XBMC now works on Apple TV, iPad and iPhone

Plex <a href="http://plexapp.com" rel="nofollow">http://plexapp.com</a> is based on an earlier version of XBMC. They have it running on iPhone, iPad and someone hacked it onto the Apple TV and did a similar video a few months ago: <a href="http://www.vimeo.com/16479085" rel="nofollow">http://www.vimeo.com/16479085</a><p>I'd put my money on plex as an easier way to manage content and stream it from a box elsewhere in the house.<p>(I have plex running on a 2009 Mac Mini and it works really well)

I've been running XBMC as my media centre for years now, first on a hacked XBox (original) and then on a hacked Apple TV (first gen).<p>It's a great piece of software, happily streaming from my NAS box, playing music, etc. Not found anything it doesn't play yet.<p>And there are remote control apps for iPhone and Android too!

All in all, I've found the Apple TV port to be pretty awesome - If you're willing to live with 720p output (It can decode 1080p, but it downscales to 720p - and it supposedly has minor lag at some points) and minor issues with seeking (which are bearable) and the current tethered jailbreak, it's a fantastic $130 XBMC device.<p>One thing to note is the default skin for XBMC felt laggy, but once I set it all up and switched to something else (in my case, Rapier tweaked to work on XBMC 10), it felt a lot faster and worked pretty well.<p>Better yet, using seas0npass and nitoTV (It's my own blog post, but <a href="http://blog.ninjahideout.com/posts/apple-tv-2g-and-xbmc-setup-bliss" rel="nofollow">http://blog.ninjahideout.com/posts/apple-tv-2g-and-xbmc-setu...</a> details the process) it's relatively simple to set up - the caveat being it's tethered still on Firmware v4.1.1. Here's hoping the new release of GreenPois0n which will supposedly be untethered comes soon.

This promises to remove the only obstacle to my spending $99 on an Apple TV box, namely, my fear of being locked into Apple's content distribution system.<p>Will someone unaffiliated with the project please describe their experiences with using this software to watch mp4s of movies? Any restrictions or gotchas?

I've been using an ASRock Ion with XBMC as my media center for over a year now and I love it. Plays anything I throw at it without any jitter. 1080p content? No problem thanks to the onboard NVidia chip.<p><a href="http://www.asrock.com/nettop/spec/ion%20330.asp" rel="nofollow">http://www.asrock.com/nettop/spec/ion%20330.asp</a><p>Combined with the Aeon skin it is a beautiful thing.<p><a href="http://xbmc.org/skins/aeon/" rel="nofollow">http://xbmc.org/skins/aeon/</a>

I just wish the tetherless JB would be released already.

But why? Handbrake can convert most video formats to something Apple TV-compatible and play them on the Apple TV through iTunes.

One of my favorite things about XBMC is the plugins. The plugins are basically web scrapers that present content within the interface. If there isn't one you want for a particular website, build your own! They're written in python and could make a fun weekend project. Once your done, commit it to the official repository.

If xbmc can run on appleTV 2, then a boxee port should be around the corner. Let's hope, as I love boxe's simplicity, in its ability to auto organize the entire library.

Since it's XBMC based, does this mean we'll see Boxxee soon?

Can this play from a NAS or folders outside iTunes? And I'm pretty sure it will, but does it play a range of other filetypes - mkv, etc?

Does the AppleTV do full 1080p?