[Jon Seff]

I haven't done the boxee install myself yet, but several of us have, and we should be able to answer that as the hour gets a little less dark here on the west coast...

[Hurley42]

Boxee is way too useful to "upgrade" my Apple TV with this weak list of new options. Not impressive as Boxee. I will be passing on any future updates unless they are very compelling and work with Boxee.

[leicaman]

[quote name='jaspermac']
>

hayesk said:

> Uh-huh. You hacked your AppleTV - what do you expect?

Oh, I expect that sort of thing from Apple.

Yep, so do I. I expect them to feel free to upgrade their hardware without worrying about whether they are going to disable a hack. Hack all you want, but let's not make Apple out to be the bad guy in this particular case. (Or in iPhone firmware updates, or that kind of thing.) They do plenty of things wrong. Let's not pretend this is a bad thing.

But it was good of you to point it out for sure. People do need to know.

[himbo]

leicaman said:

Yep, so do I. I expect them to feel free to upgrade their hardware without worrying about whether they are going to disable a hack. Hack all you want, but let's not make Apple out to be the bad guy in this particular case. (Or in iPhone firmware updates, or that kind of thing.) They do plenty of things wrong. Let's not pretend this is a bad thing.

When 100% of their updates break 100% of the popular hacks that people are using to extend the usefulness of their devices, it's not Apple upgrading their hardware without concern about third-party hacks. It's deliberate.
edit: Just to clarify, I'm talking about AppleTV and iPhone/iPod Touch specifically. Obviously this is not the case with their computers and OS software hacks.
Message was edited by: himbo

[garyi]

Sadly we need to accept that the ATV is not a device for consumers to enjoy as they wish, its a method for apple to sell you more stuff.

So yes if we want to watch movie files or DVD imports of our choice then it has to be hacked.

I forgot to set auto update to disabled so I am actually to scared to check to see if its done the damage.

[Jon Seff]

garyi said:

So yes if we want to watch movie files or DVD imports of our choice then it has to be hacked.

Not really true. Although it's a pain, you can convert almost any file to play on the Apple TV. Rip a DVD with the Apple TV setting in HandBrake, for example, and the results are excellent.

[avneron]

a fix is in the works

[garyi]

Jon I am aware of the convoluted methods required to make the ATV actually do Anything, as I am sure you are aware of the excellent boxee and XBMC for ATV which actually makes it into a usefull box, as opposed to a sales media product for apples crap selection of Movies (Yes I am aware its not their fault)

[consumer_x]

Does it break compatibility with standard def tv (480i mode)?
thanks!

[Jon Seff]

Yes, the Apple TV could be a whole lot more than what it is (and you'll hear me say as much on the next Macworld podcast), but converting video files is not what I'd call "convoluted" — I drop a file into VisualHub (R.I.P.) and it spits out something that plays on my Apple TV.

[garyi]

I am sure I mentioned on here before that in general I get 20-30% success rate with handbrake for dvds and nothing at all with Visual Hub.

If I could find a programme that simply 'wrapped' the dvd up and stuck it on my harddrive for boxee to read then I would be a happy camper. Does not seem to be a reliable way though that does not involve tying up computers for hours on end, or the extreme slowness of it all.

[Chris Breen]

Are you using Handbrake 0.9.3 or the very latest version of MacTheRipper?

[folklore]

[quote name='himbo']
>

leicaman said:

> Yep, so do I. I expect them to feel free to upgrade their hardware without worrying about whether they are going to disable a hack. Hack all you want, but let's not make Apple out to be the bad guy in this particular case. (Or in iPhone firmware updates, or that kind of thing.) They do plenty of things wrong. Let's not pretend this is a bad thing.
When 100% of their updates break 100% of the popular hacks that people are using to extend the usefulness of their devices, it's not Apple upgrading their hardware without concern about third-party hacks. It's deliberate.

John Gruber of Daring Fireball really hit the nail on the head when he blogged about this a year ago..

Seriously folks. This is simple. If you do unsupported things, expect those things to be unsupported. It really doesn't matter how popular those unsupported things are. They're still unsupported.

[Plan_K]

This update fixed a problem I had with resuming video playback using the iPhone Remote app.

When Apple TV 2.2 came out in early October, I could no longer resume playback of a partially watched video with the iPhone Remote app after I switched away from the video to watch or listen to something else on the Apple TV. Those video files would always start over from the beginning when selected with the iPhone Remote app. (However, they would resume from their previous place with the Apple TV remote.) Further, if I watched a paused Apple TV video with the iPhone Remote app and let the screensaver run, when I tried to resume that video with the iPhone Remote app, I would get no video picture, only audio. The "track" name would be listed in the lower left corner, as if it were playing a music file.

With Apple TV 2.3, things work again as they did under Apple TV 2.1.