I predict homebrew being available for the ATV in a few weeks (or much shorter with the current pace).
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Xbox Media Center vs. Apple TV
- Thread starter wrxpert
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I still dont know why peope arent using MythTV or a product like the TVease Hannibal
http://store02.prostores.com/servlet/tvease/Categories?category=Media+Centers:Hannibal
AppleTV is soo handcuffed and feature lacking
- Doc
http://store02.prostores.com/servlet/tvease/Categories?category=Media+Centers:Hannibal
AppleTV is soo handcuffed and feature lacking
- Doc
my add-ins are in BOLD
if you want HD playback, DUH , an xbox created before HD content was even available to the masses, is NOT going to cut it.
though, if you can afford to need HD playback, you can afford anything besides a modded XBOX.
and I beg to differ about the "few days" to get XBMC running
I have an XBMC. It did indeed take me a few days to get it running. (it came pre-modded, and pre-loaded otherwise it would have taken FAR longer). Remember I only have a couple of hours each evening in between work, family, and my baby girl.
The bits of it I got working are indeed far more than the ATV can do. XBMC does local weather, dvd playing, dvd streaming from servers/ internet, subtitles and DVD menus and selectable subtitle tracks (important to me cos I'm deaf), and all that was pretty easy. (my impression is ATV doesn't allow soft/selectable subtitles out of the box)
However, there's far far more that the XMBC can do, and I'm just baffled. I note nobody has pointed me to any guides on the net, despite several requests.
I conclude therefore there there seem to be none, and that if you try installing / understanding XMBC and its various modules as a newbie to the scene, you're basically ****ed.
sorry, i didnt notice you asked, i skim too much.
http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/ a no brainer, im sure youve been there.
http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/info_howto.htm this is the how to guides, lots of holes in it...
there is always the online wiki, but it leaves alot to be desired. and it seems to be broken at the moment.
if you have any questions, xbox-scene.com might have the answers, as well so might afterdawn forums. http://forums.afterdawn.com/forum_view.cfm/58
and you can PM me with a question or two, i may have the answer, but i wont know till ya ask!
Remember I was playing devils advocate here... I have a XBMC and it took me days to get it working right. It mainly sits dormant now as I can't even keep up with my HD PVR let alone have time to download crap from newsgroups.
You seem to miss the point, those are not features "out of the box" and require additions. You can upgrade the HD... you can add Wifi... you can add additional software.... but all of this takes time and/or money making the XBMC less attractive to people who just want to watch videos. Once you add up all the features that come standard in the ATV the XBMC is a lot less attractive.
I have never had a 720p encoded file play properly on XBMC.
I'm confused... are you also trying to say that the Xbox CPU can be upgraded by hand? The CPU is soldered onto the MB and required a conversion board to upgrade! AVC works, but due to the very low CPU and memory in the box it can't even play many high res iPod h264 videos.
XBMC has it's place, but I just get tired of maintaining it... torrenting XBMC software and then reconfiguring it via ftp is annoying. Documentation is difficult to find and understand to someone not in "the scene". As you noticed the documentation is missing or incomplete, you can't actually find a web download of the XBMC software because of the copyright "issues".
Any software advantage the XBMC might have may quickly evaporate as the ATV gets some 3rd party love and software loaded onto it. It also works "out of the box" in a way that XBMC does not.
You seem to miss the point, those are not features "out of the box" and require additions. You can upgrade the HD... you can add Wifi... you can add additional software.... but all of this takes time and/or money making the XBMC less attractive to people who just want to watch videos. Once you add up all the features that come standard in the ATV the XBMC is a lot less attractive.
I have never had a 720p encoded file play properly on XBMC.
I'm confused... are you also trying to say that the Xbox CPU can be upgraded by hand? The CPU is soldered onto the MB and required a conversion board to upgrade! AVC works, but due to the very low CPU and memory in the box it can't even play many high res iPod h264 videos.
