This is a guide that , if espouse , will unchain your Apple television receiver from its cruel iTunes tether , turn it into the useful support elbow room conduit of euphony , video recording and vane - found content it should have been all along via the medium pith softwareBoxee . Boxee can be installed fairly easily via the ATV ’s USB port to bring Hulu and Comedy Central streaming , playback of any picture or music file anywhere on your internet in virtually any file cabinet eccentric imagineable , and a bevy of cyberspace A / quintuplet sources like Flickr , Last.fm , NPR and BBC podcasts and tons of others - all upping the usefulness and merriment of Apple ’s notoriously underachieving boxwood by a factor of 10 , well . If you have an ATV , Boxee is a must - install , and it ’s 100 % barren . allow ’s get started .
The stock Apple TV has never been able to decide what it ’s supposed to do . Is it a twist to lay in all your videos ? Its built - in hard drive would suggest yes , but the fact that everything needs to be piped through iTunes make this a trouble if you store your videos in any other mode . And why are we download and storing anyway ? Streaming is the means thing are headed , and for cyclosis , Apple TV does n’t make a long ton of sense , especially whena box a poop its size and a less than half its pricecan bring Netflix ’s massive library into your living room with zero download delays and zero lend cost , soon in HD , even .
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apart from add together the golden goose of Hulu streaming , Boxee ’s other chief reward is disembarrass your Apple TV from its direct connexion with your iTunes library . No longer will it be necessary to change all of your video file into iTunes compatible formats to get them to your TV - Boxee will let your Apple television read just about any picture codec you could throw at it ( full listing of codecs here – only thing it chokes on is 1080p telecasting ; 720p works fine ) from any reckoner or net - attached storage twist on your meshing , or read files off the Apple TV ’s own hard disk - all while leaving the default option OS untouched and 100 % functional . So let ’s do this .
What You ’ll require :
• Apple TV with software version 2.0 or high
• A USB wink drive 512 MB or orotund
•ATV USB Creator[download:1.0.b7 version – Mac only , for now ]
• An invite into Boxee ’s semi - public alpha ( expend this linkespecially for Giz readers to start the line a act )
educate Your USB crusade
Just like the iPhone , the Apple TV is fundamentally an OS hug drug computer ( escape a 1GHz Intel C.P.U. ) , so Boxee installs just like a regular desktop app in the Applications folder , which is conceal normally . Why Apple has n’t opened up the Apple TV to third party developers is anyone ’s guessing , but thankfully , with a fain USB stick it ’s all pretty painless .
1 . After take out the ATV USB Creator program , pop it up with the USB flash driveway you mean to use mounted . Select “ ATV - Patchstic ” as your installation option and “ Boxee for Mac ” as the installation eccentric . At the bottom , take the BSD positioning of your flash disk . you’re able to find this with System Profiler under the USB part ( in all probability a good idea to unmount any other USB drives so you do n’t accidentally wipe them ) .
2 . Click “ Create Using - > ” and your USB stick will be arrange and adulterate up with the appropriate software .
3 . powerfulness off your Apple TV ( by unplugging it ) , deteriorate your USB patchstick into the ATV ’s USB time slot , and plug it back in . You ’ll see Tux and a bunch of codification cyclosis on your sieve as the software install .
4 . When it ’s done , remove the USB stick and re-start the ATV .
Download Boxee via the Boxee Launcher
5 . The USB patchstick set up a rocket launcher that can then draw down the recent version of Boxee from the web . The first thing you ’ll desire to do , then , to ascertain you have the previous version , is update the launcher itself . Go to the new option “ Boxee ” in the ATV computer menu , pick out “ Update ” and then update the Launcher .
6 . Now , go to the new Boxee carte du jour and pick out “ Update ” - > “ Boxee alpha … ” to deplumate down and install Boxee itself . Once it installs , prize “ Boxee ” from the new menu “ Boxee / XBMC ” bill of fare to start it up .
Configure Boxee
7 . Enter the drug user account you cross-file on boxee.tv ( via our invite link above ) . Boxee also adds some bang-up social networking feature - if you have any buddies also using it , you’re able to see what they ’ve of late look on , added to their collections , or recommended to you via Boxee ’s home CRT screen .
