2011-03-30, 19:46
LOVE my ATV2's....going to buy two more!..now if Apple and SJ's would only realize WHY I am buying the ATV....
2011-03-30, 23:25
Sounds like you have almost the identical setup to mine.
QNAP TS410 NAS, NIC connected via Devolo Homeplugs to the router, Devolo homeplug to the ATV2 as well.
Running FTP server on the NAS, as the ATV2 is working better with this than using SMB (buffering) or UPNP (scraper issues)
I have almost all my DVD collection on the NAS (MKV rips using Handbrake), and all my BD's are ripped to 720p with 5.1 sound (DVDFAB) and all work great.
Also running PS3 Media Server on the PC (Windows 7-64) as a UPNP Server for my PS3, but the XBMC interface on the ATV2 is soooo much nicer.
QNAP TS410 NAS, NIC connected via Devolo Homeplugs to the router, Devolo homeplug to the ATV2 as well.
Running FTP server on the NAS, as the ATV2 is working better with this than using SMB (buffering) or UPNP (scraper issues)
I have almost all my DVD collection on the NAS (MKV rips using Handbrake), and all my BD's are ripped to 720p with 5.1 sound (DVDFAB) and all work great.
Also running PS3 Media Server on the PC (Windows 7-64) as a UPNP Server for my PS3, but the XBMC interface on the ATV2 is soooo much nicer.
2011-03-31, 03:30
Duncan,
Sounds like you've done your due diligence in reading and researching up on the ATV2 w/XBMC. So I say go for it. Get one and see if it suits you before getting another.
I used XBMC on the original Xbox pretty much since the beginning of the project. So when it was time to move on from that due to the prevalence of high def content and a new HDTV, I had a difficult time finding a replacement.
I purchased a new PS3 to fill that void, which turn out to be a horrible experience once one is spoiled by XBMC. And when the latest and greatest WDTVLive came out, I jump on that right away, putting all my hope into that. Unfortunately, at the time, it wasn't perfect in it's playback and had an interface that seem to be 10 years behind what I was used to with XBMC. From there, I went to a Acer Revo with a custom install of Ubuntu and XBMC. This is a near perfect HTPC. Only thing missing was Netflix. However, this <$200 Revo 1600 is currently my bedroom XBMC and the benchmark by which I judge all streaming devices against.
This bring us to the present. I purchased the ATV2 to play with Airplay and for Netflix back in Dec. Netflix worked out great on the ATV2. However, once XBMC arrived on it, the ATV2 became near perfect. And since then, it has only become better with all the hard work the developers have put and continually put into it.
It's wife and kid friendly. It sits in the family room hooked up to the HDTV and gets plenty of use daily. All my 720p content plays great as well as the SD Xvid. Pretty much my entire library without any buffering. Best of all are the multitude of skins to choose from and the fanarts, scrapers that XBMC is known for. Always a head turner when guest are over. (I've since set up one friend with a ATV2 w/XBMC of his own after he saw my setup)
Anyways, if you are thinking of getting one...grab one now while there's still a good chance you can get one with 4.2.1. Remember, in settings/About...you can see software version, software build and "i"OS build by pressing the middle button. There are 3 info screen. ATV software version 4.1.1 is iOS 4.2.1. And the latest ATV software version 4.2.1 is iOS 4.3.1.
Lastly, as a extra bonus...take a look into Icefilms. This plugin runs great on XBMC but I'll leave it to that, as it's offtopic for this forum.
Good luck, and have fun.
-dazex
Sounds like you've done your due diligence in reading and researching up on the ATV2 w/XBMC. So I say go for it. Get one and see if it suits you before getting another.
I used XBMC on the original Xbox pretty much since the beginning of the project. So when it was time to move on from that due to the prevalence of high def content and a new HDTV, I had a difficult time finding a replacement.
I purchased a new PS3 to fill that void, which turn out to be a horrible experience once one is spoiled by XBMC. And when the latest and greatest WDTVLive came out, I jump on that right away, putting all my hope into that. Unfortunately, at the time, it wasn't perfect in it's playback and had an interface that seem to be 10 years behind what I was used to with XBMC. From there, I went to a Acer Revo with a custom install of Ubuntu and XBMC. This is a near perfect HTPC. Only thing missing was Netflix. However, this <$200 Revo 1600 is currently my bedroom XBMC and the benchmark by which I judge all streaming devices against.