XBMC has it's place, but I just get tired of maintaining it... torrenting XBMC software and then reconfiguring it via ftp is annoying. Documentation is difficult to find and understand to someone not in "the scene". As you noticed the documentation is missing or incomplete, you can't actually find a web download of the XBMC software because of the copyright "issues".
Any software advantage the XBMC might have may quickly evaporate as the ATV gets some 3rd party love and software loaded onto it. It also works "out of the box" in a way that XBMC does not.
i dont use mine simply for videos...
games, as its an xbox, is the other half of my HDD.
upgrading XBMC is your choice, they dont even make releases, just dev. snapshots. so if it broke, thats your fault. I havent upgraded since they released 2.0, all the "updates" fixed nothing I noticed or needed. and they have made it MUCH simpler since 2.0 came out, upgrading is quite easy...
so, with that said, XBMC has its place along with a modded XBOX. aTV holds a different place that is more geared to the future. thats not to say XBMC is going to die off, quite the contrary.
As some one who uses XBMC extensively, it (and its predecessor) is probably the killer homebrew application. I find the install portion pretty easy. I initially used one of the many auto-installers to install it (Auto Installer Deluxe). The configuration is done via XML, which is mildly annoying, but bearable. Right now it connects via SMB (samba) to my linux server and I stream videos to it. What makes it stand out is that you can run videos on it, stream from any backend, play DVD's, adjust various settings from subtitles to audio delay, use many of the dozen plugins to extend functionality.
What interests me about the AppleTV is its hackability and the fact it supports HDTV. It has many of the same qualities that the Xbox so interesting (relatively easy to hack, standardized platform, relatively cheap). Hopefully soon it can replace my old, semi-loud, but very useful XBMC install. FWIW, I bought my Xbox used for $100 and did the old TSOP flash to overwrite the MS BIOS. The only thing I had to do was solder two points together.
For those who are wondering what XBMC can play, from Wikipedia
Supported formats/codecs:
* Physical media: CDs, DVDs, Video CDs (including DVD-Video, VCD/SVCD and Audio-CD/CDDA)
* Container formats: AVI, MPEG/MPG, WMV, ASF, FLV, MKV, MOV, MP4, M4A, AAC, NUT, OGG, OGM, RealMedia RAM/RM/RV/RA/RMVB (RealAudio/RealVideo), 3gp, VIVO, PVA, NUV, NSV, NSA, FLI, FLC, and DVR-MS (beta support)
* Video codecs: MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, XviD, 3ivx, DV, H.263, H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, HuffYUV, Indeo, MJPEG, RealVideo, QuickTime, Sorenson, Theora, WMV, Cinepak,
* Audio codecs: AIFF, WAV/WAVE, MP2, MP3, AAC, AACplus, AC3, DTS, ALAC, AMR, FLAC, Monkey's Audio (APE), RealAudio, SHN, WavPack, MPC (Musepack, a.k.a. Mpeg+), Speex, Vorbis and WMA.
* Digital picture/image formats: BMP, JPEG/JPG, GIF, PNG, TIF/TIFF, MNG, ICO, PCX and Targa/TGA
* Subtitle formats: AQTitle, ASS/SSA, CC, JACOsub, MicroDVD, MPsub, OGM, PJS, RT, SMI, SRT, SUB, VOBsub, VPlayer
What interests me about the AppleTV is its hackability and the fact it supports HDTV. It has many of the same qualities that the Xbox so interesting (relatively easy to hack, standardized platform, relatively cheap). Hopefully soon it can replace my old, semi-loud, but very useful XBMC install. FWIW, I bought my Xbox used for $100 and did the old TSOP flash to overwrite the MS BIOS. The only thing I had to do was solder two points together.
