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

Rocketman said:
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
Click to expand...

Wait a sec Rocketman, are you saying it supports ssh/scp login BEFORE any disassembly is required? As in, you could scp over the QuickTime Perian components without needing to open the device and attach the HD to your machine? 😱
 
This is what I was waiting for!

Now, streamline the process a little for those of us without weekends to spare and I'll be on this like a rabid dog
 
killmoms said:
Wait a sec Rocketman, are you saying it supports ssh/scp login BEFORE any disassembly is required? As in, you could scp over the QuickTime Perian components without needing to open the device and attach the HD to your machine? 😱
Click to expand...

From my understanding it required the HD to be plugged into another machine to enable (or install) the OpenSSH/Dropbear software, at which point the username/password is frontrow:frontrow, which is just held in /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow (or the OSX equivalent, I know it's not quite the same).

Of course this was all on the SA-tested unit.
 
killmoms said:
Wait a sec Rocketman, are you saying it supports ssh/scp login BEFORE any disassembly is required? As in, you could scp over the QuickTime Perian components without needing to open the device and attach the HD to your machine? 😱
Click to expand...

You have to open it and plug into the PATA plug on the drive, at least for now. The hackerboys over at somethingawful.com are working on a solution to install the desired features without breaking ATV open. They have 2-3 threads of approaches, each of which is likely to actually work. Remember this is a device designed for remote software update over wifi.

BTW there is no feature to detect if you have opened ATV to disable your warranty.

But remember in less than a day a hack has already been perfected to run all codecs on ATV and to load unapproved drivers and OSX resources onto it. Now it is a matter of makng an Apple unapproved installer for ATV that becomes widely distributed. I hear there is already a .torrent of the ATV disk image.

I am the sort of guy that uses Apple stuff stock for the most part too.

Rocketman
 
mrrory said:
Absolutely! I can't live without my surround sound!
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ATV is worth having even if it didn't play movies at all so why 5.1 is a deal breaker on a $299 toy is beyond me (hell a half decent iPod is more than that). If all you do is use it as a great juke box and photo projector it is great fun. Having said that I suspect the 5.1 won't be long being cracked.
Come on, give in and drive my stock up 🙂
 
skoorbevad said:
From my understanding it required the HD to be plugged into another machine to enable (or install) the OpenSSH/Dropbear software, at which point the username/password is frontrow:frontrow, which is just held in /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow (or the OSX equivalent, I know it's not quite the same).

Of course this was all on the SA-tested unit.
Click to expand...

Ah, gotcha. I thought he was saying there was already SSH on default. I was pretty sure that you did HAVE to disassemble it to get that functionality.
 
noob question

I'm quite low-tech when it comes to TV stuff so apologies if this makes no sense at all: does :apple:TV have all the hardware necessary to be used as a PVR? I understand that it doesn't have the software (yet), but now that we're finding that it is a very hackable device, would it be possible to install something like MythTV on it, and map a network drive on it for storage (and basically streaming captured video the other way toward the computer)?

A quiet and nice looking PVR for $300, with indefinitely extensible storage (through a network drive) and the highly user-friendly Apple interface would conquer the world!
 
DrEasy said:
I'm quite low-tech when it comes to TV stuff so apologies if this makes no sense at all: does :apple:TV have all the hardware necessary to be used as a PVR?
Click to expand...
Well, the only input is a USB port, but one could imagine adding a USB device to capture video (like the Elgato offerings), but you couldn't do so with only the Apple TV's hardware - if it had Firewire, you could imagine connecting it to cable boxes or whatnot, but, as it is, it'd need something additional for tuning and/or video/audio capture.
 
DrEasy said:
I'm quite low-tech when it comes to TV stuff so apologies if this makes no sense at all: does :apple:TV have all the hardware necessary to be used as a PVR? I understand that it doesn't have the software (yet), but now that we're finding that it is a very hackable device, would it be possible to install something like MythTV on it, and map a network drive on it for storage (and basically streaming captured video the other way toward the computer)?

A quiet and nice looking PVR for $300, with indefinitely extensible storage (through a network drive) and the highly user-friendly Apple interface would conquer the world!
Click to expand...

I'm not so sure I grasp what you're saying, and I don't have a lot of experience with MythTV, but you'd need a MythTV backend that could handle ripping the video. The AppleTV has no input for this -- unless somebody makes it work with a USB TV capture card, which is highly unlikely at this point. Even if it did work that way, it would be a rather wonky setup given the relatively slow storage contained in it and lack of any MPEG-encoding hardware which would tax the not-so-beefy processor.

If the software on the AppleTV can be fully replaced, you might be able to use it as a frontend given an appropriate OSX port exists -- I think the ideal option would be to get the AppleTV interface reading from something that isn't iTunes, first -- sort of in the way something like XBMC can just read the contents of an SMB share.
 
jsw said:
Well, the only input is a USB port,
Click to expand...

Actually not true. It has 100BT Ethernet. It has 802.11 a/g/n wifi. USB is disabled.

Plenty can be done with ethernet and wifi.

Remember it is a store-forward device. The theory is the 50 hours of viewing it serves on the local 40GB HD is sufficient so items you view and are done with can be erased (which exist on the home computer) and replaced by newer content 24/7.

It's a good concept. I see no need for a HD upgrade and the only limit to the existing deal is codecs and those will have 3rd party installers in a few days.

If hackers are replacing their XBMC and HTPC after one day, it at least does not suck and is underpriced. 🙂

Rocketman
 
From Awkward, one of the SA posters who's been working on this:

Okay, here are the "official" goals right now:

First priority:
Build a script that will dig through any number of arbitrary mounts (samba, nfs, etc) and find media files there and create ref movies for them. Then this script should somehow add the movies to the binary library at /mnt/Media/Media Library (unless there's a way to Applescript it through Frontrow).

