Official XBMC on Apple TV (version 2) Thread - Page 3

Correct - I should have been more specific. Waiting for aTV flash to support NAS. That's my main usage scenario.

dvwtwo,
The way the ATV2 operates from Apple is it never shuts down. It simply goes to sleep. It uses little electricity. And almost nothing when asleep.

So because you never coldboot...you never have to tether to the computer unless you purposely pulled the power cable out from the back, suffer a power outage or a hard crash that takes the whole system down. Most crashes are soft crashes where the GUI restarts, but not the entire system. So you wouldn't have to reboot in that instance either.

At least that's been my experience since 4.1 and the tethered jailbreak rolled out months ago.

Is aTV Flash necessary for XBMC to connect to SMB shares and if not whats the point of aTV Flash?

aTV Flash isn't needed. XBMC has the ability to connect to SMB shares built in.

aTV Flash is an addon to the Apple TV much like XBMC is an addon. aTV Flash addes a browser, LastFM, RSS reader and Weather. If you have aTV Flash installed, I believe you can install XBMC simply via it's "manage" interface instead of having to SSH into type terminal commands.

But not in XBMC.

Superiority of design is a matter of taste. Since the web server isn't working the remote doesn't work. At least that's my assumption.

If you are looking for a micro USB cable, the Kindle comes with one.

i don't mind doing the tethered jailbreak, its just that I have a new ATV2 with 4.2.1 and don't have access to a MAC.

Pretty interesting. I'd heard that it was quite the little power-sipper, but I'm so accustomed to shutting electronics off (including computers) when not in use that it would never have occurred to me to just leave it running - or simply put it to sleep - were it not for the jailbreaking angle. All this is fodder for the main aTV owners' thread, of course, or a power-conservation forum. Anyway, it's been most helpful. Thanks again!

If you use atvflash to install xbmc, plex there is a setting to block updates. I am not sure why it is there as the ATV will ask you if you want to update. I guess it's a pestering thing.

philip

Did you use seasonpass? You might want to try pwnage tool. I found it far easier than seasonpass. In an attempt to make it as simple as possible they have made it fragile. You can still install atvflash after any jailbreak. Anyway, have a look here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EWKr7Ww_c0

The process for getting it into DFU mode may not work if you have the power plugged in. I kept it off and plugged it in after it entered DFU mode. My last experiment was to leave the power off completely when booting ( but connected via usb). It's actually very simple. Just seems hard the first couple of times. I never was able to use seasonpass successfully.

Yes, I did manage to get it installed as well as Plex. The repository was the problem. I was curious about atvflash so I redid everything and also installed things that way. Pretty nice utility which allows you to avoid the ssh and apt-get approach. That is where I saw the setting to block updates of iOS. The actual tether boot is pretty interesting. I wish I had a MacBook as you could probably do the boot tether with only the USB cable and move the ATV2 around.

Philip

Sorry, stupid noob question... I was reading the instructions for tethered jailbreak on Mac:

http://www.iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=13581

And it says that it "automatically launches iTunes". Most Apple products are tied to a particular iTunes account. That account, for me, is my iMac, which is nowhere near my TV. I was going to use my MacBook Air to do the jailbreak and tethered boot, but won't it complain that this ATV isn't associated/paired to this Mac/iTunes account?

Maybe a dumb question... can I have more than one computer tied to the same iTunes account? If so, then I guess I'll do that, and I'll be fine.

You can have more than one computer tied to iTunes. The point of using iTunes is that it will restore both 4.2.1 as well as any modified version of that. The tethered part has nothing to do with iTunes. What happens if you don't perform it is your ATV will hang at the Apple logo. The tethered boot copies a couple of files over to the modified 4.2.1 . Those files come from the modified restore image.

Philip

Okay - so, do I have to associate iTunes on my jailbreaking laptop to my iTunes account in order to do the restore?

Also... when I lose power, and have to tether-boot the ATV2 again, will I lose all the XBMC library data and settings?

