Well that didn't take long (XVid support on AppleTV)

carniphagecarniphage
Posted:
in iPod + iTunes + AppleTV edited January 2014
They popped open the case.

Mounted the drive on another Mac -

Installed Perian.



And Roberto is the brother of your mama.



C.



Check this out....



http://forums.somethingawful.com/sho...readid=2391956

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 18
    spindriftspindrift Posts: 674member
    Nice one!



    No doubt there will be plenty of Apple TV hacks flying about in the upcoming weeks.
  • Reply 2 of 18
    dfilerdfiler Posts: 3,420member
    Wow, that was quick.

    And it is absolutely major news!



    The link is currently non-functional. Is there another site that confirms this?
  • Reply 3 of 18
    carniphagecarniphage Posts: 1,984member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by dfiler View Post


    Wow, that was quick.

    And it is absolutely major news!



    The link is currently non-functional. Is there another site that confirms this?



    This is quoted text from the site....



    1. Open it up (4 screws on the bottom, small Torx bit)

    2. Put the 2.5" drive into a USB enclosure or whatever you want

    3. Mount the HFS filesystem

    4. Install Perian in /Library/Quicktime (as you normally would)

    5. Install Dropbear (or enable SSH if you know how... we gave up and used Dropbear)

    6. Add a startup script to disable the firewall or open up the ports you need for SSH

    7. Put the drive back in and boot it, ssh login as frontrow, password frontrow (or add an ssh key for yourself)

    8. Use a reference movie (use QT Pro to save a reference movie) to bootstrap your xvid file



    I think an idiots guide will be forthcoming.

    Wouldn't it be nice to be able to mod the AppleTV without cracking the case.
  • Reply 4 of 18
    jcgjcg Posts: 777member
    Well that confirms that this is running OS X doesn't it? How long before someone gets a full version of OS X installed and running on one is the next question.
  • Reply 5 of 18
    dfilerdfiler Posts: 3,420member
    From a layman's perspective, I'd say definately yes.



    But also keep in mind that various *nix distros have similar directory structures and many compatible binaries. Yet one cannot say that Mac OS X is linux. Perhaps the line has been blurred here similar to NT4 and Win95.



    I can't wait for people to dig further and post details.
  • Reply 6 of 18
    carniphagecarniphage Posts: 1,984member
    One of the interesting aspects of this hack was discovering the Apple TV's willingness to play reference movie files.



    Reference movies can be created with Quicktime Pro. You load up the movie (from whatever source) in Quicktime and save out the refererence (MOV) movie. This is a small file (a megabyte or so) which you can drag into your iTunes library, and it will sync with the Apple TV. So we have two files, a tiny "alias" file which points to the real movie which can be a large XVID AVI. The cool thing is that the real file can be on a network drive.



    This means that the 40GB drive on the Apple TV can store thousands of these things. And the actual media files can stay on your media server / AirDisk. You can play the movies - even if your Mac is switched off.



    This is really quite cool.



    C.
  • Reply 7 of 18
    psychodoughboypsychodoughboy Posts: 133member
    I'm really, really looking forward to the sort of homebrew people come up with for the AppleTV. It's making me FAR, FAR more likely to want one.
  • Reply 8 of 18
    gordygordy Posts: 1,004member
    AppleTV runs Mac OS X--a slimmed down version kinda like iPhone, only slimmer. Since QuickTime is a core part of the OS, it would be hard for Apple to cripple it in any meaningful way.



    On Apple's Discussions board, I was flamed for noting how easy this hack would be to pull off, and that it would happen sooner than later. Glad to see I was right. I went over there to gloat, but the thread is locked.



    Hopefully, Apple will open up support, instead of stifling it via future updates to AppleTV.
  • Reply 9 of 18
    joe_the_dragonjoe_the_dragon Posts: 931member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by gordy View Post


    AppleTV runs Mac OS X--a slimmed down version kinda like iPhone, only slimmer. Since QuickTime is a core part of the OS, it would be hard for Apple to cripple it in any meaningful way.



    On Apple's Discussions board, I was flamed for noting how easy this hack would be to pull off, and that it would happen sooner than later. Glad to see I was right. I went over there to gloat, but the thread is locked.



    Hopefully, Apple will open up support, instead of stifling it via future updates to AppleTV.



    more like it is closer to the full 10.4 then the I-phone is as the apple tv is x86 hardware + it has a much bigger HD and the i-phone is not.
  • Reply 10 of 18
    physguyphysguy Posts: 920member
    BTW, if this is really 10.4.7 I wouldn't think they would remove the tiny ssh and sshd programs from the install so you should be able to start the standard sshd server using the ssh.plist from /System/Library/LaunchDaemons and putting it in the same place on the Apple TV. launchd should then take care of starting it up if /usr/sbin/sshd is there. Just make sure the 'Disabled' key is not in the plist file used, i.e. use the plist from from a system on which the 'Remote Login' Sharing choice is enabled.
  • Reply 11 of 18
    gregmightdothatgregmightdothat Posts: 1,709member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Joe_the_dragon View Post


    more like it is closer to the full 10.4 then the I-phone is as the apple tv is x86 hardware + it has a much bigger HD and the i-phone is not.



    Oh dear God, learn how to freakin' spell iPhone.
  • Reply 12 of 18
    brussellbrussell Posts: 9,812member
    Hopefully someone will figure out how to just connect AppleTV to a computer with a USB cable and install these types of things.
  • Reply 13 of 18
    spindriftspindrift Posts: 674member
    Gizmodo managed to up the hard drive capacity already!



    Apple TV 120GB



    Edit:

    My mistake, it wasn't Gizmodo, but they published the info.
  • Reply 14 of 18
    @homenow@homenow Posts: 998member
    Too bad it doesn't have a firewire port it would make the hackers lives a lot easier to boot up in FW target mode.
  • Reply 15 of 18
    groveratgroverat Posts: 10,872member
    I'd bet that Apple is happy to see this thing used for these purposes. The only way I will ever buy one of these is if I can easily increase the number of formats it will play and if I don't have to import all my stuff to iTunes first (or at least I can do so easily).
  • Reply 16 of 18
    physguyphysguy Posts: 920member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by groverat View Post


    I'd bet that Apple is happy to see this thing used for these purposes. The only way I will ever buy one of these is if I can easily increase the number of formats it will play and if I don't have to import all my stuff to iTunes first (or at least I can do so easily).



    So now that both of these things are easy when are you buying?
  • Reply 17 of 18
    k squaredk squared Posts: 608member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by groverat View Post


    I'd bet that Apple is happy to see this thing used for these purposes. The only way I will ever buy one of these is if I can easily increase the number of formats it will play and if I don't have to import all my stuff to iTunes first (or at least I can do so easily).



    Importing all of my H.264 encoded movies into iTunes, from my external drive, is the biggest thing holding me back as well. Once this is overcome...
  • Reply 18 of 18
    gordygordy Posts: 1,004member
    Why is that a big deal? It's not like you have to copy them over. Using iTunes to organize them (Description, Year, artwork, etc.) really makes for an impressive presentation on AppleTV. You need some method of capturing the metadata, why not iTunes?
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