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Apple TV Upgrades: Xvid (And More) Support, 120GB HD

I am wondering:

If the AppleTV is running a modified version of OS X, can it run a FULL version of OS X?

I mean, basically it's a computer in there right?

A processor, a GPU, some RAM (I guess...) and a Hard Drive.

The only difference is that you don't have a DVI out, but an HDMI out instead.

Man, if this is correct it'll be the knockout.

If someone in the mood for testing, please tell us (You can clone the existing setup for backup if it doesn't work).
 
I know that this has been posted somewhere but I can't remember; does the ATV have a regular-sized HDD or is it laptop sized? That would make a big difference in the price of replacing the hard drive with something gigundous.
 
justflie said:
I know that this has been posted somewhere but I can't remember; does the ATV have a regular-sized HDD or is it laptop sized? That would make a big difference in the price of replacing the hard drive with something gigundous.
Click to expand...
2.5" drive and it's more then likely SATA.
 
Small hard drive

johnee said:
cost. the only thing that drives business decisions.
Click to expand...

Cost and the fact that not many people have more than 40GB of media on their local computers.

My music collection is ~31GB right now, but I really doubt I'm in the majority of iPod/iTunes users -- hence the iPod Nano selling well with its 2, 4, and 8GB capacities.

-Aaron-
 
Cool news. If the ATV is opnened up further like this perhaps I will consider purchasing one. The main reasons why I am not buying one are simply due to the lack of content which is available on the Canadian iTMS. Open up the ATV to all content, such as my donwloaded Xvids, AVIs, etc. and perhaps I'll reconsider.... perhaps...
 
Wonder if this'll present the same issue that the people who hacked their DirecTV TiVos have, where if DirecTV sends a TiVo software update, it wipes out their hacks.
 
This is good news! :D Again though, why rate this as a negative? This opens a lot of doors to people who previously weren't going to buy it because of the support format!
 
aarond12 said:
not many people have more than 40GB of media on their local computers.
Click to expand...

I would argue that this statement is quite inaccurate - on the contrary, many, many people have far more than 40GB of media on their main computer. I have over 40 GB of music alone, let alone several GBs of photos and a good 50+ GB of video content - and that's just on my local machine, not factoring in the hundreds of GBs I have on external storage which I could easily move onto my machine if necessary... Not saying I'm the norm, but I'm definitely not in the small minority as you imply. :cool:
 
As silly as it sounds, this will be great for sales, and I think Apple planned this going into it. Apparently, they made the username/password VERY easy to hack (or even guess) for the custom install of Tiger. It was frontrow:frontrow. They probably couldn't have the codecs pre-installed by them for fear of retaliation by the movie companies (let's face it, MOST but not all movies using divx or xvid or whatever are illegally obtained). But that doesn't mean they have to make it totally impossible to add this codec support on your own if you want it. The geeks (me included I guess) are going nuts about this at digg.com. Now they're asking if it's possible to wipe the HDD and do a straight-up install of OS X and use it like a low-end intel box. Now wouldn't that be interesting, a $300 computer from Apple :p
 
I think the biggest flaw in this device is the surround. I can live with everything else. Let's get mp4 surround working on this sucker.
 
min_t said:
Perhaps, this was :apple: 's intent in the first. Kill xbox360 that doesn't allow modding by letting everyone tweak :apple: tv . Could Sir Steve be that devious?
Click to expand...

He and Wozniak got started by doing some "fun things". Why not suck the "hobbiest" market over to Aple and see what pops out the other end Apple can exploit for free in its commercial market :)

You have to admit it also silences a lot of their critics by making the hacks "convenient, fun, and of great variety".

Rocketman
 
OK, I've got SSH working on this thing. I'm going to try installing a different version of IOKit. I think (fingers crossed) I might be able to get full USB support on this thing!!!!
 
justflie said:
As silly as it sounds, this will be great for sales, and I think Apple planned this going into it. Apparently, they made the username/password VERY easy to hack (or even guess) for the custom install of Tiger. It was frontrow:frontrow. They probably couldn't have the codecs pre-installed by them for fear of retaliation by the movie companies (let's face it, MOST but not all movies using divx or xvid or whatever are illegally obtained). But that doesn't mean they have to make it totally impossible to add this codec support on your own if you want it. The geeks (me included I guess) are going nuts about this at digg.com. Now they're asking if it's possible to wipe the HDD and do a straight-up install of OS X and use it like a low-end intel box. Now wouldn't that be interesting, a $300 computer from Apple :p
Click to expand...

They haven't pre invoked ARD in sharing unfortunately. Once on, assuming it is really OS X, we can access remotely!
 
~Shard~ said:
I would argue that this statement is quite inaccurate - on the contrary, many, many people have far more than 40GB of media on their main computer. I have over 40 GB of music alone, let alone several GBs of photos and a good 50+ GB of video content - and that's just on my local machine, not factoring in the hundreds of GBs I have on external storage which I could easily move onto my machine if necessary... Not saying I'm the norm, but I'm definitely not in the small minority as you imply. :cool:
Click to expand...

But the 40GB on the Apple TV is just a cache. Just like the 32Mb flash memory on the iPod. You can put all your content on a fat media-server or on an disk attached to the Airport Extreme.

40Gb does not define how much media you can access. Just how much media is cached inside the AppleTV box. I don't get the problem.

C.
 
~Shard~ said:
I would argue that this statement is quite inaccurate - on the contrary, many, many people have far more than 40GB of media on their main computer. I have over 40 GB of music alone, let alone several GBs of photos and a good 50+ GB of video content - and that's just on my local machine, not factoring in the hundreds of GBs I have on external storage which I could easily move onto my machine if necessary... Not saying I'm the norm, but I'm definitely not in the small minority as you imply. :cool:
Click to expand...
What I like is you can chose to sync a subset of a huge library to the Apple TV and then "on demand" stream anything you didn't chose to sync.

I guess it'd be nice to have enough GB to have everything cached locally on the Apple TV HD, but with options like "only keeping unwatched TV shows" synced on the Apple TV (but being able to view "watched TV shows" by streaming), it's not hard to work easily with the 40GB.
 
gugy said:
sorry for my ignorance,
Can somebody explain why is this so exciting?:confused:
Click to expand...

Well if you mean being able to put in larger disks and use other codecs ... it is simply widening the options. I need way more than 40 GIGs ASAP. If you mean the ATV in general ...

The whole thing is exciting to me, I am just a media Freak I guess. My Aperture selected entries look amazing on a 52" HD TV. This is the first time I have been able to see them this big since trying to set fire to my 35mm slides in a projector! lol

My own 1080i material exported with QT as ATV media looks astonishing! Lots more tests to do there, but this is the first time I have been able to watch my own edited work without going back to the camera from FCPro HD and hooking the camera up to my TV!

Plus my iPod is now disconteced from the main Hi Fi system since ATV makes it so easy... worth it for that alone!

I am amazed at the higher bite rate H.264 DVDs I ripped with Handbrake. I set to 1500 and they look amazing!

As soon as Apple start putting higher quality movies on iTS it will be even better ...:D

Sorry if you don't find anything exciting about ATV.:(

p.s. I made sure no 11g products were connected so I assume I have 11n speed between new Airport Extreme and ATV (any way to check?). It has synced a dozen full length movies in a couple of hours already so seems fast and it can stream movies not yet uploaded without a hic up while syncing other material.
 
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