I installed aTVFlash on the Black AppleTV a few hours ago and so far I’m underwhelmed.
- The intro on the Firecore website says all the original AppleTV remain but that's not true. TV Shows is now empty.
- I installed Nito TV and changed Weather to show Melbourne Australia but since changing it, any attempt to use Weather reboots the AppleTV. In reality I don't care that much about using the AppleTV for weather or RSS feeds, so I uninstalled Nito TV
- When browsing my Mac under Files, I tried to play music but the iTunes folders are empty
- The out-of-the-box AppleTV streams video beautifully over WiFi but media streamed over WiFi using new features is jerky and frequently gives an out of memory error.
- I just don't get the XBMC and as for Internet access using Couch Potato? How do you navigate?
I’m happy to learn, but so far I seem to have lost more than I gained. If the items I mentioned are bugs then perhaps the beta lable is appropriate. If others are not experiencing these issues, then what’s causing my installation to let the side down? Feel free to educate me.
As far as I know, TV Shows only works in the US. I live in the UK and previously the TV Shows menu was invisible, but when I installed ATVFlash it appeared - but was empty. I think this is just a bug that needs ironing out.
This is a known bug with HD content. They’ve said they’re working on it.
XBMC is awfully complicated, and I haven’t made the effort to read pages upon pages of dross in their ugly wiki to work out how to use it, so I’ve just uninstalled it. Couch Surfer works really well - to navigate, wait for the page to load and then use your arrow keys on the Apple remote - you should find a cursor appear on screen.
“The out-of-the-box AppleTV” doesn’t stream anything over wi-fi except through iTunes and only in video formats that Apple decides. Media Player is fantastic for me so far (but I’ve only tried xvid/divx files so far, not any HD mkv files yet).
As for XBMC, before trying it on Apple TV try it on your Mac first and figure out how to use the software. Add-ons (particularly Navi-X and Icefilms) add greatly to its functionality but you need to SSH them to your device and install them from a zip file. A lot of the better add-ons are not part of the official XBMC repository so you’ll need to download them on your Mac first - unless you can download them to ATV using Couchsurfer - I haven’t tried that yet). Probably watching a few Youtube video tutorials would also be a good idea.
As for navigating using Couchsurfer, after a page loads (which may take a few seconds) press the central ‘select’ button on the remote and an arrow should appear. You may have to press a couple of times to get it to display but when it does you use the navigation keys to move the cursor and the select button again to click on a link.
As for keeping all your stuff on ATV2, if you had to jailbreak your device to install it, the software will be overwritten with a new IPSW, obliterating any saved shows etc. What Firecore means is that you won’t lose the functionality of the Apple TV box and their software will be in addition to Apple’s. They didn’t mean that you wouldn’t lose any data - that’s just what happens even if you do a “restore” in iTunes with the authorised software from Apple.
It took me a good couple of weeks to find out the benefits of all the new software that aTVFlash black offers, so I’m surprised you’re so dismissive so soon.
Nito TV isn’t just for RSS feeds and weather, you can also install XBMC and other software using it (such as an Apple Update disabler that will protect your jailbreak and stop XBMC from crashing out). I would re-install it and re-investigate if I were you.
Thanks to all contributors.
I will persevere with XBMC and be a bit more patient. What is still an issue, tough, is nito TV’s weather. I added Melbourne and attempted to remove Amsterdam, but now any time I attempt to use nito TV’s weather, it blows away the current Apple TV session and restarts the Apple TV. I also have NAS on a wired Ethernet network plus WiFi over a Billion 7404 VNPX The Apple TV (Black) now sees the NES and streams video over WiFi satisfactorily so far. That’s a real plus for me. Now I’m on board I will look out for new innovations.
Thanks again
GWPurnell… what can possibly be better than the Navi-X and IceFilms plugins for XBMC??? I have to know cause so far those are the two best plugins for XBMC as far as I can tell. Thanks.
iRoNBiLL