8 . First thing you ’ll want to do once you ’re in is make certain Boxee displays utterly on your filmdom . mise en scene are accessible by beseech “ left ” on the ATV remote at any time , so go to “ preferences – Appearance – Video Calibration … ” to set overscan and sizing options .
Add Your Sources
powerful now , under the “ Videos ” menu , you could browse and stream the complete offerings from Hulu , Comedy Central , Revision3 , and a ton of other vane video author . But Boxee really beam when it can play your media files from anywhere on your web .
Add an SMB Share
This can be a connection attach storage driving ( you ’ve readour guide for convey the full NAS frame-up , good ? ) or just a divvy up folder on a Mac or PC on your connection ( to portion out a folder in OS X , enable File Sharing in your Sharing preferences , enable SMB part under “ Options ” and add your culture medium folder . Boxee will then auto detect your shares .
https://gizmodo.com/how-to-choose-the-best-connection-storage-for-a-mac-pc-hom-5067201
9 . In Boxee ’s configurations menu , select “ Media Sources and Applications - > web Sources ” and choose “ Add New Source . ” choose your share in the computer menu that comes up and mark it wither Video , Music or Photos . Boxee will now supervise this folder and bring any tv set display and movies it agnize ( complete with cover art , episode descriptions , and the alike ) to the master videos card ( Boxee ’s full of little surprisal like this ) . It wo n’t catch everything though , so you’re able to always get at your add folder manually by opt “ Sources ” under the main Video menu .
Access Apple TV via SSH For Copying Media Files
apart from streaming from SMB shares , Boxee can also of course play files store topically in its own file system of rules . you could link to the Apple telecasting via SSH / SFTP for copying files direct over your web and accessing your Apple TV ’s chief file system .
10 . In an FTP computer program likeTransmitorCyberduck(but using SFTP ) , connect to appletv.local with the username and password both fix to “ frontrow ” – this will log you in to your Apple video ’s file system , which has a social organisation precisely like OS X ’s . you could also link via SSH from the terminal if you choose the geekier side .
11 . In the booklet /Users / frontrow you will find folders labeled Movies , Music and Pictures . Any spiritualist added to these folders will be automatically recognized and playable after copying .
Torrent RSS
Yeah , Boxee can also download Torrents . It get with a itemisation of public domain of a function flick and TV Torrents under the “ Public Torrents ” source , but you’re able to also have your Apple TV download whatever Torrents you want .
12 . To bestow a Torrent to Boxee ’s download manager , simply copy the .torrent data file to the Users / frontrow / Library / program Support / BOXEE / UserData / Torrents folder using the SFTP technique above and it will immediately start out download . Awesome .
Uninstalling All tincture of Boxee
Should you want to wipe your machine totally clean of any Boxee related to tinkering , it ’s comfortable . give the sack up a Terminal and type in the following commands , each on their own telephone line :
ssh[email protect ]
sudo rm -rf /Applications / Boxee.app/
sudo rm -rf /Applications / XBMC.app/
sudo rm -rf /System / Library / CoreServices / Finder.app / Contents / PlugIns / XBMCLauncher.frappliance/
rm -rf /Users / frontrow / Library / app Support / BOXEE/
rm -rf /Users / frontrow / Library / software Support / XBMC/
What ’s Next For Boxee
Boxee is on the move . Over the course of three alphas I ’ve used ( I ca n’t believe this is alpha software package ) over only the last calendar month or so , this thing has improved by incredible bounds - user interface is bewilder better , bizarreness and mutual exclusiveness develop less uncouth , all beneficial signs .
finally , Boxee wants to be in fix top boxwood and on every political platform ( Windows is coming before the end of the year)-since it fend for much every audio and video codec have a go at it , it ’s aiming to be the Firefox of multi - platform connected AV setup , have plug - ins and ADHD - ons of its own . It does n’t support DRM of any kind , so do n’t retain your intimation for Boxee to be picked up by any of the big league . Fine with me .
Feature wise , Netflix streaming ( yessss ) and ABC.com are first on the Boxee folk ’ list .
Boxee ’s an receptive source app , so itsforumsare a snappy place to ask for aid and suggest more features to the independent developers , who hang out there often . If you run into any bumps , that ’s the place .
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