I asked Bobby to make a section for the ATV a long time ago but never noticed it and then I was on a small hiatus. Thanks! There has been a lot of bad info out there lately so I got it all together in one place. I also have extensive knowledge and am an owner of the 1st Gen ATV if anyone needs help with that device. Hopefully I will have time later to give this another once over. What you will need: 1. Apple TV 2 (ATV2) 2. Micro USB Cable I suggest monoprice.com 3. Computer 4. Seas0nPass Mac: http://files.firecore.com/SP/Seas0nPass.zip Windows: http://files.firecore.com/SP/Seas0nPass-win.zip 5. Terminal for Mac or USB equivalent or ATV Flash Black from Firecore $29.95 Note: I own ATV Flash Black but prefer not to use it. If you are new to this it ATV Flash Black will make this process a bit easier. Things you need to think about before you start: 1. Choose which media player (Plex, XBMC, Media Player) you want to use and what type of hardware you are supporting it with. There is a Media Player by that same name available with ATV Flash Black. NitoTV will let you install XBMC (it can also be done manually). ANother option is to install Plex which has been updated to work pretty well with the new ATV2 4.4.4 update. If you are new to this I would just use Media Player inside ATV Flask Black. It is simple to setup but has less features. My preference now is XBMC which has a bit of a learning curve and your media needs to be tagged properly. XBMC has tons of add ons and it can stream about any media you throw at it. If you get stumped on tags just send me a message and I know a few tricks. The reason I say you should choose which media player to use now is because some people are having conflicts between the ATV Flash Black Media Player and XBMC. I will include a section for manually installing XBMC and NitoTV if you so choose. This is the method I chose in order to keep my install as clean as possible. Let's get started! Make sure you follow the directions exactly!!! Run Seas0npass initially with the ATV2 unplugged from the computer USB. Seas0npass will tell you when to plug the ATV2 in. Also be sure to have the ATV2 plugged in to a power source!!!! Using Seas0nPass to jailbreak the AppleTV Step 1:Unzip the 'Seas0nPass.zip' file and launch Seas0nPass. Step 2:Select the 'Create IPSW' button to start the jailbreak process.  Step 3:The latest AppleTV software will be downloaded and used to create a custom 'jailbroken' software file.  Step 4:When prompted, connect your AppleTV to your Mac/PC using a micro-USB cable (leave power cable disconnected). Once the light on the front of the AppleTV begins to flash rapidly, point the remote at the AppleTV and hold both the MENU and PLAY/PAUSE buttons for 7 seven seconds. Note: This step will require the silver (aluminum) AppleTV remote that was included with the ATV2. The older, white (plastic) remotes will not work. Step 5:iTunes will open automatically and start the restore process.  Step 6:iTunes will confirm the restore when complete - your AppleTV is now jailbroken! Note: To confirm the jailbreak was successful a (temporary) red FC logo will appear in the lower right corner of the screen - as shown below. NOTE: The last two times I have jailbroken iTunes gave me an error (1602) after a long install but everything installed just fine. Plug the ATV2 back into your tv and look for the Firecore logo on the bottom right of the screen to confirm it was successful.
Now you are jailbroken, what next? Now you have a choice of third-party apps you can install on the ATV2. Normally I will manually install NitoTV manually and then use it to install the following: 1.updatebegone (keeps the atv2 from updating to new firmware and ending your jailbreak fun) 2.afc2add (adds acf2 service for USB browsing of the filesystem) 3.OpenSSH (secure remote access) 4.syslog (debugging aid) 5.Ericas Utilities (command line utilities) 6. XBMC (it will now load Eden which is the latest beta and works great) NitoTV also has the following items you can add: 1. Screen Saver Hack 2. Overflow 3. Remote Helper 4. Remote HD 5. Slideshow 6. Main Menu Weather 7. Exposed 8. VNC Settings 9. BTStack 10. netatalk 11. afpfs-ng 12. cycript 13. screencapture You can also setup RSS Feeds and Weather What do I get with ATV Flash Black and how do I install it? Go Beyond iTunes : Empower your AppleTV to play popular media formats including MKV, AVI, MP4 & many others.  Surf the Web: Visit your favorite sites, stream HTML5 video, and update Twitter all on your TV. Your couch is your new workspace.  Enjoy DVDs the Simple Way : Access all your DVDs on a single device for easy viewing. Includes full access to menus, special features, and 5.1 sound.  Discover New Music: Find new artists you’ll love by accessing Last.fm radio stations, artist bios and slideshows.  Get Organized: Automatically download and display cover art and other metadata from TheMovieDB and TheTVDB.  Access Media Anywhere: Stream media from a Mac, PC or NAS device directly to the AppleTV. Includes support for AFP and SMB.  Create VideoPlaylists : Keep tabs on your newly accessible media with custom playlists.  Know When to Stay In : Quick access to weather forecasts lets you know if it’s a good night for a movie.  Stay in the Know : Keep track of all your favorite news and blog sites by viewing RSS feeds on your AppleTV.  Easy Updates : Updates are easily installed with just a few clicks through the native AppleTV menus.  Unchanged Original Features : Why mess with what works? All normal AppleTV features will remain unchanged. 