For those who are wondering what XBMC can play, from Wikipedia
Supported formats/codecs:
* Physical media: CDs, DVDs, Video CDs (including DVD-Video, VCD/SVCD and Audio-CD/CDDA)
* Container formats: AVI, MPEG/MPG, WMV, ASF, FLV, MKV, MOV, MP4, M4A, AAC, NUT, OGG, OGM, RealMedia RAM/RM/RV/RA/RMVB (RealAudio/RealVideo), 3gp, VIVO, PVA, NUV, NSV, NSA, FLI, FLC, and DVR-MS (beta support)
* Video codecs: MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, XviD, 3ivx, DV, H.263, H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, HuffYUV, Indeo, MJPEG, RealVideo, QuickTime, Sorenson, Theora, WMV, Cinepak,
* Audio codecs: AIFF, WAV/WAVE, MP2, MP3, AAC, AACplus, AC3, DTS, ALAC, AMR, FLAC, Monkey's Audio (APE), RealAudio, SHN, WavPack, MPC (Musepack, a.k.a. Mpeg+), Speex, Vorbis and WMA.
* Digital picture/image formats: BMP, JPEG/JPG, GIF, PNG, TIF/TIFF, MNG, ICO, PCX and Targa/TGA
* Subtitle formats: AQTitle, ASS/SSA, CC, JACOsub, MicroDVD, MPsub, OGM, PJS, RT, SMI, SRT, SUB, VOBsub, VPlayer
Might I enquire why you are constantly updating XBMC? Are you running into bugs or something? I rarely find the need to update it since it has hit 2.0. Besides, if you have been doing it multiple times, it should should become almost child's play to update it (also the XML doesn't appear to be changing much).
The Xbox CPU can be swapped out, but it is insanely difficult (desoldering a CPU!). Those who have done it say that it can play 720p no problem.
I agree with you, the AppleTV could be the replacement for XBMC once the hacking community gets going. I would love nothing better than to retire the XBox into my closet in favor of the quieter, smaller, HDTV playing AppleTV. I've been waiting a long time for a something to replace it, but none of the hardware players are hackable enough, and I don't want a PC in my living room either.
Correct me if I'm wrong but XBOX Media Center also is noisy.
I'm referring to the internal cooling fan that I've heard is rather noticeable, particularly if you've got this thing parked in your living room to run movies... which some of us like to watch without external noise.
AppleTV has one very smart industrial design element few have mentioned (perhaps because they haven't really thought about it except to complain that they can't stack things on top of it...)... It's dead silent. The aluminum exterior which gets quite hot is really a heatsink/baffle that obviously collects heat from the internals (if it were cold I'd be worried something inside the fanless structure were melting) and loses the heat to the air outside the unit.
This is a huge plus for people who want the firepower, bandwidth and storage of their computer network linked into their home entertainment without an army of cooling fans nearby. Brilliant.
XBMC to Apple TV - My experience....
I've been running an XBMC for a good year now (in fact two of them)... For the primary use of playing DVD's ripped to iso files. I've also encoded some movies to mp4's, ones I'm not worried about keeping the menus/extras on (can always go grab the disc if I want to watch those) but the majority are iso's.
Well, having recently delved into the world of HD DV home movies via an HV20 (Canon HD camcorder), I wanted to be able to play those videos from my NAS. Unfortunately the XBMC has a tough time with HD, pretty much anything beyond a fairly well compressed Xvid will not play.
So, I thought I would give the ATV a try seeing as how there are mods out there now that allow playing movies over the LAN from both VIDEO_TS and ISO files (nitoTV), plus h.264 support and a silent unit.
I went through the entire procedures and successfully patched the ATV and got everything running fine. I was able (after some wrestling) to get to my SMB NAS share mounted and play video files etc. The software (nitoTV at this point) mounted ISO's sorta... really just showed a chapter list and was fairly sluggish (wired 100 b/t connection, not wireless). Beyond that the interface to play DVD images was pretty ugly... at least in comparison of the XBMC. On top of all of this... the ATV definitely did not play HD content (a 720p file from my HV20) smoothly. I understand that I will need to re-encode at a lower bitrate but what I was really after was to be able to play full quality Apple Intermediate Codec straight from Final Cut.
