[Yodeling]

Let me first say that I'm writing this purely from practical perspective. I don't care about specs etc, I just care about usability and convenience. I've been using XBMC since original XBOX, then upgraded to custom HTPC, and finally recently switched to ATV. I have both ATV1 with crystalHD/Cystalbuntu and ATV2. A PC is serving as my central video repository.

I really love having a tiny box controlled by a 6 button remote running my XBMC and ATV is perfect for that. I purchased both ATV1 and ATV2 at the same time so I can compare and decide what to buy for the rest of my house. At this point, I am leaning heavily to ATV1 for many reasons.

Stability
ATV1 with Crystalbuntu is far more stabile. My ATV2 currently crashes about 4-5 times a day with no discernible pattern. I realize that this is the one thing that will probably improve with time, but it is annoying nonetheless. The ATV1 has never crashed yet.

Power Saving
The ATV1 can be set to turn off the TV after certain amount of time (mine is 5 minutes) The ATV2 cannot. This means we have to use the TV remote to turn off the TV when we're done. This not only defeats the simplicity of using the small 6 button remote, but also wastes much more electricity. I realize that ATV2 uses less power than ATV1, but my plasmas use MUCH more power.

HD playback
The ATV2 currently chokes on about 15% of my library. Generally the symptoms are constant stuttering and buffering, making the video unwatchable. I followed the WIKI and nothing helps. Same videos play perfectly on ATV1.

Controls
The ATV1 allows me to control the volume from the apple remote, which is just tremendously convenient!!! It also allows me to hold the arrows down for fast scrolling, fast forward, etc. Coupled with the fact that the ATV1 turns off my TV after 5 minutes of inactivity, I NEVER have to touch a different remote. The ATV2 does not have these features and supposedly never will. This means that you either have to use 2 remotes, or use the 100+ button TV remote for everything. Huge letdown.

Portability
This is where the ATV1 falls short because you have to sacrifice the WIFI card to install crystalbuntu. I've tried installing a USB WIFI card, but unsuccessful so far.

In conclusion, the ATV2 is FAR less convenient because of a few small features that are missing plus stability problems. I've read on these forums that the control features will never be solved. I'm currently 90% decided just to buy used ATV1s for my other rooms, but if someone wants to suggest workarounds for the above issues, please feel free.

[g-off]

You are right on most points.

The only thing I can add is that stability is down at the moment with the beta version. Most of the nightly versions were much more stable and seldom crashed for me. The betas should stabilise soon.

[dizzyikea]

Wow my ATV2 has no problems with HD , never crashes and the tv auto shutsdown fine.

[tolax]

You don't add though how slow the ATV1 is on the menus though compared to the ATV2. Especially with a decent size video library.

I use a Harmony so that handles the TV, surround system (and everything else) with a single button push on the remote. The shutdown seems a big issue for you so you might want to invest in one. The basic harmonys (especially reconditioned ones) are fairly cheap.

I have an ATV1 with CHD and ATV2. The ATV1 has gone back on the shelf as the ATV2 is a better solution for me. I'm rarely seeing a crash and never mid movie. The ones I do get I just put down to the joys of opensource that I am more than happy to live with.

Tolax

[Yodeling]

You don't add though how slow the ATV1 is on the menus though compared to the ATV2. Especially with a decent size video library.

I use a Harmony so that handles the TV, surround system (and everything else) with a single button push on the remote. The shutdown seems a big issue for you so you might want to invest in one. The basic harmonys (especially reconditioned ones) are fairly cheap.

I have an ATV1 with CHD and ATV2. The ATV1 has gone back on the shelf as the ATV2 is a better solution for me. I'm rarely seeing a crash and never mid movie. The ones I do get I just put down to the joys of opensource that I am more than happy to live with.

Tolax

Tolax,

That is interesting, because that is one thing I meant to add and forgot. But my experience is the exact opposite. I use AEON NOX skin, and ATV2 is very jerky when scrolling through home screen and the library scrolling is also very slow to draw the art, in fact it's pretty much EXACTLY as slow as ATV1 without the CrystalHD card and Crystalbuntu. I actually took note of this specifically because I tried ATV1 without the card first and noticed the slowness, then I was anxious to see improvement with ATV2 and saw none, to my surprise. Then with CHD card, the ATV1 got much faster even though I wasn't expecting it.

Perhaps your observation is different because of setup differences (skin/library/network/etc...). Also, do you have the CHD card AND Crystalbuntu? Perhaps the OS plays a role here...

In terms of using Harmony remote, yes I have considered it, but I just don't see the point of spending another $100+ per room. It's not that much different from using the TV's own remote and dumping the ATV remote. Plus, like I said, my family really prefers the simplicity of the 6 button remote.

