Help with TC and Little Black Box

[cherry_bomb]

Not sure what you've done up to this point but first you need to go into airport utility - manual settings and enable file sharing. Make a note of the username and password used

Now open XBMC on your little black box.
Go to Videos - Files - Add Video Source.
Click Browse - Add network location
Select Apple Filing Protocol (AFP)
In the server address put your Time Capsule IP Address and enter you username and password when prompted.

Hi, MrPlow! Thank you for coming over to help out, I appreciate it.

Thank you so friggin much, because this worked!! I had started doing it this way, and them someone on the other forum advised I just navigate to the time capsule through another method and that is where I was hitting the brick wall. YOU ROCK, sir! Thank you, thank you, thank! :-D

 

[cherry_bomb]

Allrighty! After spending all day trying to watch shows, I've given up. This little buggar restarts itself every 15 minutes, it does not like stream from time capsule for some reason. My brother took it home and hooked it up to his system and it works fine. Luckily, he wants to buy it! LOL

So the next thing I'm looking at is buying an Apply Tv2 and jailbreaking it to install XBMC. Has anyone here tried that?

 

[mrplow]

I have but since then the Apple TV 3 has launched and that's not able to be jailbroken. As a consequence Apple TV 2 prices have shot up and they can rarely be found off the shelf

How does your brothers setup differ from yours? I'm guessing he has a dedicated NAS drive rather than a Time Capsule

 

[cherry_bomb]

I have but since then the Apple TV 3 has launched and that's not able to be jailbroken. As a consequence Apple TV 2 prices have shot up and they can rarely be found off the shelf

How does your brothers setup differ from yours? I'm guessing he has a dedicated NAS drive rather than a Time Capsule

You are correct, he does! He's much more technically inclined than I am.

I was looking at what I assumed was Apple TV2 on their store site, is that the 3 then?

How about about a 2012 model? Could it be broken?

 

[mrplow]

Both those are the v3 which cannot be jailbroken.

Personally I'd consider a NAS drive. As a file sharing device they are far superior to the time capsule. The TC is a great router and great for file storage and time machine back up.

But for file sharing, streaming, maybe even as a dlna server a dedicated NAS drive will gill you a far more flexible and robust solution. It will also cost less than a jailbroken AppleTV

 

[cherry_bomb]

Both those are the v3 which cannot be jailbroken.

Personally I'd consider a NAS drive. As a file sharing device they are far superior to the time capsule. The TC is a great router and great for file storage and time machine back up.

But for file sharing, streaming, maybe even as a dlna server a dedicated NAS drive will gill you a far more flexible and robust solution. It will also cost less than a jailbroken AppleTV

So all the info I see floating around about jailbreaking a v3 is probably not accurate? :/

Around how much would it cost for an inexpensive NAS drive?

Are there any other items you can think of that would be Mac/TC compatible?

 

[mrplow]

So all the info I see floating around about jailbreaking a v3 is probably not accurate? :/

Around how much would it cost for an inexpensive NAS drive?

Are there any other items you can think of that would be Mac/TC compatible?

I have yet to see a genuine AppleTV3 jailbreak.

NAS drives, depending on capacity start at around $110 for a 1TB drive.

It's difficult to say what your current point of failure is. How are the TC and LBB connected? Ethernet cable or wifi?

 

[RavingMac]

This is not my area of expertise, but why not use Handbrake to covert your MKV files to MPEG4? Then you can load them into iTunes Library (referenced files) or not as you choose, and use AppleTV to stream.

I have my files on a networked HD and use FileBrowser iOS APP on my iPad to access and stream to my Apple TV. Or, can just access direct from Apple TV interface.

 

[mrplow]

This is not my area of expertise, but why not use Handbrake to covert your MKV files to MPEG4? Then you can load them into iTunes Library (referenced files) or not as you choose, and use AppleTV to stream.

I have my files on a networked HD and use FileBrowser iOS APP on my iPad to access and stream to my Apple TV. Or, can just access direct from Apple TV interface.

That's OK but you then need a PC or Mac to manage to iTunes library and on all the time.

 

[RavingMac]

That's OK but you then need a PC or Mac to manage to iTunes library and on all the time.

