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...That may include EFI hacks (firmware hacks, preventing the @TV from booting from an unsigned internal or external drive at all) which would be terrible news for the modding community.

IIRC that would be an example of one of the potential capabilities that was designed into EFI right from the start. You know, the whole Trusted Computing initiative... So I don't suppose it could be classified as a "hack".
 
I'm hoping Apple doesnt take the Sony approach by constantly sending firmware updates. Then again each update for the psp gets cracked pretty fast.

I don't see why they would. Apple is not losing money on each device like sony does. Sony has economic interest to keep people from running homebrew (they recover the cost by selling games).

Apple does have itunes to sell stuff but since they haven't done anything about ipod firware why would they about the apple tv?
 
I completely agree with you, I think Steve Jobs is sitting in front of his iMac (or :apple:TV with Safari?) with a big box of popcorn and an equally large grin on his face as he reads the somethingawful forum thread.

Call me mad, but I think apple actualy wants this to be the world's most modded device. It's fun for us, generated interest and sales and with a mini Mac OS X, a whole world of options are possible. I think this is part of the reason they added the USB port.

Sure he does. That's how he'll know what features to add for ATV II. It's very smart, and also, ultimately, responsive both to Apple's needs and those of the users.
 
I think apple actualy wants this to be the world's most modded device

The silence out of Infinite Loop is actually deafening.

Did Apple even react to the OS image being passed around on the Torrents?

What's nice about this, is that they may have found a way to mod it without opening it up. A build of Darwin and some scripts could put everything in place for you, and it wouldn't be illegal since Darwin is open source.
 
OK. Maybe I'm missing something?

1. Create image of the original hard drive. (Or download)
2. Copy OS.img to new external hard drive.
3. Connect external hard drive into :apple: TV via USB.
4. After normal startup using internal drive , hold down (-) and MENU.
5. Apple TV boots using the external hard drive to a recovery menu.
6. You are prompted to select Restore to Original Condition, Restart or Run Diagnostic Mode.

Now what? How is this helpful?

Update: The AwkwardTV wiki has been updated to reflect that the :apple: TV OS disables USB during startup. This prevents the external disc from fully booting.

So bottom line, you can't use the external hard drive as a replacement for the internal as of yet.
 
Hackers these days can do it all. And people are worried that the iPhone will only run Apple approved apps. Just let these people get their hands on one and anything can happen.
 
The silence out of Infinite Loop is actually deafening.

Did Apple even react to the OS image being passed around on the Torrents?

What's nice about this, is that they may have found a way to mod it without opening it up. A build of Darwin and some scripts could put everything in place for you, and it wouldn't be illegal since Darwin is open source.

The @TV has only been sold for a few days, and the hacking really didn't start straight away. Meanwhile, IIRC, Apple took several weeks to respond to the cracked Mac OS X for Intel appearing.

So I wouldn't read anything into the fact they haven't taken legal action yet.

Now, if someone hacked the @TV to display pictures of forthcoming Apple products, photographed in elevators, then Apple legal would spring into action...
 
UMMM, now that ppl have figured out how to boot :apple: tv on a macbook, doesn't this mean, with a download or rip of the :apple: tv OS you could hook your mac up to a tv and not even need to purchase an :apple: tv in the first place?
 
OK. Maybe I'm missing something?

1. Create image of the original hard drive. (Or download)
2. Copy OS.img to new external hard drive.
3. Connect external hard drive into :apple: TV via USB.
4. After normal startup using internal drive , hold down (-) and MENU.
5. Apple TV boots using the external hard drive to a recovery menu.
6. You are prompted to select Restore to Original Condition, Restart or Run Diagnostic Mode.

Now what? How is this helpful?

It's a step towards something useful. The "Hello world" computer program isn't that useful either, but it's always a major milestone when a compiler can turn it into something runnable.

Update: The AwkwardTV wiki has been updated to reflect that the :apple: TV OS disables USB during startup. This prevents the external disc from fully booting.

