Apple TV 2 + XBMC = WIN!

[zylander]

Another question: Is there any reason I shouldnt install XBMC through NitoTV? All the XBMC installation instructions online say to install XBMC over SSH, however I installed mine through NitoTV, anything wrong with that?

 

[ponyo]

Another question: Is there any reason I shouldnt install XBMC through NitoTV? All the XBMC installation instructions online say to install XBMC over SSH, however I installed mine through NitoTV, anything wrong with that?

I installed both of mine through NitroTV. No problem whatsoever. XBMC networked using SMB.

So you were able to downgrade from 4.3? That's good to know in case I accidentally upgrade or decide to buy more ATV2 in the future.

 

[Aikouka]

I'm pretty sure I installed mine through NitoTV or I think it was automatically installed.

What sort of issues are you having setting it up? If you turn on Exposed (VNC Server for ATV2), you can do a lot of things using VNC rather than the remote. Although, for some reason... using RealVNC and UltraVNC, I cannot get the screen to update, but keyboard commands are going through :\. I almost bought The Tourist through iTunes without realizing it haha.

 

[Ns1]

I finally got it jailbroken last night and got XBMC and a few other hacks installed. Now Im just pulling my hair out trying to get XBMC to work right.

osx or windows?

 

[zylander]

I installed both of mine through NitroTV. No problem whatsoever. XBMC networked using SMB.

So you were able to downgrade from 4.3? That's good to know in case I accidentally upgrade or decide to buy more ATV2 in the future.

Yea if you go into iTunes and hold down the option button while you click restore a window will come up where you can select an ipsw file to restore to.

I'm pretty sure I installed mine through NitoTV or I think it was automatically installed.

What sort of issues are you having setting it up? If you turn on Exposed (VNC Server for ATV2), you can do a lot of things using VNC rather than the remote. Although, for some reason... using RealVNC and UltraVNC, I cannot get the screen to update, but keyboard commands are going through :\. I almost bought The Tourist through iTunes without realizing it haha.

I mailny just have two issues. First, I cant figure out how to install new skins to XBMC, I want to transfer over that new Aeon skin but I must be doing something wrong. Ive been following some instructions online but I think they are for the first gen ATV.

Im also having a problem with SMB shares, cover art and playing certain media types. After I populated the 'Movies' and 'TV Shows' folders, not all my media has cover art and details. One of my movie directories has all Video_TS rips, which do have cover art and details but those wont play if I select them. All my .avi, .mkv, .mp4 ect. files will play but dont have any meta data.

I didnt know that there was a way to control XBMC with VNC, Ill give that a shot, should make things much easier. Along those same lines; in the XBMC settings menu under 'Network' there are two options, one for controlling XMBC through uPNP and the other to control it over HTTP. Im assuming that the control over HTTP allows me to access XBMC and control all the menus through a web page, correct?

osx or windows?

I have access to both but I have mainly been using OSX.

 

[Aikouka]

I mailny just have two issues. First, I cant figure out how to install new skins to XBMC

Not sure about skins on the ATV2... I just leave it alone since it works .

Im also having a problem with SMB shares, cover art and playing certain media types. After I populated the 'Movies' and 'TV Shows' folders, not all my media has cover art and details. One of my movie directories has all Video_TS rips, which do have cover art and details but those wont play if I select them. All my .avi, .mkv, .mp4 ect. files will play but dont have any meta data.

I thought I heard something about it not playing DVD folder rips (Video_TS).

I didnt know that there was a way to control XBMC with VNC, Ill give that a shot, should make things much easier. Along those same lines; in the XBMC settings menu under 'Network' there are two options, one for controlling XMBC through uPNP and the other to control it over HTTP. Im assuming that the control over HTTP allows me to access XBMC and control all the menus through a web page, correct?

I don't think there's a web portal to control xbmc, but it allows for applications to control it via that. I have an app on my phone that connects via HTTP to any XBMC, but it isn't as robust as the VNC solution.

 

[Ns1]

I have access to both but I have mainly been using OSX.

I dl'ed majestic upnp server and that worked so much faster than any SMB/network share.

