2011-09-08, 05:15
As a long-time user and fan of XBMC on the original XBOX and having not found anything anywhere near as good for HD playback I was excited to discover it was available on a jailbroken ATV2.
However after a couple of weeks I have to say I'm a bit disappointed with the current state of things. Now I greatly appreciate the work of all devs contributing to the project but despite their best efforts it just doesn't seem ready or capable yet of performing as a general purpose media player with HD support.
I have tried all the suggestions here - used latest nightly, gone back to 31/08 nightly, installed blockers, removed addons etc but no matter what I have tried it just isn't usable or stable. Here are the main bullet points of my experiences:
1. XBMC regularly crashes if just left idle (I see others have experience too).
2. Crashes during library scans even when (deliberately) not doing anything else.
3. Individual library updates take forever even if I have created an nfo or XML for the scraper.
4. Lock ups on SD and 720p content - usually recoverable by exiting and starting again.
5. Buffering occurring on SD and 720p content and locking up (even with all other LAN activity disabled).
6. Crashes when navigating the library.
7. Inconsistent results after a library scan. I removed all library content and rescanned and now half the stuff that used to be picked up is no longer listed.
8. Slow scrolling through movie thumbnails.
9. Random reboots during playback.
10. Inability to play (downscale) any 1080 content without stuttering, either over SMB or NFS on any build I've tried. My LAN is all gigabit except the ATV2.
I am prepared to accept that there is something wrong with my setup although this is unlikely as its pretty vanilla.
Perhaps its just too early in the development cycle or perhaps the underlying hardware or OS are just not up to the job?
Reluctantly I'm having to go back to my PS3 with PS3 Media Server which is a shame as I love XBMC. The PS3 platform is rock solid on the same infrastructure but navigation and MKV handling although reliable is not ideal and of course it is a much sparser environment.
I'd love to see the kind of stability and performance on XBMC for ATV2 that I got on the old XBOX. I don't remember ever seeing that actually crash.
I'd be very interested on other people's experiences in actually trying to use this as a media player.
However after a couple of weeks I have to say I'm a bit disappointed with the current state of things. Now I greatly appreciate the work of all devs contributing to the project but despite their best efforts it just doesn't seem ready or capable yet of performing as a general purpose media player with HD support.
I have tried all the suggestions here - used latest nightly, gone back to 31/08 nightly, installed blockers, removed addons etc but no matter what I have tried it just isn't usable or stable. Here are the main bullet points of my experiences:
1. XBMC regularly crashes if just left idle (I see others have experience too).
2. Crashes during library scans even when (deliberately) not doing anything else.
3. Individual library updates take forever even if I have created an nfo or XML for the scraper.
4. Lock ups on SD and 720p content - usually recoverable by exiting and starting again.
5. Buffering occurring on SD and 720p content and locking up (even with all other LAN activity disabled).
6. Crashes when navigating the library.
7. Inconsistent results after a library scan. I removed all library content and rescanned and now half the stuff that used to be picked up is no longer listed.
8. Slow scrolling through movie thumbnails.
9. Random reboots during playback.
10. Inability to play (downscale) any 1080 content without stuttering, either over SMB or NFS on any build I've tried. My LAN is all gigabit except the ATV2.
I am prepared to accept that there is something wrong with my setup although this is unlikely as its pretty vanilla.
Perhaps its just too early in the development cycle or perhaps the underlying hardware or OS are just not up to the job?
Reluctantly I'm having to go back to my PS3 with PS3 Media Server which is a shame as I love XBMC. The PS3 platform is rock solid on the same infrastructure but navigation and MKV handling although reliable is not ideal and of course it is a much sparser environment.
I'd love to see the kind of stability and performance on XBMC for ATV2 that I got on the old XBOX. I don't remember ever seeing that actually crash.
I'd be very interested on other people's experiences in actually trying to use this as a media player.