We Got Served

Smart Installer

Smart Installer is the first plugin to be recommended for installation, as it enables a number of core features required by other plugins including:

1. USB hard drive storage

2. Mouse and keyboard support

3. AFP and/or SMB network streaming support

4. Improved DVD playback functionality

To install the plugin, navigate to Nito TV > Settings > Smart Installer. Apple TV will head off to download the necessary files (which take a while) and then install them automatically. Power cycle the Apple TV and boom! You just tricked out your Apple TV!

mplayer Codecs

Next up, let’s improve codec support by installing mplayer Codecs. This will help Apple TV handle pretty much most file formats you can throw at the box, including xvid, divx, wmv, mkv, mp4, mpeg-1, mpeg-2, flv, and many more. Again, the installer is at Nito TV > Settings > mplayer Codecs.

XBMC

Formerly known as the “Xbox Media Center”, XBMC is a kick ass media centre application for multiple platforms, including Windows, Mac, Linux and now Apple TV too. It’s a must have download, and you can choose from the current stable release or head straight to the latest alpha build if you really want to live on the edge!

Boxee

Talking of media centre applications, ATVFlash brings access to not just XBMC, but Boxee too. So, if you prefer your media with more of a social networking flavour, you can easily pick up the current Boxee alpha (or beta next month) and install on your Apple TV.

Gaming Emulators

Gaming on your Apple TV, sir? Why of course – here’s a taste of retro button tweaking action courtesy of Nestopia (Nintendo NES/Famicom), BSNES (SNES), Genesis Plus (Sega Genesis/Megadrive), Boycott Advanced (Nintendo Gameboy Advance) and SMS Plus (Sega Master System/Game Gear).

And More!

Whilst the box is now open, let’s go ahead and install a heap of plugins, including Flip4Mac WMV (providing WMV support), Adobe Flash (not currently working for me), QuickTime Web Plugins, Mobile Air Mouse (transforms your iPhone into an air mouse, trackpad and wireless remote), Hotspot Shield (provides anonymous web browsing), Vine Server (allows you to control your Apple TV from another computer on the network via a remote desktop session), Firefox (you know this, one right? Okay, just in case, it’s an Internet Browser), Google Earth (advanced mapping and satellite imagery) and finally, VLC Media Player (another media player!).

We’ll drill down into some of these applications in future articles, but you can see that once the Apple TV has been hacked, a world of possibilities opens up.

Bricking the Apple TV

All sounds great, yes? Well, let’s pause – whilst everything seems to be fine, remember this is still experimental stuff. If one community-coded application doesn’t behave, the box can freeze, restart or go into a permanent reboot cycle. For example, I found that trying to install the Webkit application from within Nito TV led to the Apple TV being unable to boot. You may also find applications installing successfully, but then refusing to run. Fortunately, in these scenarios, I’ve found pressing the Play/Pause and Menu keys together for a short time will place the Apple TV in recovery mode where you can return the box to a clean build of Apple TV 2.4 and start again. Which you may be doing frequently if your experience is similar to mine and you fail to do the following….

Top Tip: Always ensure you’re running the latest version of ATV Flash, and check the website to ensure compatibility with the Apple TV software version you are using. The last two (3.0 and 3.0.1) updates of the Apple TV software have broken compatibility with the applications installed by ATV Flash. Usually an ATV Flash update appears a day or two after Apple have updated their software.

Another very valuable lesson I learned was that you’ll need to reformat your USB drive using a special application after you’ve flashed the Apple TV if you wish to use the drive in Windows again. If you try to install an updated version of the patchstick on the drive, it won’t work without the drive being formatted in advance. It’ll appear to have worked, but that patchstick will still have the old version of the ATVFlash software – you’ll hack your Apple TV again, and wonder why everything’s the same! The issues I had above with Webkit were simply due to not formatting the USB and wrongly assuming I was flashing the Apple TV with the latest version of ATVFlash.

Headline – read the documentation carefully!

Whilst hacking the Apple TV with ATVFlash is quite easy, and opens up a world of possibilities for your previously closed box, remember that you’re on the edge of unchartered territory, and the seas can be choppy. ATVFlash’s forums provide an excellent source of reference material for troubleshooting.

With our Apple TV now fully hacked, next time we’ll take a look at the new features which have been unlocked, including using Apple TV with Windows Home Server.

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