I have to admit the ATV Hacked is a Beautiful thing

[Scarpad]

I love my ATV as is but I have to admit ever since I ATV flashed it I'm lovin it even more. The ability of using my large library of existing Xvid Encodes is really nice. I have an Archos 605 and the same files I play on it encoded in all their 720x whatever glory look wonderful playing now from my ATV. The ability to add a USB drive is great as it give me extra storage space to throw a few seasons of a show I've yet to watch and then watch it at my leisure. The other stuff is nice too for casual viewing of Web pages (althought the ATV was not designed with that in mind) But it's the ability of dropping a file without converting that's really nice.

[LERsince1991]

how did you 'flash' it to allow it to play .avi (Xvid, divx?) files
does this void your warranty
did it cost anything?

[covertsurfer]

I'm new to this hacking AppleTV business and have come across this site (http://www.applecorellc.com/product_info.php?cPath=22&products_id=27)

Is this what you used?
Did you run it on Leopard?
Does it work?

[Scarpad]

I'm new to this hacking AppleTV business and have come across this site (http://www.applecorellc.com/product_info.php?cPath=22&products_id=27)

Is this what you used?
Did you run it on Leopard?
Does it work?


Yes that's what I used. Basically they assembled all the utilities needed to do this, they are available on the web, but they built an installer which creates the flash on a thumbdrive. With it it modifies the ATV to allow for all those features. It works well. It does probalby void the warranty, but worse comes to worse you can always reset it to factory settings by doing a restore. I had two ATV's so it did not really matter.

[Kilamite]

Can you tag non MP4 files?

[mohanman]

A hacked appletv is by the far the best streamer/media player than anything I have used in the past. Trust me, I used everything because I am addicted to home theater pc stuff. But now my system is a bunch of tivos around the house (can transfer shows between them), and appletvs. The appletv has such a beautiful interface, and my movies encoded at 720p look pretty darn good. Not quite blue ray, or 1080i movies on comcast sometimes, but pretty good nonetheless.

I used applecorellc patch to patch mine up. Can use AFP to access networked drives to playback .avi files, and dvds (dvd playback isn't that great).

It beats media center, and sage if you ask me.
Mo

[Scarpad]

A hacked appletv is by the far the best streamer/media player than anything I have used in the past. Trust me, I used everything because I am addicted to home theater pc stuff. But now my system is a bunch of tivos around the house (can transfer shows between them), and appletvs. The appletv has such a beautiful interface, and my movies encoded at 720p look pretty darn good. Not quite blue ray, or 1080i movies on comcast sometimes, but pretty good nonetheless.

I used applecorellc patch to patch mine up. Can use AFP to access networked drives to playback .avi files, and dvds (dvd playback isn't that great).

It beats media center, and sage if you ask me.
Mo


I've managed to connect an external drive to mine but could get the sharing of a network drive to work, can you give me some tips.... Are you encoding your movies to .avi's ? or still using H264? I encode my TV shows to .avi because I own a couple of Archos players, but keep my movies in the H264 format...

[KettyKrueger]

Can I just ask a couple of Q's?

1 - Does this void the warranty?
2 - Can you restore to the Apple TV's former firmware?
3 - How well does it handle DVD folders (TS Folders)?

Think that's it!

Cheers :p

[quid squid]

Can I just ask a couple of Q's?

1 - Does this void the warranty?
2 - Can you restore to the Apple TV's former firmware?
3 - How well does it handle DVD folders (TS Folders)?

Think that's it!

Cheers :p

exactly what i've been wondering. i was worried about voiding the warranty on something in the $300 range. i was also considering getting a macmini to play my dvd files, but if this works it's a couple hundred dollars cheaper. then we can hope that there is an update for 1080p in the near future.

[mohanman]

Hey guys,
Getting the afp to work is kind of a pain, but thanks to a guy in the applecorellc forums, was able to figure it out. It kind of depends if you have a factory 1.0 versus 2.02 appletv. If you have 1.0, you really don't need to do too much, but I would suggest you look at the applecorellc forums. If you have 2.02, you need to get a hold of the 1.0 appletv image from somewhere (bitorrent). I can try to explain more once you get those things going, but the first thing you need to do is patch your appletv to get ssh access.

This should not void warranty because you are not opening the appletv, and you can easily do a restore on it. I wouldn't use it to playback dvds, because it stutters a little bit. FPs needs to be 23.9. I encode my movies in x264 format because it works great with itunes.

