XBMC on apple tv

Cyrus

Ok folks

finally have my apple tv 2 jailbroken and xbmc installed

how do i set up XBMC so that it can access my video files on my pc?

im sure its easy:D

Creamy Goodness

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Adding_Media_Sources

is it not like this? you'll probably have to share the directory to have read access for everyone on your network so that the appletv can read it.

Victor_M

Cyrus,
Any Chance of some feedback re: the ease of jail-breaking & the functionality of the XBMC using the ATV2?

If you have a TV/Sat tuner card on a MCE PC can you access the content of the recorded shows via the ATV2?

Can you watch the tv stations that are tuned into the main MCE PC remotely via the ATV2?

What's the overall verdict is it worth the hassle jail-breaking it or should I sell my ATV and buy a proper media centre extender? It's a real pain that it doesn't offer a bit more functionality out of the box.

I'm getting rid of SKY, I've just bought a Black gold Sat tuner card and am trying to sort out how best to feed tv and content from the MCE PC to the 2nd and 3rd TV that is currently hooked up to the 2nd Sky multi-room box.

Any advice/learnings would be appreciated.
Thanks.

Cyrus

Victor_M wrote: »

Cyrus,
Any Chance of some feedback re: the ease of jail-breaking & the functionality of the XBMC using the ATV2?

If you have a TV/Sat tuner card on a MCE PC can you access the content of the recorded shows via the ATV2?

Can you watch the tv stations that are tuned into the main MCE PC remotely via the ATV2?

What's the overall verdict is it worth the hassle jail-breaking it or should I sell my ATV and buy a proper media centre extender? It's a real pain that it doesn't offer a bit more functionality out of the box.

I'm getting rid of SKY, I've just bought a Black gold Sat tuner card and am trying to sort out how best to feed tv and content from the MCE PC to the 2nd and 3rd TV that is currently hooked up to the 2nd Sky multi-room box.

Any advice/learnings would be appreciated.
Thanks.

Hi Gar

Jailbreaking is easy and installing XBMC is fine too, i had an issue with wifi after jailbreak but it was easily sorted.

my uses are pretty basic, i have a nas with all my movies and tv shows and i wanted apple tv to play these without having to boot my ps3 (which wont play all file types anyway)

im not sure about the rest, sorry

happy to help with anything else

Blazer

I found jailbreaking a bitch to do...
No way on earth could I get greenp0ison to detect my atv or get it into dfu mode.
After reading a couple of posts online I determined it was my micro usb cable (possibly only a power charger rather than data cable) that was potentially causing the issue and trotted off to PC world to pick up a new one.

Got home and new one worked fine.
However I didn't need to plug in the power cord...apparently some of the later ATV2s don't require it when jailbreaking.
Still took a couple of attempts to jailbreak as each time it claimed it successfully jailbroke no option for nitotv was installed on the menu.
Back on the web to browse again and came across one post detailing the below
1. update /restore ATV via itunes on your pc.
2. Power on as normal on your tv
3. Reconnect to your tv and jailbreak
4. You must allow at least 40-60 secs after jailbreak is "complete" to give the ramdisk on the ATV time to install correctly.

Even after this I still had to attempt it twice more before it finally jailbroke properly for me.
Installing xbmc was easy but it's v1.0 so might have to ssh in to manually update it to the latest version as nitotv is not picking it up.


Good points- Streaming from my synology nas is lag free and a pleasure to deal with after having to deal with my WD live tv player...(it's brilliant for playing off usb etc but across networks it's just too laggy; wired and wireless plus the controls is a pain.)

Cyrus

to be fair it can be tricky getting it into DFU mode using the instructions, i just put it into DFU using instructions from the net then started green poison

i am finding XBMC isnt working brilliantly for me at the moment streaming files from my buffalo livelink nas wirelessly, it is very choppy

however my ps3 does it fine

fox007

@ sc@recrow I'm having trouble with my USB cabel when I plug it in to atv2 the power light just flashes on the unit no power supply plugged in and iTunes or my mac does not pick up the atv so I will buy another USB see does that work cheers for that info!!!

letitroll

got XMBC working perfectly, i can kiss goodbye to my WD USB Player

i've setup my video folder on my laptop as a shared folder and XMBC can connect easily and see all my movies/tv shows

Its making the €99 euro i spent on it look like a great investment

Cyrus

im having some issues unfortunately:

my set up is as follows.

