuses to turn off. I used Cyberduck. Last night, I reopened Cyberduck and clicked disconnect. This morning, the ATV was still powered on. Am I missing something here?

[Ned Scott]

It's a known limitation of the hardware. We can only decode h.264 for HD video.

As for the power, an ATV2 never powers off. It has a fake sleep mode where the light turns off and the video signal is halted, but it's still powered up.