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I'm in the planning stages of my home theater at the moment and I'm still a little confused about how the ATV2 with XBMC works.
I have a LOT of DVDs and would like to rip them so they can easily be viewed on the TV and played.
I love the way XBMC displays the DVD covers and IMDB info and I like the ATV2 remote and interface.
Can I get away with a NAS (D-Link DNS-323) and AppleTV2 connected to the network?
Will the ATV2 with XBMC view/play the files stored on my NAS, or will I need a PC between the NAS and the network?
Ultimately, I'd like to stay away from having to keep a PC running 24/7.
And lastly, what software should I be using to easily rip my DVDs and what format should it be saved in? I'm thinking MP4?
Thanks!
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Yes, you can easily use a NAS with XBMC on ATV2-- I've been doing it for months.
My only advice would be to not use the D-Link and spring for a Netgear ReadyNAS. I owned a D-Link and had nothing but trouble with it (not really XBMC-specific, just the model's kind-of 'flaky').
tril
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I've been running a QNAP TS-509 Pro for a couple of years now. Yes, it's a 5 bay and above the price range, but QNAP do have 2 bay NAS devices.
It does my downloading, serves my files and is on 24/7. It uses very little power and is highly configurable.
If I have helped you in any way, please forgive me, it was entirely accidental.
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I'm using a ReadyNas Duo with XBMC, never had a problem with streaming or speed or similar network related things. SMB also worked fine.
Lately I switched my XBMC installation from a mac mini to a ATV 2.
By now I didn't experienced any smb connectivity problems.
The readynas duo seems to be a pretty save bet when it comes to streaming with xbmc.
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Great! I really appreciate all of the suggestions!
What about software for ripping DVDs? And format I should be saving as?
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Just my $0.02 worth--I'm running a NAS using FreeNAS. I am by no means a computer expert, but with the instructions out there I was able to build a FreeNAS server for the costs of 2, 1TB drives.
I access the files via SMB on my jailbroken ATV2 and I love it.
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+1 for FreeNAS. I'm using my old XBMC machine (Revo R3610) as my NAS, and am just about to hook up 2 500GB externals drives to it. Supports many sharing protocols, which makes cross platform sharing a breeze.
SMB seems to work best with XBMC on ATV2, haven't had a problem yet.
+1 for Handbrake as well. Also, MKVtools works good for remuxing lots of video as well, which saves ALOT of time rather than re-encoding.
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Hi all,
Just wondering if you are running ATV2 using WiFi or LAN?
I have got a Seagate GoFlex Home NAS and ATV2 over WiFi, the performance is shocking. I get buffering all the time watch almost any type of format (AVI are slightly better).
After searching the forum it looks like might be the NAS issue or WiFi, but I got WiFi-N running, so I don't think it is the problem.
So if you are running ATV2 through WiFi without any issue, then I think it's time for me to get another NAS.
Thanks