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You are here: MacNN Forums > Hardware - Troubleshooting and Discussion > iPhone, iPad & iPod > BitTorrent Client for AppleTV?

BitTorrent Client for AppleTV?
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selowitch
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Nov 5, 2008, 10:37 PM
 
Is there a BitTorrent client for AppleTV? I have Boxee and XBMC installed. Wouldn't it be nice if I didn't have to use Transmission on my Mac to download, say, .avi files via BT, then convert them to .mp4 before adding them to my iTunes library and finally syncing it to AppleTV?
     
moep
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Nov 6, 2008, 08:45 AM
 
Boxee has a built in rtorrent client and since you have it on your AppleTV you probably also have Perian installed. There should be no need for the conversion to mp4.

And then there is ATVTorrents (DL)
( Last edited by moep; Nov 6, 2008 at 03:36 PM. Reason: mangled a sentence)
"The road to success is dotted with the most tempting parking spaces."
     
turtle777
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Nov 6, 2008, 12:26 PM
 
Selowitch, is your ATV patched ?

Or do you have Boxee and XBMC installed on your Mac ?

In order to convert files for ATV, you can use iSquint. It's free now.

-t
     
selowitch  (op)
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Nov 6, 2008, 11:20 PM
 
Originally Posted by turtle777 View Post
Selowitch, is your ATV patched ?

Or do you have Boxee and XBMC installed on your Mac ?

In order to convert files for ATV, you can use iSquint. It's free now.

-t
Originally Posted by turtle777 View Post
Selowitch, is your ATV patched ?

Or do you have Boxee and XBMC installed on your Mac ?

In order to convert files for ATV, you can use iSquint. It's free now.

-t
My ATV is patched and has Boxee and XBMC. However, I have a number of problems. There are three updates "available" for Boxee or XBMC that don't seem to go away after I apply them. The other problem is that I cannot for the life of me figure out Boxee's extremely unintuitive interface. Where the heck is rTorrent? I don't see it.
     
Cold Warrior
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Nov 6, 2008, 11:28 PM
 
The patchstick enables ssh but I haven't figured out how to move files from my machine to the correct ATV path using the command line. Probably easy, I know, but that's not in my bag of tricks yet.
     
turtle777
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Nov 6, 2008, 11:41 PM
 
Originally Posted by selowitch View Post
My ATV is patched and has Boxee and XBMC. However, I have a number of problems. There are three updates "available" for Boxee or XBMC that don't seem to go away after I apply them. The other problem is that I cannot for the life of me figure out Boxee's extremely unintuitive interface. Where the heck is rTorrent? I don't see it.
Ok, I see.

I think the Boxee and XBMC updates never go away, even when you apply them.
I have the same "issues", but I think that's just how this is programmed.

-t
     
turtle777
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Nov 6, 2008, 11:48 PM
 
Originally Posted by Cold Warrior View Post
The patchstick enables ssh but I haven't figured out how to move files from my machine to the correct ATV path using the command line. Probably easy, I know, but that's not in my bag of tricks yet.
Pretty simple:

Code:
scp -1 ~/Documents/test.file [email protected]:~/Documents/
This would copy test.file from your local Mac's ~/Documents/ folder to the ~/Documents/ folder on the ATV. You'll need to enter the password frontrow for your ATV.

In general, it;s probably easier to use a FTP/SCP client like Cyberduck to copy files.

-t
     
Cold Warrior
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Nov 7, 2008, 12:43 AM
 
Originally Posted by turtle777 View Post
In general, it;s probably easier to use a FTP/SCP client like Cyberduck to copy files.

-t
Thanks. I copied it to the root directory using Cyberduck then had to cd / to get to the atv root path in terminal. Then I used sudo mv to put the Perian.component file into the /System/Library/QuickTime path.

I created a Movies directory in /Users/frontrow and am copying a file there now. Will see if ATV accepts it.
     
turtle777
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Nov 7, 2008, 01:45 AM
 
You don't have access to the root directory, Cyberduck will copy stuff to your user directory ~/
But I guess that's what you meant.

In general, for media watching, Boxee + XBMC is really the way to go on the ATV.
It will stream movies directly from SMB mounted shares.

-t
     
Cold Warrior
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Nov 7, 2008, 02:01 AM
 
Yeah, I'd installed boxee but found it too buggy (not unexpected for an alpha).

I just installed a beta of ATVFiles for ATV 2.2. This gives me a 'Files' menu in ATV's menus and I can browse my new Movies directory on the ATV for media I upload. Unfortunately it has a bug that crashes the ATV Finder when you try to return to the main ATV path from within Files.
     
turtle777
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Nov 7, 2008, 02:02 AM
 
Maybe try XBMC, it's probably more stable than boxee.

