Thanks for the link, Tom. Actually, I should have been clearer: I had no trouble when encoding one file at a time, or setting up one batch file at a time, but when I tried to script a batch encode (using the exact same settings), the resulting files played fine on a computer but simply wouldn't play or even transfer to the AppleTV. AppleTV is insanely picky about the audio/video specs for its videos.
The key to the AppleTV is that it is a pure MPEG4/H.264 box...
Yeah, that's the conclusion I came to. Even when you hack it and open up playback for other filetypes, it doesn't have nearly enough juice for something like HD MKV files. Granted, those files can task a system, but the AppleTV stutters uncontrollably.
So far the Nvidia ION platform has been a complete disappointment in pricing. No one that I know of has released anything built with it in an ultra-small package at a decent price ($200 for instance), even without software. That means it's difficult to make one of those low-cost, low-power and completely silent MythTV front-ends right now.
I'm keeping an eye out for the Boxee hardware too, but in the meantime, I'm actually a bit impressed by Dell's new
Zino HD box. It wouldn't make a good hub for an MCE setup, but it'd be a heck of an extender. Even the specs on the $229 build would be suitable for those purposes, though I'd throw in another $30 for Windows 7.
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