MacDailyNews - Where Mac news comes first

 MacDailyNews Poll

Deal of the Day

5 Day Most Commented

Opinion Archive

Current Headlines

Latest Joy of Tech

  • Latest Joy of Tech!

MacNN

AppleInsider

Macworld UK

TUAW

MacRumors

Yahoo! Finance AAPL

iTunes Top 10 Albums

Mac OS X Downloads

Fri, Nov 20, 2009 - 11:58 PM EST  —  AAPL: 199.92 (-0.59, -0.29%)  |  NASDAQ: 2146.04 (-10.78, -0.5%)

Hacking Apple TV
Friday, February 06, 2009 - 02:00 PM EST

"The Apple TV hacker’s first stop should be the ATV USB Creator site, home of the premier tool for installing the basic access code into an Apple TV without having to rip the hardware apart to get your hands on the hard drive," Nick Hawkesmoor reports for Register Hardware.

"There are versions of the utility for Mac and Windows machines. Both take a USB stick — it’s dubbed a ‘patchstick’ in Apple TV hacking circles — and prep it for connection to the Apple TV’s otherwise-unused USB port. ATV USB Creator will grab the latest Apple TV system software from Apple, pull out the important components and add the code that’ll be installed at runtime. The result is a Flash drive [from which] the Apple TV will boot," Hawkesmoor reports.

"By default, ATV USB Creator will prep the drive with SSH; some general tools; a software acquisition tool for the Apple TV; XMBC, an open source media manager; and Boxee, an open source media sharing system," Hawkesmoor reports.

More Apple TV hacking in the full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "Sosumi" for the heads up.]

Bookmark and Share

Always -- Free ground shipping with orders over $50 at the Apple Store.

Reader Feedback: = registered.
Unregistered users: Feedback from multiple usernames are subject to deletion. Off-topic and posts from suspected astroturfers will be removed.

Feb 06, 09 - 02:40 pm Comment from: BillyBob@home

Zzzzzzzzzzz. Slow news day, huh?

Feb 06, 09 - 02:55 pm Comment from: the other steve jobs

Honestly, i had totally abandoned the Apple TV hacking crowd a few months after I got it.

Once someone showed me ho far they had gotten - i'm completely back into it. While the current rev of upgrades is impressive, they're pretty buggy - that's not a complaint, that's just a statement of fact. But i usually can pull of watching something great, like The A-Team or the original Knight Rider via Hulu on my big-ass TV thanks to this crowd.

Very much love to the AppleTV Hackers!

Feb 06, 09 - 02:58 pm Comment from: Gregg Thurman

Great!

??? Why would this be important to me?

Feb 06, 09 - 02:58 pm Comment from: the other steve jobs

btw: it is _really_ easy to use - my MOM could do it.

Download file
Get a small USB stick
run the program to format the stick
stick it in your AppleTV
plug the power cord into the AppleTV
let it grind
yank the stick.

There is no step 8. I'm watching Hulu and soon, they said Netflix will be working - which is what i'm _really_ looking forward to so I can watch whatever old goofy movie i've not seen in forever..

Feb 06, 09 - 03:18 pm Comment from: The DataDude

I am a big fan of Boxee on my Mac (can't get enough of those old Star Trek, Have Gun Will Travel, Daily Show, etc. episodes), but I really don't like having to watch the stuff on my Mac. So, although I am definitely not much of a hacker, when I heard that it was fairly simple to create the "patchstick" and load it onto my seldom-used AppleTV I thought I'd give it a try... and it was quite easy to do!

Wow! now I use my AppleTV regularly. Between CBS, Joost, Hulu, Comedy Central (and MUCH more) my AppleTV is now used every day. They just added ABC to Boxee for the Mac and I am looking forward to an AppleTV Boxee update in the near future.

If you have an AppleTV you should really give this a try.

Feb 06, 09 - 03:47 pm Comment from: solid

Yep, hacking the AppleTV to add Boxee is so easy now a dummy like me can do it. Whenever Apple adds a point upgrade to ATV, it's a bit of work to get Boxee set up right again, but not too bad at all.

The patchstick method even gives you access to more hacks like Couch Surfer, which gives you a rudimentary browser on your big screen.

Feb 06, 09 - 05:32 pm Comment from: Sarasota

I've been mentioning the ATV Flash for months. Glad to see MDN finally catching on.

Feb 06, 09 - 11:11 pm Comment from: MacSheikh

What i want to know is, will all this (ATV, Boxee, Hulu, etc via the TV) work for the majority of us who are NOT in the US?

Feb 06, 09 - 11:18 pm Comment from: The DataDude

@ MacSheikh:

Go to the Boxee website (http://boxee.tv), signup for a free account and then download the application. If the application works on your Mac, then it should work on your AppleTV.

Feb 07, 09 - 12:05 pm Comment from: Subscription/Streaming the way to go for video

I buy music and rent/subscribe to video. Hulu and netflix models are the way to go. This makes it much more possible to enjoy video on my tv, without the video store.

Feb 07, 09 - 05:15 pm Comment from: Cubert

BillyBob@home,

Yes, this is really important Apple news. Look at all the posts below you.

Also, I hope your moniker refers to you participating in "Folding@Home". That would at least redeem you.

Feb 08, 09 - 12:10 am Comment from: Alexo

Just how accurate are the instructions at the source for this story, Register Hardware? I get very nervous when I see an "authority" make a basic mistake such as referring to flat panels and then all other TV's as SD. The vast majority of the installed base for flat panels are SD! Only relatively recently have true HD panels appeared. I think he should have been referring to flat panels and distinguishing them from Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) TVs.

I've been using my ATV with my SD flat panel for years and no, the picture isn't in black and white as the source infers.

With such a basic mistake I won't be trying their instructions any time soon!

Feb 08, 09 - 08:26 pm Comment from: MacSheikh

@ The DataDude

Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately, after i signed up for Boxee, i realised the software is Intel only. I'm still on an iBook G4 currently.

Sigh...i think it's time i take a look at the new MacBook, huh?

Still, if anyone from outside the US has experience with Boxee, i'd love to hear some comments. Thanks! grin

Reader feedback page 1 of 1 pages:

Always -- Free ground shipping with orders over $50 at the Apple Store.

Add Your Feedback:

Register or Login

Name:

Email: (optional)

Emoticons | Allowed HTML Tags

Remember my info   Notify me of follow-up comments?

Please enter the "MDN Magic Word" you see in the image below: