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+---- Thread: [Apple TV 1] Apple TV 1 -160GB vs 2?? (/showthread.php?tid=129167)
Apple TV 1 -160GB vs 2?? - dannyd4315 - 2012-04-17 14:25
Looking to come back to XBMC after a while away. I am looking at possibly getting a 160Gb Apple TV 1, these are my requirements, would it be suitable?
No HD streaming/playback required, only on my 22" Bedroom LED.
All my older programs are Xvid SD
I may have a max of 720P videos but unlikely.
Can I directly extract zip/rar files from my laptop to the internal HD on the ATV1 via wifi?
Would like to have Netflix (UK) running if possible?
Be able to connect a 500GB USB hard drive to the apple TV with films/tv shows on and have them indexed
Is this possible with the standard ATV1 out of the box or would I be better with ATV2?
Thanks
RE: Apple TV 1 -160GB vs 2?? - matpol - 2012-04-18 13:44
netflix is probably no unless you install linux on it.
I think everything else is doable. For more general info: http://wiki.awkwardtv.org/wiki/Main_Page
RE: Apple TV 1 -160GB vs 2?? - tinybilbo - 2012-04-18 14:26
(2012-04-17 14:25)dannyd4315 Wrote: Looking to come back to XBMC after a while away. I am looking at possibly getting a 160Gb Apple TV 1, these are my requirements, would it be suitable?
No HD streaming/playback required, only on my 22" Bedroom LED.
All my older programs are Xvid SD
I may have a max of 720P videos but unlikely.
Can I directly extract zip/rar files from my laptop to the internal HD on the ATV1 via wifi?
Would like to have Netflix (UK) running if possible?
Be able to connect a 500GB USB hard drive to the apple TV with films/tv shows on and have them indexed
Is this possible with the standard ATV1 out of the box or would I be better with ATV2?
Thanks
I just set up 2 ATV1s, one plain vanilla, and the other with a Broadcom HD card.
Both using CrystalBuntu.
The broadcom enabled one plays everything smoothly.
The vanilla one struggles with any kind HD video 720p or 1080p.
Its supposed to be able to handle some low bitrate 720p video,
but failed on anything I threw at it.
As for passing content to it...
Just use WinSCP to login to it via wifi and pass your movies over,
or since it's Linux, set a Samba share, and just use windows explorer to browse the share.
Then you can just drag and drop from windows.
If you were to map the Samba share to the ATV1, you could directly unzip to the ATV1 from windows.
It might be slower than unzipping 1st then passing to ATV1.
I'm not sure - but I think Xbmc can handle video directly from zips.
You can use Xbmc Library to index your drive, just add the drive to Video page and scan.
I don't think netflix is working at the moment, it may in the future, check this thread
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=114727&highlight=crystalbuntu+%2Bnetflix
The ATV1 works very well as a an Xbmc, much improved over my old xbox's, although not quite as fast as my Revo,
but then it was a third of the price and can do pretty much the same.
It gets a bit warm though....
RE: Apple TV 1 -160GB vs 2?? - dannyd4315 - 2012-04-18 17:54
Thanks for that! Really helpful…
To be honest HD doesn’t bother me and I really need wifi, so cant have a Broadcom HD card… I can also do without Netflix for the moment, not 100% required just a nice to have.
Couple of extra questions if possible?
Are the menus pretty fast, no lag etc?
Do SD files play fine via HDMI with sound? (divx, x264)
Also was looking into the possibility of using Sabnzbd with sickbeard on the box itself, then that can do all of the downloading, extracting, moving etc. I don’t suppose you have got this installed or know if it can be done, I have looked all over the place and cant seem to find a clear answer.
Just really looking to use the ATV1 as a media player for all my SD stuff and watch iplayer,4oD etc.
Thanks
RE: Apple TV 1 -160GB vs 2?? - tinybilbo - 2012-04-18 20:51
(2012-04-18 17:54)dannyd4315 Wrote: To be honest HD doesn’t bother me and I really need wifi, so cant have a Broadcom HD card…Consider the broadcom card, the basic "12" version of the card is only about £10 on ebay.
I thought I could get away with it, but when setting up the ATV's - I realised I had alot more HD content than I thought.
If you truly only have SD though you'll be fine.
If you do upgrade you can use a USB hub and a Wifi Dongle as well your hard drive
(2012-04-18 17:54)dannyd4315 Wrote: Are the menus pretty fast, no lag etc?Having only just installed it, i have'nt tested it much,
Do SD files play fine via HDMI with sound? (divx, x264)
But yes it is fast - My Revo is marginally faster. The old Xbox's considerably slower.
Very usuable, Menus are fast and no lag.
As far as I can tell everything plays fine. I'm still setting them up so have only played a few test files.
Every I threw at it worked (except HD)
(2012-04-18 17:54)dannyd4315 Wrote: Also was looking into the possibility of using Sabnzbd with sickbeard on the box itself, then that can do all of the downloading, extracting, moving etc. I don’t suppose you have got this installed or know if it can be done, I have looked all over the place and cant seem to find a clear answer.
I would imagine Sab and Sickbeard would run fine, Crystalbuntu is Ubuntu after all, just set them up in the same way you would set up a headless server.
Sab should'nt be a problem - I think sickbeard might be a bit resource hungry.
One of these ATV1s is for a friend and he wants Sickbeard,Couchpotato,Sabnzbd,Headphones,Pyload, and Transmission set up on it.
(not sure if it can run all of them at the same time though...). So when I've configured it and tested it - I'll post to let you what I think.
All-in-all - I don't think you can go wrong with an ATV1, especially since you can get them for cheap on ebay - I paid £68 delivered for the 160gb version. A decent media centre like the xtreamer runs at at £100 delivered, and sucks in comparison to the Xbmc experience....
RE: Apple TV 1 -160GB vs 2?? - dannyd4315 - 2012-04-19 18:09
Thanks for that! That is exactly what I am looking to do with my ATV1. Althouh I am in 2 minds at the moment. I can get an emachines ER1401 with 250Gb drive for £110, the ATV 160GB I am looking at for the moment is £68.
Just thinking of futureproofing, if I want full HD in the future then the ER1401 does it out of the box. I just like the form factor of the ATV1. For an extra £42 I am not sure if the ER1401 is worth it... The only bonus is that I can get it tomorrow and play with it this weekend! I am impatient!
RE: Apple TV 1 -160GB vs 2?? - tinybilbo - 2012-04-19 20:42
(2012-04-19 18:09)dannyd4315 Wrote: Thanks for that! That is exactly what I am looking to do with my ATV1. Althouh I am in 2 minds at the moment. I can get an emachines ER1401 with 250Gb drive for £110, the ATV 160GB I am looking at for the moment is £68.
Just thinking of futureproofing, if I want full HD in the future then the ER1401 does it out of the box. I just like the form factor of the ATV1. For an extra £42 I am not sure if the ER1401 is worth it... The only bonus is that I can get it tomorrow and play with it this weekend! I am impatient!
As much as I like the ATV1 - I would definately get the Emachine if you can get it for that price,
(remember you will also need a £15 MCE remote from Maplins).
For the extra £42 you're getting HD, More CPU grunt, More HDD, Gigabit and wireless network, card reader, probably more memory
You would have to spend that for the broadcom HD card (£10 form HK for the lowend one, £25 for the highend one).
You would then lose wifi, so have to buy a wifi dongle and a usb hub (about anothe £25).
So effectively the xtra hdd, memory and card reader are for free....
The emachine having the extra grunt will just run XbmcBuntu, and the extras apps that you want, (sab,sickbeard,couchpotato, etc),
should work pretty well.
I'm with you about the form factor though - I hate the fact my Revo is a weird-ass vertical shape.
But you could do what I do which is strap the bugger to back of your Tv with a Vesa mount, (mine came with one).
and just velcro the remote eye to the top of the TV
Buy the emachine, set it up as your master download/HD media machine, and eventually get an Atv1 for another room
RE: Apple TV 1 -160GB vs 2?? - dannyd4315 - 2012-04-24 12:26
Cheers for the advice mate, as I wont be using it that often, just something to play about with and sit there, I am not sure I need to pay the extra £50 odd for the extra stuff, it does seem like a good deal though. Although I could probably just use the XBMC app on android for remote.
Did you manage to get the ATV1 set up for your mate with SAB,SB and CP on and running?
RE: Apple TV 1 -160GB vs 2?? - tinybilbo - 2012-04-25 15:26
(2012-04-24 12:26)dannyd4315 Wrote: Cheers for the advice mate, as I wont be using it that often, just something to play about with and sit there, I am not sure I need to pay the extra £50 odd for the extra stuff, it does seem like a good deal though. Although I could probably just use the XBMC app on android for remote.
Did you manage to get the ATV1 set up for your mate with SAB,SB and CP on and running?
Yes, I did get it all setup,
I installed Webmin, from which I setup some samba shares (so that I can drag'n'drop from windows).
I installed Sabnzbd, Sickbeard, Transmission, Couchpotato, Pyload and Headphones.
They all autostart and run without hitch. (except sabnzbd which is complaining about unrar not being compatible,
however unrar does work. When I have time I'll try to track the error down...).
None of it was very difficult, I just followed the standard installs.
One minor issue was that some of the apps would'nt start when given the "python xxx" command
What in fact was needed was to specify the python version i.e "python2.6 xxx".
This is because the command "python" defaults to 2.5.x whilst, some of the apps use python 2.6 or above.
Sabnzbd shows a 0.20 load when everything is running, but idle (i.e not downloading, or unzipping).
Once the apps start to be used properly (i.e the db's start to get filled), I expect the load to increase,
However I'm going to install it at my friends house, and start with sabnzbd ,and sickbeard, to see how it goes.
If the loads and speeds are acceptable - I will slowly teach him to start using the other apps one by one.
All in all, it's a great machine, and now that I've set one up - I will need another to put in my parents home to replace their old xbox..
So that I can manage their downloads remotely - instead of having to update the movies on their xbox every now and then,
which will ultimately save me time and means they will never be without an Xbmc (which they have got very used to...).
*edit* these are the loads as shown in webmin, (with xbmc and all extra apps running (7 extra)).
CPU load averages 0.32 (1 min) 0.24 (5 mins) 0.19 (15 mins)
CPU usage 14% user, 5% kernel, 0% IO, 81% idle
RE: Apple TV 1 -160GB vs 2?? - dannyd4315 - 2012-04-25 17:13
Thanks for this tinybilbo!! Really helpful!
Are you using/is it possible to use internal hdd to store the movies/tvshows etc? Also they can be stored on an external as well right? In my setup it would probably be a mixture...
I have never used linux before, would it be quite a steep learning curve to get this all set up? Is the set up of all this via ssh and command line intalls? I only have a windows laptop to do this.
It looks like it is not too intensive on the CPU to be honest so thats not too bad.
I just want an all in one box to do all this. Will probably stick crystalbuntu on an set it all up and leave it to do its thing.
Thanks again for the advice, it looks like you have doen exactly what I am looking to do!