aTV Flash for Apple TV Preview

[Originally published June 2008] Time for a show with a hardware bent!

Lots of buzz around the internet about a product that enables you to ""hack"" your Apple TV simply and easily. All without opening the case and potentially voiding your warranty.

The product is aTV Flash v3.0 from Applecore LLC.

In order to play virtually any video format on your Apple TV, the steps to update are these:

• Buy the aTV Flash software and download to your Mac.
• Download a free disk image file from Apple.
• Insert a Flash USB drive on your Mac and run a script
• Restore your Apple TV to factory settings
• Insert the Flash USB drive into the Apple TVs USB port and reboot

And that's it!

This weeks show takes you through all these stages in detail and even shows you how to setup and transfer media to your Apple TV via FTP plus how to use some of the Applications installed as part of the aTV flash upgrade.

As well as being able to play virtually any video format, some added benefits of upgrading your Apple TV which I cover in the show are:

• Decouple your Apple TV from iTunes and just drag and drop media files to your Apple TV via FTP
• Access and update metadata from the Internet Movie Database and other Internet sources for Movie and TV Show information
• Browse the Internet from your couch with a Webkit based browser

But there is still more I wasn't able to cover in this weeks show including:

• Viewing Video_TS folders and accessing DVD menus
• Accessing Independant Movies via Jaman
• Even Ordering Pizza online!

Please note that this show has not been sponsored or endorsed by Applecore LLC.