Pre-install checklist 1. Jailbreak the AppleTV 2. Connect the AppleTV your TV like normal (power, HDMI and wifi/ethernet). An active network connection will be required 3. Enable Home Sharing and AirPlay Run the installer - Mac Step 1: Download the latest version of aTV Flash (black) from your account. Step 2: Open the DMG and double-click the installer.  Step 3: The installer will copy a few small files to your computer. (these will then be transferred to the AppleTV)  Step 4: You will then be prompted to select your AppleTV from a drop-down list.  Step 5: The files will be transferred to the AppleTV.  Step 6: When complete, the AppleTV will restart automatically for the changes to take effect.  Step 7: After installation all apps and updates can be installed directly on the AppleTV through the Maintenance --> Manage Extras menu.
Run the installer - Windows 1. Download the latest version ofaTV Flash (black) 2. Open the exe and choose a location to save the application (desktop is recommended). 3. Run the aTV Flash (black) program. 4. Select your AppleTV from the drop-down menu.  5. The files will be transferred to the AppleTV automatically.  6. When complete, the AppleTV will restart automatically for the changes to take effect. 7. After installation all apps and updates can be installed directly on the AppleTV through the Maintenance --> Manage Extras menu. How do I install NitoTV? Open Terminal or Windows Equivalent. (You will need to have to ATV2 connected to your network and know the IP which can be found under: Settings-General-About) Enter the following commands: 1. ssh root@(your atv2 IP address) password is "alpine" 2. apt-get install wget 3. wget http://dl.dropbox.com/u/16129573/com.nito.deb 4. dpkg -i com.nito.deb 5. apt-get update 6. apt-get install com.nito.nitotv 7. killall Lowtide or killall AppleTV or killall -9 AppleTV You can install XBMC from NitoTV Software Installer when finished. How do I install XBMC manually? 1. ssh root@(your atv2 IP address) password is "alpine" 2. apt-get install wget 3. wget -O- http://apt.awkwardtv.org/awkwardtv.pub | apt-key add - 4. echo "deb http://apt.awkwardtv.org/ stable main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/awkwardtv.list 5. echo "deb http://mirrors.xbmc.org/apt/atv2 ./" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/xbmc.list 6. apt-get update 7. apt-get install org.xbmc.xbmc-atv2 8. killall Lowtide or killall AppleTV or killall -9 AppleTV How do I install Plex? 1. ssh root@(your atv2 IP address) password is "alpine" 2. apt-get remove com.plex.client-plugin 3. apt-get update 4. apt-get install com.plex.client-plugin=0.0.9.0.0-312c11b0 If you get this error when running the apt-get install command: E: Version '0.0.9.0.0-312c11b0' for 'com.plex.client-plugin' was not found then run this command first, before trying again: echo "deb http://www.ambertation.de ./downloads/PLEX/" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/plex.list Thanks to the teams at Firecore, AwkwardTV, XBMC, and Plex!!!!!!!!! http://wiki.awkwardtv.org/wiki/Main_Page http://firecore.com http://xbmc.org http://www.plexapp.com
Nice guide! A few comments... Some BBCode error in the first post... And I get this weird small box below every picture saying 'OBJ'. Is that intentional?
Thanks for the guide. Had a "Patching ramdisk" issue. After some Goggling I found this fix on the FireCore website. It seems this issue is being caused by an old plugin from the 'Virtual PC' application. Yes, your heard right Virtual PC - the Windows virtualization app from the PPC days. The fix is to simply remove the 'VirtualPCDiskImagePlugin.bundle' which can be found in one of two places: ~/Library/Plug-ins/DiskImages /Library/Plug-ins/DiskImages After removing the plugin restart your computer and re-run Seas0nPass. I also removed the ISPW file from the Documents/Tether folder and uninstalled SeasonPass. Then started all over again and had immediate success. I can't believe the old Windows VPC stuff was still there. That was three laptops ago and 9 or 10 major OS Upgrades, around 11 years ago OS 9.1 I think. Cheers
