[Matt_C]

Hi guys, I bought an ATV (160gb) already installed with ATFlash 4.2 and XBMC was running lovely. However, I was finding a lot of the 720p mkv's I was trying with it wouldn't play smoothly and I needed to convert 95% of them using either Handbrake (on Mac) or HDConvertToX (on windows) to get them to play nicely

So I decided to fit a Broadcom CrystalHD card, and on recommendation, I was told to go for the BCM970015. So I got one of those yesterday, took the ATV apart, installed it, put it back together and rebooted. Following FireCore's guide (since I was using their software) I did all the bits, installed the Broadcom drivers, then installed the SVN of XBMC (which yesterday was Dharma Beta4) and then went to Settings > Video > Playback expecting to find the option to set CrystalHD as hardware aceleration but it wasn't there.

Queue much back and forth support emails with FireCore who weren't much help, so on AVForums I enlisted the help of a guy there that seems to know his stuff, and as a result I Factory Restored my ATV, then installed the ATVUSB patchstick from the Google Code, SSH'd into it, did the CrystalHD plist and then SVN (of the current RC1) of XBMC and booted back in, went to Settings > Video > Playback and the option for CrystalHD is STILL not there

I was then told to do THIS and/or THIS =- both of which are a bit over my head (I kinda know what I'm doing, but not that indepth) and then told that that might not work as the Linux image might be out of date and not work with the 970015 card, so to ask here!

So - what do I do? lol

[Jimmer]

If you want my honest opinion CrystalHD+ATV OS works just fine with both 720p and 1080p, you'll notice a slight improvement with Linux if your using more hardcore mkv's. Plus the menu system is more responsive under Linux than under ATV OS. You can compensate for that by enabling dds fanart in you advancedsettings.xml and the menu system will be snappier as fanart handling is shunted off to the GPU...

[edit] just re-read your post, you already factory restored and did all that!

probably, you'll need to get the output of

sudo dmesg

and pastebin it and put a link here. You'll also need to do the same with your xbmc.log (make sure it's the full log)... one of the Devs can probably tell you what you need to know from that info

Jim

[Matt_C]

If you want my honest opinion CrystalHD+ATV OS works just fine with both 720p and 1080p, you'll notice a slight improvement with Linux if your using more hardcore mkv's. Plus the menu system is more responsive under Linux than under ATV OS. You can compensate for that by enabling dds fanart in you advancedsettings.xml and the menu system will be snappier as fanart handling is shunted off to the GPU...

[edit] just re-read your post, you already factory restored and did all that!

probably, you'll need to get the output of

sudo dmesg

and pastebin it and put a link here. You'll also need to do the same with your xbmc.log (make sure it's the full log)... one of the Devs can probably tell you what you need to know from that info

Jim

Hi pal, thanks for the reply! It came in just after I went home, and trying to type out a reply on my phone in the pub wasn't gonna work, so had to wait!

I did, as you saw, already wipe the ATV to clear it of ATVFlash, and install using the ATVUSB patchstick, and ssh in the code for CrystalHD and SVN (RC1) XBMC, and initially I still couldn't get it to work (hence my original post)

However, I just got home - and it's working! Had to reboot ATV anyway, then went into XBMC and went to the Movies library to sort out it's missing thumbnails (it managed to mess up some of the tags and missed loads of thumbs when it scanned them in) and then decided to just go have a look in the Settings > Video > Playback, and lo and behold there it was! The option to use CrystalHD and it was "ticked"!

So I tried a 1080p sample I downloaded, that I'd already tried without the CrystalHD installed/working and it played! ALMOST perfectly... Originally it was super slow, and the audio (5.1 AC3 DD) was fine, but obviously out of sync. This time it played perfectly fluidly, and the audio sync'd up, but it made my amp flash constantly, as if it was dropping and repicking up the signal. I've had that on a few files before, and my PC used to do it when it couldn't handle the processing of a higher bitrate film (oddly enough, mainly when either the film was toohigh a bitrate, but also when the video played back fine, but the audio was 640kbps AC3 - tho 1500+ kbps DTS is fine?!? In fact one particular 720p xvid/avi file that has 640kbps DD/AC3 that wouldn't play on my ATV originally - before the wipe and reinstall - still won't play ball; the audio just flashes the amp on and off constantly, and is barely audible if at all. I converted this file to h.264 mkv in handbrake and lowered the bit rate of the audio to 448kbps and that played fine, although any REALLY loud blasts or crashes or the like made "popping noises" :confused2: )

But it does appear to be working!!!!

As for the menu's, I think the movie list (I have it as poster wrap (dvd covers in the centre of the screen in a line) with no fan art behind them, is slower and less responsive than it used to be on the version of XBMC (I don't know exactly which, it just said 9.11). I would think that doing the dds fanart won't make a difference to me here as I've disabled fanart? I'll try it anyway!

Right, have to go populate the TV Show library now! Forgot where I'm up to with 24 S8 now tho, hahaha!