USB patch released. HALLELUJAH!

USB patch released. HALLELUJAH!

AppleTVhacks documents how to use a USB drive for primary storage....but it hasn't been tested on software v1.1 on AppleTV, only on v1.0. So watch for further reports of success or failure over there.

UPDATE - TURNS OUT IT DOESN'T WORK ON APPLETV v1.1 - so beware! Don't bother if you've updated or bought a new one recently.

In time, hopefully this will all be resolved.

A bit vexing if Apple were to stand in our way of expanding our local storage.

-mike

Apple Releases iTunes 7.3.1 - can now stream photos from any Mac to AppleTV

Apple - Support - Downloads - iTunes 7.3.1 for Mac - among other things, can stream photos from any Mac (yay!) - so maybe I DON'T need to upgrade the onboard 40GB drive....

BUT....I just ran software update on my MacBook and HORRIBLE THINGS happened, I'll blog on it on hdforindies.com shortly, so maybe DON'T do these yet!

MacNN | Photos of AppleTV update: YouTube, security

MacNN | Photos of AppleTV update: YouTube, security

...since I was too lazy to take my own...

Has the 1.1 update been good to your hacked Apple TV? | Apple TV Hacks

Has the 1.1 update been good to your hacked Apple TV?

If you'd hacked your AppleTV, this resets it all - so consider carefully whether to do so. IF you do update and have hacked/patched your AppleTV, be ready to do it all over again, and some tings may have changed.

One reader suggested removing all hacks before updating, then try to install them after updating.

Playlist: Apple TV beyond YouTube

Playlist: Apple TV beyond YouTube

Goes into the rest of the 1.1 update:
-parental controls
-expanded screen saver
-photos can be prioritized when syncing
-can browse other countries' iTunes Stores

YouTube live on AppleTV - how to set it up

YouTube goes live on AppleTV - How To

YouTube is now live and rolling on AppleTV, here's how to get it.

-Fire up your AppleTV. It is on a network that is internet connected, right?

-go to Settings

-go to Update Software

-it'll check for update, and if you're successfully connecting to the internet, it will say:

"Apple TV Update

An update is available for your Apple TV. Do you want to download it now?

A message will appear when the update is ready for installation."

There are then choices for Download Now or Udpate Later.

Select Download Now, it takes you back to the Settings screen and where it said "Update Software" before it now says "Downloading update..." with a little twirly thing to let you know it is working on it.

The download took about 4 minutes for me at 3PM CST, probably servers are busy today.

You CAN navigate away and do other things while it is downloading.

Once it is done downloading, it takes you back to a screen that says:
"Apple TV Update

The Apple TV update has finished downloading. Do you want to install it now?

Your Apple TV will restart and begin installing the update. Do not unplug your Apple TV while it is updating.

Clicked Update Now at 3:06:00, it took 3 1/2 minutes to be back up and running normally.

The Apple logo appeared and dissapeared 4 times, the fifth time the logo had a progress bar underneath.

Progress bar goes away, logo again, black screen, logo again, blink, logo again, blink, logo again, logo fades out, logo back, black screen, then the intro animation. So up and rolling at 3:09:30 roughly.

Then there's a new item after Movies and TV Shows - YouTube.

Select that, and you get Featured, Most Viewed, Most Recent, Top Rated, History, Search, Log In.

Selecting Featured, you can then see a scrolling list on the right with sample frame and descriptions on the left.

Videos start playing after a few seconds.

16:9 videos do play full screen appropriately, but of course the compression artifacts are pretty atrocious.

Even videos that are several minutes long start playing within seconds.

Search is there, but you have to navigate the alphabet with the 4 direction remote - a pain.

OK, gotsta get back to work, more some other time.

But as expected - it is YouTube quality - heavily compressed, and only as good as the source material, which is often OF questionable quality.

I also noted huge variances in audio levels, but again that is a source content issue, not an Apple or YouTube issue.

-mike

MacNN | Apple TV selling for razor-thin margins?

MacNN | Apple TV selling for razor-thin margins?