Lates
Mo

[janph76]

Nice......I'm downloading it now :)
What do you use to edit tags for avi? I juse MetaX it doesn't accept avi files...any suggestion? Thanks

[Scarpad]

Nice......I'm downloading it now :)
What do you use to edit tags for avi? I juse MetaX it doesn't accept avi files...any suggestion? Thanks


It comes with a utility that will search for the meta information for all your shows from within the apple tv, its called sapphire

[mohanman]

Just make sure you follow the directions carefully, and review the stuff at applecorellc.com forums regarding getting afp smb working.
It does get a little complicated, but if I can do it anyone should be able to.. hehe.

[quid squid]

I wouldn't use it to playback dvds, because it stutters a little bit. FPs needs to be 23.9.

so youre saying its no good for .vobs?

[Scarpad]

Just make sure you follow the directions carefully, and review the stuff at applecorellc.com forums regarding getting afp smb working.
It does get a little complicated, but if I can do it anyone should be able to.. hehe.

It sees my computer I just cannot log into it with what should be user name and Password.

[supercooled]

I've yet to flash my ATV but I'm curious if you can get the ATV to play 1080 or 720 MKV files without any complications. Some have said it can handle 1080 but will be very touch and go.

Any comments?

[EarthDawn]

My BIG question is can you now have a movie available in multiple Genres ?

meaning can I have a genre for a movie of say Comedy and a genre I setup for my son ????

I have really wanted this 1 feature more then anything else,

thanks

[supercooled]

My BIG question is can you now have a movie available in multiple Genres ?

meaning can I have a genre for a movie of say Comedy and a genre I setup for my son ????

I have really wanted this 1 feature more then anything else,
I woudl al
thanks

I would also like a feature similar to this so I can keep the adult movies separated from the mainstream movies.

[Joy Division]

Hi, Could I use a 8GB usb stick to do the ATV install?

[Scarpad]

Hi, Could I use a 8GB usb stick to do the ATV install?

No the ATV has problems with Larger than 1gb sticks , I used a 1gb SD card I had in a reader and it worked. If you have 256 or 512 cards sitting around use those.

[tom1971]

Hi, Could I use a 8GB usb stick to do the ATV install?

Avoid sticks bigger than 1 GB - tey are known to cause problems, respectively not being recognised by ATV

[TuckBodi]

Before going and shelling out for what I'd consider an overpriced Patchstick from these commercial sites, I'd wait a few weeks to see what this guy davilla comes up with. He's claiming he's working with the plug-in devs to come up with a free, easy-to-use method for everyday ATV owners. I tend to believe him as he's the one who came up with the bootloader all these Patchsticks are using to get around Apple copyright restrictions. Info and "some" progress reports are up on atvmod.com and the awkwardtv forums.

http://forum.awkwardtv.org/

http://www.atvmod.com/forum/index.php

And a wealth of info:

http://wiki.awkwardtv.org/wiki/Main_Page

In regards to voiding warranty...No
Restore to former firmware...Yes, hold down the minus and menu button for 5 seconds
And Video Folders can be played through the NitoTV plugin

[Kuska]

I'm new to this hacking AppleTV business and have come across this site (http://www.applecorellc.com/product_info.php?cPath=22&products_id=27)

Is this what you used?
Did you run it on Leopard?
Does it work?

I'd really would like to part with the cash and purchase this (mainly for the use of an external hard drive to add more movies) but is it really as easy to install as it suggests - whilst I use my mac all the time, I'm generally just using software that provides step by step instruction and nothing more than user interface deep - Any real life experiences that could be shared ?

[tom1971]

Before going and shelling out for what I'd consider an overpriced Patchstick from these commercial sites, I'd wait a few weeks to see what this guy davilla comes up with. He's claiming he's working with the plug-in devs to come up with a free, easy-to-use method for everyday ATV owners. I tend to believe him as he's the one who came up with the bootloader all these Patchsticks are using to get around Apple copyright restrictions. Info and "some" progress reports are up on atvmod.com and the awkwardtv forums.

http://forum.awkwardtv.org/

http://www.atvmod.com/forum/index.php

And a wealth of info:

http://wiki.awkwardtv.org/wiki/Main_Page

In regards to voiding warranty...No
Restore to former firmware...Yes, hold down the minus and menu button for 5 seconds
And Video Folders can be played through the NitoTV plugin

You are correct in regards of davilla's experience. However the site is not moving since months.
There are solutions out there that are fully compliant with copyright regulations, whereas CiscoTM still distributes copyrighted material on his site.

