Atv Flash Silver Download Free Mac

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How to Hack your Original AppleTV 1G (Updated for XBMC v11 and Mac OS X 10.8)

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I bought and hacked my “Silver” AppleTV over 2 years ago, on the day Apple announced the “new” black AppleTV (2nd generation). They have serve me very well, and are still going strong. But after all these times, I felt the set in my Living Room needed a refresh. Somehow XBMC dies whenever I leave it idling for a while. So off I went to restore it and re-hack it, reading my own how-to as I go along since I’ve forgotten how to do it.

Global Nav Open Menu Global Nav Close Menu; Apple; Shopping Bag +. Silverlight means Business. SAP is the world's largest business software company. For their Business ByDesign product, SAP utilized Silverlight's powerful.NET programming model and familiar Visual Studio tools to rapidly develop a visually compelling and easy to use application. Step 1: Download the latest version of aTV Flash from your account. Step 2: Open the DMG and drag the application to your Applications folder. Step 3: When running the aTV Flash Installer you will be prompted to select the flash drive you wish to use from the drop down menu. Step 4: The flash drive will be erased during installation. Step 1: Download the latest version of aTV Flash (black) from your account. Step 2: Mac: Open the DMG and double-click the installer. Windows: Double-click the downloaded.exe file to extract the files, then locate the installer in the aTV Flash (black) folder (usually found on the Desktop).

Much to my horror, 2 years is a long time and the USB stick failed to be created in Mountain Lion! So I went looking for answers on how to hack my original AppleTV in Mac OS X 10.8.2. Well, I’m glad it’s still possible, and here I detail the how-to. This time around, however, I’m not spoon-feeding you with very detailed instructions, but I hope it’s still easy enough for most of you.

Preparing the ATV USB Stick in Mac OS X 10.8

  1. Download atvusb-creator-1.0.b13.zip from here.
  2. Unzip it.
  3. Right-click on the atvusb-creator app, and select “Show Package Contents” from the pop-up menu.
  4. Navigate to /Contents/MacOS/atvusb-creator
  5. Drag & drop the “atvusb-creator” executable file into your Terminal.app (it’s in your OS X “/Application/Utilities” folder).
  6. Hit Enter to launch the app into OS X, and follow Step 2 of this guide to create the USB stick. Come back here after that to start hacking your AppleTV.

Preparing the AppleTV by Restoring it to Factory Condition

  1. Press and hold the Menu+Down buttons until the white LED turns amble, to go into Restore mode.
  2. Select Factory Restore.
  3. After restoring, set up and sync your AppleTV with iTunes, making sure everything works as it should.
  4. (Optional) Setup Network, changing it from DHCP to Manual, if necessary.

Hacking it

  1. Switch off the AppleTV, and plug-in the ATV USB Stick you created earlier.
  2. Switch it on, and watch a bunch of text scrolling by the TV screen. Hacking is done when text has stopped scrolling, in no more than a minute or so.
  3. (Crucial Step) Switch off the AppleTV, and unplug the ATV USB Stick.
  4. Switch it on again.

It’s hacked; you’ll see a new menu item “Launcher” in Frontrow.

Installing XBMC

(Read this post to find out if you need, and how to set up MySQL on your Mac OS X.)

Before we install XBMC, let’s save some time while we are downloading XBMC later on by copying the following two large files into ~/frontrow/Documents . The files are required for the Smart Installer we will run later on.

  1. MacOSXUpdCombo10.4.9Intel.dmg, and

Select “XBMC 11.x – Eden”, from Launcher -> Downloads

Update Launcher after that.

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(Good news) If you have XBMC v11 on another machine, you can simply copy the contents of the two following folders over. That saves you the trouble to re-setup everything! Just make some changes to identify the new setup.

  1. ~/frontrow/Library/Application Support/XBMC/addons/, and
  2. ~/frontrow/Library/Application Support/XBMC/userdata/

Enjoy your XBMC!

(Optional) Installing nitoTV

nitoTV lets me mount my remote afp drives at my MacBook Pro where I keep my collection of multimedia files. It is also required if you want to attach a USB hard disk to your AppleTV USB input.

