“We just got xvid working on the Apple TV,” Awkward reports over in The Something Awful Forums.
“Hey, Sabretooth and I just officially got xvid/everything else supported by Perian working on the Apple TV,” Awkward reports.
Awkward reports, “We’re doing a writeup, but the short of it is…
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
Voila!”
A writeup is promised for later today.
Full forum discussion here.
MacDailyNews Note: Xvid is a video codec for PC, whereas codec is an abbreviation for [co]der/[dec]oder, hence describes a program to encode and decode digital video. The purpose of encoding video data is to reduce redundancies – that means to make it smaller for faster transmission over computer networks or for more efficient storage on computer disks. More info: http://www.xvid.org/
Related articles:
Apple TV does not require Widescreen TV or HDTV, works with standard TVs – March 23, 2007
CBS looks at Apple TV on ‘The Early Show’ (with video) – March 23, 2007
Scoble: ‘Apple TV rocks’ – March 23, 2007
Apple TV hard drive upgrade works – March 23, 2007
Apple TV dissection photos – March 22, 2007
Apple posts Apple TV User’s Guide online – March 22, 2007
Enderle: ‘Apple’s attractive and well packaged Apple TV likely to set the pace’ – March 22, 2007
David Pogue demos Apple TV in humorous NY Times’ video – March 22, 2007
PC Magazine review gives Apple TV 4 out of 5 stars – March 22, 2007
NY Times’ Pogue: ‘Apple TV offers a gracious, elegant, effortless, delightful experience’ – March 21, 2007
Mossberg hands-on with Apple TV: ‘beautiful design, easy-to-use, classic Apple: simple and elegant’ – March 21, 2007
Wow! It’s that simple?! Why, that’s as easy as neurosurgery, or quantum physics! A child could do it (provided the child’s a superhuman prodigy)! I’m running out and buying an AppleTV today!
(sheesh)
LordRobbin: My thoughts exactly.
Now that’s what I want!
90% of my video is in xvid format. I can now get an aTV.
I’m just glad to see the hacks come rolling in…
That’s one of the surest signs of success! Apple tightly controls the experience for the general users but the power users can still find ways to beef up the unit!!
I simply can’t understand why Apple doesn’t state this in the AppleTV user manual?
“Voila!” indeed :O
Legal, Support. it’s not theirs.
Still VERY COOL.
Let the Haxies begin.
By Monday, we should have a good idea of what can be done with the new box & I’m betting some of it is going to be good. Very good.
This is not sarcastic, but why bother?
If somebody can figure out how to do this, without opening it up… then I might actually buy one after all
YESSSSS!!!!!!!
So now it only needs to support subtitles before I can buy one!!!
theres an easier way to do this. All you need is quicktime pro, then just download the divx plug in for apple. Open your avi file in quicktime, then just select export and there will be a selection to export to apple tv. Did it yesterday and was watching ghost rider on my projector with apple tv.
“This is not sarcastic, but why bother?”
My point exactly. I made a decision to recode all my content for iTunes/iPod and, wonder of wonders, it plays perfectly on Apple TV.
Some people don’t want it easy, they want to be Scotty McGuyver fixing the warp core with bubblegum and spent dilithium dust KNOWING that they’re in stardock and they could just get a new crystal.
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If I had a second Apple TV, I might be tempted to play with it, but I don’t want to be one of those who have to wonder if they should upgrade or not because their tweak might become detweaked!
By Monday, my TV will be a Wii controller running Debian with a visual garage door funtion menu haxie while streaming data to a distributed computing network via Xgrid to a RAID of Mac minis. I have to say I’ve really been enjoying a high def CLI. Tetris in the terminal is gorgeous. Do I smell smoke?
Let’s say I have an Xvid movie on my Mac. I open it up in QuickTime, save as a self-contained movie. Now, I may still need the above hack to install the for Perian, Flip4Mac, DivX,and whatever other codecs you may need to have installed. But at least then I can use iTunes to load the movie and I don’t need to enable SSH to transfer my movies.
Of greater interest is: Let’s say I swap out the HD in my Apple TV with one that has a full-blown OS X load on it and I plug a keyboard and mouse into that USB port. Do I then have a Mac Mini Mini?
I wonder if installing the Flip4Mac plug-ins would also work?
OK, now I do understand. This is about the 1/4 of 1% of buyers who have to hack every piece of gear they purchase.
@ Twisted Mac Freak
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Poos: If Apple does support subtitles on the tv then they’ve opened themselves up to lawsuits for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act.
“OK, now I do understand. This is about the 1/4 of 1% of buyers who have to hack every piece of gear they purchase.”
Yes, but it’s that 1/4 of 1% who often drive the public perception of the product. And if Apple TV gets a “cool” buzz around it via this, it’s great for the product overall.
Two hacks in one day is awesome news for Apple TV–it’s clear to me that Apple anticipated this. Why else would they set the password to be “frontrow”? Why else would they not seal the case to reveal its physical opening? Why else would they put up virtually no roadblocks (hardware or software) for hackers? Apple fully intended for all this to happen.
“This is about the 1/4 of 1% of buyers . . .”
Yes, and unfortunately that small fraction of a buyer seems to control the decisions and resides somewhere far below the neck.
Tommy Boy: What in the world are you talking about??
VIOLATING the ADA?? You mean they’d be fulfilling the ADA!! The lack of closed captioning with TV programming and subtitles with DVD downloads is the biggest missing piece of Apple TV that I know of.
In fact, Apple comes very close to violating the ADA, which calls for virtually 100% of all new TV programming to be closed captioned as of 1/1/2007. I’m with Bubuh: I can’t buy AppleTV until it is accessible for my wife, who is hearing-impaired. When they fix that glitch, I’ll be online to buy, because no one wants to dump the cable package more than I do!!
What a simple solution!!! Since a good portion of my pron collection is in Xvid, I’m now going to rush out and buy Apple TV!!!!
I respect it that there is interest in all things Apple-Go, Go, Go!-but with respect, I doubt it very seriously if the “public” will ever care that it’s possible to use a hack on Apple TV to enable a Doze codec. Pleaaase. To use an example of another obscure ability, a small percentage of power OS X users realize how powerful “Terminal” can be, but there is no reason to believe OS X sales are being driven by the general public to use that ability. To suggest interest in Apple TV will increase for the average buyer because of, to them. obscure hacking is wishful thinking in the extreme.
“Yes, but it’s that 1/4 of 1% who often drive the public perception of the product.”
Actually, I think Apple’s getting so much press right now from the “offline” media, that this “geek” perception has less of an impact on the vast majority of people who will purchase the Apple TV. Heck, if 1/10 of one percent of the people that own one after a year even know what xvid is, I’d be impressed!
How buzz happens:
Step 1: Fanatic followers of Product X beat the bushes endlessly online about why they love Product X. Sometimes they are genuine fans, sometimes they are astroturfers.
Step 2: Lazy “offline” journalist on deadline goes “online”, finds info from fanatic followers/astroturfers, makes a story about it in traditional media.
Step 3: There is no step 3.