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Apple TV Already Being Hacked
Posted by
kdawson
on Sat Mar 24, 2007 01:44 PM
from the let-me-at-it dept.
from the let-me-at-it dept.
TunesBoy writes "Only a couple of days after being shipped, the Apple TV is already being modified in a variety of ways. A thread at Something Awful discusses installing VLC, and a dedicated site, AppleTVHacks.net, has appeared and is cataloging hacks including a hard-drive upgrade tutorial. Did Apple intend for the Apple TV to be so easy to upgrade and hack?"
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Apple: AppleTV Hits the Streets 474 comments
Stories are starting to pop up all over the web about the AppleTV, which evidently means that Apple has set loose the hounds of marketing and the units are (or will be tomorrow) available in Apple stores. Still no word on whether or not it plays DivX files. That will be the key to me purchasing one.
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Probably on purpose (Score:5, Funny)
USB2 tv tuner / DVR please! (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple TV is neat and all, but I still want to record most of my shows myself.
To illustrate my point: when the studios started selling TV series episodes on DVD, I didn't throw out my VCR and Tivo! I do continue to buy new movies and TV series on DVD, but I also still do a lot of recording of my own. One of my TVs has a built-in VCR that still gets a lot of use, as does my Tivo, especially for timeshifting 1 - 48 hours until I have time to watch my favorite shows... many of which I enjoy, but wouldn't want to buy on a commerical full season DVD.
Does that make any sense? Or am I the only one who still records?
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Re:USB2 tv tuner / DVR please! (Score:5, Informative)
It makes perfect sense. I have one of these [amazon.com] DVD recorders, and I use it to do essentially the same thing. One DVD-RAM holds up to 8 hours of TV, so it works great for catching up on TV that runs late at night or when I'm too busy to watch it. Of course, I'd prefer a MythTV box with a nice big RAID array, but this was a lot cheaper. (It even came with a DVD-RAM disc!) It basically works like a "poor man's TiVo" when you use a DVD-RAM disc--you can watch a show off the disc while recording another (although seeking doesn't work as smoothly when it's doing two things at once), and you can start recording at any time and just press "Play" to jump back to where you started recording. (You can also tune the TV to another channel, like you can with a VCR.) It can schedule recordings, and is very diligent about cueing up the recording one minute before it starts, to make sure it's ready to record. The UI can be a bit sluggish, and it crashes extremely occasionally (about once a month, if even -- usually when it's juggling seven tasks at once), but it's a great deal, and much cheaper than a TiVo.
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Re:USB2 tv tuner / DVR please! (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple TV or Apple is not to blame, they are not selling a computer or suggest it is a computer, it is a high tech "deck" which happens to run OS X inside to do its job.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
2) One could buy a mini, for about $400-500 more. If all one really wants is a "Front Row" to their tunes and shows, might a mini be a little overkill?
3) A mini counts as one of your allotted five systems. An ATV doesn't.
4) Now, IF one didn't have a DVR, then you might consider a mini plus a EyeTV dongle (another $150). But what about the rest of the house? Seems like $300 a pop per "station" is a lot more reasonable than $700-900 each.
I think too many
Re: (Score:3)
2. The mini does not "lack" HDMI. DVI and HDMI are pin-for-pin identical for the video signal. All you need is a cable with DVI on one end and HDMI on the other.
3. Your ghetto WMC has no optical sound output.
4. The mini also has both USB2 and FireWire, so your ghetto WMC has nothing on it there.
5. People are playing high-bitrate h.264 video RIGHT
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you're missing the point. What Apple are trying to do is to switch you from your current content provider to the iTunes Store.
The Apple TV may not look too interesting in the USA with the many content providers and TIVOs and all, but here in Canada, it will be a very interesting choice. Here's why.
Just as a lot of people stopped buying CDs and now buy single tracks from the iTunes Store, some people will drop their cable/sa
Greed always beats malice. (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm absolutely sure they did. They would have been stupid not to.
Why? Because they wanted to make sure that if anyone found a way to run "real" OS X on it, it would be close to useless because of the small amount of RAM. Sigh.
An interesting conspiracy theory, but here's one that's slightly easier to believe: they minimized the amount of RAM
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Not so hard to believe.