"The Apple TV may be selling near break even or potentially at a loss, according to a new study by iSuppli. A breakdown of the stanard 40GB media hub's component costs suggests that a finished device costs $237 to produce; this leaves just $62, or less than 21 percent, of the selling price to be recouped by Apple. However, the figure is said to omit the necessary marketing costs for the device, suggesting that the actual revenue per device is either slim or may actually incur a slight loss."

I don't know that I buy iSuppli's #s, do they appropriately factor in Apple's bulk discounts? But Steve Jobs said at the D Conference that AppleTV is a hobby, whereas computers, iPods, and soon phones are businesses. Is that a tacit admission that it isn't working out as well as they wanted it to? Or merely that they recognize the market isn't ready to go big with this kind of tech and approach?

MacMerc.com: Review >> Elgato turbo.264

MacMerc.com: Review >> Elgato turbo.264

"Elgato makes some of the coolest consumer video hardware for the Mac (or anything). So we were pleased to hear that they are out to speed the arduous process of conversion to the latest-greatest in codecs: H.264. Elgato's EyeTV hardware has packed countless hours of programming to high-quality files for EyeTV. With the turbo.264 dongle, get ready to compress video for your iPod and Apple TV twice as fast as your processor."


USB dongle accelerates H.264 encoding - iSquint took 11 minutes, turbo.264 took 7. I'd be curious to see how good the footage looked, and compare that to Apple's AppleTV preset to get a better apples to apples comparison.

The test machine was a 500 MHz G4 - and that's ooollllllllllld hardware, so saying this device converts faster than software is like saying a scooter is faster than grampa with a bad hip.

They are available from the HD For Indies Amazon Store - Elgato Turbo.264 - Video H.264 (MP4) Encoder Hardware for $89.

Macworld: News: BigBanana.TV offers movies for Apple TV

Macworld: News: BigBanana.TV offers movies for Apple TV:
BigBanana.TV is a new online service focused on bringing movies and film to users of the Apple TV. The service has launched with 25 classic movie titles that will appeal to cult movie fans, especially.

They are the equivalent of open source movies - they are in the public domain for the most part.

AppleInsider | Apple announces iTunes U on the iTunes Store

AppleInsider | Apple announces iTunes U on the iTunes Store: "Apple on Wednesday announced the launch of iTunes U, a dedicated area within the iTunes Store featuring free content such as course lectures, language lessons, lab demonstrations, sports highlights and campus tours provided by top US colleges and universities including Stanford University, UC Berkeley, Duke University and MIT."

Be interesting to see how much of this content might be video, and then presumably how much of it will work seamlessly with AppleTV.

-mike

AppleInsider | Some time spent with Apple TV -- an in-depth review

AppleInsider | Some time spent with Apple TV -- an in-depth review

Long article going over where the AppleTV stands. They get some techie stuff wrong (stating everything plays back from the hard drive, stating everything gets scaled to 720p, other small details), but the broad strokes I generally agree with.

AT&T planning IPTV for Apple TV in 2008? - Engadget

AT&T planning IPTV for Apple TV in 2008? - Engadget: " A well-connected source tells us that AT&T and Apple are working on adding IPTV capabilities to the Apple TV beginning sometime next year. "

Why Apple TV is a dud - Fortune

Why Apple TV is a dud - June 11, 2007

He's got some good points:
-while requiring (not quite, but pretty much) an HDTV, you can't get HD content
-the only HD content most of us have is pictures, and those can only come from one machine
-no volume control
-screensaver is "coolest feature"
-can't order movie/TV show/song directly from the device, gotta do that through another computer
-no DVD drive

He wonders if iPhone may similarly be not as cool as we'd hoped - fair point.

-mike

UPDATE: very interesting that Steve Jobs recently said that Apple currently has two core businesses (iPods & Macs), is about to add a third (phones), and then they have a hobby (AppleTV) - I read that as a statement that AppleTV isn't working out as well as they'd hoped, and they are distancing themselves a bit from it in case it continues to not work out. Drat.

160 GB AppleTV from Apple for $399 starting tomorrow

YouTube Coming to Apple TV: "Apple TV with a 160GB hard drive will be available tomorrow for a suggested retail price of $399 (US)."

