[jelockwood]

I, and I would presume others, would find it helpful to get a summary or "State of the Union" for XBMC on AppleTV. The following are the sort of points that would be useful to answer.

1. Confirmation AppleTV OS 2.3 is now supported and what version of PatchStick maker to use for it.
2. Any currently outstanding issues with ATV 2.3 (I believe 5.1 Audio is currently broken in XBMC/Boxee)
3. While it is possible to access SMB shares, is it also possible to use AFP shares? (I know XBMC itself does not but I mean via the underlying AppleTV software and/or plugins.)
4. Does only installing XBMC and not also installing Boxee cause any problems? Can you change your mind later and add/remove Boxee?
5. Presumably the Apple Remote is supported, is a paired Apple Remote supported?
6. What other remotes (if any) can be used with the built-in IR receiver?
7. What other remotes (if any) can be used with an alternative receiver?
8. Can one install XBMC for ATV without installing Nito, Saphire, etc. (is there any dependency on these). If there are dependencies, what must be installed.
9. On a 'real' Mac it is possible to configure iTunes to store music on an external drive, it is also separately possible to tell iTunes to store the library files on an external drive, is either possible (in Back Row) on an AppleTV? I could then have access to the music both in XBMC, and Back Row. I will be using a NAS server which does run FireFly (an iTunes compatible DAAP server), but AppleTV will not connect to it (real iTunes will). By setting Back Row to use an external (network) volume I could get around this.

Many thanks for any responses, and especially thanks to those people who efforts have made this possible.

[davilla]

I, and I would presume others, would find it helpful to get a summary or "State of the Union" for XBMC on AppleTV. The following are the sort of points that would be useful to answer.

1. Confirmation AppleTV OS 2.3 is now supported and what version of PatchStick maker to use for it.
2. Any currently outstanding issues with ATV 2.3 (I believe 5.1 Audio is currently broken in XBMC/Boxee)
3. While it is possible to access SMB shares, is it also possible to use AFP shares? (I know XBMC itself does not but I mean via the underlying AppleTV software and/or plugins.)
4. Does only installing XBMC and not also installing Boxee cause any problems? Can you change your mind later and add/remove Boxee?
5. Presumably the Apple Remote is supported, is a paired Apple Remote supported?
6. What other remotes (if any) can be used with the built-in IR receiver?
7. What other remotes (if any) can be used with an alternative receiver?
8. Can one install XBMC for ATV without installing Nito, Saphire, etc. (is there any dependency on these). If there are dependencies, what must be installed.
9. On a 'real' Mac it is possible to configure iTunes to store music on an external drive, it is also separately possible to tell iTunes to store the library files on an external drive, is either possible (in Back Row) on an AppleTV? I could then have access to the music both in XBMC, and Back Row. I will be using a NAS server which does run FireFly (an iTunes compatible DAAP server), but AppleTV will not connect to it (real iTunes will). By setting Back Row to use an external (network) volume I could get around this.

Many thanks for any responses, and especially thanks to those people who efforts have made this possible.

1) yes, use atvusb-creator-1.0b10 (osx) or atv-win-1.0b11 (windows) then update the launcher from 0.8 to 2.2

2) small issue with NitoTV launched apps, solution will be in Launcher 2.3.

3) SMB yes using XBMC/Boxee internal client, both SMB and AFP can be enabled at the AppleTV OS level but it's command-line stuff. See Awkwardtv wiki for details.

4) Patchstick install the Launcher, Launcher installs XBMC and/or Boxee. Removal is via a command-line.

5) Paired support is not present in the IR handler for XBMC/Boxee. Scheduled for a future Launcher version.

6) ATV r2.3 supports learning non-apple IR remotes, Having this info propigated to the XBMC/Boxee IR handler is schedules for a future Launcher version.

7) In theory, any OSX based USB remote receiver. No work has been done to investigate this possibility.

8) XBMC/Boxee installation/operation is independent of any other 3rd party frontrow plugin.

9) This is tricky. Some have attempted to vector the AppleTV frontrow content to an external USB disk. This works but has problems during reboot as the external USB disk is mounted late in the boot sequence. You might be able to do something with a union mount of the external USB disk overlaying into the frontrow content directory which no one was tried yet.

[nmrs]

6. What other remotes (if any) can be used with the built-in IR receiver?

My Logitech Harmony 880 works out of the box with ATV and XBMC/Boxee -- no pairing or special configuration necessary.

[tuckbodi]

2. Any currently outstanding issues with ATV 2.3 (I believe 5.1 Audio is currently broken in XBMC/Boxee)

@davilla - do you know if 5.1 surround sound, which is broken on some receivers with XBMC for ATV, is something we'll see fixed in the near future? The trac ticket (#5188) projects milestone 9.04 but I don't know if that means soon or it's way out there.

3. While it is possible to access SMB shares, is it also possible to use AFP shares? (I know XBMC itself does not but I mean via the underlying AppleTV software and/or plugins.)

@ jelockwood - I use NitoTV to setup my AFP shares. It's pretty straightforward if you have a 1.0 Recovery.dmg and 10.4.9ComboUpdate handy. Directions are on AwkwardTV.

[davilla]

@davilla - do you know if 5.1 surround sound, which is broken on some receivers with XBMC for ATV, is something we'll see fixed in the near future? The trac ticket (#5188) projects milestone 9.04 but I don't know if that means soon or it's way out there.

maybe, I run analog for simplicity and would need to swap to a digital audio setup to check into this.