Out of the box, the ATV is really nice... I think what would work better for a "hacked" system is if somehow the mounting of an SMB (or AFP) share were more integrated into the system... so that going into "Movies" would show you both your iTunes sync stuff (if you chose to do that) and the Entry for your network share (or attached big hard drive, etc). In that selection being giving the nice thumbnail shuffle when an item was selected.... and having the same view/navigation capabilities as the iTunes library etc. In other words integrated into the existing interface/functionality of the 'stock' ATV. It's nice, it works well and I think that's why the XBMC is so nice... you go into "videos" and everything is right there (you can even make it show your network map by default, just goes right into it).
Unfortunately, this was the deal killer for me... I had to at least get to relatively the same functionality/performance for playing my DVD's that I had with XBMC (different is fine, less intuitive/more cumbersome is not) and then I'd work out the details on HD encoding/streaming. Unfortunately for me, it fell flat on the DVD front.
I love the ATV and REALLY wanted this to work... its small, silent, slick interface by default, beefier hardware than the old xbox etc. For now until something else comes along or the custom plugin community comes up with a more integrated solution, I'll stick with XBMC (and of course hooking my camcorder up to the TV to watch HD footage... 'the suck' IMHO... <sigh>). I've thought about keeping the ATV but will just sell it and see what happens in the future.
Not sure if this will help anyone but if your needs are similar to mine it may save you some time trying to make ATV be your set top box solution.
I've been running an XBMC for a good year now (in fact two of them)... For the primary use of playing DVD's ripped to iso files. I've also encoded some movies to mp4's, ones I'm not worried about keeping the menus/extras on (can always go grab the disc if I want to watch those) but the majority are iso's.
Well, having recently delved into the world of HD DV home movies via an HV20 (Canon HD camcorder), I wanted to be able to play those videos from my NAS. Unfortunately the XBMC has a tough time with HD, pretty much anything beyond a fairly well compressed Xvid will not play.
So, I thought I would give the ATV a try seeing as how there are mods out there now that allow playing movies over the LAN from both VIDEO_TS and ISO files (nitoTV), plus h.264 support and a silent unit.
I went through the entire procedures and successfully patched the ATV and got everything running fine. I was able (after some wrestling) to get to my SMB NAS share mounted and play video files etc. The software (nitoTV at this point) mounted ISO's sorta... really just showed a chapter list and was fairly sluggish (wired 100 b/t connection, not wireless). Beyond that the interface to play DVD images was pretty ugly... at least in comparison of the XBMC. On top of all of this... the ATV definitely did not play HD content (a 720p file from my HV20) smoothly. I understand that I will need to re-encode at a lower bitrate but what I was really after was to be able to play full quality Apple Intermediate Codec straight from Final Cut.
Out of the box, the ATV is really nice... I think what would work better for a "hacked" system is if somehow the mounting of an SMB (or AFP) share were more integrated into the system... so that going into "Movies" would show you both your iTunes sync stuff (if you chose to do that) and the Entry for your network share (or attached big hard drive, etc). In that selection being giving the nice thumbnail shuffle when an item was selected.... and having the same view/navigation capabilities as the iTunes library etc. In other words integrated into the existing interface/functionality of the 'stock' ATV. It's nice, it works well and I think that's why the XBMC is so nice... you go into "videos" and everything is right there (you can even make it show your network map by default, just goes right into it).
Unfortunately, this was the deal killer for me... I had to at least get to relatively the same functionality/performance for playing my DVD's that I had with XBMC (different is fine, less intuitive/more cumbersome is not) and then I'd work out the details on HD encoding/streaming. Unfortunately for me, it fell flat on the DVD front.
I love the ATV and REALLY wanted this to work... its small, silent, slick interface by default, beefier hardware than the old xbox etc. For now until something else comes along or the custom plugin community comes up with a more integrated solution, I'll stick with XBMC (and of course hooking my camcorder up to the TV to watch HD footage... 'the suck' IMHO... <sigh>). I've thought about keeping the ATV but will just sell it and see what happens in the future.
Not sure if this will help anyone but if your needs are similar to mine it may save you some time trying to make ATV be your set top box solution.