XBMC on AppleTV - Is is worth it?

I Recently ordered an AppleTV for a friend. Our intentions were to use the AppleTV unit with XMBC. He currently has XMBC running the Xbox and we are both huge fans of the XMBC interface.

After unboxing the AppleTV, I immediately used atbusb-creator to create the boot loader that could install XMBC. There is a Windows version, but I could not get it to actually write the image to a USB drive on my Windows machine. Fortunately, I also have Leopard installed, so I was able to boot into OSX and run the Mac version, which ran fine. I also ended up using 2 different usb drives because during my first attempt the AppleTV unit did not recognize my usb drive. On my second attempt, using my Kingston Data Traveller, it worked fine. My first usb drive was just a cheap, unbranded, 1gig drive that bought a few years back.

Patching the AppleTV was a snap. I just followed the documentation. Once I rebooted the AppleTV I had an XBMC menu, which then allowed me to download and install the latest version quite easily.

This is where the fun stopped. First, the AppleTV unit does not have a power off (at least nothing that was obvious), so, for every reboot, I had to unplug the unit. While this wasn't a huge deal in my test environment, it's going to be annoying to anyone that has a unit in their home entertainment cabinet.

The AppleTV unit takes about 1 - 2 minutes to fully boot, and put you at the main menu. I was pleased, and yet surprised, but the simplicity and plainness of the AppleTV main menu. It's just a simple rectangular menu without a background image. For Apple, I was surprised that there wasn't more, but at the same time, I was happy that Apple decided to forgo gimicky, and stick with functional.

I didn't spend too much time in the AppleTV UI, since it's not really a useful piece of software, unless you have iTunes installed, or you are willing to buy or rent DRM movies. I did try out the YouTube videos. It worked. I went into the Movies section as well, and played a trailer. It worked. Since the AppleTV unit can't actually play anything over the network, without iTunes, I wasn't able to try out any streaming videos.

So, after a few minutes, I decided to launch XBMC. Having used XBMC on the XBOX for a couple of years, this was the real prize for me. After XBMC launched, I was actually stuck in a window (not fullscreen). I then used the Settings menu to make the application fullscreen. I Also calibrated the screen, so that the UI could fill the entire area. I wasn't disappointed with the UI. It was responsive and worked pretty much like the XBOX version.

I immediately configured XBMC to connect back to my media share. In a few minutes, I had complete access to all my movies and recorded shows. Playing an SD avi file played fine. Only having a 6 button remote proved to be challenging. You don't realize the extent to which you use other remote buttons, until you only have 6 to choose from. Let's just say, that in XMBC on the Xbox, having the extra buttons is really useful, and I'm sure they'd be useful on the AppleTV as well.

To my disappointment, the XBMC on the AppleTV could not play any 720p x264 content in a mkv container. I tried about 10 files, and all files were un watchable. Audio was fine, but the video was completely jittery. This was a huge disappointment for me. The core reason my friend had purchased this unit was because he wanted to watch 720p content in XBMC. That's not going to happen with this release. It's not the fault of XMBC, it's a great product, but there's only so much you can do when you have decode and render in software on such a limited device. Apparently the device will play 720p content if you convert it to mp4, but who wants to convert video?

We both should have done more research into XBMC on the AppleTV before buying the unit. But, we were such fans, we rushed in. Given that XBMC can't play 720p x64 content (without re-encoding it), then he could have purchased and Xbox and put XBMC on that for only $50. You can already play 720p content on an Xbox, if you are willing to convert it to mpeg2. So, right now, we have 1 brand new AppleTV unit for sale.

Is XBMC on the AppleTV worth it? Well, if you're an AppleTV fan, and you have already purchased an AppleTV for the purposes of renting and downloading movies, then I'd say that Yes, putting on XBMC is well worth it. XMBC will add functionality to the AppleTV unit, and you won't be disappointed, until you try to play your 720p content. But, if you are looking at buying an AppleTV just to run XBMC, then buy a Xbox. For much less, you will get the same features.

A couple of weeks ago, I test drove a Popcorn Hour unit. Even though I was unimpressed with the performance of the UI, I would certainly choose that unit over the AppleTV, solely based on the fact that it played my 720p mkv files without an issue.

