[drevil2002]

Hi All

To say my head is spinning is an understatement. I'm about to press proceed on the shopping basked on a purchase for an Apple TV. I've been reading through the Forums all over the place and get conflicting advice on 720p playback.

My main reason for the purchase is to play back 720p MKV files. I'm currently changing the files to a different container to play back through my PS3 which works fine. But I don't get the niceties of the look of XBMC or Apple TV's new look.

I guess my question is "is there a chance that XBMC will play my 720p MKV files without conversion or is there a way to convert the files without loosing the a) quality and b) the 5.1 surround sound?"

Sorry if this has been asked recently and you're sick of reading this question.

I so want this to work as I don't want to have to go the Western Digital route.

Many Thanks guys.

Dave

[Jaken]

Unmodified ATV wont play 720p mkv in most cases.

With conversion there is alway a slight quality loss. But yes you can convert and maintain good quality and 5.1 sound. (It it very time consuming.)

[prae5]

It depends, so will work some won't...

However if you have an atv you can stick a broadcom decoder in it for about $20 and it will give you full 1080p decode support. SUpport for it is still under development, however it is pretty much useable now. You do get the odd stutter, but it works well.

If you are looking at buying new hardware, i would suggest you take a look at the ion platform. You can pick up a Revo or ASRock for less than the ATV and it will do full 1080p out of the box. I have both and would recommend the revo or similar to anyone buying new as the user experience is much better as the gui/menus can lag on the atv at times.

[interceptor121]

If the MKV has high profile features you can still play it on standard ATV but you need to be aggressive with the skiploopfilter up to values of 32 or 48 which means you will be dropping a hell of a lot of frames. The sync between audio and video will be ok if you play with the setting but overall it won't be a great experience
CrystalHD modified AppleTv will play 720 and 1080 but the effort is not justified if you are investing in your kit now and you are a NON MAC user

[drevil2002]

It depends, so will work some won't...

However if you have an atv you can stick a broadcom decoder in it for about $20 and it will give you full 1080p decode support. SUpport for it is still under development, however it is pretty much useable now. You do get the odd stutter, but it works well.

If you are looking at buying new hardware, i would suggest you take a look at the ion platform. You can pick up a Revo or ASRock for less than the ATV and it will do full 1080p out of the box. I have both and would recommend the revo or similar to anyone buying new as the user experience is much better as the gui/menus can lag on the atv at times.

Thanks Prae5 and interceptor121

I've just taken a look at the the Revo. It looks pretty good for £200. Do you just run this with XBMC on windows then? I wonder if it can run OSX instead of windows too?

Yeah I'm buying new, was going to go down the apple route as everything else I have is Apple. Mac and a couple of AirPort Express's, I do own a PC too but prefer my Mac.

I so want to buy the Apple TV but don't want to be disappointed when it doesn't work with my Video files.

I just converted an MKV using Handbrake to Apple TV format and it took over 2 hours. I have a program for the PC called mkv2vob which changes the container from MKV to MPEG in minutes. I just wish the ATV would take that and I'd be happy

Oh well, thanks for the reply's guys. Very good of you to take time out to reply.

Cheers

Dave

[nikiiv]

Unmodified ATV wont play 720p mkv in most cases.

With conversion there is alway a slight quality loss. But yes you can convert and maintain good quality and 5.1 sound. (It it very time consuming.)

Unmodified ATV will play low profile H.264 with relatively low bitframe in mkv container..
Broadcom solution is under development..
I would go with ION solution or wait a little bit more until stuttering problem is resolved

[interceptor121]

Get a box that can run Ubuntu I would avoid windows like the plague

[ritalin]

Thanks Prae5 and interceptor121

I've just taken a look at the the Revo. It looks pretty good for £200. Do you just run this with XBMC on windows then? I wonder if it can run OSX instead of windows too?

Yeah I'm buying new, was going to go down the apple route as everything else I have is Apple. Mac and a couple of AirPort Express's, I do own a PC too but prefer my Mac.

