Apple tv or boxee??

Userious

Im considering buying apple tv but the boxee seems to be getting way better reviews. I have an iPad and would rather stick with apple but, disregarding the price, if the boxee is better then why should I? Any reason I should get apple tv instead of the boxee?

silvine

Add a poll option for neither.

Get an Acer Revo 3610 and install XBMC.

kjl

I have both and boxee sucks balls. For example you should be able to view 4od but you can't. There is no content. They constantly update the software and somehow keep making it worse.

Apple tv + xbmc = win.

Deep Thought

kjl wrote: »

I have both and boxee sucks balls. For example you should be able to view 4od but you can't. There is no content. They constantly update the software and somehow keep making it worse.

Apple tv + xbmc = win.

+1

eeloe

kjl wrote: »

I have both and boxee sucks balls. For example you should be able to view 4od but you can't. There is no content. They constantly update the software and somehow keep making it worse.

Apple tv + xbmc = win.

+2

Best €119 I've ever spent!

mad muffin

AirPlay.

ArthurG

Also have both at home.

Boxee is used pretty much every day.

ATV is hardly ever switched on.

You can Airplay to the Boxee as well which is handy.

Edit: Guess it really does depends on what you want to use the device for, and how comfortable/capable you are when looking at the ATV with XBMC option

Feidhlim

Asking the question on an Apple Media Devices forum make not get you the most neutral answers given the majority of people on this forum have an apple device...

But hey, what do I know? I have neither...

kjl

well there is one plug in for xbmc that is not available for boxee which makes boxee pretty useless.

plus, boxee forgets things like how far down a list you were, so if you go into a menu and out again it will bring you back to the top of the list.

The developers have gone completely corporate too, boxee was once a pretty good solution to online viewing media such as hulu etc, but now it can't do anything. Going on to youtube is the hardest thing in the world, like it could take upto 5 min to load a video. All updates are mandatory, one update removed the volume control functionality despite the fact that literally thousands of people begged them not too (there was a 200 page thread of people say no to it on boxee forums). Boxee box is nothing like boxee for your PC, boxee box also breaks the GNU Public licence rules, under V.2 of that licence your device has to be open, the whole point of the boxee box was to be an open platform, but in order to secure content like hulu plus and netflix the locked down the whole system.

That's not to say I don't use the boxee box from time to time, I do watch 1080p content on it, but since my television has the same functionality I find I am not using this feature any more.

On the flip side, I wouldn't never use the core functionality of the apple TV, except maybe to use airplay to watch a video off my iPhone, so if it wasn't jailbroken, (which you currently can not do), I wouldn't bother either.

For the majority of my content I do use a REVO which was mentioned above, but have the apple tv connected to most of the other tv's in my house to watch stuff from the plug in I mentioned earlier.

120_Minutes

How do you put plex on an atv? Every tutorial I find has it for mac/ssh but I use pc/winscp. I already have the plex server installed but I'm not interested in streaming from my pc I just want to add 4od or bbc I player (if you can get round the region lock) or can these be added to XBMC?

kjl

I don't use plex, but there is an iPlayer plug in for xbmc.

kjl

OK, I have added the iPlayer and 4od plugins to my repository, you can download it from here

http://code.google.com/p/xtream-media/downloads/detail?name=repository.googlecode.xtream-media.zip&can=2&q=

to install ssh into you apple tv and put this repository into \var\mobile\Library and drop the .zip file you just downloaded in there.

Now, on the apple tv goto "System->Settings->Add-ons->Install from zip file"

it will load a search bar where you goto "Home folder->Library" Then scroll down to the end and you should see the .zip file there, once the repository is installed it will say Xtream added or something down the bottom right.

Now, go back to the System->Settings->Add-ons, but this time goto "Get Add-ons" Scroll down to Xtream addons and press and hold the menu button.
A sub menu will appear, press "force refresh"

XBMC will hang for about 10 seconds here but when it finished go back to Xtream addons and hit enter, then goto "Video Add-ons" and you will see both 4od and iPlayer there, there are a few other plug-ins there that are worth a download, especially Xtream Media.

That's it, I will keep the plugins updated so if there is another update required you it will download automatically for you.

kjl

btw 4od works in ireland, iPlayer doesn't

Userious

eeloe wrote: »

+2

Best €119 I've ever spent!

That's that so, big help. Cheers

Cyrus

out of the box, the atv2 for me was next to useless, jailbroken it has become my most used gadget, its hooked up to a 1tb nas that i have and its a great device, everyone who calls over is seriously impressed with the way it presents movies and tv shows etc

its a little bit technical to get it working 100% but well worth it

eeloe

Cyrus wrote: »

out of the box, the atv2 for me was next to useless, jailbroken it has become my most used gadget, its hooked up to a 1tb nas that i have and its a great device, everyone who calls over is seriously impressed with the way it presents movies and tv shows etc

its a little bit technical to get it working 100% but well worth it

I'm currently using a 500gb hard drive running from my iMac for some content, which i have to admit is a little bit of a PITA...BUT....i am planning on investing in a NAS drive to combat that!

the ATV in our house is used for roughly 6hrs perday...i'd gladly cancel the sky subscription because of it

Crawn

Recently purchased ATV, secondhand on eBay. I've successfully jailbroken it, have XBMC & PLEX installed on it. I like the 'Apple' look & feel of PLEX but the extra functionality of XBMC is winning me over. I was considering going down the 'VPN' route for extra content....

Steaming from external HDD on laptop to ATV over wireless home network, is ok, not 100% happy, larger files causing buffering, will a NAS be better at this???

kjl, many thanks for your little tutorial, another fine plugin for XBMC!

soundsham

I bought a buffalo 2tb nas and haven't set it up yet
Anybody do similar for their atv2
Is it easy ?
Sorry just read your post Cyrus
Must give it a bash soon
So be prepared for a few Q's along the way