i’ve recently bought apple TV & immediately started hacking it 
. out of the box apple TV let’s you view & listen to all your iTunes content: movies, music and pictures on your iPhoto (with “take 2″ you can also rent movies from iTunes & stream iTunes music to your apple TV via AirTunes). and you can do it all on your beloved HDTV set & your high end HiFi _wirelessly_
once hacked, apple TV is a very cheap solution ($200!) to wirelessly stream all of your movies (divx, mpeg, avi) from your computer to your entertainment system – via apple TV & you can listen to internet radio (via streamer).
hacking of apple TV does not require opening the box any longer. all you need is an USB stick & … unfortunately Mac OS 10.4 running on an intel mac. all you do is: plug the patchstick in the back of appleTV, reboot & vu a la!
if you’re a techie / hacker, simply follow instructions:
- Beginner’s Guide – how to hack ATV 1
- NitoTV | ATVFiles | Sapphire | Perian - plug-ins
[few notes: can't create a patchstick in Windows nor Leopard, NitoTV doesn't appear on ATV Loader no longer (?)]
on the apple TV 2 news front:
- folks at awkwardTV forums are trying to hack via safe update to apple TV 2 …
- [update] jMahn gives us step-by step instructions to modify your patchstick so it works on ATV 2! (he says, once hacked – AirTunes & movie rentals works – at your own risk)
- ps: you CAN upgrade to 2.0 & then restore back to 1.0 in order to play with the new features (in my opinion podcasts are the best addition to appleTV & you can get a lot of HDTV podcast content for FREE)
- AppleTV 2, AirTunes And Airfoil 3 – soon, you’ll be able to stream any of your audio (non iTunes radio, skype, etc) to Apple TV wirelessly … work in progress & it’s ONLY $25!