The Dothan ULV is a chip Intel sells solely for "embedded" applications these days (similar in performance and power enveloper to AMD's Geode NX). Core Duo processors in the Mac Mini cost quite a bit more.
The Apple TV also includes a 40GB 2.5" 4200 RPM hard drive, which costs a lot less than the baseline Mini's 60GB 5400 RPM drive. Pa
Awesome! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Awesome! (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Awesome! (Score:4, Funny)
I have the feeling that Apple (probably correctly) figures that Microsoft will do that all by itself without Apple having to lift a finger.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
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Totally! I mean, does anyone seriously think any intelligent person would buy media from a company that only played on that companies device?!? I think Apple tried that with that iPod thing and look how that turned out
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In other words: by making it entirely different. This is the same argument that comes up every time Apple releases anything. Why a TV tuner? If I'm downloading content, I don't need one. If I'm not, why do I need a device to help me play downloaded content? Why not just get a TiVo?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
1.not wanting to pay royalties for formats and codecs they don't need
2.not wanting to take up space on the unit for formats and codecs they don't need
and 3.possibly not wanting to support certain formats seen more on pirated or illegally copied content than on legitimate content.
yes offcourse they did intent that (Score:5, Interesting)
They will not sell that much more hardware directly, but the PR image they create with it is worth a lot, and all they had to do is produce something decent.
Linksys is a very good past example of this: their wrtg routers were nice to modify and already ran linux. I bought one for myself to play with and later advised my brother to get that brand. Marketing is easy if your customers start doing the selling themselves.
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Intentionally, or just not-unintentionaly? (Score:5, Insightful)
It does seem like the norm these days is for companies to build equipment with huge amounts of power, but then they lock it down in an effort to.. protect.
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Go with the flow (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think it was intent to "be easy to upgrade & hack" as it was realizing how much time & resources get wasted by other companies trying to achieve somthing that's not possible.
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Why not ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Historically, Apple don't sell at a loss. I'm pretty sure that (even at the low price of $300 for a 1GHz/256/40G PC in that form factor) Apple will be making money off this - they don't care if you hack it.
In fact, the more hackable it is, the better - jo(e) public buys it so (s)he can watch their iTMS movies on the big screen, the geeks buy it to hack it. Box numbers go up either way, which helps Apple PR, and helps them persuade people they have *the* viable platform for the home.
I wonder how long it'll be before the USB-2 port is made available (it is running OSX, after all), at which point you get an external 1T drive on it as well, in one of the mac-mini style enclosures...
Simon.
Re:Why not ? (Score:5, Funny)
One of the most compact examples of political correctness I think I have ever seen.
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The problem with (s)he (Score:5, Funny)
(s)h(it).
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Will it stay open? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's tempting to buy one now in case they decide to toughen it all up in the future. And that's my tip for any device you may want to hack sometime in the future.
Re:Will it stay open? (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless, of course, you're an Apple Computer with the obvious intent of becoming the 21st century king of content distribution. You probably wouldn't want people hacking into your real-time swarming video distribution system getting movies and TV shows for free. This apparent friendliness to the hacker underground may just be a ploy to get as many of the things out there as possible, by eliminating complaints that were common to late-generation Tivos and Dish Network products. They can always lock it up later.
Time will tell.
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Double whammy in Apple's favor (Score:5, Insightful)
Here, Apple is only supporting formats THEY own, so they can spend the money on the hardware. Hacking it only drives up their market share, and to the complaint that people are watching all these unlicensed formats on it Apple can say "Hey, we didn't do it." But you still bought a box from them.
Re: (Score:2)
AAC is Dolby
MP3 is Fraunhofer (arguable debate ongoing at the moment)
H.264 and MPEG are standards formed by multiple companies
More relevant point is I'm sure Apple has licenses for all of the above for decoding purposes, and incurs no additional cost above what they already incur for such devices like the iPod.
Huh?? Apple doesn't own those formats! (Score:5, Informative)
According to the specs [apple.com], the Apple TV supports AAC, MP3, AIFF, Apple Lossless, WAV, MPEG-4, H.264, JPEG, BMP, GIF, TIFF, PNG.
The only format Apple owns is Apple Lossless audio. The others are industry standards. AAC, Advanced Audio Coding, is part of the MPEG-4 specfication although I belive it doesn't need to be licensed (unlike MP3 which requires a per-machine license). MPEG-4 (aka MPEG-4 part 2) and H.264 (aka AVC: Advanced Video Coding aka MPEG-4 part 10) also require licenses [wikipedia.org].
