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Multimedia - solution based on aTV2

M

majkom

macrumors 68000
Original poster
May 3, 2011
1,854
1,150
Hi - got few questions about aTV - here is what I plan to do - I would like to buy apple tv 2, jailbreak it and install xbmc, atv will be conected to apple airport extreme by lan cabel, and know questions:

1. I have usb disk (5400 rps) connected to extreme - will atv be able to play movies on that disk?

2. If yes, what quality - 720p, 1080p? What is the limit on the atv side (procesdor performance) and on the extreme/lan side? I mean, is atv able to play 720p/1080p movies via lan fluently without any glitches?isnt that usb disk bottle neck?
 
jamesvdm

jamesvdm

macrumors regular
Mar 28, 2011
149
2
Perth, Australia
1. Yes, once jailbroken it will play from any network share like that.

2. It will play pretty much anything you can download, including most 1080p files. It will only ever display 720p and lower though.

The USB drive won't be the bottleneck. If you're streaming over wireless that may prove to be a bottleneck.
 
L

-lefty

macrumors member
Feb 3, 2012
42
0
UK
1) Yes you can add a network share in XBMC and you can then play files from it.

2) Quality wise it depends on what ATV you have. You said you have an ATV2, which outputs to 720P, the 3rd generation lets you output at 1080P. If you have a 1080P movie I believe it will scale it down to 720P. If you’re playing over wireless that’s going to be the bottle neck, as the stream has to be high enough to play the bitrate of the file. From a quick search on the Web it appears that if your router can do Wireless N that it is capable of streaming blu ray film without a problem. It also depends on how far away your router is from your ATV.

The link about streaming and blu-ray quality anandtech
 
M

majkom

macrumors 68000
Original poster
May 3, 2011
1,854
1,150
ok

So, one last question, i will use firecores aTV black, and movies will be streamed from usb disk connected to my airport extreme, so the question is: what format should I use on that usb disk so aTV will be able to read from it, can I use standart mac file system (Mac OS extended) or it have to be fat32? I would prefer mac os extended if possible... thx for advice
 
L

-lefty

macrumors member
Feb 3, 2012
42
0
UK
majkom said:
So, one last question, i will use firecores aTV black, and movies will be streamed from usb disk connected to my airport extreme, so the question is: what format should I use on that usb disk so aTV will be able to read from it, can I use standart mac file system (Mac OS extended) or it have to be fat32? I would prefer mac os extended if possible... thx for advice
Click to expand...

I would personally use Mac OS extended as FAT32 limits you to a file size of 4GB, so if you have content over the 4GB mark you wont be able to put it on the hard drive. I had a quick look on the Firecore forums and people seem to be ok with using Mac OS extended.
 
D

Dobbs2

macrumors 6502
Jun 5, 2008
379
77
-lefty said:
I would personally use Mac OS extended as FAT32 limits you to a file size of 4GB, so if you have content over the 4GB mark you wont be able to put it on the hard drive. I had a quick look on the Firecore forums and people seem to be ok with using Mac OS extended.
Click to expand...

ExFat solves that problem and can be used across Windows, Mac and Linux.
 
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