Need some pointers on CrystalBuntu on ATV1

Wondering if you ever got sorted on this. I have the ATV1 with aTV flash "firecore" and have been experimenting a little with XBMC. I have found many HD (720p and up) rips are very glitchy in XBMC and can sometimes be fixed in the playback setting adjusting between software, open GL shaders and basic shaders. Generally though, .avi files seem to provide the best playback, though there isn't much info on rendering on the XBMC wiki.

I am wondering, without getting into the Crystal card and Crystalbuntu, if certain HD file types have more stable playback on XBMC with a stock aTV? That being said, hooking up a Crystal card seems easy enough, but installing Crystalbuntu sounds intimidating. I am a real novice when it comes to Terminal and Unix, Cyberduck FTP is more my speed.

Also, assuming I did switch over to Crystalbuntu, what would be the best way to hook up a 2TB external drive for music / movie storage? Is there any restrictions on file system compatibility? The aTV is connected via LAN to a network Airport Extreme.

(2012-04-26 10:23)primus11 Wrote:  Wondering if you ever got sorted on this. I have the ATV1 with aTV flash "firecore" and have been experimenting a little with XBMC. I have found many HD (720p and up) rips are very glitchy in XBMC and can sometimes be fixed in the playback setting adjusting between software, open GL shaders and basic shaders. Generally though, .avi files seem to provide the best playback, though there isn't much info on rendering on the XBMC wiki.

I am wondering, without getting into the Crystal card and Crystalbuntu, if certain HD file types have more stable playback on XBMC with a stock aTV? That being said, hooking up a Crystal card seems easy enough, but installing Crystalbuntu sounds intimidating. I am a real novice when it comes to Terminal and Unix, Cyberduck FTP is more my speed.

Also, assuming I did switch over to Crystalbuntu, what would be the best way to hook up a 2TB external drive for music / movie storage? Is there any restrictions on file system compatibility? The aTV is connected via LAN to a network Airport Extreme.

I won't be able to play with this until back from a biz trip - so running the original "hacked" ATV OS (patchstick hack).

An ATV without the Crystal HD card will play back 720 stuff encoded in Apple's format - so basically the .m4v files/ H.264 stuff - it does this quite nicely. I used to re-encode all my stuff using Handbrake - and using the ATV preset - and the picture quality was great and no dropped frames. Playing back other video formats - the CPU ends up doing the decoding and thus the stuttering and choppy playback.

Once I put the CHD card in - pretty much all the choppiness went away. The cards are pretty cheap these days. Several tutorials with pics out there on Installing it. Wasn't much if anything to do as I recall once installed, XBMC saw the card and worked from there.

CrystalBuntu doesn't change anything for accessing files over a network...I have a Windows Home Server with 10TB of storage...works wonderfully - even serving up content to multiple XBMC boxes.

Hope this helps...

Installing a CrystalHD card is pretty easy. You lose the wireless option though, if that's important to you.

(2012-04-27 03:00)puulima Wrote:  I won't be able to play with this until back from a biz trip - so running the original "hacked" ATV OS (patchstick hack).

An ATV without the Crystal HD card will play back 720 stuff encoded in Apple's format - so basically the .m4v files/ H.264 stuff - it does this quite nicely. I used to re-encode all my stuff using Handbrake - and using the ATV preset - and the picture quality was great and no dropped frames. Playing back other video formats - the CPU ends up doing the decoding and thus the stuttering and choppy playback.

Once I put the CHD card in - pretty much all the choppiness went away. The cards are pretty cheap these days. Several tutorials with pics out there on Installing it. Wasn't much if anything to do as I recall once installed, XBMC saw the card and worked from there.

CrystalBuntu doesn't change anything for accessing files over a network...I have a Windows Home Server with 10TB of storage...works wonderfully - even serving up content to multiple XBMC boxes.

Hope this helps...

That does help.

I still don't entirely understand what is going on with my HD playback though. I have two 720 MP4 files, The Dark Knight and War Horse. Both are H.264 and AAC. The Dark Knight plays back great if I change the rendering to Basic Shaders but War Horse is still glitchy regardless of what I put my rendering settings at. I have read that it could have something to do with my audio settings or perhaps I just have a bad file.