[tyche]

I have 5.1 Audio working fine, always have, using an old Yamaha receiver. I use atv 2.2. I encode my dvd's with Fairuse Wizard or use .iso copies.

[tuckbodi]

I have 5.1 Audio working fine, always have, using an old Yamaha receiver. I use atv 2.2. I encode my dvd's with Fairuse Wizard or use .iso copies.

Are these the AppleTV format of AC3 + AAC (stereo)? That's the format I'm using and my Yamaha receiver (10 yr old) cannot see the AC3 track in XBMC. In Sapphire, NitoTV, ATVFiles I'm golden but in XBMC it can only play the stereo track.

[S80_UK]

I have 5.1 Audio working fine, always have, using an old Yamaha receiver. I use atv 2.2. I encode my dvd's with Fairuse Wizard or use .iso copies.

Confirmed also with ATV 2.3, Launcher 2.2, XBMC Atlantis 8.10.bf1,

I play .iso files ripped from my DVDs (DVDFab HD Decrypter) and have no audio issues with AC3 DD5.1 surround or DTS fed via S/PDIF to my Pioneer receiver. If both are present in an iso I can also hop from one to the other. I also can select analog out and get the downmixed versions straight from the ATV.

Recently got a second-hand ATV specifically for trying out XBMC. My compliments to Davilla and the XBMC team - this is the best solution for streaming video to my TV that I have used. Most stable, most feature rich, best form-factor (=Wife Acceptance Factor). Audio player is damned good too. Thank you!

[jelockwood]

Many thanks for the replies so far, it seems the 5.1 audio does work from your comments.

I am now shopping for a second-hand ATV on eBay.

With regards to installing a driver for an external IR receiver, e.g. a KeySpan one, how does one run the installer on an ATV? On a Mac the installer would be a GUI application requiring responses.

To "nmrs" you mentioned you are using a Logitech Harmony. Does XBMC on the ATV recognise additional keys/buttons compared to an Apple Remote, or are you merely stuck with the Harmony 'pretending' to be an Apple Remote. I was hoping for a solution with more buttons/features than the overly simple Apple Remote.

PS. I plan to use VIDEO_TS folders rather than ISOs, I know XBMC itself is happy with those, as would be Front Row (on a Mac, not the ATV).

[nmrs]

To "nmrs" you mentioned you are using a Logitech Harmony. Does XBMC on the ATV recognise additional keys/buttons compared to an Apple Remote, or are you merely stuck with the Harmony 'pretending' to be an Apple Remote. I was hoping for a solution with more buttons/features than the overly simple Apple Remote.

I just live with the Harmony 'pretending' to be an apple remote. I made a few slight changes to keymap.xml to make it work more like the default xbmc on xbox behavior that I was used to, but other than that it works fine. At first the limited control set was a little frustrating, but I have gotten used to it and now it doesn't really bother me.

There is apparently some universal remote support that lets you emulate lots of other button events by using key combinations such as:

hold menu then click right

or

held menu then click left then click left again

You can map these events to whatever xbmc events you want, but I don't really want to memorize all those sequences, and the hold menu part of it seemed to annoying to me so I just use the default behavior. If the trigger was just "menu" instead of "hold menu" I'd be much more likely to use it, as then I could program sequences on my harmony remote and map them to keys, but there is no way to use a hold button event in a sequence, so currently the universal remote support is pretty useless to me.

All I changed in keymap.xml was the fullscreenvideo settings. Here is what I use:

<joystick name="AppleRemote">
<button id="1">BigStepForward</button>
<button id="2">BigStepBack</button>
<button id="3">StepBack</button>
<button id="4">StepForward</button>
<button id="5">Pause</button>
<button id="6">Info</button>
<button id="7">FullScreen</button>
<button id="8">OSD</button>
</joystick>

[dan1son]

I have 5.1 audio working through Saphire, ATVFiles, Boxee, and XBMC on ATV 2.3 with Launcher 2.2. As long as you follow Apple's guidelines for AC3 passthrough it should work fine. Basically you need the first audio track to be stereo AAC, and the second to be the AC3 passthrough.

While that isn't a requirement for boxee/xbmc per se, it is a requirement for quicktime and also gives you a usable default audio setting.

[S80_UK]

PS. I plan to use VIDEO_TS folders rather than ISOs, I know XBMC itself is happy with those, as would be Front Row (on a Mac, not the ATV).

I find that VIDEO_TS folders are generally much slower to start streaming than ISO files, although once streaming has started there are no issues. Chapter hopping, etc, seems to work as expected. Since ripping to ISO is generally just as easy as ripping to a folder, I am migrating to folders.

[Neil]

I find that VIDEO_TS folders are generally much slower to start streaming than ISO files, although once streaming has started there are no issues. Chapter hopping, etc, seems to work as expected. Since ripping to ISO is generally just as easy as ripping to a folder, I am migrating to folders.

Are you ripping in Windows? As far as I know, there is no way to rip directly to iso on Mac. I rip to folders. I have converted to iso, but that is time consuming and involves command line. Plus, DVD Player on Mac cannot read iso files without first mounting them in the Finder. That wont be an issue for me once I finish migrating to all Intel Macs, but I still have three PPC Macs at home for now.

[S80_UK]

Are you ripping in Windows? As far as I know, there is no way to rip directly to iso on Mac.

Going off topic here... but yes - I am for my sins a Windows user but I run Debian Linux on my server to help redress the balance.

For DVD ripping I use the basic DVDFab HD Decrypter. The free version allows basic full disc or main movie ripping either to folders or to ISO. You can select which audio and subtitle streams are included in the rip. You can also use it to convert folders to ISO for example.