Recently, SageTV released a stand alone HD Player, which I suspect would be the better than both the AppleTV or the Popcorn Hour. I haven't tried it myself, but you can check out more on the SageTV HD Theatre (HD200) on GeekTonic. I currently own the HD100 that SageTV released previous to the HD200, and it plays all my current media without issue.

The Bad

• Slow boot time
  
• No cables (except for power)
  
• Only 6 buttons on the remote
• XBMC can't play HD files
  
• No power off button
  
• The unit runs very hot
  

The Good

• Simple AppleTV interface
• XBMC was easy to install
• XBMC worked well (as long you don't need to play HD)
• Slim and Sleek unit
  

More AppleTV Images

Movie Listings

The Mummy Movie Details

Batch Metadata Tools gets Custom Content Proivder

As of version 1.12, the Batch Metadata Tools now has a "build your own content provider". This new feature, called a CompositeMetadataProvider, is basically a way to compose or build a new content provider from 2 other content providers, using only configuration.

For example, you can create a new content provider that uses the IMDB provider to search, but then uses themovidedb.com provider to fetch the details and thumbnail information. You can also configure which fields from the search provider that you want to use instead of those in the detail provider.

This new composite provider model may be a little tricky to understand at first, but it opens up some great potential to pull content from multiple sources when fetching metadata information.

Batch Metadata Tools gets new Metadata Provider

Last week I applied for an api_key for themoviedb.com for the Batch Metadata Tools project, and it was granted. Then within a couple of hours, I had the full integration with themoviedb.com complete.

Their api is really simple. It mainly consists of two commands; Search and GetInfo. The search takes a single search argument and returns a list of matches, and the get info command will return back the complete movie information for a given match. Simple and easy.

Batch Metadata Tools is now at version 1.11, and you can red more about how to use this new provider in the project wiki.

About Batch Metadata Tools
The Batch Metadata Tools project is a small java project that provide movie information and cover art for movie files. Currently it's used within the SageTV community for fetching movie information when you import a large collection of movies. Although it is currently used for SageTV, it supports a pluggable output provider, so that it could be used to read/write other formats.

Currently the Batch Metadata Tools has search providers for IMDB, DVDProfiler, and themoviedb.com.

Popcorn Hour A-110

This week, I had the pleasure of trying out a new Popcorn Hour A-110.

It would seem that this device is marketed at the regular consumer that just wants to watch HD content, without the hassle of configuring too much software/hardware.

If my brother-in-law is a measure of the common person, then I think the unit falls short. I have it now, because he could not get it working. When I got the unit, I plugged it in, and the networking was configured for a static IP. Because of that, pressing any option, other than Settings caused the unit to lock up.

After I changed the IP to use DHCP, it worked fine. I configured it to go against my media shares, and it played .mkv files, .ts files (HDPVR), and regular divx/xvid files. The responsiveness of the unit was very good for starting and stopping the playback of a file. Much faster than my SageTV HD-100. But the menus were much more sluggish, especially the online vidoes.

The online videos section is quite rich. There is lots of selection, but the UI feels slow to render.

A few months back, I showed my SageTV setup to my brother-in-law, and he wanted it. He didn't need/want the PVR functionality, just the distributed nature of the system, and the HD-100 for HD content. He is setup now with an Xbox running XBMC, which serves his needs quite well, except for HD content.

I'm a huge SageTV fan, but I could not bring myself to recommend SageTV to him, since I did not want to spend my days supporting his setup, and mine. So, I recommended that he get a popcorn hour; plug and play. Well, as it turns out, I still need to support him, which is disappointing, to say the least.

Of course, had I known that SageTV was going to be releasing a STB, and not just an extender, then I would have told him to wait for the SageTV STB. It's too bad they didn't run a pre press release stating their intentions.

Today, there are several options for HD STB Media Players.

• Popcorn Hour
  
• AppleTV (Running XBMC)
  
• SageTV HD Theater
  

I think that now that I have played with the Popcorn Hour, it is a nice device. UI is very spartan, but functional. But, I think that if I wanted just a HD media center, then I'd either get the Apple TV and run XBMC on it, or I'd get the SageTV HD Theatre. Given my setup I would lean towards the SageTV HD Theatre, since I already have SageTV installed. If I had nothing, and I knew my needs didn't include a PVR, then I'd probably get the Apple TV running XBMC.


Of course the lesson learned here, is that no matter how much you think a device is easy to use, leave it up the consumer to prove you wrong every time.