Open Terminal on your computer, ssh into your AppleTV, and enter the following commands (one line at a time):

  • wget http://nitosoft.com/nitoTVInstaller_tt.zip
  • unzip nitoTVInstaller_tt.zip
  • cd “nitoTV Take Three”/
  • sudo ./installme
  • After rebooting, install & run Smart Installer in nitoTV->Settings->Install Software->Smart Installer
  • DO NOT install Perian via nitoTV. It breaks up the Intro Movie! We don’t need Perian in XBMC anyway (i think).
  • Update NitoTV (0.9.5 to 1.0)
    • (Optional) Change Hostname and Set Time Zone in NitoTV->Settings->General.
    • (Optional) Setup auto-mount remote drives in nitoTV->Network
    • (Optional) Change HDMI Output to RGB High, AppleTV->Settings->Audio & Video
    • (Optional) Make & copy Symbolic Link to Thumbnails in “userdata”.
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(Optional) Installing Maintenance (for Overflow)
Firecore’s ATV Flash has a nice add-on that lets me install Overflow easily, now that Software Menu is broken and I can’t install it the old way. Unfortunately Firecore deliberately put an expiry date on the ATV Flash installer I paid for. I’m not going into their lame excuses which I find unacceptable. Since I can copy a component from my expired copy, I’m not going to waste my time looking for my registration details and contacting Firecore again for an updated installer.

  1. Right-click on aTV Flash and select “Show Package Contents”.
  2. Navigate to Contents/Resources/root/Contents/maint/
  3. Copy Maintenance.frappliance into /~frontrow
  4. ssh into your AppleTV and issue the following commands:
  • sudo mount -uw /
  • sudo mv Maintenance.frappliance /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/PlugIns
  • sudo chmod 755 /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/PlugIns/Maintenance.frappliance/Contents/Resources/mHelper
  • sudo chmod +s /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/PlugIns/Maintenance.frappliance/Contents/Resources/mHelper
  • sudo mount -ur /
  • sudo reboot

Install Overflow, in Maintenance->Manage Plugins

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(Optional) I don’t like Boxee

I don’t know about you but I never liked Boxee because its interface overwhelms me. I could never figure out what it really offers. Therefore I like to get rid of it from my AppleTV, by removing its logo in Frontrow and its entry in Launcher, and finally renaming Launcher to XBMC. Voila, bye bye Boxee.

Here’s a zip file containing the replacement Launcher logo, and two files edited to reflect above. Simply transfer them to ~/frontrow, ssh into your AppleTV, and type the following commands in Terminal.

  • sudo mount -uw /
  • sudo mv Preview.png /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/PlugIns/XBMCLauncher.frappliance/Contents/Resources/
  • sudo mv Info.plist /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/PlugIns/XBMCLauncher.frappliance/Contents/
  • sudo mv InfoPlist.strings /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/PlugIns/XBMCLauncher.frappliance/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/
  • sudo mount -ur /
  • sudo reboot

All done.

At a Glance

Expert’s Rating

Pros

  • Simple setup
  • Ample features
  • Gives you access to many more media types than Apple TV normally provides
Download

Cons

  • Still somewhat of a hack
  • Requires you to opt out of immediate Apple TV OS updates

Our Verdict

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About to enter its third year of existence, the Apple TV () remains one of Apple’s most hotly debated products. This compact, unassuming living room media player is a great companion to the iTunes Store. Yet its tight integration with Apple’s software (and the fact that Apple views it mostly as another way to sell content) means that the Apple TV is shut off from many formats and from the streaming, on-demand type of content available via Boxee or Hulu.

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There are a number of modifications that promise to improve Apple TV by adding services and features, but few are as thorough as Fire Core’s $50 aTV Flash 4. Boasting support for a browser, Boxee, USB hard drives, many file formats, EyeTV content, RSS feeds, FTP/SSH access, and additional plug-ins and apps, aTV Flash is a digital Swiss-Army knife for the Apple TV.

