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aTV Flash 3.4.5 & ATV 2.3

Hawkeye411

Hawkeye411

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jun 6, 2007
1,833
12
Canada EH!!!
I just got my ATV yesterday and I'm thinking about hacking it :D

Has anyone tried aTV Flash 3.4.5 to determine how well it works with ATV 2.3?
 
Thanks for the free link!!

Do you know if this works with ATV 2.3? I'm kind of nervous about breaking my new ATV.

Thanks.
 
Hawkeye411 said:
Thanks for the free link!!

Do you know if this works with ATV 2.3? I'm kind of nervous about breaking my new ATV.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't be nervous if I were you. I hacked mine's last week, but after using it for a while I decided I preferred the original interface to the XBMC or the Boxee ones. Boxee also has limited uses for me as I'm in the UK. So I stuck to using the original interface.

Last night, just to tidy up the front screen and remove the XBMC & Boxee options, I did a factory restore and the Apple TV is now just as it was coming out of the box. A worthwhile experiment and I'm glad I tried it, but its not for me.
 
Hawkeye411 said:
I just got my ATV yesterday and I'm thinking about hacking it :D

Has anyone tried aTV Flash 3.4.5 to determine how well it works with ATV 2.3?
Click to expand...

Check http://www.patchstick.ca/Patchstick.html
for a nicer UI and a more intuitive patching process. They also offer online updates without having to re-create your USB stick every time thee is a change or you want to de-install a plugin. And they are less expensive.
 
I agree with Post #2, save your money and use the free directions. It's easy to do and of course is free. I did not have any problems doing it and it took only a few minutes.

I did however remove Boxee the other day. I'm not impressed with it. It sure adds more options and seems to work great but the menus are clunky and I just did not like it. I hope someday there is an update that will make the GUI much better. Again it works great and it's free so try it.
 
I have everything working. I will admit that, after trying to do the install myself, I did a factory rest and installed using aTV Flash :eek:

After I completed the aTV Flash install, I had to use the Terminal Window to install USB hard drive support and then I set it up so that iTunes would automatically sync with the 250GB USB hard drive instead of the 40GB internal HD. I can still access the internal HD using the Files menu on the ATV and I can FTP movies into it if need be. So now I can sync my entire iTunes library with ATV WOO HOOOO:D

Pretty happy so far. Thanks for the comments. I realize now that you can do just about anything to the ATV and then simply do a factory rest if you need to. I learned a lot in the past couple days.

Cheers.
:):apple:
 
An apple tv with boxee on it will play 720p videos in the mkv container which an unhacked apple tv is unable to do. You are still limited by the but rate and profile limitations of playing hd video on the apple tv.
 
srl7741 said:
I did however remove Boxee the other day. I'm not impressed with it. It sure adds more options and seems to work great but the menus are clunky and I just did not like it. I hope someday there is an update that will make the GUI much better.
Click to expand...

Agree, I don't understand all the fascination with Boxee on ATV. The UI is horrible - slow and cumbersome. Exact opposite of ATV minimalist approach to UI. More problematically, the quality of streamed content is very poor, almost not watchable. So I gave up on Boxee until they make fundamental improvements to the program.
 
hitekalex said:
Agree, I don't understand all the fascination with Boxee on ATV. The UI is horrible - slow and cumbersome. Exact opposite of ATV minimalist approach to UI. More problematically, the quality of streamed content is very poor, almost not watchable. So I gave up on Boxee until they make fundamental improvements to the program.
Click to expand...

I agree, I am not impressed either.
 
Yes I agree with you guys. I really don't like what Boxee has to offer so I didn't install it. What I do like is the ability to use an external hard drive and the ability to watch many different video formats (e.g. avi, raw DVD, etc.) and to send files to the ATV wirelessly. I was impressed with the ATV when I first got it but now it is absolutely amazing.

Tonight I said to my wife that I have the best TV setup a guy could ever want. She laughed and replied, "Yea ... until next month when some new cool device comes out!" LOL!!

Cheers.
:) :apple:
 
Boxee has one saving grace

Agree with much of above re Boxee but the addition of BBC iplayer has been excellent for me. I'm in UK so no issues re playback, also use hotspot shield for US content which does work but slows things down.

Highlight of ATV-USB for me has been Last-FM (nice visualiser) playing on TV when friends are round and Couch Surfer with Remote on touch for input - great for quickly checking on bookmarked webpages during ad break etc.

Boxee for me is only really viable early in the morning when streaming is at its quickest - otherwise seldom use afternoon/evening. Needs further development but I'm sticking with it for now.
 
ATV Flash works well , but after I upgraded to 2.3 I saw no point in hacking mine, I thought Avi Files, while they worked did'nt look great with Boxee and XBMC, I did'nt like XBMC at all, I have a PS3 also and if I want to use AVI's I'll stick with playing them on the PS3 they upconvert to 1080p and look fantastic, ATV works well with H264 I'll stick for that for my Encodes and the PS3 for all my AVI Needs.
 
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