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FireCore has just released an Apple TV supercharger – aTV Flash (black) 1.0, which features a new Media Player, Couch Surfer Pro web browser, Last.fm radio, Weather, RSS feeds and gives you fast access to plugins like nitoTV, Remote HD, XBMC and Plex client. Here is a detailed tutorial on how to install the new version of aTV Flash on both Mac and Windows.

How to install aTV Flash (black) 1.0 on Apple TV 2:

Pre-install checklist

1. Jailbreak the Apple TV running software version 4.4 (tethered) or 4.3 (untethered).
2. Connect the Apple TV your TV like normal (power, HDMI and wifi/ethernet). An active network connection will be required (the ‘In Theaters’ option under ‘Movies’ should be visible).
3. Enable Home Sharing and AirPlay (Settings -> AirPlay)

Run the installer – Mac

Step 1: Download the latest version of aTV Flash (black) from your account.
Step 2: Open the DMG and double-click the installer.

Step 3: The installer will copy a few small files to your computer (these will then be transferred to the Apple TV).

Step 4: You will then be prompted to select your Apple TV from a drop-down list.

Step 5: The files will be transferred to the Apple TV.

Step 6: When complete, the Apple TV will restart automatically for the changes to take effect.

Step 8: After installation all apps and updates can be installed directly on the Apple TV through the Maintenance –> Manage Extras menu.

Run the installer – Windows

Step 1: Download the latest version of aTV Flash (black) from your account.
Step 2: Open the exe and choose a location to save the application (desktop is recommended).
Step 3: Run the aTV Flash (black) program.

Step 4: Select your Apple TV from the drop-down menu.

Step 5: The files will be transferred to the Apple TV automatically.

Step 6: When complete, the Apple TV will restart automatically for the changes to take effect.

Step 7: After installation all apps and updates can be installed directly on the Apple TV through the Maintenance –> Manage Extras menu.

 

You may also want to read:
How to Jailbreak Apple TV 2 on iOS 5 (Apple TV 4.4) Using Seas0nPass – Tethered
How to Jailbreak Apple TV 2 on iOS 4.3 with Seas0nPass (untethered)
How to Watch Hulu on Apple TV 2
How to install XBMC on Apple TV 2

Visit What's on iPhone for the best iPad and iPhone app reviews!
Do you want to feel like a wizard? Check the Kymera wand in Amazon: You can control your Apple TV waving a wand!

Today we will install an FTP server in one of our Apple TV 1. FTP means File Transfer Protocol, and a FTP server is a program sitting in your device, waiting for someone to send him files (or ready to send them). Then, if you have an FTP server in your Apple TV, you can transfer files easily an quickly from your Mac OS (in a Finder window, Go menu and select connect to server, then ftp://locationofappletv) or your Windows machine (just enter ftp://locationofappletv in your Explorer window).

For this tutorial to work, you need to have SSH access to your Apple TV. Of course, this is the first step in any jailbreaking tutorial, so I’ll assume you are past this step. If you are not, you can find more details in our How-To category.

This will only work (in an useful way) in an Apple TV1, since the Apple TV2 lacks a hard drive and FTP needs somewhere to store the files. What else do you need? Well, you need the FTP daemon. A daemon is a special kind of program in UNIX systems that watches what is happening… Oddly enough, the name comes from electromagnetism’s theory father, James Maxwell. Odd happenings.

Where can you get this little program? The easiest source is an Intel Mac. You can copy this file straight if you are in a Mac computer: it is located in /usr/libexec/ftpd You have to copy it to /usr/bin/ftpd You also need to make it executable, do it by logging to your Apple TV and then

sudo -s
chmod +x /usr/bin/ftpd

What happens if you don’t have a Mac installation at hand? Well, I found a trick in AwkwardTV‘s wiki to install the FTP server. You just grab it from the recovery partition in your Apple TV. This is a special part of your Apple TV’s harddrive where Apple puts a copy of the operating system. Then, if everything fails, you can safely start your system from there.

The procedure for getting this is as follows: You ssh into your Apple TV and then issue the following commands:

sudo -s
INSTALL_SOURCE='/tmp'
DAEMON='usr/libexec/ftpd'
dd if=/dev/disk0s2 of=$INSTALL_SOURCE/recovery.dmg bs=1m
hdiutil mount $INSTALL_SOURCE/recovery.dmg
hdiutil mount /Volumes/Recovery/OS.dmg
cp -p /Volumes/OSBoot\ 1/$DAEMON /usr/bin/
chown root:wheel /$DAEMON
hdiutil unmount /Volumes/OSBoot\ 1
hdiutil unmount /Volumes/Recovery -force
chown root:wheel /usr/libexec/ftpd

This is just the UNIX way of mounting the recovery disc, copying the file, making the file usable and unmounting the disk. It won’t fire any missiles anywhere.