This bring us to the present. I purchased the ATV2 to play with Airplay and for Netflix back in Dec. Netflix worked out great on the ATV2. However, once XBMC arrived on it, the ATV2 became near perfect. And since then, it has only become better with all the hard work the developers have put and continually put into it.
It's wife and kid friendly. It sits in the family room hooked up to the HDTV and gets plenty of use daily. All my 720p content plays great as well as the SD Xvid. Pretty much my entire library without any buffering. Best of all are the multitude of skins to choose from and the fanarts, scrapers that XBMC is known for. Always a head turner when guest are over. (I've since set up one friend with a ATV2 w/XBMC of his own after he saw my setup)
Anyways, if you are thinking of getting one...grab one now while there's still a good chance you can get one with 4.2.1. Remember, in settings/About...you can see software version, software build and "i"OS build by pressing the middle button. There are 3 info screen. ATV software version 4.1.1 is iOS 4.2.1. And the latest ATV software version 4.2.1 is iOS 4.3.1.
Lastly, as a extra bonus...take a look into Icefilms. This plugin runs great on XBMC but I'll leave it to that, as it's offtopic for this forum.
Good luck, and have fun.
-dazex
2011-03-31, 04:45
Currently I've got 2 ATV's and all my media stored on an external HDD connected via an Airport Extreme.
The entire household on all screens and devices can access and run that media... it takes no space, the HDD's an Airport sit out of sight and the storage is easily expandable..
Really, this is an amazing low cost setup.
My only complaint is that the XBMC interface on ATV2 feels very sluggish, movie playback is great but it takes just under a second to go between each movie etc.. but I suspect I might not have upgraded correctly seems no one else seems to be having this problem.
The entire household on all screens and devices can access and run that media... it takes no space, the HDD's an Airport sit out of sight and the storage is easily expandable..
Really, this is an amazing low cost setup.
My only complaint is that the XBMC interface on ATV2 feels very sluggish, movie playback is great but it takes just under a second to go between each movie etc.. but I suspect I might not have upgraded correctly seems no one else seems to be having this problem.
2011-03-31, 05:12
not being an atv2 user myself I have an atv1 I am confident that things will continue to improve in my opnion a large user pool leads to continued support. Just look at how we have gone from the xbox to Linux, ATV1-2 Ipad Iphone windows ect...in due time my friends in due time.
2011-03-31, 08:51
Just be aware that some HD content might stutter, 1080p content does not play smoothly. The UI is no way near as slick or responsive as running it on a desktop pc.
Unfortunately the ATV2 HW is anemic; however the developers have done a great job in using the limited resources it offers. Still, XBMC on ATV2 isn't perfect and probably never will be. I'm hoping the ATV3 HW is beefier and that XBMC is developed on there too.
I bought the ATV2 purely for XBMC and have been so impressed by it that I've built a Windows based HTPC so I can enjoy it without limitations.
So if you don't watch HD content and the laggy UI doesn't bother you, then go for it.
Unfortunately the ATV2 HW is anemic; however the developers have done a great job in using the limited resources it offers. Still, XBMC on ATV2 isn't perfect and probably never will be. I'm hoping the ATV3 HW is beefier and that XBMC is developed on there too.
I bought the ATV2 purely for XBMC and have been so impressed by it that I've built a Windows based HTPC so I can enjoy it without limitations.
So if you don't watch HD content and the laggy UI doesn't bother you, then go for it.
2011-03-31, 09:32
Personally I tend to advise people against getting an ATV2 for XBMC right now.
As witnessed on this sub-forum, it's not for the non techie still, unlike the original xbox setup, by virtue of it's newness.
With that said, Dazex is definitely right. If you are comfortable with research/figuring things out yourself, it's really incredibly usable. But realistically we have a ways to go before a release is marked 'stable'.
Once things get down the road, after the buildbot is working for ios and more dust settles, I will probably consider making a ios unofficial build(with a proper repo!) that moves the XBMC icon to the 1st position (and/or boot directly into it) with better keymappings for apple remote (and harmony?), maybe some skins optimized for slower devices preloaded, etc.
