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Apple TV Hack Allows External USB Storage

gizmodo.com — "At last, someone has developed a patch to allow the Apple TV's storage capacity to be expanded using the USB port, using its internal hard drive to boot and one fat external USB 2.0 2 terabytes drive to store as many TV series, photos and porn movies as you want."

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  • digitallysick, on 10/10/2007, -9/+40Sounds like the apple tv just got better
    • bobbothegrayson, on 10/10/2007, -7/+42Sounds like apple should have allowed this in the first place.
      • Ndric, on 10/10/2007, -16/+9I don't understand why you're getting dugg down

        Oh wait, I do. Apple does nothing wrong.
        • bobbothegrayson, on 10/10/2007, -7/+2I was saying it was wrong for them not to allow this in the first place, dumbass.
          • Ndric, on 10/10/2007, -5/+6I didn't put /sarcasm because I overestimated your IQ. Look in the mirror before calling anyone a dumbass, dumbass

    • chris9902, on 10/10/2007, -13/+19It couldn't of got much worse.
    • russelbutt, on 10/10/2007, -8/+3sounds like another fact showing how crippled the apple tv is and why it sucks.. buried..
    • Nerfdude, on 10/10/2007, -5/+3wait, so somebody capable of hacking ANYTHING actually bought an Apple TV? i'm dumb as rocks, but i know my softmodded xbox is more capable at streaming to my television than that hunk of *****.
      • jkoke, on 10/10/2007, -3/+3Nobody cares about your softmodded Xbox
  • lincolnluxor, on 10/10/2007, -24/+11sounds like i still don't care about it
    • Me1000, on 10/10/2007, -5/+4You cared enough to post!
    • rudy23, on 10/10/2007, -2/+3too bad you are being dugg down but it still isnt worth caring about.
  • OJdidntdoIT, on 10/10/2007, -20/+3Pretty useless for me since fat has a size limitation on files.
    • djpants428, on 10/10/2007, -3/+20the article says that the external drive is formatted HFS+, the title referred to it as "fat" meaning large (2TB). I guess you only read the title, but still comment like you have a clue what you're talking about.
  • slackerxpc, on 10/10/2007, -4/+23hmmm, I might pick one of these up. I have an extra 500gb external drive laying around
  • toxicityj, on 10/10/2007, -20/+7sounds like apple tv is still a flop
    • toxicityj, on 10/10/2007, -5/+3go ahead. digg me down like its not true.
    • somegeologist, on 10/10/2007, -3/+3Shhh. there will be no talk about Apple flops. Don't mention the mini either.
      • meatmcguffin, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1Uh....the mini wasn't a flop. If you want to troll you could try the Pippin, the Cube or, at a stretch, the Newton
        • toxicityj, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2the newton wouldnt be a stretch. thats a flop that makes Dreamcast look like the Wii.
      • toxicityj, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2the mini wasn't a flop. Its pretty much the only way a lot of people would ever switch to Macs. despite it being overpriced, its still cheap compared to everything else mac that costs $1000+

        but you're right with your implication that its futile to call something apple-related a flop. the fanboys just digg it down without using their heads and realizing "oh hey. no one bought it. it really is a flop"
    • Me1000, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2How is it a flop?
      it is not as successful as the iPod, or the iPhone. but look at the advertising that went into the apple TV. oh wait, what advertising!


      • toxicityj, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2its a flop because
        1. it doesnt do anything that you couldn't do with a extra cables, $15, and some programs couldn't do a whole lot better
        2. barely anyone bought it
        3. because the low sales number make it a flop.
        • toxicityj, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I swear to God you mac fanboys defy logic, facts, and the truth so you can continue to live in your ignorant "apple does no wrong" world.
      • chroko, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2It's a flop in my opinion because it's a broken product that I couldn't use, even if I wanted it:

        * It requires an HDTV connection (ie: a new TV) - but there's no HDTV content on the iTunes store.
        * It's a media player - yet doesn't have a huge internal drive (going with a huge 3.5" desktop drive seems like an obvious win) - the entry-level model has less capacity than my iPod.
        * The hacking community has been enabling functions that it should have launched with - like being able to use external USB drives.

        It's like Apple deliberately crippled Apple TV by taking out most of the cool features that would make it sell.
  • BenO169, on 10/10/2007, -15/+11Unless they get a full port of XBMC running on this, (which is being worked on) the Apple TV is dead to me.
  • zdiggler, on 10/10/2007, -9/+14Wow.. people still playing with it?