 

[zylander]

So everytime I add a new piece of media to to the directory on my server will XBMC automatically see it or do I have to have XBMC scan the directory again?

 

[Ns1]

So everytime I add a new piece of media to to the directory on my server will XBMC automatically see it or do I have to have XBMC scan the directory again?

With the majestic setup above it was automatic.

 

[ponyo]

So everytime I add a new piece of media to to the directory on my server will XBMC automatically see it or do I have to have XBMC scan the directory again?

It will see it but you need to scan it again to get covers and art. You can set it to scan automatically at startup or do it manually.

 

[poofyhairguy]

It will see it but you need to scan it again to get covers and art. You can set it to scan automatically at startup or do it manually.

Or install a pluggin that updates at regular intervals.

 

[Ns1]

Anyone have success with scraping tv shows? No dice on my end. Wasted an hour trying to figure it out

 

[poofyhairguy]

Anyone have success with scraping tv shows? No dice on my end. Wasted an hour trying to figure it out

I have over 230 TV shows scraped perfectly in XBMC. The trick is to have the correct naming convention (which for me meant spending literally hours renaming my shows):

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=TV_Shows_(Video_Library)

On OSX the program Name Mangler helps:

http://manytricks.com/namemangler/

Another trick is to use the manual post-processing in sickbeard to do it for you. That is what I mostly use nowadays.

 

[Aikouka]

I have over 230 TV shows scraped perfectly in XBMC. The trick is to have the correct naming convention (which for me meant spending literally hours renaming my shows)

It's essentially the exact same convention that "the scene" uses to name ripped TV shows. They're really picky about stuff matching their conventions. I remember seeing a TV show release get nuked because the audio was at a 48KHz sampling instead of 44.1KHz or something like that.

 

[cKGunslinger]

I have over 230 TV shows scraped perfectly in XBMC. The trick is to have the correct naming convention (which for me meant spending literally hours renaming my shows):

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=TV_Shows_(Video_Library)

I've got a nice set of scripts on my Linux server that use tvnamer to rename all my files as I

Spoiler

acquire

create them. Just set it to scan the directory every night.


Sample output:

####################
# Starting tvnamer
# Found 12 episodes
####################
# Processing file: Archer.2009.S02E05.The.Double.Deuce.PROPER.HDTV.XviD-FQM.avi
# Detected series: Archer 2009 (season: 2, episode: 5)
####################
Old filename: Archer.2009.S02E05.The.Double.Deuce.PROPER.HDTV.XviD-FQM.avi
New filename: Archer (2009) - S02E05 - The Double Deuce.avi

It's all rather hands-off once you get it all set up, which I like. Doesn't work well for daily shows, however. Nothing I've found does.

 

[Ns1]

soooo shouldn't

Dexter.S05E01.TITLE

be picked up by the scraper? cuz mine sure as hell isn't.

The defaults will match the following structures/file name formats
foo.s01e01.*
foo.s01.e01.*

 

[yllus]

I mailny just have two issues. First, I cant figure out how to install new skins to XBMC, I want to transfer over that new Aeon skin but I must be doing something wrong. Ive been following some instructions online but I think they are for the first gen ATV.

I've installed used both Simplicity and (currently) JX 720 - both run relatively fast on the ATV2. Essentially you want to download the skin as a zipfile and copy it into the /var/mobile/ directory. Then within the Addons menu, select Install From Zipfile and select the zipfile containing the skin. Selecting the file from within the XBMC menus is a pain in the ass but you'll get there. At least the two skins I've mentioned here work with this method (some skins simply don't.)

soooo shouldn't

Dexter.S05E01.TITLE

be picked up by the scraper? cuz mine sure as hell isn't.

Occasionally the website used by the scraper script ( http://www.thetvdb.com/ ) goes down and leads to this. The first time it should have been scraped, did the "updating library" stay visible on your screen for a long time?

If so, the easiest fix for this is:

1. Rename the file to something the scraper would not pick up (temp.avi).
2. Go to Settings > Video > Clean Up Library (or something close to that).
3. Once that's completed, rename the file to Dexter.S05E01.avi and execute Update Library. If TheTVDB.com is back up you should have no problems.