[Pasoa2021]

Guys,

Just a few questions I have on the setup I listed in the subject line.

1) Do I understand correctly that at this time, XBMC 11 does not support TrueHD and DTS-HD? Is there a way to get this setup?

2) The AppleTV1 doesn't have a "sleep" or hibernate mode from what I can tell. Is it OK to leave it on all the time?

3) I've tried streaming some 1080P content over an NFS mounted drive from my laptop and get constant buffering. Is it unrealistic to expect to be able to stream 1080P files? My setup is:

ATV-> Cat5 Cable -> Router
MacBook Pro -> Wireless -> Router

The move I was trying to stream was a 1080P file around 9 GB for a 2 hour film.

4) I'm going to instlal SABnzb and sick-beard on the AppleTV1, I trust this won't impact performance?

5) I'm not sure which CrystalHD (the 12 or the 15) is installed in the AppleTV I bought on ebay, any way to tell (dmesg output?)

Thanks!

[live4ever]

1) Not with the ATV1's built in GeForce Go 7300
2) Yeah it's fine
3) Wireless is probably the reason, test with the MBP hooked-up via ethernet
4) Yes it will mostly disk-io (downloading and extracting to the same disk)
5) Depends on if you are running Linux (Crystalbuntu or OpenELEC?) on it

AppleTV is best used a front-end only, pulling video off of a NAS or server.

[Pasoa2021]

1) Not with the ATV1's built in GeForce Go 7300
2) Yeah it's fine
3) Wireless is probably the reason, test with the MBP hooked-up via ethernet
4) Yes it will mostly disk-io (downloading and extracting to the same disk)
5) Depends on if you are running Linux (Crystalbuntu or OpenELEC?) on it

AppleTV is best used a front-end only, pulling video off of a NAS or server.

In regards to 1), what about with the Crystal Card installed?

5) Crystalbuntu

---

1) Not with the ATV1's built in GeForce Go 7300
2) Yeah it's fine
3) Wireless is probably the reason, test with the MBP hooked-up via ethernet
4) Yes it will mostly disk-io (downloading and extracting to the same disk)
5) Depends on if you are running Linux (Crystalbuntu or OpenELEC?) on it

AppleTV is best used a front-end only, pulling video off of a NAS or server.

And in regards to (sabz and sickbeard) - This would only impact disk-io during a file download/extract. When they are idle should be OK?

[eagle63]

I have the same setup (ATV-1, Crystal HD card, CrystalBuntu) and am also wondering about #1. So can we do lossless audio (DTS-MA or Dolby TrueHD)? And why would the video card matter?

Regarding #2, I've tried to put it in Hibernate mode but it doesn't seem to do anything. The ATV draws very little power, but even so it would be cool to be able to have it sleep.

[Pasoa2021]

Yeah I just leave it on now. Does anyone know about the lossless audio question?

[Ned Scott]

The video card handles the data going out of the HDMI port, and it can't handle HD audio. It's a hardware limitation.

[eagle63]

The video card handles the data going out of the HDMI port, and it can't handle HD audio. It's a hardware limitation.

Darn, that's unfortunate. Can XBMC do bitstreaming? (sending the audio stream out so that it can be decoded by my AV receiver) I do that on my windows media center HTPC and it works great.

[Ned Scott]

It can for Dolby Digital (AC3) and DTS, but just not for HD audio. XBMC can still read HD audio tracks, but it won't pass them through to the receiver due to said hardware limits.

[icedtrip]

Others are helping in addressing most of your questions, but I'm gonna address 2.

3) I've tried streaming some 1080P content over an NFS mounted drive from my laptop and get constant buffering. Is it unrealistic to expect to be able to stream 1080P files? My setup is:

ATV-> Cat5 Cable -> Router
MacBook Pro -> Wireless -> Router

The move I was trying to stream was a 1080P file around 9 GB for a 2 hour film.

Streaming 1080p content over wi-fi is certainly doable, but it will depend on a couple of factors. First, 802.11n can handle it with no problem. I imagine 802.11g is possible depending on how much the video has been compressed/encoded/etc regarding bit rate, but I've never tried. A 2 hour 1080p film coming in at 9GB tells me it has been encoded to a much lower bit rate than it was ripped at, so this particular video should be fairly easy. The other thing to take into account will be 802.11n over 2.4GHz vs 5GHz. I live in a condo where everyone has wi-fi broadcasting. 2.4 is problematic and would cause constant rebuffering, but only on my very large files. After enabling just 5GHz and playing around with a few different channels, I no longer have any issues, and this is with full quality rips weighing in at 30-40GB and upwards of a bitrate of 40+ Mb. Edit: Oh, and by extending the wireless network, I essentially halved my speeds too, and it still works just fine.