Just to be clear, it's not clear the OS "disables" USB during startup, it's just as likely it just doesn't support USB and so doesn't see it. Whatever the case, a modified @TVOSX should be possible either with generic Darwin with no code to "disable" USB, or device drivers capable of seeing the @TV USB hardware installed.

Most of the fuss about getting USB to work has focussed on people copying across the HID drivers. In reality, to get USB working requires lower level drivers to work that may or may not work with the @TV, OHCI/UHCI/etc with PCI, all recognizing the correct device IDs et al.

The bottom line is that this is a step towards a usable system. A port of Darwin that recognizes the USB hardware could be used to create a generic, reliable, no soldering skills required, system to open up the @TV. This discovery appears to point in a direction proving it's possible.
 
UMMM, now that ppl have figured out how to boot :apple: tv on a macbook, doesn't this mean, with a download or rip of the :apple: tv OS you could hook your mac up to a tv and not even need to purchase an :apple: tv in the first place?

You can do that anyway, with the right cables.

@TV isn't about hooking your Mac up to the TV. That's already possible. @TV is about having a standalone set top box that accesses your media library from the TV, leaving your computer in the other room where it "belongs".
 
OK. Maybe I'm missing something?

1. Create image of the original hard drive. (Or download)
2. Copy OS.img to new external hard drive.
3. Connect external hard drive into :apple: TV via USB.
4. After normal startup using internal drive , hold down (-) and MENU.
5. Apple TV boots using the external hard drive to a recovery menu.
6. You are prompted to select Restore to Original Condition, Restart or Run Diagnostic Mode.

Now what? How is this helpful?

Update: The AwkwardTV wiki has been updated to reflect that the :apple: TV OS disables USB during startup. This prevents the external disc from fully booting.

So bottom line, you can't use the external hard drive as a replacement for the internal as of yet.

The significance is that this is "proof of concept": The Apple TV _will_ to boot from any external USB drive. So all that needs to be done now is create a boot image that works. This opens the possibility of hacking the Apple TV _without_ opening the box, which people would be unwilling to do.

Before this, it was necessary to open the Apple TV box, remove the harddisk, hack the harddisk, and put it back in the Apple TV box. That is now unnecessary. The obvious next step is to remove the code that turns USB off, and you can boot from an external disk without ever opening or modifying the Apple TV itself.
 
Hackers these days can do it all. And people are worried that the iPhone will only run Apple approved apps. Just let these people get their hands on one and anything can happen.

There is a slight difference here. The first step to hacking the Apple TV was the obvious one to remove the harddisk. With any computer, you can open it, remove the harddisk, plug it into another computer, modify it and put it back in. That will be a lot lot more difficult with the iPhone. It will be more difficult to open (it may be impossible to open at all), and it has flash memory inside - much more difficult to remove and modify in another computer. The second step was going through USB; the iPhone has no USB.
 
Now what? How is this helpful?

gnasher729 explained it pretty well.

You can create a bootable Darwin (the open source base code for OS X) to boot off of the external USB drive.

What this opens up is the possibility of automated scripts being placed in the Open Source boot image that mounts the internal drive and adds all the codecs to play xvid, wmv, etc., as well as ssh or VNC.

Once this is done once, you can now access the apple TV from your Mac / PC without using the external USB disk, and without having to void your warranty. If it doesn't work for you, restore the original boot image.

All the artificial limitations can now be removed. If the device can support things like 5.1 surround (still an issue right now), it may be possible to put together a driver that will support it.

Then there are the hackers who have to be the first to do something, just to prove they can do it. The World of Warcraft hack isn't very usable, but now he can say he did it.

It won't be too long before Linux and possibly some version of windows will be running on it.

Who knows, if the hackers expose its capabilities, Apple might just give in and support some additional codecs.
 
Projector

I think someone asked about hooking this up to a projector. Of course you can, it just outputs a video signal. Most (all) have either HDMI, component or DVI inputs so you're good to go!
 
