[APPLE TV] XBMC for Mac (Atlantis Beta 1) on the Apple TV

[davilla]

XBMC for Mac (beta1) is now released, here's the short and sweet to install;

Requirements: AppleTV at r2.1, ssh and NitoTV installed. (see http://wiki.awkwardtv.org/wiki/Main_Page)

The AppleTV need read/write enabled for OSBoot, (search the awkwardtv wiki for readwrite).

under a ssh login into the AppleTV

installer -pkg XBMC.mpkg -target /

Ignore the message about installation failing, a perl post-install script has failed to run because perl is missing

This installs ;

/Applications/XBMC.app

make a sym link from /Applications to ~/Applications so NitoTV app launcher can see it

ln -s /Applications/XBMC.app /Users/Frontrow/Applications.XBMC.app

Launch it under NitoTV, setting-> appearance-> resolution and pick the one with (FullScreen)

Done.

Report bugs in the XBMC for Mac forums at http://xbmc.org/forum/. Please remember that this is a beta release in prep for the upcoming final release sometime in October.

Coming attractions;

A dedicated XBMC Media Center AppleTV plugin for launching.
A USB-creator for making a USB flash drive for installation of XBMC for Mac on the AppleTV

[Samushka]

Can't wait ! ... is the USB-creator also planned to be released in october?

[davilla]

Originally Posted by Samushka

Can't wait ! ... is the USB-creator also planned to be released in october?

It should pop out in a few days with the AppleTV XBMC plugin launcher.

[gilbreen]

Excellent! I have the ATVFlash update already on my ATV so I should be good to go. Will install it this weekend and report any bugs through the proper forum.

Gilbert

[chrisjburgess]

Hi, Where do I get the XBMC.mpkg. I can only find the dmg to download on the website.

Have vista with ssh putty and winscp access...

Thanks,
c

[gilbreen]

Just a guess as I only have access to my PC laptop now but I would assume that the dmg file, once downloaded on a Mac can be opened and would contain the .mpkg file. You may know this but the dmg file is a disk image file.

[davilla]

you can transfer the dmg to the AppleTV and mount it there, then extract XBMC.pkg and install.

sudo hdiutil mount XBMC_for_Mac-beta1.dmg

it will appear at /Volumes/XBMC

installer -pkg /Volumes/XBMC/XBMC\ Media\ Center.mpkg -target /

when done

sudo diskutil unmountDisk /Volumes/XBMC

[Samushka]

From what i understood, using Linux as a base OS on the appleTV let's it be able to play 1080i files, instead of the 720p limit on the standard OS (due to GeForce acceleration or something).

My question is, going down the line, is this the plan for the AppleTV ? (Using a patchstick to install a Linux OS + XBMC)

Thanks, and keep up the good work !

[davilla]

Originally Posted by Samushka

From what i understood, using Linux as a base OS on the appleTV let's it be able to play 1080i files, instead of the 720p limit on the standard OS (due to GeForce acceleration or something).

My question is, going down the line, is this the plan for the AppleTV ? (Using a patchstick to install a Linux OS + XBMC)

To decode/display 1080i mpeg2 requires VxMC. Neither XBMC for Linux nor XBMC for Mac use XvMC. In addition XvMC is only present on Linux. So to decode/display 1080i mpeg2, you need one of the other media players under Linux. 1080i/p mpeg4/h.264 is another story. There is no hardware decode present under any Mac/Linux distro. It's all done with cpu. GL acceleration helps with display of the content, not the decode.

The AppleTV uses a 1GHz Pentium-M which is faster than a 2.2GHz Pentium-4. Even so, it's just not fast enough to handle any 1080 i/p content with cpu alone.

I don't understand your question. There are now two ways to run XBMC on the AppleTV.

1) XBMC for Linux using XBMC Live or some other Linux distro
2) XBMC for Mac using the AppleTV OS.

Depending on your needs you can choose 1) or 2)

[falafeLover]

nice work! This version seems to get farther for me than the last - I was able to start the application using Nito as described, but the remote doesn't work for me. Is there anything special that needs to be done to enable remote support? Also, where is the log file kept?