Youtube, HD movie downloads in AppleTV's future

Apple CEO Steve Jobs | D5 | AllThingsD: "Apple will be offering a free software upgrade come June that will allow Apple TV users to view YouTube videos on their televisions."

Headline says it all. From the D5 conference.

More details:

Macworld: News: Steve Jobs at D: All Things Digital, Live Coverage: "%u201CWe%u2019re not selling HD yet, because of the tradeoffs between download time and quality. But that might change in the future,%u201D said Jobs.
Jobs acknowledged the popularity of the Google-owned Internet video site, YouTube. %u201CWouldn%u2019t it be great if you could see YouTube in your living room? So we%u2019ve had a great opportunity to work with the YouTube folks, and we%u2019re putting YouTube in the main menu,%u201D he said."

some thoughts on better AppleTV navigation

Snippet from something I wrote on my other blog:

HD For Indies: "Another handy tidbit - on the tutorial DVD, there's a ROM folder with all of that content as H.264 files, compatible with AppleTV as well - handy! They are just little QuickTime movies, so you can copy them onto your local drive if you want as well. They are lower resolution (640x360 or so) than the DVD (720x480), so the DVD is a little sharper for seeing the UI details demostrated. No biggie - it is handy to have the option, and you wouldn't know it was there if you didn't look. It would have been nice if Apple had treated it as a TV series or something so it would self-organize a little better - they just fall into place in alphabetical order, which isn't necessarily the order you'd want them to play in. And there's no playlist organizing them, either. Points for putting AppleTV QT's on the DVD, but it would have been nice if they were organized a little better. As a related question, how tough would it be to make a QT movie that has embedded navigation that works in AppleTV? It is totally doable (and it'd also be nice if a DVD Studio Pro project could be exported this way as well - Adobe's CS3 can one button export a DVD to Flash...response Apple?)QuickTime has all the hooks to do this - referring to other movies in the same directory, etc. And since AppleTV seems to be a fairly full featured QT client, shouldn't this be possible? Somebody test!"

What's Wrong With AppleTV's Market Position

I cracked this out of another article because I thought it should be highlighted:

The AppleTV is basically a nice interface for iTunes content - I bought one, I like it, I even have another blog all about it - AppleTVhacker.com. But it isn't truly a replacement for a DVD player at any resolution. I see the ability to play downloaded TV shows as a bonus feature, the downloaded movies don't look as good as DVDs (but WILL play back on iPods & computers, so that is bonus), and the ability to see my pictures in high def on the screen is also a bonus. But in the end, I see it as a supplement to, not a replacement for, a high def DVD player (or even a regular DVD player). If version 2 had an optical media slot and played 1080i footage at full res, we'd be talkin'.

I think Apple has lost a significant market advantage, however, in that they STILL don't have downloadable high def movies - check out this article on the 10 minute 720p Ratatoille - download and watch it, and imagine that quality on your HDTV. That plays, right now, on my AppleTV. But I can't buy movies that resolution and quality. Get with it Apple! At $300 to play downloadable 720p movies, that'd be a viable contender against $500+ HD DVD & Blu-ray players.

But now that there are options that look better and cost LESS than AppleTV (under $300 for Toshiba HD-A2), with a MUCH wider range of movies...AppleTV's window narrows quickly unless they can get LOTS more content available for sale, and also at higher resolution to make a compelling case. I've bought 3 or 4 movies online, mostly to doodle with or so my neice/nephew can watch, but that's about it - I don't plan on buying any more. I DO buy TV shows (season pass to Lost, episodes I missed of Battlestar Galactica). YES, I could download high def freebies via BitTorrent, but that's more time and hassle than I want to deal with - and then they wouldn't play back on my HDTV via AppleTV anyway, which was the point. Feh.

IF Apple were to be able to:
-get MANY more studios and movies available to download
-AND get them available as 720p as an option

THEN AppleTV could have some more relevance. Of course, that isn't entirely up to Apple, the studios have to release the content in those formats.