True. I am running a Mac Mini as a server, so not an issue for me . . . tend to forget that little detail. ;P

 

[bobtomay]

I run a Windows HTPC as a server. Still gave up on the idea of re-encoding all my movies into iTunes - soooooooo much time involved. Guess it would be alright for someone that starts encoding before they have a humongous library. But, if you wait until your collection is in the several hundred range (mine is in the thousand plus) like I did - just so much time.

 

[cherry_bomb]

I have yet to see a genuine AppleTV3 jailbreak.

NAS drives, depending on capacity start at around $110 for a 1TB drive.

It's difficult to say what your current point of failure is. How are the TC and LBB connected? Ethernet cable or wifi?

They were connected by wifi. It's not my wifi connection, because I can stream from my TC to my Macbook with no problem. :/

 

[cherry_bomb]

This is not my area of expertise, but why not use Handbrake to covert your MKV files to MPEG4? Then you can load them into iTunes Library (referenced files) or not as you choose, and use AppleTV to stream.

I have my files on a networked HD and use FileBrowser iOS APP on my iPad to access and stream to my Apple TV. Or, can just access direct from Apple TV interface.

I don't have a whole bunch of shows, so this is a possibility. If I was to do that I would be able to pull directly from TC to watch on Apple TV?

I wonder if there is a way to have them convert automatically when they come in? Or have only MPEG4 files download?

 

[cherry_bomb]

True. I am running a Mac Mini as a server, so not an issue for me . . . tend to forget that little detail. ;P

I do have a MacBook Pro Retina and an older MacBook Air which is just collecting dust now.

 

[cherry_bomb]

I run a Windows HTPC as a server. Still gave up on the idea of re-encoding all my movies into iTunes - soooooooo much time involved. Guess it would be alright for someone that starts encoding before they have a humongous library. But, if you wait until your collection is in the several hundred range (mine is in the thousand plus) like I did - just so much time.

Bob, do you know of a way to have them automatically convert without having to run them manually through handbrake? My library is very small right now.

 

[mrplow]

They were connected by wifi. It's not my wifi connection, because I can stream from my TC to my Macbook with no problem. :/

That doesn't mean the LBB didn't have issues with the wifi. You'd need to connect it to the TC using an ethernet cable to rule that out.

 

[cherry_bomb]

That doesn't mean the LBB didn't have issues with the wifi. You'd need to connect it to the TC using an ethernet cable to rule that out.

Grr. And my TC is in the office where my cable internet is installed, and of course there is no tv in there. I suppose I could try to move it into the whole set up into the living room?

 

[bobtomay]

Bob, do you know of a way to have them automatically convert without having to run them manually through handbrake? My library is very small right now.

No, I don't. I did maybe 30 movies, realized it was going to take me a couple of years to do and decided it wasn't worth the effort to have my entire library digital.

Currently am paying Vudu $1 a movie ($2.50 ea for my SD stuff to HD) for disc to digital conversion and playable on Windows, Android, OS X, iOS, Linux, Blackberry, Windows phone, Roku, just about every DVD / Blu-Ray player currently on the market and pretty much every smart TV. Did my first batch of just over 100 movies in about 3 hours.

Of course I still have my own digital collection along with iTunes and Amazon collections.

 

[cherry_bomb]

Okay, so I'm scrapping the little black box idea. I've heard you guys talk about running XMBC on NAS. Would I bet able to do it on something like this? Or would it have to be NAS built from the ground up? Those things are spend. I'm checking out all the Black Friday sales to see if I can find something that will work for me.

Bob, thanks for your response yesterday!

 

[mrplow]

A NAS is just a network attached hard disk that is better and more flexible at 'advertising' it's content across the network than the AirPort Extreme.

You still need a media player box of some description that can read those files and throw them up onto your TV. That's where something like the LBB comes in. It's this TV attached box that runs XBMC.

While I would recommend a NAS, as I believe they are a better all round product, for sharing media files across a network you don't currently know where your issue lies. You don't know if your extreme is struggling to 'serve' the files or if the LBB is struggling to process those files.
Until you know where the weak link is I'd hold off making any purchases