I don't think the iTunes account has anything to do with it. When I rebooted my ATV2 I didn't lose any settings, such as network settings, and so on. Not sure what would happen to XBMC. The ATV can go fo ages without powering down.

Philip

At present there's no relationship between your iTunes account(s) and the restore function. iTunes does check to make sure it's a "valid" image but that's unrelated to your account.


While I haven't tested this on the ATV application settings are preserved on the iPad so I would expect the same behavior. Those settings are stored in flash and a reboot doesn't ordinarily clear parts of the filesystem.

(Is it possible to fix the thread title?)

I'm sure these things wil be fixed but:
1) Starting XBMC turns off the screen saver.
2) Response to the remote is very slow.

I am pleased to be able to play mkv sources but (at least) until the remote is fixed I'll stick to iTunes and m4v. I like skip forward/back and chapter skips. Working AC3 would be nice too but I know that's a known issue.

The response is very slow. Personally I just wish mkv would go away, but that doesn't seem to be happening unfortunately.

philip

OK Philip, now I gotta ask you to explain yourself regarding your mkv comment (I am truly hoping it has nothing to do with Apple not supporting)

It says XMBC rather than XBMC.

I must be doing something wrong. I'm using the Seas0nPass tool. Everything seems to go just fine, included the tethered boot. But when I try to ssh into the box to install XBMC, it fails:

ssh: connect to host 192.168.0.180 port 22: Connection refused

Can you tell, visually, that the ATV has been jailbroken successfully? Nothing looks different to me.

The Seas0nPass tool says that it found the device in DFU mode, does it's tethered boot thing, and then says it's done and I can hook up HDMI. When I do, it's just the regular ATV window. I thought it was supposed look like a fresh boot (select your language, etc).

I just realized that this web page doesn't say anything about the iTunes restore thing... did it bypass that?

http://www.iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=13581

I'm missing a step here somewhere.

It has nothing to do with Apple. I don't think my views on mkv have changed that much. I can appreciate the flexibility that it offers. Divx has adopted it for it's HD content. People archiving disks find it useful. The only thing I would like to see is fewer containers, codecs, etc ... so that we wouldn't need such complicated players to play back video. There doesn't seem to be a consensus on any of this and it is frustrating.

In the context of the ATV, I find mp4 more useful. Having XBMC on the ATV makes the unit more appealing to many people, but it does not help in converging to fewer containers/codecs.

Now that Google is pushing its codec it all just seems to be a mess.

It would just be nice to see some standards which benefit the consumer as opposed to what has become a tool for various companies to get an advantage over their rivals and of course for content providers to make it impossible to record anything higher than 1950 quality.

Philip

The fact that you could not ssh into the ATV means that it wasn't jail broken properly. I really think you should restore your ATV to the Apple 4.2.1 and then use the pwnagetool link I gave. It is very simple and the only tricky part is the tethered boot thing which I feel needs modification as to when you plug in the power cable.

Philip

I thought you couldn't do an untethered jailbreak. And isn't pwnagetool for unthethered?

You mention the power cable thing... I was a little unsure of that, too (using Seas0nPass). At first, I forgot and didn't plug in the power till after the tool said it was done. That definitely didn't work. Then I plugged in the power, USB and network after I clicked "boot tethered" and before I did the menu/play-pause thing to get DFU mode. That apparently didn't work either.

I don't get how/when the Seas0nPass tool uploads the new image, unless it did this VERY fast. I saw it say it was uploading something, but it happened very quickly (a second or so).

I'm going to try the tethered boot again. If I can't get that to work, I guess I'll try the other tool. There are most steps to the other tool, but it doesn't look that bad.

Sorry, another quick question. Is it necessary to initialize the Apple TV before jailbreaking it? That is, boot it once to select your language, enter you iTunes account info, etc? Or can you jailbreak it right out of the box?

I'm restoring my ATV now and going to try the pwnage tool, I guess.