60 replies to this topic

[pgdownload]

I'm thinking of getting an AppleTV (1 or 2) for watching 720p stuff off my NAS (via cable).

Also have thoughts of the households laptop being able to hook into the unit and play MP3s on the amp sitting next door. Perhaps buy an airport extreme for a wireless connection to speakers in the kitchen.

Does anyone have a similar setup? Does it all work with Jailbreak etc.? Should I get the TV or TV2? Any other thoughts?

Thanks for any info

Peter Gillespie

[franga]

We bought an ATV2 to test it out and I can say once jail broken it's works wonderfully.
We have it streaming media off 2 laptops and one desktop via wireless.
We mainly use and add on app called plex which to use you have to run a plex server on your PC. this server scans your library, fetches all of the DVD/TV show information covers etc...  This intergrates nicely with the ATV2 GUI.
One of the best features is AirPlay. Which is only really handy if you have an iPhone or iPad. With this you can view movies, stream music from apps etc to the ATV2.
For the full AirPlay support I would reccomed the ATV2.


Just read that you have a NAS so the best thing to do would be to jailbreak and run XBMC which can stream from a NAS and also get all of the metadata for your stuff.

Hope this helps, any other questions just ask!

[:)]

We have a 160gb atv in the main lounge room system, and a atv2 for the bedroom system. Both work a treat.

We use ours for replaying home movies made through iMovie, or watching photos in our iPhoto library, or music from iTunes. All works seamlessly...

[franga]

Oh I forgot to add that you should check out firecore's website. They develop apps and tweaks for a jailbroken ATV 1&2.  Including a media streamer built from the ground up

Edited by franga, 25 June 2011 - 10:37 AM.

[larry]

i  was at a friends place recently-atv, ipad, iphone etc

he was saying that the xbmc on the atv tended to stutter when playing music, but when using it as an atv then it was ok, so he wasnt so impressed with jailbreaking it

anyone here use the ixstreamer ? http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/46352

[franga]

larry, on Jun 25 2011, 05:58 PM, said:

i  was at a friends place recently-atv, ipad, iphone etc

he was saying that the xbmc on the atv tended to stutter when playing music, but when using it as an atv then it was ok, so he wasnt so impressed with jailbreaking it

anyone here use the ixstreamer ? http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/46352

I had problems with XBMC mainly with mkv's so I tried plex and have been happy since. Tho I don't use the music side much as I always navigate to the music I want to listen to via iPhone/iPad then just use AirPlay.

[:)]

larry, on Jun 25 2011, 05:58 PM, said:

i  was at a friends place recently-atv, ipad, iphone etc

he was saying that the xbmc on the atv tended to stutter when playing music, but when using it as an atv then it was ok, so he wasnt so impressed with jailbreaking it

anyone here use the ixstreamer ? http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/46352

I have never bothered jailbreaking. mine are stock. and stream music, movies, photos etc without issue. ITs one of the real bonuses of the little atv2 I think that where other media players I've tried to use in the past have stuttered stalled etc trying to stream wirelessly, the atv2 because I think of its internal buffer sails through faultlessly

[BladeRnR]

larry, on Jun 25 2011, 05:58 PM, said:

i  was at a friends place recently-atv, ipad, iphone etc

he was saying that the xbmc on the atv tended to stutter when playing music, but when using it as an atv then it was ok, so he wasnt so impressed with jailbreaking it

anyone here use the ixstreamer ? http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/46352

I have 2 ATV2's, both Jailbroken (IOS 4.3, latest), untethered. Installed ATV Flash (Black) and everything including PLEX & XBMC works flawlessly (Zero stutter) connected via a Thecus N7700PRO 14TB NAS. My preference is PLEX.

Blade

[pgdownload]

BladeRnR, on Jun 25 2011, 11:20 PM, said:

I have 2 ATV2's, both Jailbroken (IOS 4.3, latest), untethered. Installed ATV Flash (Black) and everything including PLEX & XBMC works flawlessly (Zero stutter) connected via a Thecus N7700PRO 14TB NAS. My preference is PLEX. Blade

Downloaded Plex for the PC. Looks nice however I can't seem to make it actually play anything. It just creates a pretty catalogue?

Regards

Peter Gillespie

[Blonk]

BladeRnR, on Jun 25 2011, 11:20 PM, said:

I have 2 ATV2's, both Jailbroken (IOS 4.3, latest), untethered. Installed ATV Flash (Black) and everything including PLEX & XBMC works flawlessly (Zero stutter) connected via a Thecus N7700PRO 14TB NAS. My preference is PLEX.