[Yodeling]

Wow my ATV2 has no problems with HD , never crashes and the tv auto shutsdown fine.

dizzy, can you please advise on how to make the ATV2 shut down the display? It lets blank the screen but not shut off the TV. I use the Power Options in system setup.

[Ned Scott]

From a raw power and video decoding standpoint, the ATV1 will always be more powerful than the ATV2's current hardware. Support going forward into the future might change (for example, Eden is the last version that will work on the original ATV OS, so you will have to use linux on ATV1 for Frodo), and it will slowly become harder to find a steady source of ATV1s since they're not made anymore.

That being said, despite both having the title of Apple TV, and being used in a similar way by Apple, they're still two very different devices. One is pretty much an actual computer, comparable to a desktop. The other is an ARM device, more comparable to a smartphone. It's not so much as will one be as good as the other, but rather, how XBMC will adapt in the future to new hardware that is more specialized for video playback.

[Arkanius]

Considering that most high def video is, if not all, encoded in h264 or x264, I think Apple TV2 has the edge due low power consumption, portability, price, and performance.
And future proof since it runs on iOS, which will lose no support in the coming years

All the other cons, get an Harmony remote like I'm thinking to

[nsviper]

I've never had an ATV1, so can't compare and contrast however I can state that I have no buffering/crashing issues on my 2 ATV2's running Eden Beta 2. Current setup is:

- 2 ATV2's running Eden Beta 2 - only issue is the FTP issues mentioned in another thread and fixed in Beta 3
- 200+ HD MKV's all h264 encoded, mixture of AC3 and DTS audio streams. Files range in size from 2GB up to and over 10GB
- 1400+ TV episodes, a mixture of SD and HD content, again all h264 encoded

All files stored on a NAS, and NAS and ATV's are wired using Solwise PowerLine 200MB Adapters. NAS is running FTP service which is feeding the ATV's.

I originally ran the Aeon Nox skin on the ATV's because it looked so good, but was a bit sluggish. Also spotted that the skin crashed the ATV's a couple of times if you tried to skip thru the media library too quickly. Switching to the reFocus skin which is lighter stopped these crashes, and all I can say is i'm VERY happy with XBMC running on these devices.

I originally had the ATV's and my PC using a central SQL database. Currently the ATV's are using their own internal DB. Once Eden is released fully, i'll switch back to using this again (mainly for the ability to watch a program in one room, pause it, go into the other room and continue watching from where I left off )

[crawl]

Something is wrong with your setup, if your ATV2 is crashing 4-5 times per day with no pattern.

[lukenukem]

I use AEON NOX skin, and ATV2 is very jerky when scrolling through home screen and the library scrolling is also very slow to draw the art

Something is wrong with your setup, if your ATV2 is crashing 4-5 times per day with no pattern.

You shouldn't use Aeon NOX on your ATV2, as many people who do experience random crashes that seem to relate to an insufficient amount of memory. I don't know if the skin has a memory leak or if it is just to heavy for the ATV2, but I have never been able to get it running properly. If you do decide to keep the skin, be sure to disable all viewing modes you're not currently using. You can do that in the skin settings and it seriously reduces the CPU load when opening new menus and browsing through them.

[ilovemymac]

I have an ATV2 running eden beta 2 and i have almost all 1080p movies with many of them having dts ma and trueHD audio some are MKV some are h264 some are avi and all play fine. Even have played m2ts files. I have no problems with crashing although i did try the aeon nox skin and had tons of crashes. So i stay with the default skin even though it doesnt look as good.

I love my ATV2 i have a NAS hooked up via ethernet to the router as well as the ATV2 both hard wired rather then wireless and i think that makes a difference. I have a few tv shows on my computer hard drive that i watch via wireless and they seem to work ok but they are tv shows so small files not 15-20GB files like the movies.

I cant wait to see what the XBMC guys will do with the next incarnation of xbmc for the ATV2. I never have used an ATV1 but always heard it was not as good because it was slower and was not made for the same uses as the ATV2 is.

The thing is since ATV2 runs ios it will be updated for a long time to come and when not using xbmc i can view netflix, vimeo, internet radio, stream itunes music and movies i have there.

Sometimes when i get a jittering on HD video i do the menu plus play/pause button till the light blinks fast and let it reset then it plays fine. When you do that you just have to go in and change the sleep setting on atv2 again as when resetting it always goes to never sleep.

[goon]

I have both atv1 and atv2. I too get random crashes with the atv 2. It's usually when watching 30 minute anime episodes. it's never crashed while watching a movie.

[lukenukem]

:o !
So the device must have been designed to hate the Japanese!

[g-off]

:o !
So the device must have been designed to hate the Japanese!

Anime is where all bleeding-edge codecs, containers and subtitle types happen