But in terms of competing in terms of image quality, we'll have to wait for some future version - according to Apple, this unit can't do 720p at any better than 25fps - so that rules out "true" HD res for broadcast TV shot at other than 24p.

AppleTV 2.0 - 1080p/i capable, 120 & 250 GB drives, can purchase straight from the TV with an iTunes account (that last could be done today with software updates).

Thoughts on HDTV DVD playback - AppleTV, uprezzing DVD player, or HD DVD player?

I just wrote a long piece over on my HD for Indies blog on AppleTV vs uprezzing DVD players vs HD DVD vs Blu-ray, with an aside on What's Wrong with AppleTV.

Youtube comes to the AppleTV

Youtube comes to the AppleTV

I haven't verified this myself, but it sure sounds cool!

-mike

What's the matter with HDMI? Or not?

I've linked to and commented on an article critizing the HDMI spec. I support his complaints but differ with him on some points about it, read it all over on HD For Indies

9 Minute Preview of Ratatouille posted, AppleTV compatible

Apple - Trailers - Ratatouille

Nine minute preview, and YES it is 720p and plays back on AppleTV, and YES it looks great, and YES I'm REALLY looking forward to this more than I was to Cars (for some reason, my brain can handle talking toys, bugs, fish and rats better than anthropomorphized cars).

I think it no accident this copies right over to AppleTV and plays just fine.

I hope Apple (and others!) continue to post AppleTV playable content more and more going forward.

Of course, what I REALLY want is to be able to buy a copy of a Pixar movie at 720p to download!

Let's get with it, Steve...

-mike

My over the top home theater setup, converting HD content for AppleTV

OK, the home theater itself is not all that great, but baby, I got INFRASTRUCTURE.

Aside from the G5 with a 2TB RAID that has 200 GB of MP3s, AACs, pictures, TV shows and movies, I've got three uncompressed HD editing stations in the next room all routed and connected to/from the home theater stuff in the next room.

And a couple of thousand feet of cable tying it all together. The linked article above is on my HD for Indies blog, which is (in part) about making independent films with your own gear in your home, so I was showing what all can be involved in getting that all up and working correctly.

Just for kicks, I fed some HD-DVD content over the analog outputs into the studio and captured it, stripped out the 3:2 pulldown, and used Compressor to write it out as AppleTV spec 720p24 H.264. Took a LOOOOONG time and doesn't look anywhere near as good as the HD-DVD source (spaceship battle sequence from Serenity). Technically, that is a violation of the DMCA, even though for private purposes (media shifting).

More interesting would be if I could record HD cable content and convert it for AppleTV playback - HDNet has been running Blade Runner in high def, and it isn't available any other way. While I could make an HD-DVD of it (DVD Studio Pro can burn HD-DVD content on dual layer DVD-R media) which would look better than the AppleTV approach (twice the bitrate for same size & codec), it wouldn't be AppleTV navigable/surfable/easy.

It is inefficient as hell though - takes lots of CPU horsepower, gear, disk space, processing time, etc. Certainly more than is an efficient use of time.

-mike

Please Stand By...just been busy.

Hey all -

a commenter said the site "didn't last long" - not true! I've just been in Vegas for a week working at a tradeshow for my first love, digital moviemaking. I worked a couple of days for Red (red.com), then gave a presentation at the conference, then covered the show for my own site (hdforindies.com) and for a print publication.

Busy times, indeed.

-mike

Macworld: Secrets: Convert video for Apple TV

Macworld: Secrets: Convert video for Apple TV

Nice list of conversion options, although the DVD ripping tutorial seems eerily familiar, as I got a call from someone over there asking about what works well....

: )

Also covers converting files on drives, etc.

Apple TV and HD quality: It's not the hardware - Engadget HD

Apple TV and HD quality: It's not the hardware - Engadget HD: "We quickly realized that the Apple TV wasn't going to be a HD powerhouse and our tests have indicated as much -- we have also discovered that the problem is not the hardware."