Here is my setup:

unRAID Server with NFS Shares -> Gigabit Switch -> Dual Band Apple Airport Express (used as primary router) -> Wireless extended to non dual band Airport Extreme (5GHz only mode enabled) -> Mac Mini w/ CrystalHD

5) I'm not sure which CrystalHD (the 12 or the 15) is installed in the AppleTV I bought on ebay, any way to tell (dmesg output?)

One quick way to tell would be to simply try and fast forward through a movie. Is it super jerky and does it have a hard time recovering once you start playing the movie again? If so, most likely a 12. If it is fairly smooth and recovers back to playing fairly quick, most likely a 15.

[Pasoa2021]

Others are helping in addressing most of your questions, but I'm gonna address 2.

3) I've tried streaming some 1080P content over an NFS mounted drive from my laptop and get constant buffering. Is it unrealistic to expect to be able to stream 1080P files? My setup is:

ATV-> Cat5 Cable -> Router
MacBook Pro -> Wireless -> Router

The move I was trying to stream was a 1080P file around 9 GB for a 2 hour film.

Streaming 1080p content over wi-fi is certainly doable, but it will depend on a couple of factors. First, 802.11n can handle it with no problem. I imagine 802.11g is possible depending on how much the video has been compressed/encoded/etc regarding bit rate, but I've never tried. A 2 hour 1080p film coming in at 9GB tells me it has been encoded to a much lower bit rate than it was ripped at, so this particular video should be fairly easy. The other thing to take into account will be 802.11n over 2.4GHz vs 5GHz. I live in a condo where everyone has wi-fi broadcasting. 2.4 is problematic and would cause constant rebuffering, but only on my very large files. After enabling just 5GHz and playing around with a few different channels, I no longer have any issues, and this is with full quality rips weighing in at 30-40GB and upwards of a bitrate of 40+ Mb. Edit: Oh, and by extending the wireless network, I essentially halved my speeds too, and it still works just fine.

Here is my setup:

unRAID Server with NFS Shares -> Gigabit Switch -> Dual Band Apple Airport Express (used as primary router) -> Wireless extended to non dual band Airport Extreme (5GHz only mode enabled) -> Mac Mini w/ CrystalHD

5) I'm not sure which CrystalHD (the 12 or the 15) is installed in the AppleTV I bought on ebay, any way to tell (dmesg output?)

One quick way to tell would be to simply try and fast forward through a movie. Is it super jerky and does it have a hard time recovering once you start playing the movie again? If so, most likely a 12. If it is fairly smooth and recovers back to playing fairly quick, most likely a 15.

The above information is super helpful - I will look at the network settings when I get home tonight and will let you know.

I did figure out which version of the card it was - It was the 12. I bought a 15 on ebay and the difference is substantial, both in overall GUI responsiveness and video playback.

Thanks again for the network tips, will report back tonight.

[Pasoa2021]

So i tried that and i don't think my router supports 5 Ghz. It was set to mixed g/n so I set it to N only.

I did seem to stream OK, although it would buffer after the 1st minute of the movie completed, but then only once or twice afterwards.

Any other common router settings to look at?

[icedtrip]

Setting to N only is a good choice. If you had a device using 802.11g, it would make all speeds drop to that speed IIRC. You could also try different channels. Most routers will default to channels 1, 6 or 11. Since most people don't change these, its possible that other routers around you are sitting on these channels and causing "clutter" for you. Try a different channel, test speed, try another, test again, etc, until you find the best channel in your area. Another option to look for in the router will be "wide channels". Not all routers will do wide channels, and I'm not sure if the terminology will be the same from router to router, but enabling this will help.

Also, there are some apps that will help you find a channel for you. Look for inssider. It'll even show you some graphs of all the networks around you and what channels they are occupying, showing overlap in the case of wide channels, etc. Net Stumbler is another app you can look for too.

[ATV1-canada]

It can for Dolby Digital (AC3) and DTS, but just not for HD audio. XBMC can still read HD audio tracks, but it won't pass them through to the receiver due to said hardware limits.

Hi

I actually have mine setup to pass the audio Dolby Digital (AC3) and DTS, to my receiver via the toslink port on the ATV. When this happens the audio states pass thru mode

in settings >audio output in crystalbuntu -

audio output > optical coax
speaker configuration > 5.1
- dolby digital (AC3) compatible receiver > checked (blue dot)
- DTS compatible receiver > checked (blue dot)
Audio output device > Custom
custom audio device > plughw:0,3
Passthrough audio device > iec958 (alsa)


in this configuration the HDMI cable passes to my TV which then retransmit the digital audio via the toslink on the TV to my reciever

however when the audio is DTS it then pushes it to my receiver for decoding and the audio on the ATC states pass thru active

hope this helps its a bit of a work around but it does allow for the DTS playback