Apple TV as Backend?

nobleach · 2012-04-19 23:22

(2012-04-17 17:24)pseudoheld Wrote: don't worry i'm already brushing up on my linux knowledge. right now im going another route where im trying to install openelec which comes with a tvheadend addon
will see how that goes!

I've built an OpenElec box out of my ATV. The AppleTV's CPU (which is underclocked down to around 800Mhz) isn't powerful enough to handle HD Mpeg2 streams. The one thing that could rescue the AppleTV is the Broadcom CrystalHD mini PCI-E card. It does NOT currently understand Mpeg2 TS so the processor will be doing all the work.

I've also built a nice little transmission torrent machine with it. It would pull my RSS feeds and grab all the shows and have them ready for me a little while later.

Since the AppleTV doesn't run Linux, let alone a Debian based Linux, Apt is not a possibility. You'll need to either run a live distro off of a thumb drive, or install it on the internal drive. Once you wipe out the internal drive, there is no going back. If you do attempt to plug a keyboard and/or mouse into the ATV's single USB port, do NOT use a powered hub. You'll fry the port.

I'd go the route of just using the installed OSX Tiger that's running by default. It's Unix (not 100% certified Unix but close enough), so it's very Linux like. You'll need to download a version of transmission compiled for the architecture.

Probably a billion more things I can say, but I'll let you play for a bit.

Jimmer · 2012-04-20 09:23

(2012-04-19 23:22)nobleach Wrote:
(2012-04-17 17:24)pseudoheld Wrote: don't worry i'm already brushing up on my linux knowledge. right now im going another route where im trying to install openelec which comes with a tvheadend addon
will see how that goes!

I've built an OpenElec box out of my ATV. The AppleTV's CPU (which is underclocked down to around 800Mhz) isn't powerful enough to handle HD Mpeg2 streams. The one thing that could rescue the AppleTV is the Broadcom CrystalHD mini PCI-E card. It does NOT currently understand Mpeg2 TS so the processor will be doing all the work.

I've also built a nice little transmission torrent machine with it. It would pull my RSS feeds and grab all the shows and have them ready for me a little while later.

Since the AppleTV doesn't run Linux, let alone a Debian based Linux, Apt is not a possibility. You'll need to either run a live distro off of a thumb drive, or install it on the internal drive. Once you wipe out the internal drive, there is no going back. If you do attempt to plug a keyboard and/or mouse into the ATV's single USB port, do NOT use a powered hub. You'll fry the port.

I'd go the route of just using the installed OSX Tiger that's running by default. It's Unix (not 100% certified Unix but close enough), so it's very Linux like. You'll need to download a version of transmission compiled for the architecture.

Probably a billion more things I can say, but I'll let you play for a bit.

Well, I thought the OP wanted to "repurpose" his ATV to use as a headless backend. If you're using it as a backend only, then your dvb-t (or dvb-s) card dumps the mpeg stream to disk. All the backend has to do is "serve" up the mpeg file to whatever frontend (that's hopefully powerful enough) you want to play it on. The ATV should have the stones to do this. Plus you install from a linux netboot image (or install Crystalbuntu and disable xbmc launching on boot) then you should have something pretty lightweight.....

nobleach · 2012-04-20 16:15

(2012-04-20 09:23)Jimmer Wrote:
(2012-04-19 23:22)nobleach Wrote:
(2012-04-17 17:24)pseudoheld Wrote: don't worry i'm already brushing up on my linux knowledge. right now im going another route where im trying to install openelec which comes with a tvheadend addon
will see how that goes!

I've built an OpenElec box out of my ATV. The AppleTV's CPU (which is underclocked down to around 800Mhz) isn't powerful enough to handle HD Mpeg2 streams. The one thing that could rescue the AppleTV is the Broadcom CrystalHD mini PCI-E card. It does NOT currently understand Mpeg2 TS so the processor will be doing all the work.

I've also built a nice little transmission torrent machine with it. It would pull my RSS feeds and grab all the shows and have them ready for me a little while later.

Since the AppleTV doesn't run Linux, let alone a Debian based Linux, Apt is not a possibility. You'll need to either run a live distro off of a thumb drive, or install it on the internal drive. Once you wipe out the internal drive, there is no going back. If you do attempt to plug a keyboard and/or mouse into the ATV's single USB port, do NOT use a powered hub. You'll fry the port.

I'd go the route of just using the installed OSX Tiger that's running by default. It's Unix (not 100% certified Unix but close enough), so it's very Linux like. You'll need to download a version of transmission compiled for the architecture.

Probably a billion more things I can say, but I'll let you play for a bit.

Well, I thought the OP wanted to "repurpose" his ATV to use as a headless backend. If you're using it as a backend only, then your dvb-t (or dvb-s) card dumps the mpeg stream to disk. All the backend has to do is "serve" up the mpeg file to whatever frontend (that's hopefully powerful enough) you want to play it on. The ATV should have the stones to do this. Plus you install from a linux netboot image (or install Crystalbuntu and disable xbmc launching on boot) then you should have something pretty lightweight.....

For a simple tvheadend, mythtv or VDR backend... it could probably do well enough. I'm not sure if the USB port on the back of the AppleTV is 2.0 or 1.1. For a TV Tuner to work, it would need to be 2.0 as the max throughput of the 1.1 standard is 12Mb/s. Broadcast channels (at least in the United states) have a bandwidth of 19Mb/s. Most of them don't use that full bandwidth, but seeing channels use 12Mb/s is not uncommon.

Jimmer · 2012-04-21 11:12

lsusb -v on my ATV:

Code:

Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000  

Device Descriptor:

  bLength                18

  bDescriptorType         1

  bcdUSB               2.00

seems to be USB 2.0 to me.....

I'm curious about the powered usb hub thing.... I've seen a few comments like this, but for years I used my atv as my primary rig and had a powered hub with about 4 HDD's hanging off it and never had a problem.... was I just lucky or is it down to the quality (or lack thereof) of the hub?

GiJOr33 · 2012-06-25 11:17

Hi,

How did you go with this? I'm looking to do the exact same thing. ATV as a recorder, and then play it through XBMC with a CrystalHD card for the decoding.

The idea is that I can record to the 1tb hard disk and watch it off the device. It would be also good if I could copy it over the network to an external HDD to then plug into my Media Player at the office.

Cheers,
Andrew