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Apple TV Any good reasons to JB my atv?

E

eyeseeyou

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Feb 4, 2011
3,393
1,596
I just bought an atv2 mostly to mess with the airplay features.

Tried it and got bored and went back to using my PS3 for the exact same reasons someone would use an ATV.

So while I'm deciding whether or not I'll keep it I wanted to know if JBing it would add some much needed functionality that isn't provided by my PS3.

Anyone have any good tweaks/apps that can be installed onto the ATV after JBing?
 
Wirelessly posted (Opera/9.80 (iPhone; Opera Mini/6.1.15738/25.894; U; en) Presto/2.5.25 Version/10.54)

For xbmc it seems you have to have win media center on your pc???

I cant get past this step when setting up...aaargh
 
agentmikeyd said:
Wirelessly posted (Opera/9.80 (iPhone; Opera Mini/6.1.15738/25.894; U; en) Presto/2.5.25 Version/10.54)

For xbmc it seems you have to have win media center on your pc???

I cant get past this step when setting up...aaargh
Click to expand...

I use xbmc on ATV2 too. What I do to play local contents is sharing my network drive either on computer or router. I use Linksys routers that have USB port. Plan to switch to NAS soon though.
 
eyeseeyou said:
I just bought an atv2 mostly to mess with the airplay features.

Tried it and got bored and went back to using my PS3 for the exact same reasons someone would use an ATV.

So while I'm deciding whether or not I'll keep it I wanted to know if JBing it would add some much needed functionality that isn't provided by my PS3.

Anyone have any good tweaks/apps that can be installed onto the ATV after JBing?
Click to expand...

No reason, just send it too me.

What were you hoping it would do, the ATV is mainly for folks who have alot of iTunes content that they want to play on their TV and for that there is nothing better.
 
Bach2011 said:
yes. I tried wireless or wired (preferred) and don't see any problem but I watched only couple movies so far (ripped for 1080p).
Click to expand...

So when I hook up an external HD on the USB of the router (LINKSYS E4200 ) , wired to the atv , can the atv use the movies with out stuttering (xbmc)??

- can the atv use/read the USB NTFS file system ?
 
eyeseeyou said:
. . .
Anyone have any good tweaks/apps that can be installed onto the ATV after JBing?
Click to expand...

I use ATV2 mainly to show my iPhoto photos and home movies on the big screen. Very handy since we have young kids and take LOTS of photos and home movies of them. Also handy to rip their favorite DVDs, import into iTunes, and have those shows available at the touch of the remote button.

As for jailbreaking: I finally did that a couple of months ago.

-Plex pretty much just replicates what iTunes does: makes videos on your computer viewable on your apple tv. . . I have it installed but don't use it because I don't see why it's any better than iTunes. *shrug*

-XBMC seems a bit better than Plex to me since it is apparently more customizable. If you download the "Bluecop Repository" in XBMC, you can watch Hulu (both Hulu Plus AND regular free Hulu) on your apple tv WITHOUT COMMERCIALS! This is the best benefit of jailbreaking, in my opinion. My wife and I are about to "cut the cord" on our satellite TV service, and having Hulu without commercials on the Apple TV makes that easier since it gets us some cable shows on the TV without cable/sat service.

-Airplay is fantastic IF YOU HAVE OTHER iOS devices. This is because, in my opinion, it is easier to navigate an iphone or ipad with your fingers than it is to navigate (and especially to "search") the apple tv using a remote. We often search for a youtube video or a radio station on our iphone, then just hit the airplay button to send it to the TV. And the audio from most apps (and the video from some) is airplay enabled. I use it to listen to "This American Life" radio show episodes, streamed from my iphone app to the the ATV2 via airplay. And after iOS5 arrives, you can mirror anything on your iPad 2 screen to the ATV2. . . this includes games and those TV watching apps.

-This macrumors forum post suggests you can now airplay most videos viewed on safari on your computer (mac or pc) to your Apple TV. Even flash videos. I have not tested this yet, but if it works that would enable you to watch pretty much any streaming TV show posted on the web on your apple tv!

-There are other minor extra features you can add by jailbreaking: install a weather app (yawn), or use bluetooth keyboards with the ATV ("BTstack", installed from NitoTV). But I don't use any of those.