So you said you used to encode all rips as M4V / H.264 files in MP4 containers, what do you do now? I am just starting to rip my media using Handbrake and am trying to figure out the best way to do it. Primary playback will be through my ATV1 XBMC and perhaps occasionally on my Macbook Pro. It seems like MKV is the way to go since it can handle more file types. Also, is it best to use Passthru for audio encoding with Handbrake? What if any, are the limitations on what ATV1 XBMC can pass through either on the optical or HDMI port?

Thanks again for the help!

(2012-04-29 06:07)primus11 Wrote:  

(2012-04-27 03:00)puulima Wrote:  I won't be able to play with this until back from a biz trip - so running the original "hacked" ATV OS (patchstick hack).

An ATV without the Crystal HD card will play back 720 stuff encoded in Apple's format - so basically the .m4v files/ H.264 stuff - it does this quite nicely. I used to re-encode all my stuff using Handbrake - and using the ATV preset - and the picture quality was great and no dropped frames. Playing back other video formats - the CPU ends up doing the decoding and thus the stuttering and choppy playback.

Once I put the CHD card in - pretty much all the choppiness went away. The cards are pretty cheap these days. Several tutorials with pics out there on Installing it. Wasn't much if anything to do as I recall once installed, XBMC saw the card and worked from there.

CrystalBuntu doesn't change anything for accessing files over a network...I have a Windows Home Server with 10TB of storage...works wonderfully - even serving up content to multiple XBMC boxes.

Hope this helps...

That does help.

I still don't entirely understand what is going on with my HD playback though. I have two 720 MP4 files, The Dark Knight and War Horse. Both are H.264 and AAC. The Dark Knight plays back great if I change the rendering to Basic Shaders but War Horse is still glitchy regardless of what I put my rendering settings at. I have read that it could have something to do with my audio settings or perhaps I just have a bad file.

So you said you used to encode all rips as M4V / H.264 files in MP4 containers, what do you do now? I am just starting to rip my media using Handbrake and am trying to figure out the best way to do it. Primary playback will be through my ATV1 XBMC and perhaps occasionally on my Macbook Pro. It seems like MKV is the way to go since it can handle more file types. Also, is it best to use Passthru for audio encoding with Handbrake? What if any, are the limitations on what ATV1 XBMC can pass through either on the optical or HDMI port?

Thanks again for the help!

I just used the ATV preset in Handbrake - all the settings worked like a charm. Now I have the Crystal HD card in my ATV - so pretty much all 720P content plays as is...haven't re-encoded anything in 3 years. The ATV setting should work on anything else that's equal or better CPU wise. Don't know about specifics of audio passthru - never had to worry about that. I have my ATV connected to my AV Receiver via optical - have never used HDMI for audio.

(2012-05-01 03:44)puulima Wrote:  I just used the ATV preset in Handbrake - all the settings worked like a charm. Now I have the Crystal HD card in my ATV - so pretty much all 720P content plays as is...haven't re-encoded anything in 3 years. The ATV setting should work on anything else that's equal or better CPU wise. Don't know about specifics of audio passthru - never had to worry about that. I have my ATV connected to my AV Receiver via optical - have never used HDMI for audio.

Handbrake?

I installed the crytalubuntu without the card, memory usage dropped 45%. But having hard time finding the addon folder so i can change a default.py,

I found this /usr/local/share/xbmc but the addon folder there doesn't have the addons i installed from zip.

Good to have crytalbuntu but that brings lots of question.

1- I still have my wifi card, when i went in configure in ssh and went to wireless it sez doesn't support yet. So no way to have wifi even with the card?

2- No rowmote or remote hd helper for iphone?

3- No more flash, i have that in my other silver box installed via atv flash.

Surprised to see that i can play AC3 x264 mkv file without stuttering. I don't have the card yet.
I been reading since yesterday and i need a bit of help. Thx in advance.

1. Wifi works, but the configuration utility isn't done yet from what I hear, so you have to look up how to connect to wifi via the command line (there's probably something on stmlabs.com about it, or just search for how to do it with "Ubuntu Hardy").