Blade

It seems to be a bit random as to the amount of success people have with streaming. I had ATV Flash (Black) installed, but got sick of streaming music stuttering and stopping every so often. I never could stream any kind of video other than stuff from iTunes. It would play for a minute or two, then I'd get "Out of Memory" errors. XBMC would work for a little longer but still unuseable. I was also disappointed with the loss of Dolby Digital 5.1 when jailbroken. Mine is streaming (well attempting to any way!) via wireless. I've reverted back to an unjailbroken state for the time being until firecore can get it sorted a bit better. We use it for music a lot, so the stuttering was a pretty annoying issue.

[starsky]

pgdownload, on Jun 26 2011, 06:44 PM, said:

Downloaded Plex for the PC. Looks nice however I can't seem to make it actually play anything. It just creates a pretty catalogue?

Regards

Peter Gillespie

Peter, on the PC you have a Plex Media Server, not a client. They don't make a client for the PC
Plex offer an Android, IOS, and Mac Plex Media CLIENT. then others developers provide plex clients for other devices, like Boxxee, Roku, ATV2

When you run the client it access the library you set up on your server (among other things).

So, if you have a Mac, you install the PLex client for mac.

Personally I think the Plex media Server interface and data aggregation is absolutely brilliant.

In the end I run Plex Server to serve to my Ipad and Macbook Air, and Windows Media Player sharing to share DLNA to my PS3.

I just wish plex also did DLNA streaming so it was a universal solution.....

Edited by starsky, 30 August 2011 - 12:02 PM.

[BladeRnR]

starsky, on Aug 30 2011, 12:02 PM, said:

Peter, on the PC you have a Plex Media Server, not a client. They don't make a client for the PC
Plex offer an Android, IOS, and Mac Plex Media CLIENT. then others developers provide plex clients for other devices, like Boxxee, Roku, ATV2

When you run the client it access the library you set up on your server (among other things).

So, if you have a Mac, you install the PLex client for mac.

Personally I think the Plex media Server interface and data aggregation is absolutely brilliant.

In the end I run Plex Server to serve to my Ipad and Macbook Air, and Windows Media Player sharing to share DLNA to my PS3.

I just wish plex also did DLNA streaming so it was a universal solution.....

Lack of DLNA Streaming or SAMBA/AFP/ from a Network Share is Plex's greatest weakness (Even XBMC does it). Alas, this weakness is what eventually made the Popcorn Hour C-200 so attractive for me. I agree, Plex's Media acquisition/aggregation is brilliant (And you can watch it visually as it constructs it from your source). Plenty of options exist to do this on PH C-200 though and once setup it's just a matter of ongoing maintenance via automated scripting.

Personally though, Plex's User Interface is far more attractive than anything else I've seen in a Media Player.

Blade

[windeath]

I really wanted an ATV. I bought one a few months ago and spent about 6 hours trying to jailbreak it. No matter what I did it just wouldn't work. I've jail broken a few iPads, iPhones and iPod Touches so I'm au fait with the concept. I ended up getting WD Live TV's which I'm hugely happy with.

[Dissociative]

I jailbroke (atv flash) my apple TV 1 the other week, basically just wanted to be able to easily drop downloaded shows onto it (over wifi from my mac) and watch without any fuss. so far its worked perfectly for this.

Dabbled a bit with DVD ISO's but this seems a bit clunky so might just stick to spinning the disc the old fashioned way.

[:)]

Dissociative, on Aug 30 2011, 09:12 PM, said:

~

Dabbled a bit with DVD ISO's but this seems a bit clunky so might just stick to spinning the disc the old fashioned way.

for some dvds eg the kids ones that get a regular playing, we have just used handbrake to rip to itunes. works a treat. but yeah for rest of discs that get iregular replay have just stuck to the old fashioned way myself as well  

[Dissociative]

:), on Aug 30 2011, 09:46 PM, said:

for some dvds eg the kids ones that get a regular playing, we have just used handbrake to rip to itunes. works a treat. but yeah for rest of discs that get iregular replay have just stuck to the old fashioned way myself as well  

Hi Al, have done the same for my daughter's DVD's (Wiggles, Hi-5 etc), all ripped using handbrake and imported to itunes and synced with the ATV. Works really well and is easy for my wife to use (main thing), but I've noticed the quality is really poor - definately wouldnt use it for any of my movies. Was hoping to overcome this via ISO's but seems not to be.