10MB UPC Cable BB
Connected to a belkin wireless router
Buffalo linkstation live NAS wired to the router
Apple tv 2 wired to the router
PS3 connected wirelessly
Apple IPAD connected wirelessly

I have the latest official build of XBMC with the stock skin.

On any video file streamed from the NAS under 900mb i get perfect playback on the apple tv, no issues, anything bigger than that (all my files are avi, 720p max) i get stuttering and sound issues.

These issues dont exist on my ps3 (where the file will play, not all are recognised by the ps3)

Performance is also vastly superior on my ipad wirelessly streaming thro xbmc from the NAS, most large files that are unwatchable on the apple tv are ok on the ipad.

i have downloaded the 1080 big bucks bunny file, it stutters on the apple tv and the ipad, but much much less on the ipad.

given that the apple tv is wired and the ipad is wireless surely this points to it not being a network issue?

Victor_M

Jailbreak was surprisingly easy, however I'm having trouble accessing the shared folder on my htpc. It's running win7, sharing on but when direct xmbc to the folder with my movies it looks for a password, my pc is set to administrator and no password, I can't get past this 'lock settings' portion of the xbmc add source as it keeps returning to the password screen.

I have tried homesharing on/off combinations sharing is full no password required in the control panel settings, has anyone else come across this problem?

I have to say xbmc looks great, it's a pita that you have to do the jailbreak portion, but it's a seriously good value piece of kit for the money with xbmc running.

jaykay2

Victor_M wrote: »

Jailbreak was surprisingly easy, however I'm having trouble accessing the shared folder on my htpc. It's running win7, sharing on but when direct xmbc to the folder with my movies it looks for a password, my pc is set to administrator and no password, I can't get past this 'lock settings' portion of the xbmc add source as it keeps returning to the password screen.

I have tried homesharing on/off combinations sharing is full no password required in the control panel settings, has anyone else come across this problem?

I have to say xbmc looks great, it's a pita that you have to do the jailbreak portion, but it's a seriously good value piece of kit for the money with xbmc running.

Yeah, I ran into the same problem although I am running Vista. All you need to do is set a password on your account. You can't use sharing safely without a password.

Took a bit of a search to find out the solution to that, but simple and obvious in the end really.

Cyrus

Victor_M wrote: »

Jailbreak was surprisingly easy, however I'm having trouble accessing the shared folder on my htpc. It's running win7, sharing on but when direct xmbc to the folder with my movies it looks for a password, my pc is set to administrator and no password, I can't get past this 'lock settings' portion of the xbmc add source as it keeps returning to the password screen.

I have tried homesharing on/off combinations sharing is full no password required in the control panel settings, has anyone else come across this problem?

I have to say xbmc looks great, it's a pita that you have to do the jailbreak portion, but it's a seriously good value piece of kit for the money with xbmc running.

be interested to see if you lads get decent performance streaming HD video, please report back

Voodu Child

Cyrus wrote: »

(all my files are avi, 720p max) i get stuttering and sound issues.

The AVI container is mostly used for mpeg-4 asp (Xvid/DivX). ATV doesnt support hardware decoding of this ancient and crappy codec, in fact very few hardware decoders do.

That's likely your problem, the video is being decoded on the CPU which is crap and you're running into problems with higher bitrate content.

The problem shouldn't occur with H264 encoded content.

Cyrus

Voodu Child wrote: »

The AVI container is mostly used for mpeg-4 asp (Xvid/DivX). ATV doesnt support hardware decoding of this ancient and crappy codec, in fact very few hardware decoders do.

That's likely your problem, the video is being decoded on the CPU which is crap and you're running into problems with higher bitrate content.

The problem shouldn't occur with H264 encoded content.

but any file under 1 gig runs fine ?

Voodu Child

Cyrus wrote: »

but any file under 1 gig runs fine ?

That's because they are a lower bitrate, they are easier to decode.

Cyrus

yeah i think thats the root of it

note to self, no more avis > 700mb

Blazer

Cyrus wrote: »

yeah i think thats the root of it

note to self, no more avis > 700mb

ATV is well capable of streaming larger files..I've streamed 6GB .mkvs with no issues from my NAS..

What model is your NAS?

Cyrus

Sc@recrow wrote: »

ATV is well capable of streaming larger files..I've streamed 6GB .mkvs with no issues from my NAS..