Things are closer to an end. Now we have the FTP daemon sitting in your Apple TV… But it isn’t active yet. Moreover, we want to be able to connect to it, so we need some user that can talk with him. Enter into your Apple TV via SSH and issue the following:

If you know what you are doing, you can do use some command line text editor. What does this blurb do? It writes a PList file (a property list in Apple’s OSes) telling iOS to run the FTP daemon. To write it, we use the UNIX command cat, which is one of the simplest ways to write a file. Once we have this file, we can load the daemon with:

launchctl load $PLIST_FILE

Now the only thing left to do is create a user to access via FTP We will name this user appletvftp. Run the following via SSH:

USERS_FILE='/etc/ftpusers'
cat >> $USERS_FILE <<EOT
appletvftp    allow
EOT

Yay! The only thing left to do is to check that you can transfer files to your Apple TV. Follow the steps we said at the beginning about Mac’s Finder or Windows’ Explorer. By the way, if you are in a Linux system, you have several ways to access, probably your file manager has some “connect to server” option quite visible. Try it.

I hope this has helped all those Apple TV 1 users out there! Stay tuned for more tutorials, and don’t forget to subscribe to our brand new newsletter.

Picture courtesy of Omoon at Flickr

FireCore has just released Seas0nPass 0.7.7 that features support for Lion and a handful of bug fixes. It’s generally designed to jailbreak your atv2 running iOS 4.3.x (Apple TV 2 4.2.2 software version) but, according to nitoTV, it also supports the latest iOS 5 beta.

Similar to PwnageTool, Seas0nPass allows you to jailbreak your atv2 by creating custom Apple TV IPSW files and restoring them in iTunes. It’s both Mac and Windows.

Here is the tutorial on how to jailbreak your Apple TV 2 on iOS 4.3 (Apple TV 4.2.2) or iOS 5 using Seas0nPass 0.7.7:

Pre-launch checklist

1. Make sure you’re running the latest version of iTunes.
2. Download Seas0nPass: Mac [10.6 or later] | Windows [XP or later]
3. A micro USB cable will be required to complete the jailbreak.

Jailbreaking

Step 1: Launch Seas0nPass and select ‘Create IPSW’.

Step 2: The latest Apple TV software will be downloaded and used to create a custom jailbroken software file.

Step 3: When prompted, connect your Apple TV using a micro-USB cable (leave power disconnected), and hold both the ‘MENU’ and ‘PLAY/PAUSE’ buttons for 7 seven seconds. Apple TV will enter in DFU mode.

Step 4: A message will appear giving you further instructions.

Step 5: Open iTunes and restore your Apple TV (Shift + ‘Restore’ button) from the created custom IPSW file (located in My Documents -> Seas0nPass).

Done!

What to do next?
1. Install nitoTV or aTV Flash (black) to get the access to further enhancements.
2. Instal XBMC to watch Hulu.
3. Check out Remote HD app and atv2 plugin and control your Apple TV 2 with the iPhone/iPad or iPod touch.

Although the developer of Bluecop said that Hulu is not working with his XBMC add-on anymore, I decided to write this tutorial because many users report they are still able to get Hulu on Apple TV 2 via this plugin. The developer claims it won’t last but you can check it out by yourselves and try your luck. We’ll be updating this post to provide you with the latest on this topic.

So how to watch Hulu on atv2? Here is the step-by-step guide.

Note: it requires you to have your Apple TV 2 already jailbroken with nitoTV, XBMC and openSSH installed.

1. Download Bluecop repository (zip file)
2. SFTP into your Apple TV  (username “root”, pass “alpine” if you haven’t changed it already; find your atv IP address in Settings ->General -> Network)
3. Copy zip file to /private/var/mobile/Media folder
4. In XBMC on your atv go to System -> Add-ons -> “Install from zip file”
5. Browse to var/mobile/media, find “repository.bluecop.xbmc-plugins.zip” and press OK (Bluecop is already enabled)
6. Go to System -> Add-ons -> get add-ons, find “bluecop Add-on Repository” click OK, choose video add-ons, find Hulu and install it
7. Head to Videos -> Video add-ons, find Hulu and enjoy (should work with both regular Hulu and Hulu Plus).

Tell us in comments if it works for you. Don’t worry if not, Bluecop offers a few other add-ons you may want to check out (Cartoon Network, CBS, MTV, South Park Studios, The Daily Show and more).

You may also want to read:
How to Jailbreak Apple TV 2 on iOS 4.2.1 Untethered with Seas0nPass
How to jailbreak Apple TV 2 with greenpois0n rc6
How to install XBMC on Apple TV 2

Firecore has just posted a few notes for those having trouble using Seas0nPass to jailbreak the Apple TV 2.

Here are the tips:

1. Some users have reported issues with ‘wifi sync’ enabled. Disabling this (if currently in use) seems to resolve a number of issues related to restoring in iTunes.

