Apple TV owners' thread. - Page 46

Thanks, I have started to figure out that nearly all of the features I liked in Boxee are in XBMC. I just happened to install Boxee a year ago, and liked the features, so I never explored other options. Now that Boxee is nolonger being developed for the Mac (or any other OS other than Boxee hardware), I started to investigate other HTPC options. Now, I like XBMC-Eden more than I ever liked Boxee.

Still need to resolve the remote issue. I had been using the Apple remote with Boxee, and it worked well, but the Apple remote barely works with XBMC. I can access the main functions, but there are many functions I am forced to use the mouse\\keyboard.

I also would like to know how others control iTunes from within XBMC using their remote. At the moment I have to use the keyboard to switch iTunes, and then use the keyboard\\mouse with iTunes (no remote). This really does not work as a HTPC solution, so I need to figure out a way too access iTunes content through XBMC, using a remote.

i got my ATV2 on monday and jailbroke it using 4.4.2 firmware yesterday. it's tethered for now until 5.0 gets untethered. anyway, installing nitotv and xbmc was so easy. i use xbmc most of the time and so far the only things i don't like, but can deal with is that it can't play HD content other than mp4/mkv. i have a few HD wmv files that play, but stutters throughout. kind of a bummer.

also, i noticed a few graphical glitches with flickering in the menus. and the last thing is that the remote seems very limiting. now say i'm browsing video files and am several folders deep. if i was to get back to the main menu, i have to hit the Menu button a couple of times to get back to the root, then it goes to the main menu. if there is an easier way to get to the main menu, let me know. i might have to mess with the keymaps or something, to also access the codec info when watching a video.

@nmoble

If I were you I would get an app called Remote Buddy for your Mini. With it you will be able to manage XBMC, iTunes, etc... In fact pretty well anything. They have a free trial so you can figure it out.

I mainly use a Harmony One for all my stuff. But, the Apple silver remote works fine with XBMC. I should try the white Apple remote. The only real issue with it was how to bring up that OSD which you get with a right click. I'm sure it can be done with the white remote but it's been a while.

With Remote Buddy you can launch XBMC, quit it, launch iTunes, pause or quit or change playlist or whatever, launch Plex, Safari, even use a Wii remote. It is a fantastic utility.

Lenovo makes a backlit multimedia keyboard which is very small and has a trackmouse built in. Pretty neat actually. iOGear also has a small backlit keyboard with a built in mousestick. Both work great. I prefer the Lenovo one and you can get it on sale for around $35. The iOGear one is a bit more. Neither will work with the new ATV.

Philip

Got my new apple tv today (v3). Still plays music at 16/48 rather than 16/44. No support for 24/96

not surprised by that but oh well....

mine and the ipad look like they will be delivered friday.

I'm most interested in understanding if this thing will actually fully playback high bit rate H.264 BD rips.

Mine's been working great today.

As others have mentioned, there's already a dedicated thread to the ATV2 w/XBMC, so you should ask questions there. But some wrong info was given here, so I can't help but try to correct some of that...

1) Yes
2) I don't believe XBMC supports playing Blu-ray .ISO files, but you can rip the main movie as an MKV file and the non-lossless 5.1 audio track, and play that. Another caveat is that the movie has to have been encoded as h264, because the ATV's GPU can natively decode that. I believe there are two other encoding formats sometimes used (e.g., VC-1) which will not play smoothly on the ATV2 hardware and, I suspect, won't fare much better on the ATV3.
3) I don't believe so.
4) Not sure. I don't think XBMC supports DTS-HD and I'm not sure about Dolby TrueHD, but you can probably convert them to lossless AAC. I'm not sure if the ATV2 has any other hardware limitations related to this.
5) Yes

Almost, 2 is new feature in XBMC Eden. It came from a donation of the boxee box BD ISO code. If you like how boxee works then you will like Eden. Its not full ISO support but works well enough in most cases.

