Hi all
just wondering if xbox can do what appletv does
ie play movies uploaded in wi-fi from mac computer
question really is
i already have xbox, do I have to get appletv on top of that or is there a way to use xbox to do that, saving big$ in the process...??
thx
Yes, you can install XBMC on an old XBOX. The original XBOX does not have wifi built in and it is slightly less powerful than an Apple TV. I would say it is significantly easier to install XBMC on an aTV as well.
Other than some 720P videos, would the iTV or Mac Mini be an upgrade over the xbox in terms of performance? I mean things like GUI responsiveness while navigating large libraries and such.
the xbox 360 has already wi-fi capacities
does it need to be hacked in any way to be able to transfer .avi films
from my mac to play on and HD tv ?
AFAIK, the 360 doesn't have wireless LAN unless you get the wireless adapter for it, same as the original Xbox.
There is no version of XBMC for the 360, because it hasn't been hacked in any practical manner, yet.
For the original Xbox (or the 360, I guess) you'll need an ethernet to wireless bridge or this:
Forum link
Both Xboxes are pretty noisy in their stock condition. You might wanna take that into consideration when planning on using them as a media player.
I'm using an original Xbox, that I modified. The cooling fan has been replaced with a quieter one and the harddisk with a quieter model with more storage capacity.
You'll want the remote kit to be able to use an infrared remote.
I'd also recommend an IR-Hack to be able to remotely switch the Xbox on and off, a feature that the remote kit doesn't offer but comes in very handy if your box hangs. Its just so much more elegant and convenient than having to get up and press the power button.
The 360 offers video playback through UPnP, I don't know if it supports DLNA but i suspect so. It is a bit choosey about the AVI files it wants to play back. I have one and I tried with TVersity. With a good UPnP server and a decently powerful computer on which said server is running, you should be able to transcode on the fly, which should make the 360 more flexible. There have been many articles on xbox-scene.com about that. I haven't tried any, so it's up to you, if you want to take that road.
HTH, uwer
Hi There,
thought I would chip in as i have just started using AppleTV with XBMC. In general i find it really good, its taken some time to get things set up how i want and so they work smoothly. You mentioned the speed of the interface, that's defiantly something that i have noticed especially when using teh media heavy skins like Aeon and Horizonz. I do think that a MacMini would handle such things much better.
On the plus side it is silent. i mean not a whisper which is great
On the negative side (and this goes for the MacMini as well) the remote only has 6 buttons and while ostensibly you can use a universal remote getting it set up right appears to require determination and some knowledge of voodoo.
Back in the day i used to run XBMC on my Xbox and loved it, now am running it on Apple TV and loving it even more.
Hope that helps a bit in your decision
Hi fiendmish,
have you had any lag issues when you try to play .mkv files? Especially which are made for 1080p? I'm considering the apple TV vs the popcorn hour 110 just to stick with more mainstream vendors. Also I've heard some strange things about popcorn anyway. Any advice is welcome in my decision making process.
Hiya,
Haven't tried any 1080p ones, my TV sadlys isnt up to that so haven't got any in my library. Tried a few 720p MKV files the other day (streamed of a NAS drive) and they played fine.
I read somewhere that XBMC on ATV might struggle with true HD content as it doesn't get to use the same processors as quicklime running natively.
Hope that helps
Hi,
so far from my own experience xbox was better (again, personal opinion!).
Simply because XBMC on xbox was developed for a long time and code was more mature and everything just worked. Also, having weekly builds like T3CH was aweome.
I still like my aTV, but from day one I had numerous problems and still have and some of them are real deal breakers like "sub/idx" type subtitles not working, then having to wait few months for screen calibration issue fix etc.
I understand its all free software and nobody should complain as such, but you've asked which one you think is better...
I believe aTV + XBMC has real potential once all the little things is fixed.
Edit: to answer your question directly, if you already have an xbox I would stick to it for a while - just mod it, costs next to nothing and you can very easily install on/off switch for remote. If possible you can just use ethernet cable instead of wifi and stream content from your PC.
I've got both, been using my Xbox for a number of years and loved it but I bought the aTV because the fans were dying and I wanted something with a digital output.
Xbox Pros: VASTLY better remote (Though this will hopefully change in the future as people tweak universal profiles to work with the aTV), quicker release schedule
Cons: Analog output, no HD without an HD pack which is hard to find now if you don't already have one, same with digital audio. Can't be powered on remotely without a hardware hack. Noisy as hell without modification. Sucks a lot of power compared to the apple.
aTV Pros: Digital 720p output over HDMI makes the interface beautiful on a high def TV. Everything is so amazingly crisp, I love it. Its just at fast as the XBox build and with a couple of filter tweaks even SD conent (350mb/hr TV rips) look better.
