Hey guys I have been using my xbox 360 to stream over movies to my tv and its a huge pain with formats and re encoding and such. A few years a go I even bought a linxus media extender and it was really unreliable not to mentions that i had the same issues with the codecs. So today I heard about the apple tv and thought I would give that a try but only apple tv 3 are available. What is a great way to stream to your tv using the xmbc platform? any tips or ideas or just general help would be great!! thanks again everyone
why stream?
hook up direct and forget about codecs etc
cause that would either a) mean building a box to hook to that tv. and or move mine up to the main tv.. more looking for a server option that can then serve to multiple tvs.
Sounds like you already have a server, so build a small pc, and that will play all files from the server with XBMC and no requirement of re-encoding the files. Plus you'll have a killer interface to access your media as a result.
Would really like to avoid the additional boxes idea as I have 3 tvs that I will be doing this for and to get each tv their own box will get expensive in a hurry. are there no extender options you guys would recommend?
Wouldn't it be at least a couple hundred more like $300 for each box (something good enough to pull from the server)
when you can get an apple tv 2 for around $100 please educate me if I am wrong.
Thanks in advance
Lot of people use apple tv's do the job, but isn't that the same as adding additional boxes? appletv vs htpc..... Just one is a little more expensive, but with that, you will have more control and you won't be limited on performance, because building a cheap i3 PC or llano, will enable you to not have limits on the video quality and customization. Just a thought...
You need an apple product you can jailbreak, so I don't think you want an ATV3.
ATV2 is your cheapest option right now I think, but 720p is your limit. You could pick up ome Atom/ION based pcs as well, they have a little more power, but Netflix HD is trouble last I checked. Llano is probably best right now, but it is a full blown PC.
Yes, it means a PC at each TV. My TVs don't do anything without a PC, no cable/antenna only was on my server. Everyone in my house see so like it better that way. If I do get another TV, I'll build another HTPC.
The guides in the stickies can be used to build a pretty cheap capable HTPC. Straying off that course and you might be caught by a few surprises.
I'd like to know more info as to how I can take my appletv to a friends house and access my library on my home Mac mini over there... Any tips for that? Oh, and poster, I would reccomend the Atv2 if you need an immediate fix, or wait until a JB comes along for the atv3 which will do 1080p.
FTP server at your house, and add the sources as such... I've never tried it, but have been meaning to...
Better than that, vpn. I believe ATV has vpn builtin if you go that route.
The "best," meaning balanced between price, capability, and PITA option is to build a couple of cheap htpcs. Sounds like you already have a media server, so get a cheap barebones htpc setup and boot xbmc from a usb drive.
ATV still has some weirdness to it and if budget isn't your only concern, I'd avoid them. If you just need something as cheap as possible, it's a serviceable solution.