Apple TV or ..... ??? (HD playback)
#1
Hi there guys. I've been using XBMC for a while in a somewhat limited capacity at my wife's office to play back ISO rips of DVDs.

After visiting with a friend last night, who has XBMC running on his Apple TV I'm wondering if I might want to give this a try.

The problem is that most of my material these days is on Blu-ray disc. I really don't want to lose the quality of the audio or video converting this into a format that XBMC can deal with. The menus themselves are not terribly important to me though. I do realize that XBMC does not have native Blu-ray playback support and might never have it.

So, my question is, what is the success that people are having for playback of Blu-ray sourced content on the Apple TV with the Crystal decoder card and what is their work flow like to get the content sourced?

I have a multi TB NAS (WHS actually) in my basement and an all gigabit ethernet network throughout the house, so I will just host everything on the WHS box and access over the network.

I am contemplating whether I should get the Apple TV plus Crystal card to start dicking around with or maybe an Ion based Nvidia set top box is a better option?

The foremost priority for me definitely is being able to play back HD audio and video through XBMC.

Thanks!

JConfused
Reply
#2
I would go for a Mac Mini and just be done with it.
Reply
#3
Well, I can get an Apple TV + decoder card for quite a lot less. Maybe you could explain why the Mac Mini would be better.
Reply
#4
The Mini supports 1080p output at present the ATV can play 1080p but the output is downscaled to 720p
Reply
#5
Single core revo, cheaper than atv and broadcom card. More responsive and works out the box.
Reply
#6
prae5 Wrote:Single core revo, cheaper than atv and broadcom card. More responsive and works out the box.

Okay, thanks, can this box handle files at blu-ray type bit rates including lossless audio?

My ultimate goal is to have a box running XBMC that can play my entire blu-ray library through the network....
Reply
#7
The revo has got the muscle, just do not get a windows version if you want it to be reliable
Reply
#8
Okay that's good to know. I would probably just run Linux if I was not using Apple TV.

Do you just rip the blu-ray disk to a video_ts folder and then XBMC will handle it or are there extra plugins, etc, under Linux to get it working?
Reply
#9
XBMC does not read the bluray folder structure you need to use a tool like makemkv
Reply
#10
interceptor121 Wrote:XBMC does not read the bluray folder structure you need to use a tool like makemkv

Not entirely true - xbmc will play the ripped (and decrypted) mt2s file, no need to encapsulate it in a mkv.
Reply
#11
prae5 Wrote:Not entirely true - xbmc will play the ripped (and decrypted) mt2s file, no need to encapsulate it in a mkv.

I recall Davilla saying that it would play the single file but not able to use the whole menu and folder structure for the lack of an open source library capable of doing so which would make inconvenient to play the single files themselves hence the suggestion of makemkv or similar tools
Reply
#12
If I convert Blu-ray with makemkv can XBMC handle the lossless audio in addition to the video?
Reply
#13
XBMC can decode Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD as you probably now though those are called lossless audio codec there is actual compression however there are no blueray with uncompressed multichannel PCM (which XBMC would also support) so I would guess the answer to your question is yes
You can find XBMC supported codecs on the xbmc online help
Reply

Logout Mark Read Team Forum Stats Members Help
Apple TV or ..... ??? (HD playback)0