Or just iSquint your movies to ATV H.264 format.

-t
     
selowitch  (op)
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Nov 7, 2008, 02:20 AM
 
Originally Posted by turtle777 View Post
Ok, I see.

I think the Boxee and XBMC updates never go away, even when you apply them.
I have the same "issues", but I think that's just how this is programmed.

-t
Annoying, because you're always saying to yourself, "Hmmm, is that the latest update, and did I apply it?" every time.

Anyone know how to use the torrent client in Boxee? I can't find it.
     
turtle777
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Nov 7, 2008, 02:26 AM
 
No, I tried to find it today, but I couldn't really figure it out.

There is a Channel called "Public Torrents" or so, which utilizes the torrent client. Maybe that's all there is.

-t
     
selowitch  (op)
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Nov 7, 2008, 02:30 AM
 
Originally Posted by turtle777 View Post
No, I tried to find it today, but I couldn't really figure it out.

There is a Channel called "Public Torrents" or so, which utilizes the torrent client. Maybe that's all there is.

-t
Same here. Frustrating.
     
turtle777
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Nov 7, 2008, 02:39 AM
 
Nah, I really prefer to download Torrents on my Fusion Windows installation, with Peer Guardian enabled.

-t
     
selowitch  (op)
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Nov 7, 2008, 02:45 AM
 
Originally Posted by turtle777 View Post
Nah, I really prefer to download Torrents on my Fusion Windows installation, with Peer Guardian enabled.
What's that, and why? Also, why wouldn't someone want to d/l torrents directly to ATV for playback?
     
turtle777
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Nov 7, 2008, 11:39 AM
 
PG will suppress connections to known "hostile" servers.

-t
     
selowitch  (op)
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Nov 7, 2008, 07:17 PM
 
Well, assuming there is no BitTorrent client (or at least not one that isn't crippled/restricted) for AppleTV, I guess the next best thing to do is d/l them to my Mac and then FTP 'em to my ssh-enabled AppleTV and play 'em using Boxee/XBMC, yes?
     
turtle777
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Nov 7, 2008, 10:38 PM
 
You could leave the files on your Mac, and have Boxee / XBMC access them via SMB mounted shares.

-t
     
selowitch  (op)
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Nov 7, 2008, 10:48 PM
 
Originally Posted by turtle777 View Post
You could leave the files on your Mac, and have Boxee / XBMC access them via SMB mounted shares.

-t
Is there a tutorial out there on how to do that?
     
cybergoober
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Nov 7, 2008, 11:01 PM
 
Originally Posted by selowitch View Post
Anyone know how to use the torrent client in Boxee? I can't find it.
What I did is sign into the Boxee website and go to the My RSS section. Enter your torrent RSS feeds there. Then in Boxee on your tv, go to Video - Internet - My Feeds and it will show the titles that you entered for the feeds. Select the one you want and it will show the available torrents there.
Now, what I have not actually tried yet is downloading a torrent, but I will do so now and report back my findings.

Also of note: I found a posting on the Boxee forums (I'll have to try to go back and find it and post the instructions, or a link to the discussion here) for a fairly straight-forward way of enabling USB on the tv. It involved installing NitoTV and using its Smart Installer feature. I now have a 200 GB drive serving up all my media that is not in iTunes-friendly format.

Hope someone finds this helpful.

Edit: Okay, currently downloading a video file from a torrent RSS feed I setup. Seems to be working so far.
Will post back with the USB info.

Edit 2: USB info - http://wiki.awkwardtv.org/wiki/NitoTV_Take_2
As noted on that page you'll need to download the Mac OS X 10.4.9 Intel Combo updater and upload it to your tv at /Users/frontrow/Documents
As someone noted earlier (I think), the easiest way to copy files is to use an FTP client that supports SFTP, since SFTP uses the same port as SSH.

As a side-note from the downloading torrents experiment, Boxee seems to support viewing files packaged in .rar containers.
( Last edited by cybergoober; Nov 7, 2008 at 11:57 PM. )
     
turtle777
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Nov 7, 2008, 11:44 PM
 
Originally Posted by selowitch View Post
Is there a tutorial out there on how to do that?
You need to enable SMB sharing on your Mac.

It's found in System Preferences - Sharing - File Sharing - Options.
Then you need to add your Media folder or Drive to the Shared Folders section.

Once this is done, it should appear in the Network section in Boxee or XBMC.

Or follow this:

http://xbmc.org/wiki/?title=Macintos...s_File_Sharing)

-t
     
selowitch  (op)
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Nov 8, 2008, 01:05 AM
 
Originally Posted by turtle777 View Post
You need to enable SMB sharing on your Mac.