What model is your NAS?

i think the point being made was the file format was the issue not the size, as the gpu wont hardware decode avis, larger ones are causing issues, a large .mkv should in theory be ok i think

the NAS is a buffalo linkstation 1TB

Voodu Child

Cyrus wrote: »

i think the point being made was the file format was the issue not the size, as the gpu wont hardware decode avis, larger ones are causing issues, a large .mkv should in theory be ok i think

Exactly. Most MKVs use H264, and XBMC on the ATV2 supports hardware decoding of H.264, it is actually very capable in this regard.

Most AVIs use MPEG-4 ASP, and the SGX535 doesnt support any acceleration of this, very few GPUs do. So it has to be done in software on the CPU, which is not very powerful. The higher the bitrate and resolution, the more complex it is to decode, and so you'll start to encounter stuttering at some point.

Victor_M

Got the sharing sorted, turned off homeshare and manually shared the folders my media is stored in.

To answer a few questions,

HD 720p streaming is perfect, UPC cisco router, hardwired to htpc, but the Atv2 is wirelessly connected, no buffering at all yet.

I'm going to dl a 1080p and see what happens, my pc couldn't handle playing u2 at the Rose bowl a few weeks ago but the atv2 might be able to.

A few tips, when watching a video, hold the select button (middle) for a few seconds to bring up the audio and video settings, subtitles default to on so in here you turn off subtitles and save as default for all videos so you won't have them starting for every video.

If you add too many extra sources as I did, hold the menu button down for a few secs to edit/remove any surplus locations.

Cyrus, as a few others have mentioned it seems the format some of your videos are in are the problem either that or the NAS itself may be the bottle neck, not sure but you are fully wired all the way from source to atv2 so it has to be one or the other.

On a separate note is your UPC not 15megs? I thought they upgraded all customers free of charge.

Finally my Atv2 with my us iTunes account, jail broken and with XBMC onboard is going to get the use it deserves in the house as it's been sitting idle for the last 5 months.

All in all, so far I'm blown away by how well XBMC works so far.

Edit: I recorded a few shows from windows media centre, the atv2 xbmc doesn't recognise the format, but there is an option to convert them to a format that xbmc recognises ( can't remember the exact format but if you right click on the mce file the option to convert to... appears) xbmc picks it up but lags and buffers it's way through playing the file, so, certain files are not capable of being played on the atv2. Hopefully someone will come up with an add-on that allows for direct playing of these, via transcoding or adding the codecs needed.

Cyrus

Victor_M wrote: »

Got the sharing sorted, turned off homeshare and manually shared the folders my media is stored in.

To answer a few questions,

HD 720p streaming is perfect, UPC cisco router, hardwired to htpc, but the Atv2 is wirelessly connected, no buffering at all yet.

I'm going to dl a 1080p and see what happens, my pc couldn't handle playing u2 at the Rose bowl a few weeks ago but the atv2 might be able to.

A few tips, when watching a video, hold the select button (middle) for a few seconds to bring up the audio and video settings, subtitles default to on so in here you turn off subtitles and save as default for all videos so you won't have them starting for every video.

If you add too many extra sources as I did, hold the menu button down for a few secs to edit/remove any surplus locations.

Cyrus, as a few others have mentioned it seems the format some of your videos are in are the problem either that or the NAS itself may be the bottle neck, not sure but you are fully wired all the way from source to atv2 so it has to be one or the other.

On a separate note is your UPC not 15megs? I thought they upgraded all customers free of charge.

Finally my Atv2 with my us iTunes account, jail broken and with XBMC onboard is going to get the use it deserves in the house as it's been sitting idle for the last 5 months.

All in all, so far I'm blown away by how well XBMC works so far.

Edit: I recorded a few shows from windows media centre, the atv2 xbmc doesn't recognise the format, but there is an option to convert them to a format that xbmc recognises ( can't remember the exact format but if you right click on the mce file the option to convert to... appears) xbmc picks it up but lags and buffers it's way through playing the file, so, certain files are not capable of being played on the atv2. Hopefully someone will come up with an add-on that allows for direct playing of these, via transcoding or adding the codecs needed.

ok im totally confused now

i downloaded the 720p version of big bucks bunny in h.264 for testing, wirelessly stream to my ipad or iphone to xbmc via my nas it works perfectly, on the apple tv it stutters and jerks???

so the network isnt an issue, xbmc for ios isnt an issue, the apple tv 2 shouldnet be an issue based on your experience, yet it is

i must have some setting or something somewhere thats causing me grief?

what type of 720p files are you playing on it Vic? mkvs?

