Archive:HOW-TO:Install XBMC on Apple TV 1

Thanks to lots of hard work by Team-XBMC's very own Scott Davilla and Stephan Diederich it is now possible to install and run XBMC Media Center on Apple TV (generation one). Apple TV gen 1 is no longer available from Apple and can only be purchased from alternative sources (eBay, kijiji, craigslist, etc.). If you are looking to purchase an Apple TV gen 1 consider to add a CrystalHD card to enable a playback of 1080p HD movies.

In short it is XBMC for Mac on Apple TV gen 1 made easy for everyone to enjoy!

Note: due to different hardware architecture XBMC does not run on the Apple TV generation 2

How does it work?

Apple TV gen 1 runs so called Apple OS which is a specialized version of Mac OS X that XBMC for Mac can run on. However in order to install XBMC on Apple TV it has to be "patched" to turn on certain software options required for XBMC to run. The "patching" is done by using ATV USB Creator that let you make a so called "patchstick", a bootable USB flash drive which you boot your Apple TV with to install XBMC for Mac to run natively on Apple TV OS. After you "patch" your Apple TV a new Launcher menu will appear that allows you to download and install XBMC on your Apple TV.

Really Frequently Asked Questions and Answers

• Question: What happens to original Apple TV software after the XBMC installation?
  • Answer: XBMC is installed onto the Apple TV built-in hard drive but you will still be able you use your Apple TV software as normal, XBMC will only be an extra option that you can launch from the Apple TV's original menu when you want to utilize the extra features and functions that are available in XBMC compared to the original Apple TV software. So XBMC will not replace the original Apple TV software, it instead works as complement the existing Apple TV software.

• Question: Is XBMC running natively on the Apple TV or under an Linux environment?
  • Answer: This installs XBMC for Mac which is a native Mac OS X application (Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger to be precise) and runs natively on Apple TV gen 1.

Question: Does this work for the newer, smaller black Apple TV device?

• • Answer: No. The newer device is not based on intel/OSX, it is based on ARM/iOS which is really a mobile platform (like in mobile phones), and there is no XBMC port on that platform. Currently there are no plans on porting XBMC on any mobile platform.

• Question: Will the Apple TV playback 1080p videos encoded with the H.264 codec (like Blu-ray rips)?
  • Answer: Yes, the latest version of XBMC (version 10 'Dharma') allows Apple TV to play HD H.264 encoded videos however the original Apple TV hardware is only capable of decoding 720p videos. To watch 1080 HD videos the Broadcom Crystal HD card must be installed into Apple TV along with the corresponding driver.

• Question: Does XBMC on the Apple TV upscale standard-definition and 720p videos to 1080p output?
  • Answer: Yes, XBMC on the Apple TV will upscale all videos to 1080p if that is your output resolution. However based on the people's experience it is recommended to set up the Apple TV output resolution to 720p even for the TVs that support 1080p natively.

• Question: How do I get XBMC to show full screen rather than in windowed mode?
  • Answer: Settings -> Appearance -> Screen -> Resolution -> Full Screen. This is the default setting after XBMC installation.

Minimum requirements

• Apple TV generation 1 (with 'Take 2' version of the 'Apple TV OS', meaning version 2.x of Apple TV software)
• Apple computer with Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) or 10.4 (Tiger) or Windows computer with a USB port and ATV USB Creator installed.
• 512MB (or larger) USB flash memory drive.
  • Note that it can not still have U3 software on it (so uninstall that first if you have U3 USB flash memory drive).

HOW-TO install XBMC on your Apple TV

ATV USB Creator is currently available for Mac OS X and Windows ATV USB Creator and supports the latest AppleTV OS 3.0.2 even though it does not show it.

NOTE: Just to be safe, unplug any other USB drives just in case (as you do not want to risk the chance the patchstick utility to overwrite the data on any other USB drive you might have connected).

1. Download the ATV USB Creator from http://code.google.com/p/atvusb-creator/
2. Insert a USB flash memory drive into your Mac or Windows machine. Make sure the flash drive is formatted for FAT32 and remember that all the data on it will be erased so do the backup first.
3. Run the ATV USB Creator.
4. Follow the "ATV USB Creator" instruction to prepare a "patchstick".
   • It is recommended to update Apple TV to the latest software version which is 3.0.2 at this point before "patching" the Apple TV.
   • Remember to build a "patch stick" image exactly with the same Apple TV software version that is installed on your Apple TV.
   • Even though it does not say it ATV USB Creator does support the latest Apple TV OS 3.0.2
5. Remove the USB flash memory drive and plug it into your Apple TV.
6. Power on your Apple TV and the USB flash memory drive (now also called "patchstick") will automatically boot and run ATV boot loader.
7. After the ATV boot loader finishes, remove it and restart your Apple TV.
8. You Apple TV GUI will now have a new "Launcher" menu option on the main menu.
9. First update Launcher to the newest version from the "Launcher/Downloads" menu.
10. Now install XBMC by selecting "Launcher/Downloads" and clicking on XBMC. This will download and install the latest official stable XBMC from the Internet.
    • If you want to install the latest version from SVN follow this guide.
11. Once XBMC is done installing, restart your Apple TV (this is not necessary but will make you feel better as in "task complete").
12. If you installed the CrystalHD card you now need to install a driver for it. Follow this guide and restart Apple TV after finishing installing CrystalHD driver.
13. Select "Launcher" then select "XBMC" in the sub-menu to start XBMC.

• Check "Launcher/Downloads" periodically and whenever a new version of XBMC is available you can update it as described above.

Known Issues

• The default Apple TV screen saver may cause XBMC to not respond when it kicks in , (more accurately it can cause XBMC to lose control of the Apple Remote)
  • Due to the way that the Apple TV handles its 'wakeup' from its screen saver mode different from an infrared remote event from the Mac OS X computer platform, we will eventually need to make a source code change to the XBMC software to sort this out, but until then you can workaround this by disabling the screen saver on your Apple TV, (that is, not from within XBMC, but in the Apple TV's own screen saver).

Development for XBMC on Apple TV

To help out with the development of XBMC for Mac (which runs on Apple TV) see here. To help out with the development of ATV USB Creator or ATV bootloader see their respective project sites on Google Code:

• ATV USB Creator
• ATV bootloader
• XBMC for Mac development
• Mac How