Motionbox offers personal video downloads for Apple TV | MacMinute News

Motionbox offers personal video downloads for Apple TV | MacMinute News

AppleInsider | MGM flicks arrive on Apple's iTunes Store (still no HD)

AppleInsider | MGM flicks arrive on Apple's iTunes Store (still no HD)

More homebrew plugins, but where are those from Apple? | Apple TV Hacks

More homebrew plugins, but where are those from Apple? |
Apple TV Hacks: "Erica Sadun over O%u2019Reily had written a plugin for the Apple TV that allows you to execute any Perl scripts you have uploaded. Given that Perl can run also call shell scripts and any Unix command, this will allow a whole host of cool scripts to be written.
It also opens the doors for programmers and scripters with no knowledge of Cocoa programming to develop their own additions to BackRow."

Read on for more info, analysis, and conjecture on the subject of plugins for AppleTV.

Tech Specs for Podcasts for iPod/AppleTV

Apple - iTunes - iTunes Store - Podcasts - Technical Specification Formatting specs for iPod & AppleTV in terms of sizes, bitrates, etc. - HANDY!

MacNN | Sling to stream Apple TV to cellphones?

MacNN | Sling to stream Apple TV to cellphones?: "Sling Media is developing support for its Slingbox streaming hubs that would let them support the Apple TV, the company said late on Monday. A future update should give cellphones with SlingPlayer Mobile the ability not only to view an Apple TV's content streamed over the Internet but to control it as well by sending IR codes."

Audio and Video Podcasts from washingtonpost.com

Audio and Video Podcasts from washingtonpost.com

HD podcasts that are AppleTV compatible via iTunes! Schweet.

Apple TV hacked for RSS and emulation, plus bounty for USB drive support - Engadget

Apple TV hacked for RSS and emulation, plus bounty for USB drive support - Engadget

How-To: play DivX and Xvid on your Apple TV - Engadget

How-To: play DivX and Xvid on your Apple TV - Engadget

Apple - Apple TV - Ads

Apple - Apple TV - Ads Here's the ad in high res.

AppleInsider | Surprise ad for Apple TV begins airing on networks

AppleInsider | Surprise ad for Apple TV begins airing on networks: "Launching almost without fanfare, a spot for Apple's new media hub has begun making the rounds of TV networks. - Apple, Inc. on Monday launched a surprise new commercial for its Apple TV device, emphasizing the simplicity and echoing Steve Jobs' observations that the company was entering the living room after coming into cars, dens, and pockets."

HungryFlix - Download Movies for your iPod, PSP, Apple TV and More!

HungryFlix - Download Movies for your iPod, PSP, Apple TV and More! - these folks are selling content specifically formatted to fit your AppleTV, starting with a $2 movie (24 hour sale) called Wages of Sin which...doesn't look all that impressive even from just the cover art.

MacMerc.com: Apple TV Must-have Video Utilities - Free

MacMerc.com: Apple TV Must-have Video Utilities - Free

Half a dozen useful and FREE utilities that are AppleTV related.

-mike

Hackers Dissect Apple TV to Create the Cheapest Mac Ever -

Hackers Dissect Apple TV to Create the Cheapest Mac Ever -

Macworld: Editors' Notes: Get away from my Apple TV

Macworld: Editors' Notes: Get away from my Apple TV

Don't let your kids at your AppleTV, you'll never get the TV back.

Macworld: Mac Word: An Apple TV wish list

Macworld: Mac Word: An Apple TV wish list

What the author feels is missing:
-Internet streaming support
-Browsing Web video libraries
-Buying and browsing via the Apple Remote
-More podcasting - video ones
-Photo flexibility
-More HD video - my # 1 pick - it can do it, just put'em up there - start with trailers, work from there
-DVD quality audio - he's slightly off base here - it is an implementation issue, not a hardware limitation
-Support for optical media - eh...maybe
-TiVo support - that's a whole other thing though, including hardware MPEG-2 decoding

MacNN | TechRestore offers pre-upgraded Apple TVs

MacNN | TechRestore offers pre-upgraded Apple TVs: "TechRestore today announced that it has begun offering pre-upgraded Apple TV systems that are pre-configured with storage upgrades of up to 160GB. The 160GB units allow for up to 200 hours of video storage, 36,000 songs, or 100,000 photos, according to the company."

