XBMC movie playback performance on AppleTV 2?

[eTip]

I just ordered an ATV2 and am curious about how well XBMC performs on it compared to the original ATV. I currently have an ATV1 with an external (USB) drive storing all of my movies. I love XBMC and for the most part, it plays back fine - but sometimes it's kind of jerky when watching some movies. I originally went with the external drive connected directly to the ATV in hopes that it would improve playback - but it didn't seem to make much difference.

With the new ATV, I am planning on moving the drive with all of the movies to my Mac Mini to allow for easier sharing & ability to easily transfer to iPad/iPhone. The Mini is on all the time anyhow and already stores all of my music. It is connected to my network via a gigabit switch & the new ATV will be connected to that same switch. What kind of performance can I expect with this setup? My movies are a combination of mp4 & avi - mostly standard definition.

I may eventually go with a NAS - but it's not in the budget right now. I am also curious to hear how others running XBMC have things set up.

Thanks in advance.

 

[brettatk]

I bought a ATV 2G over the weekend and jailbroke it so I could install XBMC. I tested it out with a couple of mkv files stored on my pc and they all played perfectly. That's about all the testing I had time for though. This is my first time using XBMC so I'm a bit of a newbie. I have an internal 2TB drive in my computer which I store all my music and video files. I thought about getting something like a drobo, but I just don't want to sink that much money in it right now.

 

[maturola]

My Library isn't that large, but so far I been watching a few of my movies on my bedroom (streaming from my main PC on the livingroon), and performance is a non-issue, it is like watching them locally. (note i got a Wireless-N 5Ghz Network)

 

[OmegaRed1723]

One of the developers on the XBMC forum cautioned against updating the TV to the latest iOS 4.3 software, as it changes the APIs for HD playback. Divx and avi files may play back, but mkv's and the like may not. Unfortunately, I did, but haven't checked yet what is and isn't playable.

In similar news, Plex announced that the next version of their software will include what they call "direct streaming," which will allow for the playback of most files up to and including 1080p (bitrate dependent) without the need to transcode on the fly. This will be awesome for the TV2 and the iPad2.