Comments on: What’s better than a non-working USB patch?

By: Ridge

Ridge — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 04:18:28 +0000

Thanks for the reply guys. When it comes to computers I’m not completely useless, but anything to do with programming/coding is somehting I’ve never done before. Can you guys please give me a quick ‘idiot’s guide’ to simply incorporating xvid/divx into the apple tv menu for me to play. Some people have said I cn just covert all of my movies/episodes, the problem is this would take so long, and require a huge amoung of hard drive space (every ep of seinfeld, simpsons, movies, etc).

I really do appreciate any help people can give me. My girlfriend has a mac if I need that, and I have 2 pcs (desktop and laptop).

Thanks again, Rihard

By: Die Mystic Boer

Die Mystic Boer — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 18:24:58 +0000

A nice Windows/Mac GUI. Unfortunately no GUI is gonna crack open a AppleTV and enable ssh…

Disapointed

By: luck

luck — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 16:20:28 +0000

norwscaper and Scothoser,

In order for the patch to work, an install script must be run. This means that you need more than just an ssh client; you need a posix-compatible environment. I am not familiar with what is available on Windows for this eventhough I, myself, am a Windows programmer.

OK, might as well tell you guys a little bit more about the procedure. There is an install script that needs to be run under a posix-compatible environment. It then uses ssh to connect to the Apple TV and patches the kernel on the Apple TV remotely. We have only tried this on Intel Macs. I tried running it on my MacBook Pro and my iMac. Most importantly, the patch was written BEFORE the Apple TV 1.1 upgrade. I do not know if it will work with the current version of the software or not.

Later down the road, maybe somebody from the community will make the process less geekish and more user-friendly. As for now, this was how the patch was sent to us. We only just modified what we were given to make it work. It would be nice if we could have a nice Windows/Mac GUI application to automate all this.

By: luck

luck — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 16:05:07 +0000

Henrik, only the external drive will be used when it is connected. The storage capacity of the two drives will not be combined.

As for the content of your internal drive, it will be copied over to the external drive when you first connect it to the Apple TV. From then on, the internal drive will not be used, only the external one.

If you disconnect the external drive, the Apple TV will revert back to using the internal hard drive.

By: Scothoser

Scothoser — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 15:38:47 +0000

@ norwscaper

You can get an SSH client for the PC for free off the internet. That will allow you to access an Apple TV with enabled SSH without a problem.

This patch, from what I understand, doesn’t require SSH, that is just for the codec installer that is being developed.

Also, if you want to have more than just the SSH client, you may want to try installing cygwin on your Windows machine. That will give you a whole host of Unix utilities, and even let you use Unix commands in your command line. ^_^

By: Henrik

Henrik — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 15:00:07 +0000

Everyone say the USB disc will be primary? What happends to the buildin disc in Atv. If i connect a 500gb external drive, will i then have 540gb total? or just 500? Will the buildin 40gb be useless? What happends with the stuff on the buildin disc when connecting the new one?

By: Moduz

Moduz — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 14:38:25 +0000

PS. UGH! People we have been waiting patiently (sort of) for this USB HD patch for about a month now. Can we PLEASE not distract the issue until the good people at appletvhacks release the patch? Thank you.

By: Moduz

Moduz — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 14:34:55 +0000

"It allows an external USB drive to act as a primary storage instead of the internal one; this way, youâ€re not limited to just 160gb." God bless you, every one!

By: norwscaper

norwscaper — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 13:36:20 +0000

Tom, if SSH has to be enabled does this mean you need a mac for this patch? are us PC users are out of luck?

By: Tom @ AppleTVHacks.net

Tom @ AppleTVHacks.net — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 12:23:04 +0000

The patch won’t allow new codecs etc. – it simply stores the media in it’s native format, but on an external USB drive, allowing you to upgrade your storage capacity without having to mangle your Apple TV’s internals.

I’m working away at gettting the installer script working now. If you want to get prepared, you need to have SSH enabled on your Apple TV for the installer to run.