4. XBMC does not bitstream yet but DOES have some decoding: Decode TrueHD upto 7.1 into 7.1 LPCM (limitation of 16 bit output at 48 Khz). There is no DTS-HD support. It will playback the 1.5Mbps Lossy DTS track and cannot decode DTS-HD into LPCM.

Glad to see its working again for you. Mine took two restarts to get it going again. Strange.

I got my new ATV3 yesterday, my first Apple TV.

I like the unit, but unlike many I did not get it to be my media jukebox. I mostly got it for being a second netflix streamer and for the airplay capabilities.

I have a popcornhour for my media jukebox

In my house, my wife and I both have personal iDevices. We have a desktop PC that her library is on. We also have a windows home server that my library is on.

We have a whole home audio system that is connected to my theater and server-PC. In the past (prior to an ATV) I would use the remote app on my iphone to connect to the iTunes running on the server-PC which would then let me play music and control volume throughout the house wirelessly. The only shortcoming here is that only my library was accessible.

With the new ATV, via airplay, my wife and now can both access our libraries in the theater. I'd like to connect the appleTV someway to my whole home audio system (which only features analog RCA audio inputs). My AVR has the required analog audio outputs but as far as I can tell, when it's receiving audio over HDMI that it won't pass the converted signal through the output.

Does anyone know a way I can get analog audio out of the ATV3?

Monoprice has a nice converter that is a little less. Toslink to analog converter.

Thanks, didn't know such devices existed. Cheaper on monoprice at $20 plus some change.

Anyone know if the ATV2(3) will do audio over HDMI and Optical simultaneously?

yes it does - i use it all the time.

The monoprice one has issues with the ATV2 if you read the reviews. You might consider an alternative one. The one I bought also has issues so I wont recommend it either.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...00_i00_details

the issue is it occasionally loses sync and needs to be power cycled. 3 times in the last month to be precise.

Sean

Thanks for the heads up, seems that others have similar problems. I have an automated 120v switching source for a Behringer sub amp so I'll just put the converter on that circuit as well.

*knock on wood*
I've been using one of them for 6+ months without any issues ... Is the problem just with recent versions of it?
I don't remember hearing about it back when I was looking into it - that's why I'm curious.

I've had my monoprice convertor for a year now without a hiccup.

you should add a review on monoprice. There are none claiming compatibility with ATV2 and at least one saying it doesn't work.

I'll have to do that because it has worked perfectly for me.

Im using a coax to optical converter from monoprice ,works great
Looks just like that too

For what it's worth I purchased the new ATV3 with hopes it would look good and my system and it is now getting ready to be returned to Apple. The quality was terrible but the new interface was pretty cool. This is my first Apple product that I was truly dis-appointed in. I tried two different televisions and I think the picture is much improved on smaller televisions. I have a 55" and a 22" in the bedroom. Any suggestions on what I could be doing wrong or ideas for picture improvement? I tried both iTunes content and previews of 1080P offerings over the net. I read on Apple support forums that some people were having poor luck running the ATV3 thru a receiver so I tried it direct to my TV and got the same results. Poor picture quality.

My system consists of the following...

AVR: Denon 2311
TV: Sony 55NX810
a

What do you mean poor picture quality? Are you sure you were playing HD content? I'm assuming you changed the display settings as well?

I have the ATV2 hooked up to a 60in Pioneer Kuro with all settings on auto and the picture is fantastic. You might want to adjust the HDMI settings and see if that helps.

It could be a hardware problem as I'm using the same firmware as you although the ATV3 does have a different chip.

I tried viewing the previews of available movies on iTunes that only showed 1080p. The setting for resolution was set to Auto. I also tried both of choices for the 1080p settings and nothing. Is there another section or subset menu to change resolution?

as far as picture quality goes, it was no where near 1080p. Very bad banding and it was like watchinga standard def tv channel on a HD tv set.

Looks like a fair comparison to Blu-ray. I presume it would do much better compared to your typical (TV) HD.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/guides/...y-shootout.ars