[uchenzei]

Hello all.
I have been enjoying xbmc through a Windows laptop for months but few days ago it sadly expired. It doesn’t even turn on anymore. Now that the notebook is dead I really miss my old xbmc system and my family too.
So now I have to build a new system and I would really share some thoughs with you.
The choice is between another Windows laptop or an Apple TV. While I very well know the first one, I don’t know much of the latter. What seems attractive to me of aTV is that it is a “closed machine”, no OS to install, driver setup and so on (right?), and last but not least my wife likes it.
I have a lot of questions, please don’t give in

1. Does xbmc on aTV look and act exactly like the Windows version? I mean, does it have the same menus, skins, options, features of the win version? In one word, changing from Windows version, which I was used to, to aTV version, means that I will find a new scenario or just the same world?

2. In order to play contents like mpg,avi,divx,mp3,ogg,wav and so on from its own hard drive, will be sufficient to install xbmc or I will need to install other software (like utils, codec… or other stuff? I have no experience with Mac world.

3. One of the most important feature for me is the web interface, which I have been using almost daily through other pcs connected to the lan. Is web interface present in the aTV version and is it a classic asp or html source exactly like the Windows one?

4. The system will be connected to a classic crt television and to a classic stereo amplifier, so I do not need to view hd contents but it seems that aTV doesn’t have scart nor s-video output. How much will I loose converting its output signal into a scart or s-video?

5. All the contents I want aTV to play must be on its internal hard drive. How will I load all the files (mpg,avi,mp3,ogg etc.) into the aTV? Via usb only? Via Ethernet? I don’t have other Mac systems in my house.

6. What about the aTV performances? My old laptop was a simple P4 with Windows 2000 and 512Mb and xbmc performed properly with PM3.HD skin.

7. Is it possible to launch xbmc at every aTV startup or is necessary to manually launch it from the main menu? I think that this option is very important, because I use xbmc a lot for music through the web interface and I do not want to turn TV on all the times.

8. One final question: is there something I should really know or aware to before attempting to build a aTV-xbmc system?

Thank you very much for your cooperation, I really appreciate and need it

[nonliteral]

1. Does xbmc on aTV look and act exactly like the Windows version? I mean, does it have the same menus, skins, options, features of the win version? In one word, changing from Windows version, which I was used to, to aTV version, means that I will find a new scenario or just the same world?

The same. You'll need to get used to the much more limited remote, however (look at the sticky at the top of this forum for keybindings).

2. In order to play contents like mpg,avi,divx,mp3,ogg,wav and so on from its own hard drive, will be sufficient to install xbmc or I will need to install other software (like utils, codec…) or other stuff? I have no experience with Mac world.

Just like the Windows version, the Mac/ATV version has it's own codecs, and doesn't use anything external.

3. One of the most important feature for me is the web interface, which I have been using almost daily through other pcs connected to the lan. Is web interface present in the aTV version and is it a classic asp or html source exactly like the Windows one?

I don't use it, but it should be identical, I'd think.

4. The system will be connected to a classic crt television and to a classic stereo amplifier, so I do not need to view hd contents but it seems that aTV doesn’t have scart nor s-video output. How much will I loose converting its output signal into a scart or s-video?

I don't have any scart info, but converting to s-video should be about as good as s-video gets.

5. All the contents I want aTV to play must be on its internal hard drive. How will I load all the files (mpg,avi,mp3,ogg etc.) into the aTV? Via usb only? Via Ethernet? I don’t have other Mac systems in my house.

I load all my content externally from windows shares (SMB). If you can find an SSH client (an FTP program that supports SSH, for example) for your windows box, you can use it to copy the media onto it over the network, but if it's sharing the network with your windows box, you can just share it from there, if that will work for you.

6. What about the aTV performances? My old laptop was a simple P4 with Windows 2000 and 512Mb and xbmc performed properly with PM3.HD skin.