[:)]

Dissociative, on Aug 30 2011, 09:53 PM, said:

Hi Al, have done the same for my daughter's DVD's (Wiggles, Hi-5 etc), all ripped using handbrake and imported to itunes and synced with the ATV. Works really well and is easy for my wife to use (main thing), but I've noticed the quality is really poor - definately wouldnt use it for any of my movies. Was hoping to overcome this via ISO's but seems not to be.

oh no D, yeah definitely wouldnt be doing for my own movies, even the time to rip and messing around I wouldnt bother with. but yeah your quite right for convenience for the kids it works really well. definitely very easy for my wife and visitors. we have all our home movies through atv as well. straight across from imovie to itunes and kids love watching those too

not heard of anyone using for iso's, probably better solutions

[Dissociative]

:), on Aug 30 2011, 10:07 PM, said:

oh no D, yeah definitely wouldnt be doing for my own movies, even the time to rip and messing around I wouldnt bother with. but yeah your quite right for convenience for the kids it works really well. definitely very easy for my wife and visitors. we have all our home movies through atv as well. straight across from imovie to itunes and kids love watching those too

not heard of anyone using for iso's, probably better solutions

i had visions of moving towards a slick server type solution (for DVD's at least, possibly BD later) and clearing out some much needed media storage space in the process. have given up now though and just ordered a Oppo 95 (and arranged a cabinet maker to build a new closet for all the discs!)

[:)]

Dissociative, on Aug 30 2011, 10:35 PM, said:

i had visions of moving towards a slick server type solution (for DVD's at least, possibly BD later) and clearing out some much needed media storage space in the process. have given up now though and just ordered a Oppo 95 (and arranged a cabinet maker to build a new closet for all the discs!)

congrats on the 95 D, they sure are an accomplished player and got all bases covered, analog or digital 2ch or mch. think you going to be pretty pleased

yeah though invested in a readynas a while back to go over similar lines, never quite got around to it. and now probably got better things to be doing    maybe one day hehe

[texass44]

I won an AppleTV at a conference recently.  Very happy with it for the price :-)

I have it connected via HDMI to my Yamaha rxv2600 then HDMI to Panasonic 32" LCDTV.  Streaming music via iTunes works well, great for background music listening.

As a trial, I used DVD decrypter to decrypt a DVD.  I then used latest Handbrake to convert to AppleTV format using the pre-defined AppleTV settings.  I don't have time to investigate and tinker with all the options.  This process took about 2.5hrs all up.

The results are pretty good, file size was about 1.4Gig from memory and plays back fine over wireless streaming.

Cheers......Tex.

[diesel]

I'm also looking into getting an ATV2 but mainly for streaming music/photos. My DVD collection is all ISO files on my NAS. If I can get PLEX to play off the NAS (which I believe it can't at the moment as it needs a PC/Mac to work) that would be the best solution. So may have to look at XBMC and a jailbroken ATV2 for now.

[hodge06]

diesel, on Sep 12 2011, 10:40 AM, said:

I'm also looking into getting an ATV2 but mainly for streaming music/photos. My DVD collection is all ISO files on my NAS. If I can get PLEX to play off the NAS (which I believe it can't at the moment as it needs a PC/Mac to work) that would be the best solution. So may have to look at XBMC and a jailbroken ATV2 for now.

I set one up a few months ago with jailbreak and xbmc.  It pretty quickly took over duty from my trusty xbox1 with the benefit being I now dont have to split standard def and high def between two different devices/folder locations.  Been rock solid so far and WAF is high (and airplay is pretty cool too if you've got a household full of i devices).  

Be aware that XBMC is not 100% polished for the Idevices but is most of the way there (ie - mp3 music playback is hit and miss but I only use for video streaming anyway and issues will be corrected going forward no doubt).

[diesel]

hodge06, on Sep 14 2011, 03:23 PM, said:

Be aware that XBMC is not 100% polished for the Idevices but is most of the way there (ie - mp3 music playback is hit and miss but I only use for video streaming anyway and issues will be corrected going forward no doubt).

Once jailbroken though, can you not use iTunes for music streaming????

[hodge06]

diesel, on Sep 14 2011, 08:51 PM, said:

Once jailbroken though, can you not use iTunes for music streaming????

sorry - been away for a bit. Y es, quite correct (although I have not done this).  Was thinking more along the lines of doing everything in xbmc but wasn't thinking outside of the (little black) square.....

[diesel]

I quite like PLEX and will certainly be giving this app a go.

Any likelihood of new ATV hardware with upcoming iPhone/iPod refresh? Is it worth waiting a month or two to see what happens?