2. Good question, never looked into it. If they have a linux client then it should be possible.

3. ATV Flash has no linux version, if that's what you mean (and not Adobe Flash).

(2012-05-01 19:50)Ned Scott Wrote:  1. Wifi works, but the configuration utility isn't done yet from what I hear, so you have to look up how to connect to wifi via the command line (there's probably something on stmlabs.com about it, or just search for how to do it with "Ubuntu Hardy").

2. Good question, never looked into it. If they have a linux client then it should be possible.

3. ATV Flash has no linux version, if that's what you mean (and not Adobe Flash).

I meant adobe flash, coz with atv flash you can enable it. I know linux guys they don't like flash but it has it's uses.
Did you configure your wifi? I been reading since 2 days i am a bit fed up. Will dig into it later. Unless you have a pointer.

I tried this in the morning, keeps getting permission errors. Logged in as atv\atv, could no enable root user in config for some reason didn't work.

atv@Crystalbuntu:~$ ifup wlan0
ifup: failed to open statefile /var/run/network/ifstate: Permission denied



atv@Crystalbuntu:~$ /sbin/iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

eth1 IEEE 802.11 Nickname:""
Access Point: Not-Associated
Link Quality:5 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 invalid crypt:0 invalid misc:0

Here is another question for an aspiring Crystalbuntu user.

I currently have ATV flash "firecore" installed on my ATV1. I want to install Crystalbuntu to the HDD so I can use the USB for a portable hard drive until I get a NAS in place. So I am assuming the proper steps would be to uninstall ATV flash "firecore" to the stock ATV settings, update to the latest firmware, switch to RGB High AV settings, install the CrystalHD card, then install Crystalbuntu to the internal drive. Does it make any sense to deviate from these steps? I was thinking of booting up in between the Crystal HD card install and the Crystalbuntu install just to make sure everything still works.

Also, I can't seem to find much on using a USB drive with Crystalbuntu, is it pretty much plug and play through XBMC or are there other configuration steps I need to take through the command line? Will a USB attached Mac OS Extended partitioned portable HDD work with Crystalbuntu or do I need to reformat?

In the Wiki for installing Crystalbuntu, step 2. is "Open Terminal, navigate to the downloaded file, and enter the following command followed by return:" So I understand how to enter gunzip USB.img.gz command after I have navigated to the file, but how do I navigate to the file? Perhaps I need to just go read up on the basics of using terminal. Is it like DOS? CD C:\downloaded file.exe? Something like that? Sorry for such a newbie question.

Once I start to install Crystalbuntu, I need to plug in a USB hub, jumpdrive and keyboard. Does this ever give anyone problems? It says in the wiki to log in using atv as both username and password, is there any navigation required to get to this point? Are there any Linux basics I will need to know other than what is written down in the wiki?

And since it asks you to log in as atv for username and password, I am also assuming this replaces the 'frontrow' username and password I currently use to FTP files to the ATV using Cyberduck. When using Cyberduck, I probably won't be able to connect to appletv.local after installing Crystalbuntu anymore either. What is the method for FTP'ing files to the Linux based ATV?

Again, thanks for all the help, this is a awesome community! Any tips and tricks people have used would be helpful as I am really hoping to plan in out ahead of time to get this done in a few hours and not end up troubleshooting for hours on end when it doesn't work.

(2012-05-01 19:53)monrealli Wrote:  I meant adobe flash, coz with atv flash you can enable it. I know linux guys they don't like flash but it has it's uses.
Did you configure your wifi? I been reading since 2 days i am a bit fed up. Will dig into it later. Unless you have a pointer.

I tried this in the morning, keeps getting permission errors. Logged in as atv\atv, could no enable root user in config for some reason didn't work.

atv@Crystalbuntu:~$ ifup wlan0
ifup: failed to open statefile /var/run/network/ifstate: Permission denied



atv@Crystalbuntu:~$ /sbin/iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

eth1 IEEE 802.11 Nickname:""
Access Point: Not-Associated
Link Quality:5 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 invalid crypt:0 invalid misc:0

Flash content works on Crystalbuntu. If you install a browser or use an application that needs flash like Hulu Desktop for Linux, it will work.

I don't use wifi on my unit since I have the BCHD card installed.

If something ever gives you a "Permission denied" message, then just throw a "sudo" in front of the command.