I so want to buy the Apple TV but don't want to be disappointed when it doesn't work with my Video files.
Dave

Let me make a suggestion over the Revo. While the price may be great for the Revo, you do drop a key item for a Media PC. The Revo is missing an Spdif out (aka optical), this may or may not be an issue depending on your entertainment setup. Also Im not a fan of the "plugs on every side" format that the Revo uses. I would suggest taking a look at Zotec, I have been running mine since christmas and it suits my needs perfectly. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...-_-Product

I would suggest an ION box mainly because you should have no issues with installing Linux, OSx and Windows7 on it.

ATVs are great, and now with the CrystalHD chip they are even better, but they still have some limitations. Mine has been moved into my bedroom so I dont need to keep my PC on for movie playback at bedtime. Ive been on an energy saving kick lately.

[drevil2002]

Let me make a suggestion over the Revo. While the price may be great for the Revo, you do drop a key item for a Media PC. The Revo is missing an Spdif out (aka optical), this may or may not be an issue depending on your entertainment setup. Also Im not a fan of the "plugs on every side" format that the Revo uses. I would suggest taking a look at Zotec, I have been running mine since christmas and it suits my needs perfectly. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...-_-Product

I would suggest an ION box mainly because you should have no issues with installing Linux, OSx and Windows7 on it.

ATVs are great, and now with the CrystalHD chip they are even better, but they still have some limitations. Mine has been moved into my bedroom so I dont need to keep my PC on for movie playback at bedtime. Ive been on an energy saving kick lately.

Hi Ritalin

Thanks for your post. I've taken a good look at all the reviews. Looks a good piece of kit. Cost just a little more than the ATV, but you get a full PC.

Just a quick question. Are you running Windows on it? and if you are, are you having any trouble with XBMC on it? Does it band on Video playback? Also how's the Fan noise?

Many Thanks

Dave

[prae5]

For reference you can pick up the single core revo for about £150 if you shop around, has no spdif out as mentioned about but does support audio over hdmi. There is also the dual core revo that does have spdif out, you can pick it up for between £160-180 depending on where you go. I only mention the revo as they seem to be the cheapest and easiest to get hold of in the UK.

There is a variety of ion based boards and boxes from Zotac, ASRock and about 100+ suppliers.

You can get hardware acceleration running under windows, but it is not completely user friendly yet. For a out of the box solution you need to use either linux or the xbmc live installer. It will give you an out of the box working solution with little or no headaches and fully support hdmi audio and 1080p playback.

The fan on my revos are silent and video playback is perfect.

[drevil2002]

For reference you can pick up the single core revo for about £150 if you shop around, has no spdif out as mentioned about but does support audio over hdmi. There is also the dual core revo that does have spdif out, you can pick it up for between £160-180 depending on where you go. I only mention the revo as they seem to be the cheapest and easiest to get hold of in the UK.

There is a variety of ion based boards and boxes from Zotac, ASRock and about 100+ suppliers.

You can get hardware acceleration running under windows, but it is not completely user friendly yet. For a out of the box solution you need to use either linux or the xbmc live installer. It will give you an out of the box working solution with little or no headaches and fully support hdmi audio and 1080p playback.

The fan on my revos are silent and video playback is perfect.

Hey prae5

I'm now torn between the two. Either the Revo or Zotac.

Which out of you're opinion would you say is better? I'm now leaning towards the Revo. Does the XBMC Live disk install a Linux based OS then?

I had a look in Comet today at the Revo and it seemed to be running very quietly. I've heard the Zotac can be noisey when pushed CPU wise.

I'm thinking about this one. I think it's the same as the one on play.com (£10 cheaper) but doesn't mention Dual Core but I guess it is?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Acer-Integrated-...924&sr=1-1

http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/12424546/A...oduct.html

Thanks for your help (and to everyone else).

Cheers

Dave

[prae5]

I think i saw a few people have issues with the zotac mag - have a search in the linux forums.

For me i would go for the revo every time. It just works.

Also, the £150 single core revo will do everything you want. If you don't need spdif then why spend an extra £50+

[grey]

have problems playing a 720p movie. getting error: DtsProcOutput returned BC_STS_TIMEOUT.

[davilla]

have problems playing a 720p movie. getting error: DtsProcOutput returned BC_STS_TIMEOUT.

@grey, wrong thread for crystalhd problems

dmesg or reboot, the driver has a small memleak we are looking for and I bet dmesg will show a memory allocation error.