2. If you’re getting errors when creating the IPSW, please try the fix found here: http://forum.firecore.com/topic/3761#comment-13581

3. During the JB/restore process, once the Apple TV is put into DFU mode a special script takes over to automate the iTunes restore process. This process can be interrupted if you click away from the iTunes window before the actual restore has begun. Once the AppleTV restore (in iTunes) is underway it is ok to click away from the iTunes window. Update: This process will be improved in the next version of Seas0nPass.

4. When performing a tethered boot timing seems to be important. You will want to ensure the power cable is not connected until you get the rapid flashing light. Also, the HDMI cable needs to be connected promptly once the tethered boot process is complete, and before the white light on the AppleTV stops flashing.

5. The bug relating to the AppleTV forgetting wireless networks has been a known issue in all AppleTV jailbreaks to this point. Update: The wifi bug was partially fixed in 0.6.6. The AppleTV will automatically rejoin networks after a full restart, however the wireless network may still drop off when returning from an extended sleep. We’re currently looking into a more complete fix.

Note: If after all this you’re still having trouble please open a support ticket and send us the Seas0nPass log file found at: ~/Library/Logs/SP_Debug.log.

[source: Firecore]

You may also want to read
How to jailbreak Apple TV 2 on iOS 4.2.1 with Seas0nPass
How-To: Jailbreak Apple TV 2G on iOS 4.2.1 with PwnageTool
AirFlick Streams Non-iTunes Data to Apple TV 2 (video)

There have already been some great shots, some howlers, some nice Dutch supporters, and even some North Korean “fans”, but the best of the show is yet to come. And there is finally a way to watch all the games live (!) on your Apple TV: World Cup 2010 app has arrived to Boxee. Find it in the app library, fire up and enjoy. Thanks Univision, thanks Boxee! Sadly, for those of you who don’t live somewhere between the RFK Memorial Stadium and the Home Depot Center, it is US only.

You are trying to boost your pc performance in some less conventional way and then, suddenly, there is only gray smoke what have left from your 1 TB heard drive and your enormous movie collection? Your ‘puppy’ buried your brand new tiny netbook in the garden and you will never find out where? Lost your music and last holidays’ photos? You’re crashed but you recall you had copied it to your Apple TV some time before. Yes, coping files to the Apple TV is making a backup without knowing it. The only question now is how to get it back. Here is what you have to do to recover your priceless media files from your atv.

1. Enable SSH on your Apple TV

(here is how to do it: Enable SSH & AFP on your Apple TV)

Omit this step if your Apple TV runs software v2.2 or later (OS versions older than 2.2 don’t support ssh v2 protocol) or if you have SSH already enabled.

2. Execute the following command:

$> scp -1 -r frontrow@<APPLETV_IP>:/mnt/Media/<media_to_recover>/ /<Destination_local_machine>

example:

$> scp -1 -r frontrow@192.168.27.150:/mnt/Media/Photos/ /tmp/

In this case all the photos stored in Apple TV will be copied to the local directory /tmp/

That’s all. Yes, it’s that simple.

In case you want to recover all the data without specifying any subdirectory use the following command:

$> scp -1 -r frontrow@192.168.27.150:/mnt/Media/ /myAppleTVfullbackup/

NOTE:

• It will work on Mac, Linux as well as on Windows with openSSH.

• The structure of directories and file names on Apple TV is the same like the one used in iPods

Enjoy and good luck!

A simple how-to for those who still haven’t figured out they can move their DVD collection do the atv. “Ripping your personal DVD’s for the AppleTV adds convenience. Selecting them from My Movies is so much simpler than finding and then loading up the DVD,” says Guy and we do agree. Guy recommends using DVD43 for ripping and HandBrake for converting to mp4, but remember there is a lot of other software that can do this job. For those who like to organize their movies with DVDpedia, PARA9 has just released DVDpedia FrontRow and AppleTV plugin 2.0.6 with AppleTV 3.0.1 support.

Read How to add your DVDs to AppleTV

Another great work from Danny! He has published a tutorial explaining how to install transmission (bittorent client) on the Applet TV and run Clutch web-interface to control bittorrent from browsers.

To go through this new tutorial you first need to enable SSH on your Apple TV (check out Danny’s previous tutorial). The new hack is generally based on installing transmission, MAMP web server and Clutch.

It’s then possible to control the Clutch even via the iPhone.

Users had reported some errors but the problem seems to be solved now, after Danny made some corrections. Go to the comments to learn more.

Check it out!

Interesting post at Lifehacker.com by Kevin Purdy, describing a how-to convert an appleTV into a full featured media center thanks to Boxee.

Read more at Cut the Cable For Good with Boxee and Apple TV

XBMC, an open source, cross-platform media center is no installable on Apple TV. XBMC supports a very complete spectrum of of audio and video multimedia file formats and codecs right out-of-the-box.

With the built in features and third party plugins, this really is a flexible media center. You can find out more on how to install XBMC on your Apple TV at this thread on their website.

A USB installer is in the works, but is currently not quite ready. For now you have to do the installation manually.