MacNN | Independent video site formats for Apple TV

MacNN | Independent video site formats for Apple TV: "The video site HungryFlix, already selling videos formatted for the iPod and Sony PSP, today announced new video content specially formatted for Apple TV. The site specializes in independent media of various forms, ranging from TV shows and music videos to shorts and feature films."

MacNN | Independent video site formats for Apple TV

MacNN | Independent video site formats for Apple TV: "The video site HungryFlix, already selling videos formatted for the iPod and Sony PSP, today announced new video content specially formatted for Apple TV. The site specializes in independent media of various forms, ranging from TV shows and music videos to shorts and feature films."

Macworld: Mac Word: One week with Apple TV

Macworld: Mac Word: One week with Apple TV

MacDevCenter.com -- Apple TV: State of the Hacks

MacDevCenter.com -- Apple TV: State of the Hacks

headline says it all

Macworld: First Look: Apple TV Diary: Final thoughts

Macworld: First Look: Apple TV Diary: Final thoughts

Includes details on true HD vs not, and most importantly to me, the skinny on 5.1 audio:

During my original briefing with Apple, I was told that the Apple TV would not play 5.1 audio. Rather, it would pass any audio as a Pro Logic II encoded stream. Yet RoughlyDrafted’s Ten Myths of the Apple TV demonstrates that the Apple TV can indeed output 5.1 DTS audio through its digital audio port. I’ve tried one of the test files linked to in the article and, sure enough, my AV receiver’s DTS indicator lights up and the file plays from the Apple TV in 5.1.

So what’s really going on? To get a clue, I and some of my colleagues threw a few AC3 5.1 audio files at the Apple TV and no 5.1 goodness resulted—they were output as Pro Logic II streams. I checked in with Apple and they clarified their original comment this way:

Some formats encoded at certain bit rates may work as 5.1 files, but slip outside those specs and you and 5.1 part ways. The files referenced by RoughlyDrated work. The multichannel files I tried don’t. Rather than confuse customers with a “this may work, that may not” standard, Apple has chosen to say that, generally, 5.1 audio is not currently supported.

And this is probably just as well given that today’s tools for ripping commercial DVDs don’t extract multichannel audio. Rip a favorite DVD with HandBrake, for example, and you’ll wind up with an audio track that contains just the left and right channels. Now that we have a tool as cool as the Apple TV to play our digital video, the next step is getting a tool to help us convert audio as well as video into the richest format possible.


-mike

Create plugins for Backrow

Create plugins for Backrow

Backrow is the back end architecture that drives AppleTV. It has been discovered that it has a plugin architecture, and you there's even a tutorial on how to make your own.

Hey! We can hack AppleTV without opening the case

Since we can:

1.) install OS X on the AppleTV

2.) Can boot AppleTV from an external USB drive

3.) Can get into the guts of AppleTV with SSH, Apache, or Apple Remote Desktop

Booting from USB drive is as simple as holding down "Menu" and the left arrow button at the same time during bootup in the Magical Special Sequence. Further details here

-mike

H.264 hardware encoder for Mac - encode movies for iPod, Apple TV and iPhone | iPhone-Scene

H.264 hardware encoder for Mac - encode movies for iPod, Apple TV and iPhone | iPhone-Scene

For quickie conversions (quality unknown, probably single pass CBR I'd guess) - USB stick with a H.264 hardware encoder in it - gotta plug it in and install software, then can encode video for iPod, AppleTV, iPhone, etc. Works with any app that supports QuickTime - iMovieHD, QuickTime Player Pro, etc.

Good news: from Elgato, which has been around for some time

Bad news: little specific hardware bits like this inevitably die the death of non-updated drivers when a new OS comes out down the road.

The only price reference I have is 99 Euros, that's a bit over $130 US.

Elgato "hopes to" ship at end of April, so I'll read that as June+.

-mike

Why the new AppleTV should be in your car - Autoblog

Why the new AppleTV should be in your car - Autoblog

Park 'n Sync anyone?

They lay out why they think it'd be a good idea to integrate AppleTV into a car.

I'd go under seat, not in dash - heat issues, anyone?

-mike