[selspiero]

Hi guys,

I wondered if any of you running ATV2's using XBMC could do me a quick review? basically i am looking to remove my PC from the front room (windows 7 running XBMC) mainly because it is noisy and takes up loads of space. I can ebay the PC and spend the money on an ATV2!

I would only really me using it for local media - i.e. everything i have on my NAS - i don't use any addons.

Mainly interested in usability really, does it crash alot?

Thanks!

[Thewolf]

While it shows promise and looks like down the track it will end up being very excellent at this stage it's not a replacement for your PC too many issues still that need to be sorted out.

[Senaxx]

If i have the time, i can make a video with an atv2 working with xbmc. So you get a good idea how the confluence skin works on a atv2 with series and movies?

[selspiero]

If i have the time, i can make a video with an atv2 working with xbmc. So you get a good idea how the confluence skin works on a atv2 with series and movies?

that would be awesome mate. I use library mode for both TV and movies - so really only interested in how responsive it is browsing through the menus etc

Thanks!

[thesixfootasian]

I also have been using the ATV2 to stream media from a NAS. To give you an idea of how well it's been working for me:

Setup is ATV2 plugged into Onkyo receiver via HDMI, 5.1 speakers and Sony TV out.
All content I've tried so far is H.264 DVD/Blu ray rips in MKV containers with AC3 and/or DTS audio (some with subtitles too)
Mixture of SD, 720p and 1080p
Have it setup on Wifi (802.11g network) at the moment, but am planning to change over to ethernet eventually

- AC3 and DTS audio works like a charm
- SD and 720p content plays back fine
- Depending on network conditions, the 1080p stuff can be quite jerky/buffering, but no other playback issues (I have got it streaming smoothly even over wifi when there's no other network activity). I hope this will be resolved when I get round to wiring up the ATV2
-Possibly unrelated issue but I found playback of some 720p stuff best when using the default confluence skin, and jerky/buffering when using a different skin (Alaska Revisited for reference)

All in all, I'm very happy with the setup, works extremely well for the (albeit not that large) range of tasks I want it for (no music/photos etc - I use airplay through the default interface if I want music streaming) and if you're comfortable with some simple command line control, it's pretty straightforward to setup.

[selspiero]

I also have been using the ATV2 to stream media from a NAS. To give you an idea of how well it's been working for me:

Setup is ATV2 plugged into Onkyo receiver via HDMI, 5.1 speakers and Sony TV out.
All content I've tried so far is H.264 DVD/Blu ray rips in MKV containers with AC3 and/or DTS audio (some with subtitles too)
Mixture of SD, 720p and 1080p
Have it setup on Wifi (802.11g network) at the moment, but am planning to change over to ethernet eventually

- AC3 and DTS audio works like a charm
- SD and 720p content plays back fine
- Depending on network conditions, the 1080p stuff can be quite jerky/buffering, but no other playback issues (I have got it streaming smoothly even over wifi when there's no other network activity). I hope this will be resolved when I get round to wiring up the ATV2
-Possibly unrelated issue but I found playback of some 720p stuff best when using the default confluence skin, and jerky/buffering when using a different skin (Alaska Revisited for reference)

All in all, I'm very happy with the setup, works extremely well for the (albeit not that large) range of tasks I want it for (no music/photos etc - I use airplay through the default interface if I want music streaming) and if you're comfortable with some simple command line control, it's pretty straightforward to setup.

exactly what I wanted to know - thanks.

most of my stuff is 720p anyway - so should be fine with that

think i will go ahead with it then! i like the idea of being able to drop out of XBMC to use the built in itunes / iphoto support, along with you tube etc - then just using xbmc to play my local files.

One other question, when / if XBMC crashes - have you used ssh to kill the process? does this work OK? obviously with a tethered jailbreak i want to limit the amount of time i have to reboot.

Also - do you leave it on all the time?

thanks again

[thesixfootasian]

Also - do you leave it on all the time?

No problem - as for your question, you can send the ATV2 to sleep from the main interface (though not from within XBMC yet as far as I'm aware) - 'sleep' is not the same as 'off', you don't need to tetherboot every time you wake it from sleep thankfully! So it is left 'on' all the time, but the power draw is so low in sleep mode that it's not worth the hassle of shutting it down and tetherbooting every time.