If you were watching my tweets last night, you might have noticed that I managed to track down a 40GB Apple TV last night. I had actually requested one from London Drugs way back in October when I learned that my nephew was “hooked” on YouTube videos. I know I could have ordered one direct through Apple (and get Air Miles) or at the Apple… but at the time, I was thinking that the cost/utility ratio was out of wack, and knowing how the rest of the retailers get Apple stock, the delay would buy me time to deliberate other options. Fast forward a few months and I get a call from London Drugs that they received one 40GB unit and that I could drop in and pick it up. So I went over and grabbed it.
The time that I bought myself in waiting allowed me to research all manner of hacks and alternatives to the Apple TV, but at the end of the day, the cost of the hardware and the flexibility that others had found within the Apple TV system kept bringing the device to the top of the list each time I started looking (the WDTV would have won out had been a networkable device).
Getting the device home and setup with all the Apple elements was an absolute piece of cake, typically Apple. But knowing that I didn’t want to dump all my videos into iTunes and have to deal with the system not being able to handle this codec or that, I decided that I would try to do the free things first as Video Drive is a $50 that I can spend on something else. But before I began, I wanted to be sure that there was a way that I could back out of my mischief should anything happen. And sure enough there is:
Restore your Apple TV’s factory settings if you’ve tried steps One through Five above with no positive results. Press the “Menu” and “Menu down/Scroll down” buttons on the remote. Wait for six seconds or until an amber-colored light blinks on the remote. Select a language, then choose “Factory Restore.”
So I made my patchstick, taking all of 2 min, and started to look for a way to power cycle the ATV… and guess what – the device is so simple, that there is NO POWER SWITCH… so you have to either unplug right at the device, or from the wall/power bar (I’m thinking the later is the better option as I saw a bit of a spark jump when I just unplugged the device last night). So getting over that, I plugged the patchstick in and hoped to see the Linux Penguin sitting on my screen… and sure enough, there he was. I thought… this was too easy… there has to be more to hacking this than just swapping plugs, right? I can’t be this easy:
But, yes it was… in fact almost easier than on the video. So after the downloads came down, fired up XBMC, setup the SMB mount to the video server and boom! It works great with all the codecs that I have on my server – it even handles the compressed files :). The only down side is that it is a bit pokey at times and the interface elements, while very pretty, are not that self explanatory, but still very easy to use, about the same as Apple’s system.
I tried Boxee as well, and it doesn’t seem to like the new Apple 2.3 OS, so for that I’m out of luck (it will be interesting to see how it handles hulu in Canada… I’m thinking it’s going to get the same error). So I’ve got some tweaking to do, but as I’ve got one media center that works… do I really need to?? Of course I will, regardless of need.
What’s next for the system? Maybe in time, there will be another media center streamer, but for now, things are looking pretty good. … I just hope I don’t land in hot water with Apple.
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