Media player with covers possible with apple tv

sonic.trip

I want to buy or get a media player like the popcorn hour c-300, so that I can have all the album/movie covers displayed on screen. I currently have an iTab 38HD with a 2TB hard drive that's networked.

I had a play with the apple rv today which was nice but I'm wondering is it possible to get an apple tv connected to my 2TB networked drive so I can have the tv display all my current movies on the drive with covers through apple tv? The apple
Tv only let's you play the content on the apple device, I've googled it and XBMC keeps coming up which I don't know much about, can someone explain a bit more if they know what I'm trying to achieve?

Witg the ATV it's only 100 quid or so, compared to $349 for the popcorn hour
C-300, but the popcorn hour updates the covers automatically somehow.

Any help would be great of anyone has done something similar.

degsie

Look up "Seas0npass" on google. Get yourself a ATV 2nd gen (NOT the latest 3rd), jailbreak it as per the instructions you'll find and then install XBMC. If your networked drive supports SMB/NFS/uPNP you will be flying....;)

andy1249

There are any amount of media players out there that will do what you want.

Why people persist in promoting ATV's as media players is beyond me , its an accessory to the more expensive ipad and iphone at best. As a standalone media player it sucks.

Take a look on here , there are literally hundreds of players available that will do exactly what you want , most of them cheaper than Apples overpriced locked down point of sale system for itunes that the Apple TV is.

http://www.iboum.com/net-media-players.php

The only way to get the ATV to do what you want is to buy a second hand ATV2 ( though these days it wont be at second hand prices ) and hack it to get XBMC on there.

The WDTV players , the Dune players , the Roku players , the Boxee players , will all do what you want straight out of the box, and that is just scratching the surface of whats available.

PogMoThoin

The reason people recommend ATV's is their hackability, you can easily put XBMC on there for the ultimate media player

andy1249

ATV3 is not hackable yet , and with the removal of the usb port , the browser etc. attack surfaces are very difficult indeed , thats why there is no hack yet and not likely to be for a while , thats if anyone is willing to spend that amount of time on it at all.

Its network port accesses Apple Stores and thats all , there is no way to make it do anything else.

I have one , its a useless black lump sitting on the top of my hi-fi rack , all it does is show me some movie trailers and how much I have to pay to get compromised content from the itunes store. You cant even load apps on it that will play non Apple content formats.

Even its "Wonderful new feature" , 1080p ( every single other player in existence has had this for years ) is useless as it does not do 24fps content , the natural format for the vast majority of 1080p content out there. This means screen flicker , netflix from it flickers like a 1920's cinema , its much better on the Ps3.

I would have gotten rid of it ages ago , but the Missus got it for me as a birthday present and I dont want to hurt her feelings.

My WDTV live hub on the other hand , accesses my home servers and plays everything I have in the format it came in , and doesnt force me to spend hours on a PC transcoding everything into stupid Apple formats first.

I have an ipad and a iphone and am happy enough with them , because there are apps that will play any content , this product though , is definitely an example of how Apple can get things spectacularly wrong.

Access

andy1249 wrote: »

its a useless black lump sitting on the top of my hi-fi rack , all it does is show me some movie trailers and how much I have to pay to get compromised content from the itunes store. You cant even load apps on it that will play non Apple content formats.

I agree, it would be so so much more if it could be used without being "apple locked". But i have to admit the ATV interface is so slick and very user friendly... so much so , that i use the quartz skin that its basically the ATV interface skin.

sonic.trip

andy1249 wrote: »

ATV3 is not hackable yet , and with the removal of the usb port , the browser etc. attack surfaces are very difficult indeed , thats why there is no hack yet and not likely to be for a while , thats if anyone is willing to spend that amount of time on it at all.

Its network port accesses Apple Stores and thats all , there is no way to make it do anything else.

I have one , its a useless black lump sitting on the top of my hi-fi rack , all it does is show me some movie trailers and how much I have to pay to get compromised content from the itunes store. You cant even load apps on it that will play non Apple content formats.

Even its "Wonderful new feature" , 1080p ( every single other player in existence has had this for years ) is useless as it does not do 24fps content , the natural format for the vast majority of 1080p content out there. This means screen flicker , netflix from it flickers like a 1920's cinema , its much better on the Ps3.

I would have gotten rid of it ages ago , but the Missus got it for me as a birthday present and I dont want to hurt her feelings.

My WDTV live hub on the other hand , accesses my home servers and plays everything I have in the format it came in , and doesnt force me to spend hours on a PC transcoding everything into stupid Apple formats first.

I have an ipad and a iphone and am happy enough with them , because there are apps that will play any content , this product though , is definitely an example of how Apple can get things spectacularly wrong.

Does your WD live hub automatically update the covers of your albums/movies/tv series?

I want to wait a little longer to read about the popcorn hour c-300 as its only out a few months. The boxee box looks pretty good. I've kind of dropped the idea of messing round with the apple tv now, some of the 2g models are going for big money on eBay!