I'm not sure if JPEG requires a license, probably depends on the lawsuit of the day.
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Re:Double whammy in Apple's favor (Score:4, Informative)
If they want Ogg support, they can install the Xiph component http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx
I just did to watch Novell videos and they show perfectly in my Quicktime plugin.
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Why don't I just buy a 360? (Score:2, Interesting)
For a meager $399, I could get an Xbox360 with all these features AND dvd playback. It even does Hi-def downloads, Live Arcade games, and awesome AAA titles (GTA IV, Devil May Cry 4, (possibly) MGS and FF). That's got a remote, Windows Media connectivity, etc- and is expandable to play HD-DVD, potentially Blu-Ray in the future if it "wins".
It'll even play music off your iPod. Unless you buy ALL your tv off of iTunes, why would you get this? I'd just get a 360 for this money. Both are
Re: (Score:2)
Then again the general consumer standpoint is to buy what ever offers the features they want in an easy to use package. While the 360 is probably a good option, people don't perceive its primary task as being a media platform, and this is what makes the difference.
BTW I am adverse to WMV. MP4 is my preferred format since it has easily accessible specification documents.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
You're not in AppleTV's target demographic then.
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Re:Why don't I just buy a 360? (Score:4, Insightful)
It makes more noise than a medium sized air craft at take off. -Seriously!
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Re:Why don't I just buy a 360? (Score:5, Funny)
This is a slight exaggeration. It's actually more like a small truck in neutral.
-:sigma.SB
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Smaller, quieter. outputs, more dedicated to use (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Much larger
2) Much noisier
3) Lacks HDMI output
4) has media support as an addition, not as the primary foucs of the device.
The two are almost totally seperate devices. I'll grant that if you are getting a 360 already then you have many features which are duplicated by the Apple TV. But the AppleTV is aiming at a much broader market than a game console (and this includes the PS3) can really reach I think.
Furthermore by focus, I really mean focus - as in the AppleTV is dedicated to ease in delivering internet video to your TV. Not even just any video like DVD or newer HD disc formats, but just IP video. That kind of focus usually results in a simpler system that is more appealing to people in that is does what it is meant to do very well.
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second project (Score:3, Informative)
Obligatory linux comment (Score:3, Insightful)
Ok, more to the point: I look at this and see more than a DVR. I see a $299 (very) small form factor computer with a Pentium M (per Anandtech), 100base-T ethernet and wi-fi. $299 is dirt cheap and there's a lot you can do with a lowly Pentium M... It doesn't have to run Linux as long as it's installed OS can be modified.
Re:Obligatory linux comment (Score:4, Insightful)
I look at it and see no tuner or program guide or recording capability. I'm not sure how that equals more than a DVR. It's not even comparable to a DVR.
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Hardly qualifies as a "hack". (Score:3, Informative)
Installing a program on a hard drive on a computer that's got absolutely no protections against installing programs on it hardly qualifies as a "hack".
Looking at the forums pointed to from this story, it's amazing how naive a lot of these wannabe "hackers" are. You've got folks asking, apparently seriously, whether you can run Power PC binaries on the AppleTV. I mean, really...
There are MUCH more interesting tricks the AppleTV and its baby copy of OS X might make possible.
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Re:Bound to happen (Score:5, Informative)
And as for the PS3 being "popular"...
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
it's bound to be hacked at some point
The assertion is that marketing departments know this now and have known this for decades. The observation is that, possibly, hardware hackers are becoming a target group of consumer. When companies design new products they may be specifically tweaking the design to allow the hardware and software infrastructure to be hacked because that will make the product more appealing to an important segment of the consumer population.
Do inquisitive hardware hacking geeks have enough financial clout to significantl
Re:Nothing about installing VLC (Score:5, Informative)
Indeed, I started following the SA thread yesterday, and there was nothing about installing VLC on the device there.
The people behind the SA thread have started a Wiki [awkwardtv.org], which also deserves to be in the summary.
I'll be following this closely - I was thinking of picking up a Mini (if they ever slap a Core 2 Duo in the fucking thing), but the Apple TV would be sufficient if it'll play DivX/XviD.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)