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

[AidenShaw]

You might burn it up

In theory, could you install and run Folding@home on the TV?

A Pentium M puts out a lot of heat when the CPU is under full load - the cooling system in the iTV might not be spec'd for that, it might be designed to handle the load of video display only. (If the GPU is doing a lot of the work, the CPU might not be that stressed.)

Actually, "burn the CPU up" isn't likely - Pentiums have temperature sensors, and will slow down to protect themselves if the temp gets too high. A Pentium 4 can run without a heat sink and not be damaged.

You might fry the disk and other components.

 

[skellener]

All of this is good news about how hackable the AppleTV is. I wonder if at some point somebody will get the XBOX 360 HD-DVD drive (or even a generic regular DVD drive) hooked up working with the AppleTV?

 

[Rocketman]

All of this is good news about how hackable the AppleTV is. I wonder if at some point somebody will get the XBOX 360 HD-DVD drive (or even a generic regular DVD drive) hooked up working with the AppleTV?

Since you can stream from any of 5 computers you do not actually need a bigger disc or external discs. This is wireless NAS.

You do need codecs.

Rocketman

 

[Digitalclips]

Check THIS out!

Check this out

Rocketman

Thanks for the info ... I think we can safely say this baby won't boot!

On the other hand it makes you see how much Apple can do with OS X...

 

[motulist]

Thanks for the info ... I think we can safely say this baby won't boot!

On the other hand it makes you see how much Apple can do with OS X...

Um, it does boot its native version of OS X. Do you mean it can't boot up into full OS X? If so, what specs on that list lead you to that conclusion?

 

[hanoimac]

I will not hack my ATV till find out WTH the USB is really for... what if next week Apple announces you can hook up extenal HD to ATV ???

 

[dongmin]

I did a little reading of digg this morning and those guys are mostly PC hackers with an emphasis on linux and windblows. These guys are whipping out their credit cards and buying AppleTV's by the dozens!

Some several each.

Why?

Hacked to play every major vid format and soon 5.1 audio too.

Hacked to be a router.

Hacked to be a mailserver.

Hacked to serve the content on their PC content servers via Apple TV to play their many "Apple unsupported video formats".

OR you could just build a pc box for $300...

 

[skoorbevad]

I will not hack my ATV till find out WTH the USB is really for... what if next week Apple announces you can hook up extenal HD to ATV ???

Won't work. The OS on the AppleTV appears to lack the appropriate IOKit to support full USB storage. For now. It might be possible to take a stock 10.4.7 install and insert the appropriate driver dependencies into the filesystem, in which case it MAY work with a patch, but it doesn't out of the box with it's current software. Several of the *.kext files are missing to support this kind of thing.

I'm still not sold on the product, but if a good homebrew scene appears and can provide a good upgrade path from something like XBMC, I may be.

 

[willybNL]

You've seen it comming:

"How can I install windows media center on this apple tv..."



If OS X runs fully, Parallels should work.....

Someone care to set a bounty for it ????

 

[Digitalclips]

OR you could just build a pc box for $300...

So I wonder why no enterprising Geek hasn't been successfully selling $300 home made PC boxes that do what ATV does all this time?

 

[crees!]

I will not hack my ATV till find out WTH the USB is really for... what if next week Apple announces you can hook up extenal HD to ATV ???

Actually it's a Federal law in the US to have a USB/FW port on video hardware such as this, correct?

 

[skoorbevad]

You've seen it comming:

"How can I install windows media center on this apple tv..."



If OS X runs fully, Parallels should work.....

Someone care to set a bounty for it ????

Dothan chips do not support hardware virtualization. So, never.

Not to mention, the RAM appears soldered to the board -- put a pre-Core Duo processor in your machine and reduce the RAM to 256MB, and fire up parallels. When you stop crying, you'll see why this is a problem.