[rynopace]

long time reader - first time poster.....

just got the ATV.....geting dizzy reading all the different methods of hacking to play divx. xvid etc file types.

i'm not too savvy with the hacking thing; can someone please point me in the right direction to do this easily and safely?

many thanks
ryan

[tom1971]

long time reader - first time poster.....

just got the ATV.....geting dizzy reading all the different methods of hacking to play divx. xvid etc file types.

i'm not too savvy with the hacking thing; can someone please point me in the right direction to do this easily and safely?

many thanks
ryan

Hi Ryan,

please contact me via email or through the link in my signaure. I can help you with your hacking problem.

[evangw]

I've yet to flash my ATV but I'm curious if you can get the ATV to play 1080 or 720 MKV files without any complications. Some have said it can handle 1080 but will be very touch and go.

Any comments?

I'm also wondering about this -- I've heard that ATV can only play up to 480p MKV files, due to the hardware being not powerful enough? I don't have an ATV, but I'm looking at getting one (they're like $120 off eBay) to hook up to a 720p TV. I don't really care about 1080p, but if I'd have to downsample all the movies I have encoded as 720p MKVs, I might as well just get a mac mini to hook up to the TV.

[tom1971]

I'm also wondering about this -- I've heard that ATV can only play up to 480p MKV files, due to the hardware being not powerful enough? I don't have an ATV, but I'm looking at getting one (they're like $120 off eBay) to hook up to a 720p TV. I don't really care about 1080p, but if I'd have to downsample all the movies I have encoded as 720p MKVs, I might as well just get a mac mini to hook up to the TV.

Apple TV is not really a good friend to mkv files. You better re-encode them. I never got them to work properly on my ATV.

[TurboLag]

I find the hack totally useless. I plan on restoring my appleTV to stock firmware.

Sure, it can play mkv's; 3 frames worth before hanging! You can browse the net, but the interface sucks (remote or wired keyboard). Also the ability to attach mass storage is pointless to me as I like to have the media streamed, so others can access it also.

My two cents.

[gocardsfan1]

Are you able to connect a hard drive to the :apple:TV without hacking it?

[TurboLag]

Are you able to connect a hard drive to the TV without hacking it?


nope.

[Capt Crunch]

will hacking the apple TV allow me to stream divx movies from my iMac without re-encoding them and putting them into iTunes? Or will I have to put them locally on the hard drive?

[dynaflash]

I'm also wondering about this -- I've heard that ATV can only play up to 480p MKV files, due to the hardware being not powerful enough? I don't have an ATV, but I'm looking at getting one (they're like $120 off eBay) to hook up to a 720p TV. I don't really care about 1080p, but if I'd have to downsample all the movies I have encoded as 720p MKVs, I might as well just get a mac mini to hook up to the TV.

Look, all of this 720p, 540p stuff is just a *part* of the equation. The options used in the h.264 video stream and the bitrate really play a larger role. 720P is just that. 1280 x 720 picture size. You could encode that size at 1000 kbps bitrate and with basically standard ipod h.264 options and the atv hardware could play it all day long at any framerate. It is an oversimplification to simply say that the atv "can only play up to 480p MKV files" . Its just not that simple. And frankly its apparent that alot of these mkv files are via bittorrent, etc where the average user has no idea how it was encoded. So, the resolution may have very little to do with it in the end.

On a stock atv (at least software wise) I regularly watch 720p mp4 content at 23.976 fps which, when encoded correctly is frankly quite awesome looking.

[tom1971]

will hacking the apple TV allow me to stream divx movies from my iMac without re-encoding them and putting them into iTunes? Or will I have to put them locally on the hard drive?

yes, you can do that and you don't need to put them on your atv.
PM me for more info.

[bpl323]

I just want an ATV App Store.

[Joy Division]

Hi,
Does anyone know if there is a apple tv torrent site out there?

[David R]

Would a hacked AppleTV allow me to watch music videos back to back automatically?

[Emkooda]

I certainly agree that a hacked ATV is a beautiful thing! I did cheat somewhat though, and purchased aTV flash. There is still a fair bit of tinkering to do, but nearly as much as is required if you are doing it all solo.

You can find them here, if anyone's interested: http://www.atvflash.com/

[tom1971]

I certainly agree that a hacked ATV is a beautiful thing! I did cheat somewhat though, and purchased aTV flash. There is still a fair bit of tinkering to do, but nearly as much as is required if you are doing it all solo.

You can find them here, if anyone's interested: http://www.atvflash.com/

At http://appletvandmore.blogspot.com/ you find basically the same product for less.