Playback of anything less than 720p HD content is fine. The menus are maybe a tad slower than on my old P4 XP machine, or my Macbook Pro.

7. Is it possible to launch xbmc at every aTV startup or is necessary to manually launch it from the main menu? I think that this option is very important, because I use xbmc a lot for music through the web interface and I do not want to turn TV on all the times.

Search this forum; there was a hack someone had to boot directly into XBMC if I recall correctly.

8. One final question: is there something I should really know or aware to before attempting to build a aTV-xbmc system?

Just one; if you're eventually going to want to play back HD content, you're eventually going to want to replace it for something else. If you'll be good with SD content for the life of the box, you're good to go.

Good luck!

[tintamarre]

I have some issues with Web-Interface (and Firefox).

I don't know if it's only on my side, but it keeps bugging and freezes XBMC.

Does anyone else have this issue ?

Martin

[drwickman]

Using firefox on a mac and it works great.

Converting Component to s-video or another format may be a waste of time and $$

I found this http://www.svideo.com/appletv2tv.html

Way too much $$

And to boot this does nothing about audio, i hope your receiver accepts optical audio input

[tintamarre]

You will need to hack your AppleTV in order to output it to your CRT with a composite or scart.

You will find all informations here :
http://wiki.awkwardtv.org/wiki/Composite

It's free and works great.

[S80_UK]

i hope your receiver accepts optical audio input

Why...? If there's no digital input on the receiver or TV (I think the OP just wanted to use an old TV), just use the analog output. It works fine. Just ensure that the analog/digital setting in XBMC is correct.

[uchenzei]

Your answers are all much interesting.
Some of them surprised me. For example I expected aTV to be a more "closed machine" but I discovered that it only is when used in HDMI through itunes, which is definitely not my case.
My intention is to use it a lot like a stand alone media player, with my media files on its disk and with a lot of files and folder managing. I will definitely not stream anything from anywhere.
In my old laptop the media folder was shared on the lan and I used to manage it from my desktop pc. It was very comfortable (when it worked! Unfortunately windows has a bad surprise for the user almost every day).

But if much setup will be needed with aTV too, then I will have to consider a new windows laptop.

I also supposed the aTV's usb port to be there to let the user copy file from an external device, like a pendrive, into the hard disk, and I also supposed the ethernet port to be there for the same reason and for connecting to internet where wifi is not available.
Are you telling me that these 2 assumptions are wrong? If so, how will I copy my media files from my desktop pc into aTV's hard disk?

Meanwhile I take a look at that the video output issue, cause I am not planning to leave my crt tv for long times
For audio I think that analog output will be good for my stereo amplifier.

[tintamarre]

USB2 port is by default disable. You need to hack (change the kernel) your AppleTV to get it work. It's not really painless (you can find tutos on forums) but need to be done. Once done, AppleTV will accept FAT32 and HFS+ format and there is some way to allowed NTFS (not sure if it work well).

Ethernet and Wifi are working as traditional network device. But the AppleTV — without any hacks — only accepts transfers via iTunes (thanks a lot Apple, ...)

In order to use other transfer mode over network (s/FTP, SAMBA, AFP, NFS, etc.), you also need to hack the AppleTV. It works great once it done. But, doesn't work directly out of the box.

AppleTV is really a good device but it takes some time to get it work properly.

If you are really not used to Apple computer, the choice of a laptop and windows will probably be easier.

The real benefit of AppleTV for me is :
- Unix environment
- Look and feel of the device
- Energy consumption

[tyche]

You're not going to find a device that small, quiet, and cheap that works as well as an atv. For standard TV shows and DVD's ripes, it's perfect. That's what I bought it and use it for and was my best purchase in 2008. I have close to 500 DVD's and many TV series at my fingertips now. My dvd player has long since been removed from the living room.

It's not for everyone though. Some put unreasonably high expectations on what it should deliver. I see posts in the main forums about system specs to play the latest Blu-ray/mkv files and they dwarf what atv can do but still barely suffice.