Hello Beo/Mac enthusiasts,

Last week I projected myself into the digital world…BV-10-40 & Satellite STB were installed

Only a few years ago I still was watching analog TV with a rooftop antenna, and had to switch to a simple Standard Definition SAT receiver because air broadcasts simply stopped…(I live in the countryside, no cable access)

Now I have to dig into all the possibilities my Rebox HD9000 PVR has to offer, and figure out how to control it with the Beo4 (a Beo 6 is due in somewhere this month).

But the fun part started when I hooked up an Apple TV 2 (black) which I picked up in the USA about a month ago.

As I expect from Apple products, connecting it was very simple: powercord, HDMI, switch on, WiFi network password, switch on homesharing for iTunes, and voila: Streaming podcasts or iTunes content from my iMAC thru Airplay….IPTV is added to my set-up in a matter of minutes. Great! 

Correction: limited IPTV, because ATV2 is not supported in the Netherlands, so no nice services like rent-a-movie yet, and the video formats supported are also very limited. Nevertheless, I am impressed, and this for only USD 99.

But after approx. half an hour: no more connection to my iMAC…. after reestablishing homesharing again connection drops after some time. Did quite a bit of searching on the web, only to find out that it's a common problem, you either have no issues at all, or you keep losing the homeshare. Apple support points towards firewall and router settings: opening a number of ports on the router would do the trick.

I have been trying this, but can not get it solved. Opening ports (for timeserver: TCP123, bonjour: UDP5353, libraryshare: TCP3689) does not help. I finally hooked up the ATV2 to my network with an ethernet cable, and it appears stable for now.

I would like to get the WiFi streaming working however…so any advise is welcome !

I am also very interested in ATVFlash, so all hints & tips are welcome, but first I want a stable airplay...

Greetings 

Yaeger,

I'm sorry to hear you have problems with the wireless connection to your ATV2.

Since it seems to work with an ethernet connection, your problem is probably not a firewall issue, but a router issue in your wireless lan.

When I bought my ATV1 it was'nt very fond of my Netgear router I had at the time either. It was an early n-standard router with 3 antennas. ( that I bought when the 802.11N-standard was still a draft). When I upgraded the software in my router, it was much better. eventually I got a Airport Extreme and have never had any issues with ATV's or Airport Express ever since.

So, my tip is to upgrade the software in your router to make sure you have the latest version of the wireless 802.11 standard.

Btw. which router is it?

/Peter

Yaeger:

I would like to get the WiFi streaming working however…so any advise is welcome !

I have had none of the difficulties you described.

But my set-up is half & half of what you want, but none the less it may be a solution that I found by fortuitous accident!

I have an ethernet cable from the ATV2G to a wireless base station, and I run wireless from iPad, Macbook, iPhones and iTouch to the base station, and it all works flawlessly.

Hope that helps somewhat ...

Thanks for the hints !

I also suspect my WiFi-router (ZyXELL NBG460N approx. 2 years old) is causing the homesharing issues, perhaps combined with not fully foolproof software in the ATV2.

Tomorrow I am planning to run some tests to find out for sure if its WiFi related, as I did not run the ATV2 very long over the ethernet cable yet.

Judging the reactions on the Apple support site I conclude its quite a common problem (a lot of views on the subject), and causes a lot of frustration. No responses from Apple...No clear fixes...only reactions of users pointing towards the router settings as I already described.

Firewall on my iMAC is off, and I opened the correct ports for the ATV on my ADSL modem, including portforwarding on the router.

Will give the router a software upgrade as suggested...stay tuned

For my final set-up I will connect over ethernet cable, as this is the most stable solution...I but somehow I want to find out whats causing the current problems....can't help it

Regards

Hi Yaeger

Regarding renting a movie, you could open account with iTunes USA, do a google to find out how.

Movie

Peter:

So, my tip is to upgrade the software in your router to make sure you have the latest version of the wireless 802.11 standard.

Hello Peter,

I updated the router firmware....and ATV2 is running now without problems for approx. 1 hour...

