I need to know one thing before i hack my ATV

[marknicholls]

Hey,

Once the ATV is hacked, when a video is converted into Apple TV Hack mode (correct me if im wrong but it takes a MKV for example and puts it in a .mov container) will the movies then play in the standard ATV GUI or will i need to open Boxee?

On my unhacked ATV the .mov sits in iTunes ok, but wont play on the ATV - will hacking the ATV fix this or will i still need to open a third party app like Boxee?

If so, does it matter which hack i use? I see ATVUSB-Creator looks good?

Thanks

 

[marknicholls]

So i just ran ATVUSB-Creator, and the MKV's which i ran though Videodrive with "Hacked APV" mode worked in XBMC but not through the standard ATV interface

Is this right? that with a hacked ATV i cannot run the quicker conversion in video drive, even though they run through iTunes, it must be a full blown conversion?

i thought that the hacked ATV would run .mov's converted in video drive for a hacked ATV without the need to run them through XBMC?

Thanks in advance

 

[Intell]

Did you install Perian with the NitoTV menu? That should enable playback of the hacked mov files in the default ATV menu.

 

[marknicholls]

Did you install Perian with the NitoTV menu? That should enable playback of the hacked mov files in the default ATV menu.

I installed Perian I didn’t know about NitoTV though so ill have a look at that tonight

I would get the first frame of a video to play then it would stop and freeze my ATV

When converting my files to a hacked ATV file on video drive web site it does say they cannot guarantee the playback of these files in future releases of iTunes, I assume these files will always work in other players such as VLC etc? I don’t want to play with my files and find one day they wont play in anything


Many Thanks

 

[marknicholls]

Ive installed everything as above but videos are freezing after 2 seconds so badly that i have to put the power out of the ATV

Any ideas please?

Thanks

 

[marknicholls]

Ive installed everything as above but videos are freezing after 2 seconds so badly that i have to put the power out of the ATV

Any ideas please?

Thanks

This only happens when the ATV is synced with iTunes. When i remove synching (to stream) my ATV wont even see any of my files

It will see one file which i have downloaded via iTunes but none of the 3 test files i converted to ATV Hack mode

 

[Shoesy]

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=XBMC_for_Mac_on_Apple_TV#HOW-TO_install_XBMC_on_your_Apple_TV

Install xbmc, use it (installation instructions at link above) to view your mkv files directly. Make sure they fall into the SD category or they won't work without some hardware hacks.

Good luck!

 

[marknicholls]

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=XBMC_for_Mac_on_Apple_TV#HOW-TO_install_XBMC_on_your_Apple_TV

Install xbmc, use it (installation instructions at link above) to view your mkv files directly. Make sure they fall into the SD category or they won't work without some hardware hacks.

Good luck!

If i use xbmc directly then all my old MKV's will be in once place, and new iTunes downloads will be in another which isnt ideal

That's why i wanted to hack convert all my MKV's using Video Drive as this doesn't take very long, and access my old stuff and new iTunes stuff in the same interface - i just dont seem to be getting much luck

Also, what do u mean SD category?

Anyone one else any ideas on my problems? Thanks

 

[Shoesy]

Also, what do u mean SD category?

-from the videodrive website-

Playback of non-compatible videos on AppleTV, iPad, iPod or iPhone requires conversion in VideoDrive or iTunes. Reconversion is not required when you install additional codecs on your AppleTV.

SD - Standard definition

Appletv isnt very powerful when it comes to decoding video - perian and mplayer don't have access to the accelerated hd decoding like frontrow itself does. Any videos you want to watch with this method would need to be of a fairly low quality (SD). I would imagine having them in an mkv container is going to slow things down even more.

If you can transcode to something more SD and stream these files.

Personally I use XBMC with a hardware hacked appletv (crystalHD card from broadcom) - 720p files work fine and 1080i files are getting there!

 

[marknicholls]

-from the videodrive website-


SD - Standard definition

Appletv isnt very powerful when it comes to decoding video - perian and mplayer don't have access to the accelerated hd decoding like frontrow itself does. Any videos you want to watch with this method would need to be of a fairly low quality (SD). I would imagine having them in an mkv container is going to slow things down even more.

If you can transcode to something more SD and stream these files.

Personally I use XBMC with a hardware hacked appletv (crystalHD card from broadcom) - 720p files work fine and 1080i files are getting there!

Ah, ok, interesting, so i may have it set up ok, but the reason its freezing after 2 seconds is because its a 720p MKV in a .mov container which it cant handle

I really wanna go 100% legal and purchase my downloads but by the sounds of it that would mean having all my old content via XBMC and new content via iTunes (ATV)

Which is a bit messy....

If there was a way to do it the other way, put iTunes downloads in XBMC then it might be ok, but having to strip the DRM is a pain in the ass

Seems like there are to many obstacles in the way fat the moment

 

[Shoesy]

having to strip the DRM is a pain in the ass

Seems like there are to many obstacles in the way fat the moment

True words.

Maybe you could try and be happy just watching the apple drmed stuff on your appletv and save the mkv's for watching on your mac screen.

Personally I don't find it too much of a hassle switching between the two - xbmc loads up pretty fast - and exits pretty quick for when I buy a tv show or rent a movie. Works for me.