  • turbineseaplane, on 10/10/2007, -3/+22Finally! Why Apple wouldn't allow this out of the box is a total mystery. Just stupid really.
    • rudy23, on 10/10/2007, -2/+11because its a media streamer. it streams off the network.
      • slackerbox, on 10/10/2007, -4/+2Yes, because everyone loves having their network clogged with traffic when they just want to watch a movie.
        • rudy23, on 10/10/2007, -1/+6do you even know how much bandwidth is available on on a LAN. its more than enough to stream 3 movies and let you run your internet without any bandwidth slowdowns.
      • johnpaul191, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3how about this..... you live alone and your only Mac is a Macbook Pro. if you take your laptop with you a lot then it probably is just as likely to be in a bag, so you would have to pull it out, boot it up, and probably leave the lid open for best ventilation if you are streaming movies.
        personally i have a desktop, but i have heard other people bring up that scenario. it sounds like a valid reason to want more internal storage. there are also a lot of people that have laptops, do not have 802.11n WiFi on all the associated hardware, and said they sometimes get some buffering issues.
        personally i'm still torn between an AppleTV and a cheaper refurb Mac Mini. the built in DVD player, and ability to have a full Mac (web browsing) makes it a tough call. a lot of movies i watch are not on iTunes (very indie or foreign films), and i might not want to own them even if they were. it's cheaper to rent or borrow.
  • digitallysick, on 10/10/2007, -8/+9Give me avi support, a built in torrent client, and external hard drive, and we are good to go!
  • houndeyex, on 10/10/2007, -6/+16Dugg for mentioning porn.
  • miniboss, on 10/10/2007, -2/+5I just bought one and have been working on hacking it for a week now. My experience has been that this has been more of a pain than its worth. If you live in iTunes then keep it the way it is because as a streaming TV-Pod then it's fantastic. But if youre looking to hack it to play real-world files then don't even bother.

    BTW. I had to go to 4 different Costco's to find one. Each one listed it as discontinued and while they listed both 40 and 160gb in the system they had no plans on refreshing the stock due to very slow sales. Hopefully people realize that slow sales is good news because it will force Apple to make the product more appealing by opening it up for all files.
  • rudy23, on 10/10/2007, -2/+5Sorry for the ignorance but I havent been following apple tv too closely. Can someone answer thiese questions for me.

    Has it been hacked to

    1. Support major video codecs such as avi, divx, xvid etc. you know the ones our torrent files usually come in ;)
    2. Stream directly from a Network Server via Upnp or shared folders

    Also how difficult is it to apply these hacks and do firmaware updates from apple keep renedering them useless?
    • sancho, on 10/10/2007, -0/+11: Yes, I believe. Check out appletvhacks.net
      2: Not on the base install, yet, though you can run a full OS X install off of the box. If you do that, you should be able to do anything that OS X can do.
    • rebotfc, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2Yes , I currently have streaming from an NFS shared folder..
      • rudy23, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2what about the updates. do they fk all hacks? also how much work it is to hack it. am gonna check the wiki in the meantime?
    • johnpaul191, on 10/10/2007, -2/+4that whole super-Dugg story about AppleTV phoning home, and Apple breaking the hacked devices was a total lie. the hackers ***** something up, and found it easier to blame Apple than themselves. Apple flat out said they do NOT have some secret back door into the AppleTV.

      i'm not sure there has been one firmware, or software, update yet? earlier this year Apple has said they made these for fun. they referred to them as a "hobby" that may one day become a viable market. they never seemed to think they would sell tons of them, they always knew this would be the year of the iPhone.
  • danomagnum, on 10/10/2007, -3/+22 TB is not nearly enough for all the porn you could want...
  • feeser, on 10/10/2007, -3/+1anyone know if there's a way to do this on the Airport Express?
  • over9, on 10/10/2007, -8/+2lol apple's are getting hacked left, right and center nowdays. so much for the famous apple security.
    • meatmcguffin, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4I don't think Apple care if it means hackers are buying them which in turn adds features and makes more people buy them. They haven't released a patch to stop Linux on the iPod, the additions to the iPhone or any patches to undo the hacks to the AppleTV. You could also hack a newton to pieces and Apple didn't care. Hell, even Apple's unofficial slogan is "it's better to be a pirate than to join the navy"

      As for security- breaking into a local computer is easy, it's getting in remotely that's the security risk
    • danny951, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3@over9 Are you really that stupid? I can't believe I'm even replying to your ignorant post.
  • phntm, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2it will allow porn? excellent :)
  • neofactor, on 10/10/2007, -2/+6@over9: "so much for the famous apple security"

