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glad that I'm working on a Mac and using Google Apps for everything. Guess I should mention Basecamp and Freshbooks. 1 day ago

Hacking the Apple TV

1 year, 6 months ago
in General
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Update on hacking the TV, there is an extremely easy tutorial on how to get your apple TV to do just about anything I’d ever want from a media center. One awesome step is to replace frontrow with centerstage. Centerstage is an opensource application for digital media that will play just about every video format. Another great thing to hear is the enabling of quartz desktop to make the TV another computer.

Before anyone asks why choose TV when you could just buy a computer and do the same thing with Myth. The same reason I always give it’s cheaper, smaller, quite and simply has all the video connections you’ll need to hook up to an TV. All without having to worry about hardware compatibility.

AppleTVHacks.net has some other interesting posts, one includes a bounty to make the TV a Asterisk box and another with Joost.

Joost is a service I’m really excited about. And I’m really close to buying an TV.

Viewing 8 Comments

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    Oh yeah, if you can't see the  logo you're not cool enough.
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    The ?TV, huh? =)

    Pretty much the same comments I made to the last post apply to this one. It's a personal preference, but I'd rather choose an option that purposefully promotes freedom than choose a way that may be easier is full of restrictions imposed by the manufacturer that you have to hack (and violate the service agreement and probably the DMCA) to work around.
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    Are you saying your only reservation about the TV is violating the service agreement and/or the DMCA? Because I didn't think <a href="http://www.google.com/search?rawq=dmca&am... dmca&submit=Search">you cared too much about the DMCA. And service agreements are nothing, I'm sure if I used non-apple cables or did anything else really obscure the service agreement would be lost. And what would SA matter anyways in compared to Myth?

    It is a preference though. I rather have something easy to use and setup, even though I love this techie "hacking" stuff I'm trying my best to not bother since it's so time consuming. And this mod doesn't look too time consuming.

    But I'm most likely not getting one anytime soon since my DVD player does Dvi/X/vid well.
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    The service agreement could be important if you screw something up when you crack open the case and do this stuff, since then you are out all the money you spent for it.

    In addition, I don't think the process described actually replaces the underlying OS, just adds to it, IIRC. If that's the case, and it's a networked device, by doing this you will probably not be able to receive future updates to the product.

    I guess you could count the whole not receiving future updates thing as a bonus, though, since I'm sure future updates will be partially (or even primarily) designed to plug these kinds of "holes", just like the updates to iTunes and the like have historically done.

    As for the DMCA, sure I really hate it, but the point is I'd rather choose a system / setup that is designed with freedom in mind rather than one that forces me to break the law in order to circumvent restrictions that the manufacturer puts in to limit the consumer's freedom.

    In terms of difficulty of installation, I think Myth has made huge strides to the point where it's just as easy (if not easier) than this AppleTV hack. And (again), Myth will always be working towards making it easier to do what you want, whereas Apple is likely to work towards making this kind of thing harder, and having to be extremely careful not to step on the toes of their buddies at the RIAA and MPAA.

    One edge they do have is the price; it would be difficult to build a really good Myth system for $300 (but it actually wouldn't be too much more than that). But even in saying that, it isn't really a fair comparison since Myth has so many more features than the AppleTV - it's not really an "apples to apples" comparison. =)

    If you wanted to go without the video capture features of Myth (to bring it down to a more level comparison with the AppleTV, except for the tiny hard drive on the Apple player) then price-wise you could be about the same, and then I'd say Myth would still be in the lead for all the other reasons I mentioned.

    You point about the Xvid playback is a good one too. If one does choose to download TV shows, they're going to be Xvid files, and I'd much rather not have to jump through hoops like this to watch them. The edge goes to Myth here as well (IMHO), since you'd be ready to watch without transocding or burning.
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    What do you think about wi-fiTV.com?
    Groups/companies can own their own stations for $ 12,500.
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    I just looked at it briefly and I'd say (as a first impression) it's a no-go, for several reasons.

    The primary one being I don't see what any person, group, or company would get for their $12,500 that they couldn't get by just hosting pages on their own servers that show videos hosted on YouTube or Google Video for free.

    The other one is that it sounds a lot like a pyramid scheme to me; I don't see any money potential for anyone other than the people collecting the up-front initiation fee that these "lucky" entrepreneurs pay to "own their own station".

    It reminds me a lot of the Amway web project a couple years back (called Quixtar), because it has all the same problems. When some people we knew who have been into Amway for a long time tried to sell us on the idea, I tried to explain to them that the concept wouldn't work. It's funny because I think they thought they could hook me in on it because I was "into web stuff". I tried to explain that their concept was totally fundamentally flawed, but they assured me that it was the next big thing, and (like all MLM scams) you'll be sorry later if you don't "get in on the ground floor". Looking back it's pretty obvious that it was a flop. I don't want to rant too long on that here; maybe I'll post on it later if anyone is interested.
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    I'm also excited about Apple TV, but heads up you dudes that there is a new service called viewmy.tv - social internet tv for free . Ohh yeah!
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    Jared, thanks that was informative.

    Amway....ha ha, the last person who pitched amway anything to
    me sweared it wasn't amway but it was under the name of
    some marketing front.

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