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DrGrafix · 2012-02-08, 02:01

I'm not 100% sure of the benefits of doing this mod to my Gen1 ATV. So I'm wondering if anyone wants to talk about real world usage. I've got D*TV so I have plenty of TV channels. But I've been using my Gen1 ATV for a little over a year as a movie jukebox. Was mostly using Boxee, but XMBC seems to be the way to go these days so I'm trying to learn the interface options.

So I've read where this Crystal HD card replaces the internal HDD and fan and should be more robust. I love the concept of not scratching my original DVDs and that was proved out when my 3 year old granddaughter was playing with the Toy Story 3 set and she was spinning the standard DVD on the tile kitchen floor, rendering it useless forever.

Anyway... what exactly are you seeing as an improvement over the basic setup without the Crystal HD card? Pros & Cons? Easy to do? Worth it?

Thanks... Doc

davilla · 2012-02-08, 02:59

DrGrafix Wrote:So I've read where this Crystal HD card replaces the internal HDD and fan and should be more robust.

No, the crystalhd card replaces the internal wifi card. It provides hardware video decoding.

live4ever · 2012-02-08, 03:21

If you only have DVDs ripped then it's not much use.

~~Ned Scott~~ · 2012-02-09, 00:14

You can get them as cheap as $15 from eBay. Not much to loose if you ever want to test it out.

DrGrafix · 2012-02-10, 04:57

So I gather its not an expensive mod, supposedly the ATV runs cooler (is that true?), and you can process video at higher resolution like 1080p? Does that mean theres a way to rip a blue ray and see it in better quality than a standard dvd rip through the ATV?

~~Ned Scott~~ · 2012-02-10, 08:03

Yes, yes, and an ATV1 with BCHD can view a bluray rip at full quality.

Buadhai · 2012-02-10, 08:15

Keep in mind that it replaces the internal AirPort (WiFi) card, so you will lose wireless access to the ATV. I installed the Crystal HD card when my AirPort card died. The ATV is now connected via an AirPort Express.

The modification is easy to do and well worth it.

atv420 · 2012-02-12, 21:21

After you install the card do you need to install any drivers? to get the Crystal HD card to work? or simply select the card in setting option?

Thanks for your comments and opinion, just want to get clear idea before I dive into this.

-ATV420

~~Ned Scott~~ · 2012-02-14, 07:57

atv420 Wrote:After you install the card do you need to install any drivers? to get the Crystal HD card to work? or simply select the card in setting option?

Thanks for your comments and opinion, just want to get clear idea before I dive into this.

-ATV420

Yeah, but it's pretty easy to install the driver.

just follow the instructions in this post: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=69321

and then you will get the option to install the driver from the download section in the launcher menu (which makes it easy to update if a new version comes out, too)

DrGrafix · 2012-02-14, 16:14

Ned... Would having the Crystal HD card help with all the video & audio problems I'm sometimes experiencing? Movies that used to play fine on Boxee or XMBC Dharma are now freezing up every 20 minutes or so, and the audio sync is out... and I can't adjust the sync.

Or should I re-do the patchstick to start from scratch and forget Eden or do you think its in the settings?

Doc

atv420 · 2012-02-14, 18:26

Thanks Ned for your help, I'll give it a go soon as I receive my Crystal HD card.

-ATV420

~~Ned Scott~~ · 2012-02-15, 07:52

DrGrafix Wrote:Ned... Would having the Crystal HD card help with all the video & audio problems I'm sometimes experiencing? Movies that used to play fine on Boxee or XBMC Dharma are now freezing up every 20 minutes or so, and the audio sync is out... and I can't adjust the sync.

Or should I re-do the patchstick to start from scratch and forget Eden or do you think its in the settings?

Doc

Not sure, but I can tell you that Crystalbuntu (even without the Crystal HD card) is smooth as silk with Eden: http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=HOW...ystalbuntu

You can install it on a USB drive and keep the internal drive with the normal ATV OS, if you want. Great for a test drive.

atv420 · 2012-02-16, 23:34

Ned Scott Wrote:Yeah, but it's pretty easy to install the driver.

just follow the instructions in this post: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=69321

and then you will get the option to install the driver from the download section in the launcher menu (which makes it easy to update if a new version comes out, too)

Alright I just received my Crystal HD card and installed it, followed the steps to install the driver through SSH and it was listed in the launcher under download. Installed the driver and re-started the ATV1 & XBMC. I see crystalHD card under settings/ video and CHD is selected.
Now i go to play the movies BR ripped 720p (file size 1.5g) and run into same issue as before, it starts buffering when ever their is big scene in the movie (music, action).
so, please let me know I missed a step or I need to change the setting in XBMC!

thanks for all your help!
-ATV420

Hudson_Hawk04 · 2012-02-16, 23:40

http://www.stmlabs.com/projects/crystalhd-for-appletv/

Been using crystalbuntu on my atv 1 works great for me, you may want to take a look into it.

~~Ned Scott~~ · 2012-02-17, 03:03

Just got another used ATV1 from ebay today, so I'll try and see if I can reproduce any of this with the original ATV1 OS.