Edit: As an interesting side-note, it might be remotely possible to load windows (assuming it's EFI compatible -- if the iTV even uses EFI, which presumably it must) natively with an attached parallel CDROM. AFAIK, however, Vista is the only version which might claim to support EFI, and it would choke on itself given the hardware it has to use.

 

[killmoms]

OR you could just build a pc box for $300...

Yeah, try to _build_ a $300 mini-ITX box that can play HD video.

Why would you encourage that over money going to Apple anyway? I'm glad this is taking off thanks to the efforts of hackers—more money in Apple's pockets means more fantastic products from our favorite company.

Or are you one of MacRumors' PC trolls?

 

[Digitalclips]

Um, it does boot its native version of OS X. Do you mean it can't boot up into full OS X? If so, what specs on that list lead you to that conclusion?

Yes I meant as in boot up if the HD were attached to another Mac. I read it has no Finder as we know it thus no desktop to mount. I'd love to be able to mount via Apple Remote Desktop just to add stuff such as codecs. But with no Finder (as I understand it) that isn't going to be possible.

 

[Digitalclips]

Yeah, try to _build_ a $300 mini-ITX box that can play HD video.

Why would you encourage that over money going to Apple anyway? I'm glad this is taking off thanks to the efforts of hackers—more money in Apple's pockets means more fantastic products from our favorite company.

Or are you one of MacRumors' PC trolls?

Well stated AAPL $150 by 2008 maybe ?

 

[Doctor Q]

A Pentium M puts out a lot of heat when the CPU is under full load - the cooling system in the iTV might not be spec'd for that, it might be designed to handle the load of video display only. (If the GPU is doing a lot of the work, the CPU might not be that stressed.)

Actually, "burn the CPU up" isn't likely - Pentiums have temperature sensors, and will slow down to protect themselves if the temp gets too high. A Pentium 4 can run without a heat sink and not be damaged.

You might fry the disk and other components.

Thanks for your answer about Folding@home. But why wouldn't you have the same problems if you used your TV for hours on end for its intended purposes? Is there nothing in its feature set that taxes the CPU?

 

[motulist]

Yes I meant as in boot up if the HD were attached to another Mac. I read it has no Finder as we know it thus no desktop to mount. I'd love to be able to mount via Apple Remote Desktop just to add stuff such as codecs. But with no Finder (as I understand it) that isn't going to be possible.

True, but I'm sure Apple built in a system for updates. If our friendly neighborhood hackers can figure out the update system then potentially any software could be installed, including a finder. Potentially.

 

[Digitalclips]

Well stated AAPL $150 by 2008 maybe ?

OK guys... BIG problem with ATV. Sorry I know I have been so positive till now.

My dear wife is one of those ... not interested in technology types. can't understand why I wanted HD TV, etc. etc. etc ... never even tried to learn how to use any of our (seven last count) remotes for FiOS TV, Satellite TV, Off Air HD, Amp, DVD, DVDR, ... you know what I mean. No interest what so ever.

I can't get the damned remote back from her she learned how to use the whole interface in ten seconds flat ... she LOVES ATV!!! I want my ATV back!

AAAGGGHH!

 

[williedigital]

what's the deal with reference movies? you have to create a quicktime ref movie (movie.mov) for every non-standard file that you want to add to itunes and stream to the itv? is this because it wont read the .avi container or won't read divx encoded files? because i have lots of divx encoded files in the .mp4 container.

 

[killmoms]

what's the deal with reference movies? you have to create a quicktime ref movie (movie.mov) for every non-standard file that you want to add to itunes and stream to the itv? is this because it wont read the .avi container or won't read divx encoded files? because i have lots of divx encoded files in the .mp4 container.

It won't read the AVI container. Obviously it reads DivX files because of Perian. The reference movie is just to fool QuickTime on the Apple TV into thinking it's a QuickTime file, when it really just points back to the contents of the original AVI.