It's found in System Preferences - Sharing - File Sharing - Options.
Then you need to add your Media folder or Drive to the Shared Folders section.

Once this is done, it should appear in the Network section in Boxee or XBMC.

Or follow this:

http://xbmc.org/wiki/?title=Macintos...s_File_Sharing)

-t
When compared to simply playing a file that resides on the ATV's hard drive, doesn't this entail some strain on your LAN, a performance hit, and doesn't it spin the hard drive of the Mac and use its head? Wouldn't one prefer to play a file off of the ATV's hard drive instead?

@cybergoober: Thanks for the tip, that works. I don't like the fact that you can't individually name the feeds if they all come from the same domain/site (Mine all come up as "Mininova" and I have to drill down to see what they contain), but then this is an alpha, after all.
     
turtle777
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Nov 8, 2008, 01:11 AM
 
Originally Posted by selowitch View Post
When compared to simply playing a file that resides on the ATV's hard drive, doesn't this entail some strain on your LAN, a performance hit, and doesn't it spin the hard drive of the Mac and use its head? Wouldn't one prefer to play a file off of the ATV's hard drive instead?.
Yes, not necessarily and yes.

I haven't done testing yet if the quality is better if you play it from the ATV HD.
It probably depends very much on your LAN / WLAN connection. Since I use ethernet, I doubt I would see any quality difference.

-t
     
Peter
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Nov 9, 2008, 11:32 AM
 
Boxee bittorrent client is only for RSS feed downloads sadly
we don't have time to stop for gas
     
selowitch  (op)
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Nov 9, 2008, 11:35 AM
 
Originally Posted by Peter View Post
Boxee bittorrent client is only for RSS feed downloads sadly
Bah, forget it. Transmission is so much better for BT, I think I'll just d/l stuff to my Mac and transfer them to AppleTV from there. So far, though, no luck.

EDIT: Thanks to a tip from this thread, I got it working via SFTP. I think I would prefer FTP, though, cuz the latter is faster. But that seems harder to do for some reason.
     
43skidoo
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Nov 9, 2008, 04:52 PM
 
I would download onto my AppleTV, but I'm pretty scared of getting the RIAA/MPAA/WTFAA coming after me. I already got one letter...that was enough for me. *whimper*

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turtle777
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Nov 9, 2008, 04:52 PM
 
There shouldn't be any difference between SFTP and FTP. Both should be the same to be set up via Cyberduck or other FTP clients.

Edit: I'm not in front of my computer, but I thought >I used FTP w/o any special setup.
However, maybe Cyberduck resorted to SFTP automatically. Gotta check that.

At any rate, I don't bother with FTP, I use XBMC and access my movies via SMB shares. Speed wise it seems to work ok.

-t
     
selowitch  (op)
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Nov 9, 2008, 05:51 PM
 
Originally Posted by 43skidoo View Post
I would download onto my AppleTV, but I'm pretty scared of getting the RIAA/MPAA/WTFAA coming after me. I already got one letter...that was enough for me. *whimper*
I assume that's mock fear/sarcasm?
     
Cold Warrior
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Nov 11, 2008, 04:32 PM
 
I'm having trouble using cp to copy a file from my machine to the apple tv

cp ~/Desktop/test.txt [email protected]l:~/Movies/
and I get cp: [email protected]l:~/Movies: Not a directory
     
selowitch  (op)
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Nov 11, 2008, 04:48 PM
 
Originally Posted by Cold Warrior View Post
I'm having trouble using cp to copy a file from my machine to the apple tv

cp ~/Desktop/test.txt [email protected]l:~/Movies/
and I get cp: [email protected]l:~/Movies: Not a directory
Try cp ~/Desktop/test.txt [email protected]l:OSBoot/~/Movies/
     
Cold Warrior
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Nov 11, 2008, 05:06 PM
 
unfortunately I got the same 'directory does not exist' message

I got it to work using scp though. I assume it's because scp works over ssh and that's the only method enabled on the ATV. I wanted cp in order to have faster transfer rates than sftp but scp gives me about 4 MB/s which is decent enough for my needs. FTP would be nice but I don't have a Tiger disc around to get it going.
     
cybergoober
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Nov 11, 2008, 08:43 PM
 
I wonder if the 10.4.9 Combo Intel updater has the necessary file(s) you would need?
     
turtle777
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Nov 14, 2008, 03:15 PM
 
cp doesn't copy across networks. Only on local drives.

-t
     
Cold Warrior
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Nov 14, 2008, 06:10 PM
 
Originally Posted by turtle777 View Post
cp doesn't copy across networks. Only on local drives.

-t
Thanks.
     
   
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