[mbriody]

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.

[davilla]

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.

Maybe you should give it the same amount of development time as the xbox before you start making comparisons about stability. The xbox code has been out there what 6-7 years, iOS/ATV2 is what 8-9 months ? Also the current code is doing WAY more than what the old xbox ever did.

1. XBMC regularly crashes if just left idle (I see others have experience too).
--> disable the atv2 os update check.
2. Crashes during library scans even when (deliberately) not doing anything else.
--> your xbmc.log says... oh wait, no xbmc.log posted.
3. Individual library updates take forever even if I have created an nfo or XML for the scraper.
---> see 2)
4. Lock ups on SD and 720p content - usually recoverable by exiting and starting again.
---> see 2)
5. Buffering occurring on SD and 720p content and locking up (even with all other LAN activity disabled).
---> see 2)
6. Crashes when navigating the library.
---> see 2)
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.
---> not an atv2 specific issue but an xbmc issue.
8. Slow scrolling through movie thumbnails.
---> see 2)
9. Random reboots during playback.
---> see 2)
10. Inability to play (downscale) any 1080 content without stuttering, either over SMB or NFS on any build I've tried.
---> see 2)

An ATV2 is a daily box for me, I have several, they run git trunk. I don't see these issues. If we can't reproduce an issue, we can not resolve it.

[mbriody]

I'm not looking for solutions to my specific problems here hence the lack of the log.

Most of the issues have been posted by others anyway and I have tried the suggested solutions including disabling the ATV OS check (which I did mention BTW).

I did specifically note "Perhaps its just too early in the development cycle" and if that's the case then so be it.

I will try a restore and re-jailbreak just to be sure one more time. Its the random crashing that's the worst issue.

Maybe you should give it the same amount of development time as the xbox before you start making comparisons about stability. The xbox code has been out there what 6-7 years, iOS/ATV2 is what 8-9 months ? Also the current code is doing WAY more than what the old xbox ever did.

and maybe that's the issue? OS, system resources and hardware not up to the job?

[Jezz_X]

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.

If you managed to do this on your xbox you must of coded it in some pretty bad bitrate

But that being said even on my iPad one I can play 95% of all 1080p mkv's and have it scaled down

[mbriody]

If you managed to do this on your xbox you must of coded it in some pretty bad bitrate

But that being said even on my iPad one I can play 95% of all 1080p mkv's and have it scaled down

Er I didn't say the Xbox could do that stuff. If it could I'd still be using it!

[rickrude]

I'm not looking for solutions to my specific problems here hence the lack of the log.

Wow in that case... good story bro. I don't think anyone here gives a toss about how bad your experience was. I don't have the issues you describe, and there are hundreds here that don't either.

[chuckles]

As a long-time user and fan of XBMC on a quad core PC and having not found anything anywhere near as good for low wattage HD playback I was excited to discover it was available on a jailbroken ATV2.

However after a couple of months I have to say I'm in awe with the current state of things. Now I greatly appreciate the work of all devs contributing to the project but despite their best efforts people stile whine and complain as if they had paid for a product and make no contributions to the XBMC project.

I have tried all the suggestions here - used latest nightly, gone back to 31/08 nightly, installed blockers, removed addons etc and sometimes I can find things that will crash XBMC but my base system has been rock solid for a while now:

1. XBMC never crashes if just left idle (I see others have this experience too).
2. Never crashes during library scans even when (deliberately) not doing anything else.
3. When I rebuild my entire library, it does take a while even if I have created an nfo or XML for the scraper, but hey I have done that once...
4. Lock ups on SD and 720p content, I've haven't seen one in the last month of releases.
5. Buffering occurring on SD and 720p content and locking up (even with all other LAN activity disabled), haven't had them with new builds either.
6. Crashes when navigating the library, hmm never had that.
7. Inconsistent results after a library scan....., never seen that
8. Slow scrolling through movie thumbnails was my only annoyances but since the 31st of August its been gone.
9. Random reboots during playback, dont remember any of those
10. Ability to play (downscale) any 1080 content without stuttering, either over SMB or NFS is awesome I love it.

I am prepared to accept that there is something wrong with other peoples setup although they need top be prepared to list their setup and post logs.

Perhaps its just too early in the development cycle for the there to be a forum where everyone can post?

Reluctantly I'm having to go back to my ATV2 and watch a movie now which is a shame as I love the XBMC forums. The ATV2 XBMC platform has been rock solid on my infrastructure and navigation and MKV handling are reliable and XBMC is ideal for my wife to use.

I'd love to see the kind of stability and performance on XBMC for ATV2 that I got on my 4 core PC. I don't remember ever seeing that actually crash.

I'd be very interested on other people volunteering their time to the XBMC project, its great and the more the merrier

[Ned Scott]

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.

Your ATV2 is broken. Rejailbreak and try again. Same thing? Bring it back to Apple and get a new one. If you honestly do have a decent network and you are wired connected, using the latest nightlies, and are still having these problems then something major is broken on your box. There are not enough variables in these set ups for you to have that many problems and have none of the posted fixes help.

No, really, restore your ATV2 completely and rejailbreak. There's gotta be something just completely out of wack going on. I use XBMC on an ATV2 and on an iPhone 4 and don't experience any of the stuff you've listed since using the latest nightlies.

[mbriody]

Thanks for the constructive reply. I will try again.

Your ATV2 is broken. Rejailbreak and try again. Same thing? Bring it back to Apple and get a new one. If you honestly do have a decent network and you are wired connected, using the latest nightlies, and are still having these problems then something major is broken on your box. There are not enough variables in these set ups for you to have that many problems and have none of the posted fixes help.

No, really, restore your ATV2 completely and rejailbreak. There's gotta be something just completely out of wack going on. I use XBMC on an ATV2 and on an iPhone 4 and don't experience any of the stuff you've listed since using the latest nightlies.

[Doraemonn]

Thanks for the constructive reply. I will try again.

Also, (and I may be stating the obvious here) try and stick to h.264 content (.MKV usually) for anything above 480p. The ATV2 does not play nice with XVID, as it cannot be hardware-accelerated the way h.264 content is.

Honestly, as others have said here, there is no reason why you should be experiencing the issues mentioned unless your setup is broken. XBMC on the ATV2 is simply brilliant.