 

[joshwest]

Won't work. The OS on the AppleTV appears to lack the appropriate IOKit to support full USB storage. For now. It might be possible to take a stock 10.4.7 install and insert the appropriate driver dependencies into the filesystem, in which case it MAY work with a patch, but it doesn't out of the box with it's current software. Several of the *.kext files are missing to support this kind of thing.

I'm still not sold on the product, but if a good homebrew scene appears and can provide a good upgrade path from something like XBMC, I may be.

i think apple is going to becoming out with idisk's that are in the shape of apple tv and airport extreme station and be usb add on storage just watch.

 

[skoorbevad]

Yeah, try to _build_ a $300 mini-ITX box that can play HD video.

Why would you encourage that over money going to Apple anyway? I'm glad this is taking off thanks to the efforts of hackers—more money in Apple's pockets means more fantastic products from our favorite company.

Or are you one of MacRumors' PC trolls?

Been done, though not in mini-ITX form (which I don't think the AppleTV is? Maybe? Unsure). See the original Xbox and XBMC, which is an incredibly mature and free product. Hardware-wise it's about half the cost and can play 720p video, but it's not really a build-your-own option, outside of the software tooling aspect.

Outside of subsidizing costs through mass-manufacturing or taking a potential profit loss on the hopes it would boost iTunes revenue, it's not likely possible, but there are other alternatives to this that arguably do a better job.

 

[killmoms]

Been done, though not in mini-ITX form. See the original Xbox and XBMC, which is an incredibly mature and free product. Hardware-wise it's about half the cost and can play 720p video.

Outside of subsidizing costs through mass-manufacturing or taking a potential profit loss on the hopes it would boost iTunes revenue, it's not likely possible, but there are other alternatives to this that arguably do a better job.

I said "build," not "buy a competing media extender product." Sure you could buy an original Xbox with XBMC. You could also buy a Slingbox, or any one of a number of other media extenders which compete with Apple TV. That wasn't the point in question though.

 

[Rocketman]

what's the deal with reference movies? you have to create a quicktime ref movie (movie.mov) for every non-standard file that you want to add to itunes and stream to the itv? is this because it wont read the .avi container or won't read divx encoded files? because i have lots of divx encoded files in the .mp4 container.

It forces the program to boot that reads Divx and other codecs. That way it is runnig alongside whatever Apple has already blessed.

Nobody has yet gotten USB to work but they have identified the resources needed. Since ATV has a software update that is not user initiated, one will have to keep an image of the "added fatures" to readd after each Apple imposed software update if it does anythig but overwrite the minimal changed things.

One user already proposed a folder with full OSX resources be aliased in the ATV resource folder, waiting to hear if that works.

Keep in mind this is all hacker stuff. The stock ATV is surprising folks with what it can do and the lowest level of "hack" is to simply install codecs so it plays for formats of files not "officially supported by Apple" due to licensing issues or elements of their contracts with production companies.

No (firewire) target disc mode. No keyboard support installed. It does do verbose logon initiated by a keyboard command and does get recognized in Remote Desktop. SSH works (user/password: frontrow/frontrow)

To ssh in you use: ssh -p 22222 frontrow@1.2.3.4
To scp stuff to it use: scp -P 22222 /path/to/localfile frontrow@1.2.3.4:/path/to/senditto

Have fun guys and whether you use it stock or do the wild thing, it seems to appeal to both the light and dark side of computer users.

Buy Apple stock. Get your women their own display device, quick, while you still have a chance.

It supports 480i.

Rocketman

 

[SeaFox]

Actually it's a Federal law in the US to have a USB/FW port on video hardware such as this, correct?

You're thinking of digital converter boxes for cable TV service. The difference here being:

1. Apple is not a cable company, so the laws do not apply to them.
2. The box is not a converter for cable services, it is not the only way to view iTMS purchases (since you can use your computer). But the only way to watch encrypted digital cable is with a converter box or CableCard.