Take all the tricks people have came up with and roll it into an easy to use package like t3ch was for the xbox folks.
Something like that should save a ton of fiddling and tweaking to get up and running and that's when I'll feel comfortable giving my family atv2s and recommending it for people who aren't versed in reading forums for help.
But it will only get there with more eyeballs on it, so any and all geeks, dive right in, it's a fun time to be in xbmc land and the cheapest point of entry for a dedicated device and please post/respond/irc.
As witnessed on this sub-forum, it's not for the non techie still, unlike the original xbox setup, by virtue of it's newness.
With that said, Dazex is definitely right. If you are comfortable with research/figuring things out yourself, it's really incredibly usable. But realistically we have a ways to go before a release is marked 'stable'.
Once things get down the road, after the buildbot is working for ios and more dust settles, I will probably consider making a ios unofficial build(with a proper repo!) that moves the XBMC icon to the 1st position (and/or boot directly into it) with better keymappings for apple remote (and harmony?), maybe some skins optimized for slower devices preloaded, etc.
Take all the tricks people have came up with and roll it into an easy to use package like t3ch was for the xbox folks.
Something like that should save a ton of fiddling and tweaking to get up and running and that's when I'll feel comfortable giving my family atv2s and recommending it for people who aren't versed in reading forums for help.
But it will only get there with more eyeballs on it, so any and all geeks, dive right in, it's a fun time to be in xbmc land and the cheapest point of entry for a dedicated device and please post/respond/irc.
2011-03-31, 10:25
Duncan Miller Wrote:But having read through a lot of the forums I am starting to get the impression that maybe the ATV2 is not quite up to the task of running XBMC in a reasonable way? There seems to be performance issues and some missing/broken features to contend with....?
I have 3x ATV2's each running 4.2.1 jailbroken with Greenp0ison RC6 and the most recent official build of XBMC, and all i can say is I love them.
I had a WDTV with the B-RAD firmware and a USB Ethernet adapter, while it was half decent the ATV2 (with XBMC) spanks it, seriously, sooo much better
I stream all my media from WD My Book World Editions (1x 1tb and 1x 2tb) and they playback faultlessly, as long as your reasonable with your expectations, the ATV2 is never going to playback full HD high bitrate Bluray rips, I've watched several 8+gb BD Rips without issue, the only one i have trouble with is my 8gb rip of Avatar as it is a 16:9 aspect 1080p movie, so it's resolution is 1920x1080, not 1920x800 as 2.35:1 aspect BD's are, with such high resolution and high bitrates in that Avatar rip it frame drops like crazy...
2011-03-31, 11:15
I've pretty much stopped using my C-200 and A-200 Popcorn Hours and now mainly use two AppleTV 2's.
All 720p (TV and Movies) and 1080p re-encodes (Movies) are all watched on the AppleTV's without any issues. I'm fully wired.
I only use the Popcorn Hours for full BD .ts rips which will soon be replaced by a HTPC for XBMC.
I set up an AppleTV for my brother in which I used wireless and even with some buffering every about five minutes it plays 1080p re-encodes. Not bad for wireless.
All 720p (TV and Movies) and 1080p re-encodes (Movies) are all watched on the AppleTV's without any issues. I'm fully wired.
I only use the Popcorn Hours for full BD .ts rips which will soon be replaced by a HTPC for XBMC.
I set up an AppleTV for my brother in which I used wireless and even with some buffering every about five minutes it plays 1080p re-encodes. Not bad for wireless.
2011-03-31, 14:57
wow great response guys
thank you for all your input so far and interesting to get a good variety of opinions
It seems to me performance bottlenecks mainly come from 1080p content - of which I have very little as both my Tvs were bought several years ago when 720p was the norm so I have kept content at 720p.
I might just dip my toe in the water to see what happens!
thank you for all your input so far and interesting to get a good variety of opinions
It seems to me performance bottlenecks mainly come from 1080p content - of which I have very little as both my Tvs were bought several years ago when 720p was the norm so I have kept content at 720p.
I might just dip my toe in the water to see what happens!