What is THE PURPOSE?

What is the purpose of rebooting AppleTV on a macbook. It does not make any sense in what anyone is trying to accomplish here. The purpose of AppleTV is to be able to pick up the tv programs and movies from another computer across the house. I think that it is great device to a certain extent, but I think that AppleTV is a piece of crap to the extent that you can not have closed caption or english subtitle for the hearing impaired. I see this so-called AppleTV video showing someone has accomplish some great feat that he was able to pull off the system software off of AppleTV and boot it up on the macbook. So what. I can take my hard drives from various apple computers and PCs and boot it up on a Apple Intel-chip computer. So, what is the big hype here. I think that there is one great advantage here with AppleTV is that I can change the size of the hard drive. That is good, but doen't AppleTV sync with your computer that has the programs and movies and plays them from your computer to AppleTV to your TV set. Hmmm. But still for me as a hearing-impaired person, I can't use it because it has NO closed caption. Bummer. Steve Jobs, you are a disappointment to the hearing impaired in the Apple Community. :-(
 
I don't see why they would. Apple is not losing money on each device like sony does. Sony has economic interest to keep people from running homebrew (they recover the cost by selling games).

Apple does have itunes to sell stuff but since they haven't done anything about ipod firware why would they about the apple tv?

This is a good point.

Now let's see this thing boot OS X, Vista, and Linux off of assorted USB drives.

A $299 Apple Server!!!

Vist needs 10 gig of ram to run...you think this lil box could run vista? It would probably set fire
 
If nothing else, it means you can use a much larger external drive for storage without opening the Apple TV.

It also means one could use the Apple TV, yes, as a computer with your TV as the monitor. Not an incredibly powerful computer with tons of RAM, but a usable computer nevertheless.

Isn't there a way to upgrade the RAM? I remember that long specs list posted on the SomethingAwful forums where it specifically mentioned there being two RAM slots with only one having a DIMM in it.

Here is what people really wanted.

Now they can install this on a USB drive and re-boot the ATV and have a really nice Myth TV front end.

I think the Apple Front end is pretty nice looking, the only thing Myth-like that the Apple TV really needs is the ability to record TV shows off an external tuner module. And I guess a weather module wouldn't be bad. :D

Cool! :D This almost seems too good to be true. Is anyone else's cynical senses tingling? Like, Apple's gonna come along with a software update and BAM no more USB booting without special Apple encrypted boot loader something or other?

I do. Like an encrypted checksum value for the OS image that is verified at boot to ensure the OS hasn't been altered or added to.
 
OK, so where are we?

I'm curious for a non-technical-speak explanation of the current status of these developments.

Also, can someone explain whether these developments change what I saw yesterday at a apple store... I thought that the iTunes movie images being output on the HDTV's at the store by the :apple: TV looked Horrible... Very pixelly...

Also, would handbrake'd movies look better?

THanks for any explanations!
 
Also, would handbrake'd movies look better?
Yes... I've had much better luck with non-Apple-provided content.

For what it's worth, though, some of the iTunes Music Store TV selections, particularly children's animated programs, aren't too bad.

As far as the current state: while it would seem many people might do lots of "Mac lite" enhancements to turn it into a mini Mac mini, I think that most people would be happy with a way to use an external USB drive to provide more storage and a few codecs to play different movie types. Other options would be nice, but I think those two things - more storage and more video options (including 1080p if possible) - would make most of us pretty happy.
 
I would dive for this :apple: TV if it can run OS X Leopard on it =D (Am I dreaming?) XD I don't mind having a $300 computer heeheehee....

I'm sure Apple purposely did not include things to block us from hacking. Their statement is simple:a "lighter" version of OS X does not mean it is that much less powerful. Or maybe Apple is already firing the ppl who made this (though I doubt this).

But as I said, I want OS X Leopard on this thing. I'll buy it FOR SURE NO MATTER WHAT.
 
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