Those avoiding hacking their Apple TV to add functionality don’t have much of an excuse as of today. Apparently, you can hack the little media device without even opening it. While technically that means your warranty is still valid, I’m sure Apple would be able to dig up some dirt on how you tinkered around with the filesystem. Details are at the usual place.
Booting from USB requires booting the Apple TV as normal then holding ‘menu’ and ‘-’ keys on the remote to initiate a restore boot. From there it takes a bit of timing, Turbo explains, “If I hold down menu and – from poweron until the first screen flash, I believe that it does the equivalent of cmd-opt-p-r. I only got it to boot from USB by releasing it at that point, then hitting it again just before the screen flashes on the second reset.â€
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
This is good news, and certainly makes it possible for a larger audience than back when you had to open it up. I’m guessing that it still isn’t interesting for 99% of AppleTV’s buyers however.
There are really starting to be some neat reasons to getting an AppleTV. That said, if someone could come up with a really start way of playing video_ts from within frontrow, I’d keep my iMac and not bother with a TV all together.
BTW Paul, thanks for the link to the pre-build webkit dmg- I didn’t notice it on the site!
The only reason I would want to hack an AppleTV would be to add a fan. They run SO hot! Someone should get a laser temp readout on one.
Adam,
Have you taken a look at DVD Assist? It’s a bit of a kludge, but once working, it can get VIDEO_TS folders working in FR nicely.
@ ClinkClunk: Yeah I have, but I just feel running an additional program is not the best system. I’m sure there must be a way of getting FR to do it, seeing it is in effect a pretty front-end for Quicktime which can play VIDEO_TS anyway.
Adam and ClunkClunk,
I have used DVDAssist for quite some time and found it to run perfectly on my MacMini. It has run absolutely seamlessly once set up (which can be difficult if you are unfamiliar with a Mac). Thereafter it is seamless and greatly enhances FR’s functionality. I would seriously recommend it to anyone.
Now the question is if Apple TV will still allow .VOB which it doesn’t appear to since it runs off of iTunes. Oh the humanity of it all!