One of the most refreshing things about aTV Flash is its extremely simple setup. There are free ways to add many of the same features to your Apple TV, such as the open-source atvusb-creator, but most require tinkering with install files and Terminal (atvusb-creator, for example, doesn’t currently for Mac users and Apple TV OS 3 without a lot a additional work on your part). They are generally more tedious and/or clunky than difficult, but if you’re looking for an Apple-y “just works” solution to spice up your Apple TV, aTV Flash is it. After purchasing from Fire Core’s site, you download a file, plug a USB flash drive into your Mac (or Windows PC), double-click the installer, then sit back and enjoy the modern age of automation.

aTV Flash adds features to your Apple TV by adding them to the new horizontal menu system introduced in Apple TV software 3.0 (which aTV Flash 4 requires; it supports 3.0.1, the current software version). New menus like Media (for content you add manually outside of iTunes), Browser, XBMC/Boxee, and Maintenance appear in-line with the Apple TV’s standard media sections, making the additions feel right at home.

I was most interested in Boxee, the prospects of using my Apple TV to browse the Web on my HDTV, and USB hard drive support for iTunes syncing. In short: they’re great. After turning on USB drive support, plugging in my external drive, and rebooting the Apple TV, iTunes on my Mac Pro reported that my 1TB Apple TV was ready to gobble up our entire 650GB library. I decided to hook up the Apple TV via ethernet so the initial sync went faster, and once it was done, WiFi syncing of any new media or changes continued without hiccup.

The Web browser, which Fire Core calls Couch Surfer Pro, basically just exposes Apple TV’s built-in-but-hidden Safari, so it works fairly well. Sites loaded quickly and accurately, and you can adjust the text size to suite your needs. A big aTV Flash 4.0 advantage here is full support for Apple’s Remote iPhone app (), including the text entry and flicking features.

As far as Boxee goes, we’ve talked about this rich new streaming media centerplentyalready. It can stream a ton of media from Hulu, Last.fm, Flickr, YouTube, CNN, MySpace TV, PicasaWeb—the list goes on. Boxee installed through aTV Flash is Boxee by any other name, and it works splendidly. Almost. The one problem I found is that you can’t use an iPhone for text input in Boxee, so you’re still stuck with creeping around an on-screen keyboard for signing into your Boxee account or searching for media.

The last couple of features I tested were FTP and support for DVD files backed up using apps such as RipIt (). I used RipIt to back up my copy of Traffic then, after using Fire Core’s simple FTP setup guide, I uploaded the movie to my Apple TV and used the Files option to play it. The film launched as if I had somehow stuffed a DVD into my Apple TV, displaying the menu system. An aTV Flash plug-in called Sapphire can take manual media organization like this one step further, as it hooks into various Internet resources such as IMDB to download metadata and album art to be displayed throughout the Apple TV interface.

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One strange problem I found with FTPing files onto my Apple TV is that OS X 10.6.2 couldn’t copy files over. I had to whip out Panic’s Transmit FTP app to get the job done. According to Fire Core, the Apple TV may restrict the Finder to read-only access, but hopes to overcome the restriction in a future aTV Flash update. You can copy files off, but you’ll need a dedicated FTP app to copy files to an Apple TV.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with aTV Flash. Boxee is a fantastic addition to our living room, but I’m the most happy about finally being able to sync all of our media to our Apple TV, thanks to the external USB drive support. It just doesn’t seem right to have to constantly run the Mac Pro in my office—a Quad Core 2.66 GHz Xeon beast with four hard drives and a big ATI video card for gaming—just to watch an episode of The Venture Bros. because the Apple TV’s needlessly small hard drive couldn’t squeeze it in.

Macworld’s buying advice

Although there are free alternatives for installing some of aTV Flash’s features—if you’re willing to get your hands dirty with open source software and installer files—aTV Flash definitely turns the Apple TV into a powerful, streaming multimedia center for your living room. Or, to put it another way, the type of product Apple should have made itself. If the price tag isn’t too prohibitive, aTV Flash’s extremely easy setup and plethora of features make it worth the money for any media buff who needs a lot more out of an Apple TV. However, an updated version of atvusb-creator may be available soon to provide some of the features offered by aTV Flash without the additional effort currently required.