PS3 is great, I'm sure. . . but it's also several hundred $. I don't have an interest in a video game console. But an apple tv for $100 (or $85 if you buy it refurbished from apple.com)? Good deal.
 
iHOUBSTER said:
So when I hook up an external HD on the USB of the router (LINKSYS E4200 ) , wired to the atv , can the atv use the movies with out stuttering (xbmc)??

- can the atv use/read the USB NTFS file system ?
Click to expand...
- You need xmbc to play local contents, I think. I jailbrake mine with Seas0nPass.

- Yes, I have mine formatted in NTFS. I have two routers- E4200(stock) and WRT610N (dd-wrt), both work fine. All you need are some configurations on router's setup page to share the drive.
 
dgalvan123 said:
I use ATV2 mainly to show my iPhoto photos and home movies on the big screen. Very handy since we have young kids and take LOTS of photos and home movies of them. Also handy to rip their favorite DVDs, import into iTunes, and have those shows available at the touch of the remote button.

As for jailbreaking: I finally did that a couple of months ago.

-Plex pretty much just replicates what iTunes does: makes videos on your computer viewable on your apple tv. . . I have it installed but don't use it because I don't see why it's any better than iTunes. *shrug*

-XBMC seems a bit better than Plex to me since it is apparently more customizable. If you download the "Bluecop Repository" in XBMC, you can watch Hulu (both Hulu Plus AND regular free Hulu) on your apple tv WITHOUT COMMERCIALS! This is the best benefit of jailbreaking, in my opinion. My wife and I are about to "cut the cord" on our satellite TV service, and having Hulu without commercials on the Apple TV makes that easier since it gets us some cable shows on the TV without cable/sat service.

-Airplay is fantastic IF YOU HAVE OTHER iOS devices. This is because, in my opinion, it is easier to navigate an iphone or ipad with your fingers than it is to navigate (and especially to "search") the apple tv using a remote. We often search for a youtube video or a radio station on our iphone, then just hit the airplay button to send it to the TV. And the audio from most apps (and the video from some) is airplay enabled. I use it to listen to "This American Life" radio show episodes, streamed from my iphone app to the the ATV2 via airplay. And after iOS5 arrives, you can mirror anything on your iPad 2 screen to the ATV2. . . this includes games and those TV watching apps.

-This macrumors forum post suggests you can now airplay most videos viewed on safari on your computer (mac or pc) to your Apple TV. Even flash videos. I have not tested this yet, but if it works that would enable you to watch pretty much any streaming TV show posted on the web on your apple tv!

-There are other minor extra features you can add by jailbreaking: install a weather app (yawn), or use bluetooth keyboards with the ATV ("BTstack", installed from NitoTV). But I don't use any of those.

PS3 is great, I'm sure. . . but it's also several hundred $. I don't have an interest in a video game console. But an apple tv for $100 (or $85 if you buy it refurbished from apple.com)? Good deal.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the input. I like the idea of hulu without commercials although te ps3 I have already has hulu.

I'll see after ios5
 
Can you still buy content from the iTunes store once it has been jailbroken? From the xbmc features listed above (especially the Hulu part) I think there are some pretty big reasons for me to do this!
 
steviem said:
Can you still buy content from the iTunes store once it has been jailbroken? From the xbmc features listed above (especially the Hulu part) I think there are some pretty big reasons for me to do this!
Click to expand...

Yes. Jailbreaking only adds features. It doesn't disable anything that you could use on your Apple TV already.

The only down side I see to jailbreaking: Whenever there is a new Apple TV firmware update, if you update your Apple TV to that new firmware, you will likely lose your jailbreak-enabled features. Hence, you usually need to wait until the jailbreak community (example, Firecore with their "Seasonpass" utility) has updated their jailbreak software in order to take advantage of the new Apple TV firmware. Basically, a few weeks after an Apple firmware update is released, Firecore will release a new version of their jailbreak software. You download and install that Firecore update, then udpate your ATV2 to the new Apple firmware. Or something like that. I haven't actually been through an update cycle yet, as I just jailbroke about a month or so ago. I expect there will be a new ATV2 update coming when iOS5 goes live, since there is the new iCloud "photostream" feature that will be added, as well as the ability to do wireless mirroring with the iPad 2.
 
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