Apple TV finally hacked for USB storage expansion

Enterprising Apple TV users have been putting that USB port to good use for ages now, for every hack but the most obvious one: media playback. So far you haven't been able to make a cheap, external USB drive into your primary storage device for kosher Apple TV media, but no longer. The Apple TV Hacks folks have finally figured out a method, and though some Terminal chops and an Intel-based *nix machine (like Mac OS X) are required to run the hack, and it's unclear if it'll work with updated YouTube-enabled Apple TVs running the 1.1 patch, at least it's a start for the storage space-starved.

[Thanks, Luck K]

[tn @ Jul 28th 2007 4:27PM]

now drop it down to $99 and it might be worth something more than a paper weight

[paloooz @ Jul 28th 2007 4:37PM]

How does lowering its price will increase its utilitarian value?

[Killian @ Jul 28th 2007 5:21PM]

pwnt

[Blake @ Jul 28th 2007 4:53PM]

Now i need a usb to sata adapter.

[ScOObyDoo @ Jul 28th 2007 5:15PM]

Without a search or "page down" button I had a hard enough time browsing 160Gb of content, I'd hate to try that on 500Gb, or more...

[Nick @ Jul 28th 2007 8:43PM]

well hopefully that will become much easier and have search functionality as they roll out that remote ability on the iPhone and new gen iPod. One can only hope.

[andy @ Jul 28th 2007 6:20PM]

if only usb hd's werent 5 times noisier than the appletv

[Japlan @ Jul 29th 2007 2:37PM]

Not everything. But the Apple TV is a giant POS. I would rather have a pumped up Mac mini.

[PA @ Jul 28th 2007 6:43PM]

Great if this hack is working but the missing part wit this box is for me a DVD reader, I know, old tech, but, blue ray is way too expensive right now. I just hope Apple will do something about that in their upcoming Apple TV II.

[melloncollie @ Jul 28th 2007 11:30PM]

That's extremely pointless.
You want a DVD player?
Buy a cheap $25 one.
It doesn't seem like you care about HD, so that'd be a better alternative.

[eric @ Jul 29th 2007 6:54PM]

I myself would like AppleTV to have a standard DVD player and I do care about HD. Don't assume everyone out there who cares about HD wants to spend a mortgage payment on the new platforms. Having an all in one unit is more appealing to me than adding a $25 cheap DVD unit to my system. Not to mention the fact that HDDVD and BluRay are pointless IMO. I'll be more likely to get my HD content electronically than via a disc. No to mention the fact that I have no clue what format is going to survive over the next five years. But it would be nice to have one unit handling my HD files also play, and maybe upscale, my existing DVD collection. Granted the AppleTV doesn't hit 1080i, but a DVD player is at least a step in the right direction.

[PA @ Jul 29th 2007 10:59PM]

That's exactly the point, I would like a regular DVD player included with Apple Tv, not a second 25$ ugly box. By the way, have you ever watch Moulin Rouge on an HD TV set(mine, Samsung LN-T4061F), the image is so sharp that you could be fooled thinking it's true HD. Adding that element in Apple TV would have been nothing for Apple, millions of peoples have regular DVD collection at home, like me, and don't care about HD content on disk right now, true HD disk is way to much expensive, if you account renewing movie collections, the only winner here is the movie cartel.

[mike @ Jul 28th 2007 10:43PM]

No feeding the troll...

[chris @ Jul 28th 2007 11:54PM]

Sure, but can it play Doom?

[Alexander @ Jul 29th 2007 7:52AM]

Yes. It is not very fast though, as the graphics chip sucks.

[J. Evans Turner @ Jul 30th 2007 1:45PM]

@Alexander:
The proof-of-concept Doom engine port is almost never using graphics hardware acceleration. Even an old CPU can usually perform extremely well with the Doom engine, though performance still depends on what type of math calculations the CPU is optimized for.