Cyrus

Victor_M wrote: »

On a separate note is your UPC not 15megs? I thought they upgraded all customers free of charge.

i was the base package originally which is no 10mb :cool:

Wossack

still wouldnt rule out the wireless imo, really not recommended for streaming

Victor_M

I watched avatar 720p . Mkv last night without a hitch, as a trial I copied 5 mins of csi via the happauge tuner card, only 78 Mbs and it stuttered and buffered, so the wireless on a good clean channel has no problems with hd content (1080p would probably be too much).

Cyrus, you can get a batch file convertor to change the format of your problematic formats and just avoid that format going forward.

Cyrus

Wossack wrote: »

still wouldnt rule out the wireless imo, really not recommended for streaming

apple tv is wired

ipad isnt

one works, one doesnt, but its the wired one

Cyrus

Victor_M wrote: »

I watched avatar 720p . Mkv last night without a hitch, as a trial I copied 5 mins of csi via the happauge tuner card, only 78 Mbs and it stuttered and buffered, so the wireless on a good clean channel has no problems with hd content (1080p would probably be too much).

Cyrus, you can get a batch file convertor to change the format of your problematic formats and just avoid that format going forward.

dont mind changing formats, but my issue is that the 'correct' format is still not working for me, but only on the tv not other ios devices

Victor_M

I have to say I'm surprised, but it streams, wirelessly a 10Gb 1080p .mkv Blu ray rip, no buffering at all, only watched about 10 mins but it didn't drop a frame.

So far so good, all I'm waiting on now is for my hdmi - DVI cable to arrive so I can hook it up to my bedroom tv, going to have to use the optical out to a spare 5.1 system I have lying around but not to worry! I'm hoping the upstairs tv is HDCP compatible or I'm going to need a new telly!

Cyrus

sorted my buffering issues

restored appletv2, re jailbroke and reinstalled xbmc

all gravy !

jaykay2

Cyrus wrote: »

sorted my buffering issues

restored appletv2, re jailbroke and reinstalled xbmc

all gravy !

Good call on the restore and re-jailbreak Cyrus.


Happy camper now with my Buffalo Linkstation Live streaming all my content to my apple tv2.

Sweet.

Cyrus

jaykay2 wrote: »

Good call on the restore and re-jailbreak Cyrus.


Happy camper now with my Buffalo Linkstation Live streaming all my content to my apple tv2.

Sweet.

Same set up as me

jaykay2

Cyrus wrote: »

Same set up as me

Yeah, was watching your progress with your problem whe I waited on my Linkstation to arrive. Was afraid I was going to be having the same problem as urself.

The weird thing is that it seemed to b working fine for streaming until I tried it with my PC off. Wouldn't even play a small file nevermind a HD file. Just decided to bite the bullet and restore and re-jailbreak.

Very happy now. Well done son.

Cyrus

jaykay2 wrote: »

Yeah, was watching your progress with your problem whe I waited on my Linkstation to arrive. Was afraid I was going to be having the same problem as urself.

The weird thing is that it seemed to b working fine for streaming until I tried it with my PC off. Wouldn't even play a small file nevermind a HD file. Just decided to bite the bullet and restore and re-jailbreak.

Very happy now. Well done son.

the built in torrent client on the linkstation is class,

if i could just get my router to open the ports so i could access it on my iphone id be right

jaykay2

Cyrus wrote: »

the built in torrent client on the linkstation is class,

if i could just get my router to open the ports so i could access it on my iphone id be right

Yeah, that would be fantastic. Saying that, I can get access to at least look and see how the torrents I set up before turning off the PC are getting on. I just connect through the wi-fi at home to the ip of the Linkstation and then launch the torrent manager.

Does the job I guess.

vix2000

Came across this thread on a search and wondered if you could help me. I also have a 1tb linkstation and atv2. They are both next to my router. I want to link them all together to avoid streaming and have no idea where to start as I am aware there are port limitations on the atv2. Do these need to be daisychained in some way? Any advice on hardwiring my system would be gratefully recieved, thanks.

Cyrus

Just connect them both to the router with a cable