In the release notes of the Zyxel NBG460N router firmware is stated an "IPTV" support enhancement, I guess thats doing the trick.

Must have been related to the the routers security settings, as there is a "Group Key Update Timer" set to 1800 sec (= half hour), and before the firmware update the ATV2 each time lost the apple homeshare after half an hour.

Anyhow, I can cool down and stop my frantic search

Time for a and start thinking about USA iTune account and ATVFlash...

Thanks for the tip !

Hi Yeager,

I'm glad it worked out with the upgrade!

Regarding ATVflash I can really recommend it..and US iTunes account…isn't there always a new project waiting around the corner.. ;-)

Cheers!

Hi Peter,

Just curious - have you tried streaming movies from your local net e.g. TimeCapsule or other NAS device - what's the user experience? - are you using the BeO remote?

/Niels

Laursen:

have you tried streaming movies from your local net e.g. TimeCapsule or other NAS device - what's the user experience? - are you using the BeO remote?

Hope you don't mind me stealing Peter's question ...

I stream over a 10 Mbps LAN from the MacMini to the ATV2G or from other PCs on the LAN to the MacMini to the ATV2G

I also wirelessly steam from the iPad/iTouch to the ATV2G ... to be honest I am not sure what route the bits follow to get there

Everything works except there is sometimes an audible or visual "stutter" that lasts 1/10th of a second

Although right now I would say Airplay has stability issues, particularly if the streaming device (iPad) goes into screen saver mode while it is in control, or while it is streaming

Hope that helps answer your question

Hi Laursen and Elephant,

Elephant, that sound like a great configuration you have there..!

I actually am using  3 Lacie Big Disks ( all with RAID)  that are connected through ethernet to my Airport Extreme router, which is also connected to my AppleTV 1st gen.

I am using the ATV Flash sofware to configure my Lacie disks as NAS, for my ATV, works perfectly and very smooth..

I use my Beo 4 remote to control it most of the time, having the Lintronic box  to handle the communication, but I tend more and more to use my iPhone ( remote app) since I cannot do fast scrolling on the Beo 4 and now Airplay video also works so good on the first gen Apple TV aswell thanks to ATV flash..

I havent got a ATV2 for my bedroom yet..but that is the next project ;-)

/Peter

Peter:

since I cannot do fast scrolling on the Beo 4

I find that I get fast Beo4 scrolling from PLEX on the MacMini ... don't ask me why ! but I am sure Philippe (PhilLondon) will know :)

Laursen:

Hi Peter,

Just curious - have you tried streaming movies from your local net e.g. TimeCapsule or other NAS device - what's the user experience? - are you using the BeO remote?

/Niels

Guess that question has been covered

I found some interesting news:  ATV2 can handle 1080p ....not flawlessly, but our little black box can go quite far:

Yaeger:

Anyone already gave it a try ?

I saw the MacRumors thread on this yesterday and read it.

Requires one to jailbreak the ATV2G.

I had previously experimented with XBMC on my Macbook, and even tried different skins.

But I preferred the look and feel of Plex.

And since then Plex has moved to a client/server architecture which I suspect will scale better as we all add more and more terabytes of movies in our homes

I am using XBMC on my Mac Mini. Tried PLEX, but did not get proper playback of BluRay rips which XBMC is doing fine as well. The Mac Mini is controlled either via the Beo5 or via the iPhone. It all works reasonable well, although sound quality can be better imho.

Out of other threads I understood I should buy an external DAC, however the other issue is I do not like to have the TV on all the time just to play music.  I have a BM5/BS5 as well, and I like the BS5, however having a dedicated Mac Mini for movies/music would be more environmental friendly instead of a BM5.

Unfortunately , the hardware of the BM5 is not fast enough to run a server and/or XBMC on top of it, which would have been a very nice alternative instead of the Mac Mini. But who knows, may be B&O will update it in some time to offer a real mediaserver solution

I have jailbroken the ATV2 and installed XBMC. Now I have best of both worlds!

For the momemt it is a tethered jailbreak. So after a complete shutdown of the ATV2 you have to connect it to a Mac for a short moment