    These are feature enhancements... extending the framework that is there. No one, including Apple have established some security measure to prevent this. "hack" is such a loose term today! It is simply take advantage of how things work.. like the "Elevator Hacks" and the like.
  • BlueStarr, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2Sounds koo....
  • MyNameIsJoe, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1Is this better than plugging the hard drive up to your computer and streaming the videos? I thought the whole point of the Apple TV was to be able to stream content to your TV.
    • rebotfc, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1Yes although this way one can have the appleTV play files without a central server being on.
  • fryke, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1well, yeah, you can stream things, but it certainly is nicer to just sync the stuff. i guess at some point, apple will just update AppleTV to be able to do this out of the box. that USB port seems awfully useless as per factory default.
  • suprchunk, on 10/10/2007, -2/+4Actually story here:http://www.appletvhacks.net/2007/07/28/usb-patch-released-hallelujah/
    When will you gizmodo linking losers start digging (not too hard to do, btw) for the link to the actual story?
    • johnpaul191, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2it was probably already submitted by somebody else!
      it's the workaround for the Digg anti-dupe system.
  • anchorman, on 10/10/2007, -7/+4AppleTV is still inferior to xbmc on a modded xbox. Just no getting around it.
    • johnpaul191, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2but you have to buy a more expensive Xbox. i don't play games, so i have no desire to own an Xbox.
      *if* i owned an Xbox, everything i heard says you are correct....... but there are some of us not in that camp.
    • vagarach, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3Still, the apple tv should be able to play video at higher resolution & bitrate as compared to the 733mhz p3 (or celeron) the xbox is running.
    • esoterica, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2Let me know when I can play H.264 on XBMC.
  • anchorman, on 10/10/2007, -8/+3This improves AppleTV quite a bit. However it is still inferior to xbmc on a modded xbox. Just no getting around it.
  • willynilly, on 10/10/2007, -4/+5***** this. Just buy a Mini and be done with it. Then you can use a legitimate storage connection (Firewire) instead of dicking around with hacks and interconnects designed for keyboards, mice, and modems (USB).
    • alphaone, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2Yeah, I don't know why people AREN'T doing that. Bluetooth keyboard/mouse with it or VNC into it from a laptop and you've got a better media player anyway, assuming you install VLC. Hell, if people really want to shell money out, just get a comp with an hdtv capture card and make it your own DVR [my plan in the next year or two when I can afford to].
    • johnpaul191, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1i guess the AppleTV has better quality TV connections. ignoring the price difference, that may be the only thing that is "better" about the AppleTV. i do agree with you though. i would lean towards a Mac Mini over an AppleTV. the built-in DVD player, and full on OS X is appealing. not sure if it's $200 appealing, but i know a lot of people sit on that fence.
    • esoterica, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1I agree, Mac mini is better for your primary media hub since it can also function as a BitTorrent client, iTunes server, etc., but for additional TV's there's no reason to spend twice as much.
  • FireWire2, on 10/10/2007, -6/+2How ignorance this can be! Using the USB2.0 external drives as an additional storage for HD media player had been around for yrs, this is not a new thing. On top of that AppleTV is a half ass product anyway, why bother?
    Compare to http://www.datoptic.com/cgi-bin/web.cgi?product=M4000PA&detail=yes . AppleTV is far behind. Does AppleTV record HDTV, play HDTV at 1080p, play DVD ISO file, HDMI and DVI output? I guess not. This TVIX does
    • esoterica, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1Right. No H.264 support, the configuration you describe is $506, and it can't support the same library/playlists/etc that I already use in iTunes and on my iPod, so setup is a pain whereas with the AppleTV setup literally takes about 2 minutes. No digg.
    • danny951, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2I'll look into the product you posted firewire2, but I'm skeptical as to how easy to use it will be. Can my 6 year old use that as easy as he can the AppleTV?
    • jfoxx, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0"Delete Function
      By pressing “DELETE “button, you can delete multimedia files which are not useless anymore and no need to connect PC to do it""

      files which are not useless anymore? That feature discription alone makes it clear that this machine is not going to be as easy to use.
  • spids, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2http://wiki.awkwardtv.org/wiki/Main_Page
    http://plugins.awkwardtv.org/
  • woot4fun, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2To those indicating that the Mini is better than the AppleTV, the lack of a dedicated graphics chip and video ram makes the mini an inadequate video player. Even the most current model barely makes 24fps at 1080i resolution. Also connecting a mini to your average projector or HDTV is non-trivial. Component outputs and HDMI on the AppleTV make these connections quick and easy. Recent articles, and Steve Job's comments about AppleTV as a hobby indicate that Apple is putting a lot of hardware for the money into that these little boxes.
  • jabberwolf, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0Doing something that enables you to buy and use hardware, other then Apple's hardware?!
    They are seriously going to find you, find you and kill you!!!!
  •  

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