Second priority:
Get ssh access without opening the box

Third priority:
Enable normal finder and get OS X semi-functional. Also continue development to try for Linux/Windows/whatever on it.

Comedy option:
Get mplayer working and build a new UI instead of frontrow

There's a lot of discussion going on in #perian on Freenode if you want to hop in.
Click to expand...

That gives you kind of a short-term list of things that should end up happening. If it were up to me (and I had one to play with), I would make getting SSH access without opening the box priority 1. This quickly opens up your field to anyone who wants to play with it and not just thos who are brave enough to crack it.
 
ahhh, now this indeed is nice. Might have to drop $240 on this item now..and throw in a larger hard drive too😀
An interface allowing you to select anything would be nice...although I think a set up simply allowing you to connect a secondary drive would be ideal, although even better would be the ability to have it access a networked drive...but i'm getting ahead of myself...
 
killmoms said:
... 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. ...
Click to expand...

Heh... It was largely due to the efforts of hackers of several decades ago, who began experimenting with integrated circuit chips intended to be used only on calculators that the whole "personal computer" industry began...

Now, the fact that Apple TV might introduce hordes of new hackers to the world of Apple, OS X, etc. is what Martha Stewart would refer to as being "a good thing." 😛
 
ObsidianIce said:
An interface allowing you to select anything would be nice...although I think a set up simply allowing you to connect a secondary drive would be ideal, although even better would be the ability to have it access a networked drive...but i'm getting ahead of myself...
Click to expand...

One SH guy already figured out where and how to add items to Front Row. Kinda like adding items to your Apple menu or your browser shortcut bar.

ATV already synchs with and streams from up to 5 wireless or wired PC's or NAS out of the box. So you got your wish and didn't even realize it. That's Apple for ya . . . insanely great 🙂

Rocketman
 
skoorbevad said:
I would make getting SSH access without opening the box priority 1. This quickly opens up your field to anyone who wants to play with it and not just thos who are brave enough to crack it.
Click to expand...
Definitely, ssh without opening the box would be great. That would enable simple GUI based hacks for mere mortals. 🙂

I have only a few divx movies, I guess it would not be the end of the world to convert them, but it might take a while. A friend of mine gives me some divx encoded movies once in a while and it would be nice if I could watch them on TV without plugging a laptop. Considering the low number of legal movies in this format, I can see why Apple does not support it out of the box. (None of these movies are available in the US, so this is pretty much the only way I can access them.)
 
theBB said:
Definitely, ssh without opening the box would be great. That would enable simple GUI based hacks for mere mortals. 🙂 ...
Click to expand...

Oh come on... you know you want to... it's sitting there begging/pleading for its box to be cracked open.

When did any bad ever happen from doing so... err, except that one time with that gal named Pandora? Go 'head... do it. You know you want to! 😛
 
skoorbevad said:
... If it were up to me (and I had one to play with), I would make getting SSH access without opening the box priority 1. This quickly opens up your field to anyone who wants to play with it and not just thos who are brave enough to crack it.
Click to expand...

The down side would be that if you could easily install SSH remotely (without jumping through hoops, hopefully all password protected) that would basically mean that a box (on your local network) could be easily cracked by anyone (remote) from virtually anywhere, at anytime. Not good...
 
jsw said:
Well, the only input is a USB port, but one could imagine adding a USB device to capture video (like the Elgato offerings), but you couldn't do so with only the Apple TV's hardware - if it had Firewire, you could imagine connecting it to cable boxes or whatnot, but, as it is, it'd need something additional for tuning and/or video/audio capture.
Click to expand...
I see now, thanks! So an ideal device would be something that combines:

- the price-point and size of :apple:TV,
- the video and audio output of the :apple:TV,
- the audio/video wireless streaming software of :apple:TV,

with:

- the full OS X experience of Mac Mini (or at least the subset of it which wouldn't fry the processor),
- the integrated DVD player of Mac Mini,

with:

- the TV capture hardware and software of something like El-Gato EyeTV. If that makes this hypothetical device twice as thick, so be it. It would still be an elegant all-in-one device with no wiring hell.

with:

- DVD-ripping software,
- and the possibility of audio/video streaming from this device back to the main computer for network storage purposes. The newly stored show would then be available through FrontRow (or whatever interface is currently provided by :apple:TV).
 
Doctor Q said:
Thanks for your answer about Folding@home. But why wouldn't you have the same problems if you used your :apple:TV for hours on end for its intended purposes? Is there nothing in its feature set that taxes the CPU?
Click to expand...
I'll expand on what I said earlier.

Apple knows how hot it gets playing movies, and put in a fan big enough to handle that load (and probably not much bigger, to keep it cheap and quiet).

If we assume that the GPU is doing some of the decoding, it is likely that the CPU is not at 100% all of the time.

Folding would run the CPU at 100%, which would mean possibly more heat than playing videos. Possibly more heat that the fan was designed to handle.

In other words, if the wattage used by the CPU+GPU playing movies is less than the wattage used by the CPU running Folding - then Folding could cause problems due to excessive heating.

Folding will also increase your power bill.
 
motulist said:
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.
Click to expand...

Importantly: ... could be installed, including a finder, _without opening the case_.
 
gnasher729 said:
Amazingly, the major complaint on Slashdot is not lack of 1080p support, but missing support for the old 4:3 TV 😱
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Guess they have not seen this page yet then:

"And yet there I was, with a 480i (that's "standard definition", what non-HD TVs have) option right in the Apple TV settings. See for yourself..."

http://www.rogueamoeba.com/utm/posts/Article/appleTV-2007-03-22-21-30.html#up2-2007-03-22

You just have to have component input on your TV or Receiver and it works 🙂
 
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