First post on the forums! Just looked around and finally decided I'd go with an Apple TV and XBMC for my HTPC needs. It's cheap and will fit the bill nicely. I am about to order one and a Crystal HD as well as an external RAID array with 2 hard drive slots to give me 4TB of space, which should be plenty for me for the near future (I hope
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My questions are the following before I make the purchase:
1- I understand that you have to remove the wireless card to install the Crystal HD one. Can you add an external USB wifi dongle to the Apple TV to still be able to access it via wifi?
2- If I can do so, can I have the external raid array connected to another computer in the appartment and have the apple tv access all the files that are on it?
3- As a different option, could I use a little USB hub on the Apple TV, and then plug both a USB wifi dongle as well as the external raid array to it and update the files on the raid array wirelessly through my network when I need to?
My goal would be to do everything without having to move the external raid array around to update the files on it. It's not that big, but moving it around would be an inconvenience. If anyone has a similar setup or could give me any advice it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks a lot!
Welcome to the forums!
Yes, yes and yes...
However, I would suggest a Ethernet to WiFi bridge instead of a USB Wireless adapter. It would take the software configuration out of the ATV and onto a more permanent and stable device. Plus you would be able to hook up multiple Ethernet devices to the bridge and share the link.
Evildede just to clarify you need an apple tv 1, so you will be buying second hand. The new apple tv 2 is not compatible with XBMC.
1) Try to do it with a network cable. So worth it in the end because there's less fannying about to get it to work, and HD video will work fine over copper - not so good over wireless. Yes it's a pain in the arse cabling the house, but once it's done it's done.
2) Umm yep, but I wouldn't bother with a USB RAID array - USB is not all that fast. Many of the guys on the hardware forum evangelise about
unRAID. You can sling it together with an old PC and just add drives to it as and when you want (or you can buy a pre-built one with hot-swap drives and everything). Never used it myself, but it looks dead simple. Saves you outgrowing your RAID set and having to do a painful migration.
Me? I use a Fedora box to achieve something similar.
3) Meh - wouldn't bother. Doing big updates over wireless is just painful. Especially if you're adding HD content. 30GB files take forever to throw across wireless... Gb Ethernet FTW!
Yes, I've just done the old upsell on you. I'm a bad man. Bear in mind, though, that if you do run a network cable and install an unRAID box then it's done once and it's done for good.
dont get me wrong - I love my ATV and it has served me well (even without a CrystalHD card on stock ATV OS)
BUT - is it still worth going that route ?
Given that you can buy a used Acer Revo or Asrock Ion or Zotac for a reasonable price that runs circles around the ATV hardware and is more flexible I just dont see the point of getting another ATV1
yes it works reasonably well with Dharma (DDS fanart helps a lot) but its just very limited on CPU and memory
I have just gotten a ASrock Ion 330 and it does run a lot "snappier" than the ATV and has headroom for some other service and more elaborate skins
And it is more flexible with SATA for disk - plus standby and wake from IR remote works
ral67 Wrote:I have just gotten a ASrock Ion 330 and it does run a lot "snappier" than the ATV and has headroom for some other service and more elaborate skins
And it is more flexible with SATA for disk - plus standby and wake from IR remote works
Annoyingly I can't argue with this logic, unless you need Component video (like me). Still wouldn't bother with wireless. Especially with an ION because then you'll be well into HD territory.
yes - so for example with a 330 he could put one or two 500GB disks inside and still have one eSata and six USB2 ports to attach disks
unless he has higher performance requirements he can also use it as a NAS with NFS/CIFS/ftp and doesnt have to buy a RAID enclosure
sure with the ATV you can use multiple ext. USB disk through a powered hub - that that isnt going to make that one USB go any faster
ral67 Wrote:dont get me wrong - I love my ATV and it has served me well (even without a CrystalHD card on stock ATV OS)
BUT - is it still worth going that route ?
Given that you can buy a used Acer Revo or Asrock Ion or Zotac for a reasonable price that runs circles around the ATV hardware and is more flexible I just dont see the point of getting another ATV1
yes it works reasonably well with Dharma (DDS fanart helps a lot) but its just very limited on CPU and memory
I have just gotten a ASrock Ion 330 and it does run a lot "snappier" than the ATV and has headroom for some other service and more elaborate skins
And it is more flexible with SATA for disk - plus standby and wake from IR remote works
I think I agree. I use a Mac Mini (2010) and xbmc/plex but I quite like the ATV. Is the ASrock quiet? What about the remote control issue? Does it come with that? Local disks often mean noise. Streaming is more appealing to me at least.
There's always the Boxee Box which I have been trying to decide what to do with. Unfortunately it has that fan, but otherwise is pretty neat. I assume XBMC will be coming out on sigma based media players so perhaps getting too invested ( I don't mean from a financial view) in the HTPC route would not be wise. They seem hard to maintain. Mind you the Mini wasn't so perhaps the ASRock would be simple? Sounds like there's a remote issue, remote keyboard issue, noise, etc ... but maybe not?
philip