I just recently cancelled my cable and ran the patchstick on my appletv to unlock for xbmc and boxee. I was pleasantly surprised at how much was available on the internet.
I was wondering if there are must haves for xbmc and what I need to install. I found boxee was easier to watch shows but from everything I read I see that xbmc is the way to go..
I’m a first time user for xmbc and just looking for a little guidance on packets I should download and how I can use them.
Any help or recommendations are appreciated.
Essentially Boxee is different from XBMC in that its primarily set up to easily play ad-supported Flash streams from the networks themselves, kind of like Hulu or Clicker. Except Flash kind of sucks on an ATV1 (though its worth updating to get marginally better performance). As you ad local material to Boxee you will see lots of problems with its scrapers - i.e. how it identifies what your local video files are so you can have art, plot synopsis, etc.. XBMC supports nfo files that can save individual correct scrapes in the folder with your video which is a huge sort of structural advantage over Boxee where you basically have to rebuild your library all the time. There are plug-ins I like on both formats though I prefer XBMC as my library handler once I got the hang of exporting successful scrapes to individual files, by far. So many better views, etc.
XBMC smoothly integrates with automated show downloaders like Sick Beard.
Also its worth it on an ATV1 to check out the icefilms unofficial plug-in for XBMC because DIVX streams play in such better quality than Flash based ones do and no commercials. The interface is drab, but the content plays so much better, I believe you will switch from watching the same shows on Boxee to the ice films plug-in.
Also eventually you can get a Broadcom video accelerater card which makes the ATV1 a much more robust machine for playing 1080 HD video but only XBMC supports the drivers for this card. Or rather Team XBMC did the programming to make the video card possible so it only works on XBMC.
Hey thanks for the reply. So dont mean to sound like a noob but sick beard downloads shows regularly? how do i get the patch so i can see all what he has out there?
Sick beard is a program. Its not a person. It runs in the background and checks various newsgroup listing sites. When a new episode of a program you are subscribed to becomes available it drops it into sabnzbd's download folder. Sabnzabd is a program that downloads and cleans up your file for you (there are some peculiarities to file transfers via usenet). Then Sick beard puts the episode in correct file structure for xbmc and automatically adds the episode to your video library.
The program goes exactly as fast as people put episodes on the newsgroups, which is fast. Faster than the 24 hours it takes the networks to put up the shows themselves often. I'm a big fan of the program Treme and Season 2 started Sunday evening. Sickbeard had done its thing and put S02E01 in the video library by about 11:30 that evening, which is kind of insane to me.
I should say. SABNZBD and Sickbeard don't run on an ATV1 (maybe in a particular Linux setup) AFAIK. They run on a computer or NAS possibly. Transmission which is a slim bit-torrent client can run quite well in the background on an ATV1, although you probably want to add an external USB drive to give yourself storage.
I've read of people running Sabnzbd on a native ATV1 but it caused all kinds of crashes for me.
If you just want to watch some streams, try the icefilms plug-in first. Look at the wiki for how to add a plug-in from zip.
Sean-
Tried using the wiki but i couldnt find it when i tried to install in on xbmc on my apple tv. do i need to use that on my macbook or should it work on the apple tv.
lipsterc8 Wrote:Sean-
Tried using the wiki but i couldnt find it when i tried to install in on xbmc on my apple tv. do i need to use that on my macbook or should it work on the apple tv.
Not quite sure what you are saying here.
This is the wiki.
http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=XBMC_Online_Manual
You don't install it on anything. You read it online just like you read this forum online.
As far as installing add-ons from a zip file, there are are several options with an ATV1.
1. Connect to the ATV1 over SFTP - this involves a program like Cyberduck or FileZilla on a Mac or Putty on a PC. User name is frontrow, pw frontrow by default after doing the patch stick install. This gives youa graphic interface for the ATV1's file structure and you can copy the zip file over with this interface.
2. Turn on AFP (mac file sharing) and the USB port on the back by using the Nito TV "Smart installer" under the Nito TV menu on the ATV1. If it works the first time, awesome.
If it doesn't you may need to prepare a special "recovery.dmg" file and then SFTP that recovery file onto the ATV1 to run the "Smart Installer" again. There are lots of different guides. I personally sort of like this one.
http://forums.boxee.tv/showthread.php?t=15046
Don't worry that its on the Boxee forum, its all about prepping some system resources for the ATV1's OS. Basically cutting and pasting some pieces out of 10.4.9 they left out of the ATV1 Os so your hardware is more fully functional than Apple originally intended.
I like adding AFP and the USB support because then you can most easily attach a USB storage device to the back of the ATV1 and drag and drop files to it - making it a cheap media server as well as player.
Once you do #2, you can copy the XBMC add-on zip via AFP or put it on a USB thumb drive and load it off of that, etc.
But if you just want to turn on some unofficial plug-ins quick, download Cyberduck, sign on to the ATV1 using SFTP (not regular FTP) and look around at its file structure. By default under mnt/usr/frontrow there is a "movies" folder and if you are having a hard time finding where you saved your plug-in zip file just use that one.
When in XBMC you pick the "install from zip file" option it lets you browse your ATV1's file structure. The zip file does not have to be where the plug-in will eventually be installed, XBMC will unzip and/or download the pieces it needs for the plug-in where XBMC needs them to be, regardless of where you locate the zip file.
Got it. Thanks for all the help. With the addition of icefilms my apple tv is complete. What else could anyone ask for. That has to be hands down the best thing going. I streamed a couple of movies and didnt have one problem other than the the thirty seconds it took to download the movie.
Am i missing any other sweet repo's or must have because i think icefilms might be the only thing i need to go without cable....
It blows boxee away...
There is navi-x which is also primarily an index of user-posted divx streams. Its a little less neatly organized than icefilms, as its organized by users lists, not by movie title or show or whatever. It can also include live streams of various kinds. More hit and miss but it has a search option and no Captcha required.
Also for me the download feature with icefilms is dodgy on an ATV1 whereas it works pretty flawlessly on navi-x. So if I know a recent R5 or DVD rip is in circulation I often look for it on navi-x. For really new release stuff I hate crappy screen transfers and will only download them if I have seen them streaming on icefilsm or navi-x first to make sure the video quality is passable. Or simply stream them for now and wait for higher quality DVD rips to surface in a month or two.
There are also several XBMC plug-ins for live network streams, often for sports or news channels you might find interesting.
Probably the next step is fine tuning your local library with XBMC for things you want to keep a copy of on hand. Some skins simply lag on an ATV1, although I find "Night" has a lot of the fancier library views and still moves passibly as an XBMC interface on an ATV1. It also has a customizable home menu, so I made icefilms and navi-x menu items on the top menu level with their own background art - no longer have to go Videos>video plug-ins, etc.