The aTV uses a lot less power than the xbox, 17W and idle 21W full blast.
The iTunes store is more handy than I expected, the podcast integration is cool (Though doesn't update very quickly), the iTunes rental store is great for movies in a pinch. I use the built in Apple stuff more than I thought I would. Boxee is also available easily (Thoguh thats pretty useless to me in Canada without jumping through VPN hoops, and without Hulu...)
aTV Cons: Crappy 6 button remote (Seriously, this sucks!), doesn't REALLY output high bit rate 720/1080 content (not a big deal for me), doesn't actually turn OFF (that bugs me, though 17W in stand by isn't awful)
Basically I don't think you're really losing out anything with an XBMC/aTV, its about a draw with the pros and cons IMO.
OjNK Wrote:Cons: Analog output, no HD without an HD pack which is hard to find now if you don't already have one, same with digital audio. Can't be powered on remotely without a hardware hack. Noisy as hell without modification. Sucks a lot of power compared to the apple.
If original poster will go xbox route, then he can buy cheap $5 HD cables on ebay, I did and it works fine, no need for original cables from MS. Also, installing digital audio output is very easy - just google for it or go to xbox-scene.
My old xbox is very quiet compared to new xbox 360 and I was never leaving it on anyway - if I want to watch something it powers straight into XBMC in seconds. Btw, installing remote on/off took me about 10mins, google for XIR if you are interested.
720p on aTV is a hit and miss, some stuff works and some doesn't. Hopefully in the future devs can improve HD playback, but for some reason I doubt it.
Edit: forgot to add - if you watch a lot of foreign movies or animations or whatever with subtitles, definitely go with xbox, XBMC and Boxee on aTV has issues with "sub/idx" files.
P.S I know, I'm getting annoying with repeating the same thing over and over...
EVery time I've looked on eBay the only HD cables for the Xbox 1 available were $40+. I'm sure they're available though. Still can't replace HDMI.
I don't consider anything involving hardware modification to be relevant. You can do a lot of things if you crack open the box and get out the soldering iron but I'm talking a device you can plunk in a rack and use with minor software mods.
I haven't watched anything with subs on my aTV yet, I actually didn't know it was an issue until I started seeing that in threads here. That does suck but I'm sure it'll be corrected.
charlie00 Wrote:Hi all
just wondering if xbox can do what appletv does
ie play movies uploaded in wi-fi from mac computer
question really is
i already have xbox, do I have to get appletv on top of that or is there a way to use xbox to do that, saving big$ in the process...??
thx
I have tried XBMC on AppleTV today and found it to be dreadful, I would recommend sticking to an Xbox (where it originated).
I never used XBMC on an Xbox myself but I know friends that swore by it so I imagine it works much better on the original platform.
My problems trying to use XBMC on an ATV included random reboots when simply using the menu's (not a good start) and I found the cool bits like having IMDB artwork for your material actually useless. A scrape took ages to work through a folder with just 40 titles and it only got 3 right resulting in many of them with inaccurate "jap films" applied to the files :-(
I assume the scraping works by the file names, all of-which were accurate and could be searched on manually using a browser with no trouble finding the correct titles at all!
I use xbmc on atv and it's everything I wanted and more. You just can't beat the price for the features. However, I just use it for SD tv content and DVD's I won't assume it's viable for HD content (high bitrate) and considering some of the hardware people use to do that and still have problems, you can't expect much.
I've never had a problem with scraping either and it's quite fast doing so. I've added close to 500 movies and hundreds of tv shows and the only scraping problem I quickly learned to avoid was adding the date on ambiguous movie titles.
healeydave Wrote:I have tried XBMC on AppleTV today and found it to be dreadful, I would recommend sticking to an Xbox (where it originated).
I never used XBMC on an Xbox myself but I know friends that swore by it so I imagine it works much better on the original platform.
You imagine, but don't know since you've never used it yourself. Why are you commenting again?
Quote:My problems trying to use XBMC on an ATV included random reboots when simply using the menu's (not a good start) and I found the cool bits like having IMDB artwork for your material actually useless. A scrape took ages to work through a folder with just 40 titles and it only got 3 right resulting in many of them with inaccurate "jap films" applied to the files :-(
I assume the scraping works by the file names, all of-which were accurate and could be searched on manually using a browser with no trouble finding the correct titles at all!
I've never found the info scraping to be reliable on ANY version of XBMC, this isn't an aTV flaw. Its an extremely difficult heuristic to do considering the variations in file names and data sources.
As for the reboots thats pretty strange, nothing I've run across on mine. Strange behavior in abnormal situations is just as common on the Xbox though, possibly even moreso.