2011-03-31, 18:12
Duncan Miller Wrote:wow great response guys
thank you for all your input so far and interesting to get a good variety of opinions
It seems to me performance bottlenecks mainly come from 1080p content - of which I have very little as both my Tvs were bought several years ago when 720p was the norm so I have kept content at 720p.
I might just dip my toe in the water to see what happens!
Don't be afraid to get a refurbished atv2 either and save a few bucks. It's got no moving parts and comes with a 1 year warranty so there's not much downside... $85 and free shipping is a pretty good deal. Everyone I know that's bought refurbished stuff from Apple has been very satisfied.
Personally, as soon as XBMC was available on the atv2 I got one to replace my modded Xbox and it's been a perfect fit. The things that bothered me about the Xbox, namely size/noise/power use/720p aren't issues on the atv2. Since then several family members have bought atv2's and have been equally happy (after jailbreaking and an XBMC install that is).
I agree with Keith though. Things aren't fully ironed out yet but they aren't far off. I wouldn't unleash it on friends/family that aren't reasonably technically literate. Although most support issues can be fixed with Teamviewer and a webcam to point at the tv.
2011-04-01, 04:12
My mom likes to watch movies with me on the living room HTPC running XBMC on a Linux box, but I wanted something nice and simple for her bedroom tv.
The AppleTV-2 was the perfect fit. I just picked up one on Wednesday at the local Apple Store and gave to it my mom for her birthday. First I jailbroke it, installed XBMC, installed updatebegone, then pre-configured it to read from the movie/tv show libraries from my main Linux server box via SMB. Then I carefully repackaged it back in the box, then wrapped it for her birthday.
I gave it to her yesterday and she's now happily watching movies and tv shows in her bedroom with it. It's a nice, quiet, small, and very simple to use system for someone that's not too computer literate. When I was configuring it, I simplified the XBMC menu as much as possible so that it only has menus for Movies, TV Shows, and Settings. I installed that "library update" plugin so that her AppleTV auto-updates the movie/tv show libraries every few hours so that whenever I download new movies/shows to my Linux box they show up automatically for her.
I'm quite pleased with it, and so is she :-)
The AppleTV-2 was the perfect fit. I just picked up one on Wednesday at the local Apple Store and gave to it my mom for her birthday. First I jailbroke it, installed XBMC, installed updatebegone, then pre-configured it to read from the movie/tv show libraries from my main Linux server box via SMB. Then I carefully repackaged it back in the box, then wrapped it for her birthday.
I gave it to her yesterday and she's now happily watching movies and tv shows in her bedroom with it. It's a nice, quiet, small, and very simple to use system for someone that's not too computer literate. When I was configuring it, I simplified the XBMC menu as much as possible so that it only has menus for Movies, TV Shows, and Settings. I installed that "library update" plugin so that her AppleTV auto-updates the movie/tv show libraries every few hours so that whenever I download new movies/shows to my Linux box they show up automatically for her.
I'm quite pleased with it, and so is she :-)
2011-04-02, 16:24
gatito Wrote:with out xbmc i wouldn't own 2 atv2amen...
2011-04-02, 17:03
I have tinkered with the Boxee Box, large HTPC's (I am using a rack mounted one in my theater), WDTV, Xtreamer, Atom PC's, many others. I am now running XBMC on an ATV2. I really do not run any 1080p content - even in my theater. I use the confluence skin, official build and two key plug-ins (NAVI-X and Icefilms) on the ATV2. I am running untethered 4.2.1 and will move to 4.3 when the official release supports it better plus when an untethered jailbreak is available.
The ATV2 is simply great. It is totally silent, small, has no fan, and low power consumption. I am running it on a 46" LCD and looking to get more for other TV viewing areas in my home. I really do not find it that laggy and I have very few issues. I have no formal linux experience and I got through the jailbreak and loading of packages I needed. I love this thing and I am not looking back.
The ATV2 is simply great. It is totally silent, small, has no fan, and low power consumption. I am running it on a 46" LCD and looking to get more for other TV viewing areas in my home. I really do not find it that laggy and I have very few issues. I have no formal linux experience and I got through the jailbreak and loading of packages I needed. I love this thing and I am not looking back.
