blog | edwards research

Ever wanted to put all those downloaded movies on your computer on to your Apple TV, so you could watch them on your 42″ television instead of your 20″ monitor?  Here is a step by step isntruction set to hack your Apple TV from Windows.

Note: You should consider upgrading to a larger hard-drive before you do this, as you can really reap the benefits.

Installing Boxee / XBMC / SSH

1. Download atv-win
2. Extract the files from the .zip into a temporary directory (eg. C:\temp\)
3. In the zip, Vista gives you weird 0 byte files along with all the directories, extract one directory at a time, then click ignore to the errors, select all the 0 byte files, then delete the 0 byte files.  Now ctrl+click the directories and extract.  You will need to do this like 4-5 times.  After all of this, double check that the directory structure is the same as in the .zip file
4. Follow the instructions in this readme (also below).
5. Make sure you are connected to the internet
6. start -> run -> type “cmd” and press enter
7. cd C:\temp\
8. cd atv-win-1.0.b11
9. mk-atv-xbmc-ssh
10. (wait — the batch file will download necessary files from apple and create the boot image)
11. In Windows Explorer:  C:\temp\
12. Run USB Image Tool
13. Set Dropdown to Device Mode
14. Click Restore
15. Remove USB Drive, Re-insert
16. Click OK
17. Wait until image is copied, when finished remove USB Drive
18. Unplug Apple TV
19. Insert USB Drive into Apple TV
20. Plug Apple TV Back in
21. You should see a graphic of Tux the Linux Penguin sitting on top of the Apple TV.
22. Wait until it gives you the OK (in tiny font, which might be off the bottom of the screen — 10 minutes should be fine by far — my installation took less than 5).
23. Unplug Apple TV
24. Remove USB Drive
25. Plug Apple TV Back in

You should now have Boxee / XBMC and SSH installed.

Installing ATVFiles (access to non-standard [downloaded] files)

1. You need to have installed SSH (whether through the above steps, or through another method, to install ATV Files and Perian Codecs).
2. Download latest file from Download(ATV) Link here.
3. Download WinSCP
4. Look up your Apple TV’s IP Address (Wired makes life much easier): On Apple TV: Settings->General->Network->IP Address
5. Enter the Apple TV’s IP Address into WinSCP, and log into Apple TV (username: frontrow, password: frontrow)
6. Copy ATVFiles-1.x.x.run
7. Disconnect from your Apple TV with WinSCP
8. Download PuTTY.
9. Log into your Apple TV with PuTTY — same hostname, username and password.
10. Type:

11. sudo sh ATVFiles-1.x.x.run

12. When that has finished, type:

13. sudo reboot

Installing Perian Codecs

1. Download Perian .dmg file from the Perian Site.
2. Download UltraISO Trial Edition
3. Install UltraISO
4. Use UltraISO to get Perian.zip (Perian.prefpane/Contents/Resources/Components), CoreAudio and QuickTime
5. Extrac these files into a temporary directory (eg. C:\temp\)
6. Unzip Perian.zip, you should now have three files: A52Codec.component, AC3MovieImport.component, Perian.component
7. Launch WinSCP
8. Log in to your Apple TV as shown above.
9. Copy A52Codec.component to /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components/
10. Copy AC3MovieImport.component to /Library/QuickTime/
11. Copy Perian.component to /Library/QuickTime/
12. Either unplug and plug your Apple TV back in or SSH into the Apple TV with PuTTY and type:

13. sudo reboot

14. You are all set.