Comments on: Apple TV Hacked, Plays Everything

By: Motherduce: The Blog » AppleTV Hacked! Who Cares!?

Motherduce: The Blog » AppleTV Hacked! Who Cares!? — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 03:38:33 +0000

[...] Read the article that started this rant: Apple TV Hacked from Paul Stamatiou [...]

By: Julia Moreno Perri

Julia Moreno Perri — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 15:16:57 +0000

We have just purchased AppleTV mainly for playing .mov files containing a “slide show” of photographs edited with Final Cut Express.

I’ve been fiddling around with the encoding, have read and heard lots of different advice ranging from mp4 to H.264 and nothing has really turned out clear as of yet.

I’m interested in knowing what encoding would work best for playing back the .mov files through iTunes. Has anyone had really good results as of yet and if so what settings did you use for encoding?

By: Apple TV hacked « Winterheim HDD

Apple TV hacked « Winterheim HDD — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 05:55:22 +0000

[...] See the details here. If you through the links of the article, you’ll also learn how to make your Apple TV play [...]

By: Luke

Luke — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 13:30:23 +0000

maybe apple left it hackable for this very reason. they know that a huge number people have divx/xvid moves and tv shows which they want to play on tv, this allows them to do just that. could be good for apple tv sales.

By: Otto

Otto — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 19:10:57 +0000

Interesting. If they make this sort of thing official, then the unit might actually be worth buying.

In the meantime, I’ll stick to my hacked XBox with XBMC. It’s been doing this same sort of thing for years now.

By: Everyday Weekender

Everyday Weekender — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 19:02:12 +0000

great post.. it won’t be long before apple fixes it though

;)

By: links for 2007-03-25 // mikkelwinther.dk

links for 2007-03-25 // mikkelwinther.dk — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 18:11:31 +0000

[...] Apple TV hacket til at kunne spille divx, xvid, etc. Det var hurtigt. (tags: apple appletv) [...]

By: Andrew Swihart

Andrew Swihart — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 14:41:10 +0000

@Montoya – Seems like the only reason Apple didn’t do it themselves is because of licensing issues; it’s not like they didn’t make the hardware and the interface which is the whole allure of it to begin with.

By: Montoya

Montoya — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 04:41:46 +0000

The funny/sad thing is, a hack like this will probably sell more Apple TV units than Apple can sell themselves, especially if this hack becomes easy to do.

By: Andrew Swihart

Andrew Swihart — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 23:18:09 +0000

Lurker deep – Of course it will work on a TV that itself is capable of 1080i. But it is my understanding that the content that you play is limited to a resolution of 720p. And 1080i is not 540p. Interlaced and progressive = Different.

By: Matt Brett

Matt Brett — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 20:44:09 +0000

That is some damn fine news! I was hoping this would happen sooner than later. I’ve been seeing people posting unboxing photos on Flickr over the past couple days – that’s a pretty quick turn-around!

I’ll definitely be picking up an AppleTV in the months to come. It will replace my Xbox with XBMC nicely.

By: Lurker deep

Lurker deep — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 20:37:26 +0000

Andrew, FYI, ATV supports 1080i (which is 540p) now. Unstated, it also supports 480i (for what it’s worth). From Apple’s page:
http://www.apple.com/appletv/connect.html

Compatible TVs

Apple TV works with widescreen, enhanced-definition or high-definition TVs capable of 1080i, 720p, 576p, or 480p resolutions, including popular models from these manufacturers.

By: jbelkin

jbelkin — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 17:39:18 +0000

This sounds like Apple’s philosophy to everything else – you buy it – you do whatever else you want to. We’re not going to offically support Linux on the ipod or let you play Doom on it but you buy, you do whatever you want. For 80% of people, it’s simply plug ‘n play and don’t care about anything else – for 20% of people, hack away – after all, Apple sells nothing at a loss so a product sold is a product sold.

By: Best of Feeds - 27 links - blogging, google, tips, development, alist, howto « //engtech

Sat, 24 Mar 2007 17:14:26 +0000

[...] [APPLETV] Apple TV Hacked, Plays Everything (paulstamatiou.com, 3 saves) [...]

By: Andrew Swihart

Andrew Swihart — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 12:41:19 +0000

Is there reason to believe we may get 1080i / 1080p eventually?

By: bandersnatch

bandersnatch — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 05:06:35 +0000

I’m almost sold.

I’m still holding out tho till more details about the Slingcatcher leak. Slingmedia seems to release solid stuff that like Apple, just works.

Anyone got the 411 on the Slingcatcher?

By: Don Wilson

Don Wilson — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 04:14:42 +0000

So that’s what .FSV means…

By: engtech

engtech — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 03:46:56 +0000

This hack might not be as critical as lets say the Xbox360 being opened up. When game consoles get hacked like this it’s bad because of you’re selling software for it… Apple has already shown that they know how to make a legitimate market off of a hardware device that essentially exists because of pirated media.

By: Paul D

Paul D — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 03:17:23 +0000

Indeed, playing back your own saved/downloaded high-definition TV programs is about the only use I can see for the Apple TV at the moment, just like the iPod was only useful for playing ripped CDs and shared MP3s â€” and that remains its primary use.

Mind you, this hack isn’t really useful until someone figures out how to do it without requiring you to open up the unit. There’s got to be some way to gain access via network or USB.

By: Adam

Adam — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 00:40:19 +0000

@zzap: That was what I was saying, although you made the point far more eloquently. Cheers!

By: zzap

zzap — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 23:15:42 +0000

@Adam: I doubt weather they’ll really try and fix this hack — they knew it was coming. If someone (especially hackers) want to get something, given enough time they’ll get it.

In fact, though, this makes me consider an Apple TV more, now that I know I’ll be able to play a lot more media formats.

By: Adam

Adam — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 22:53:49 +0000

Great stuff, I don’t know if Apple will “fix” this though, because judging the comments on the interblogs, the inability to play odd formats was holding most people back.

Either way, if you can hack it, I’m sold.