Run AppleTV on your intel mac - uses local media or acts as a standalone appleTV, can QUIT, No fresh install needed! Front row 2.0! Options

[DsurioN]

NOTE: Apple remote and intel mac required.

This will show you how to run the AppleTV software on your intel mac. You have 2 options:

1) Have it as a standalone app that you double-click to launch Removed - too buggy
2) Have it replace your existing front row (don't worry, we'll back it up)

First of all, you need the files (a copy of the apple tv operating system image and the hacked Finder app binary) - I'm not allowed to tell you where to get those here but look around, or PM me... If you're nice
Sorry, I have lost the links. Good luck finding the files!
Download the O/S and the patched Finder and put the files in a convenient location. don't use the installer floating around the net - for this tutorial, we're doing things manually.

1. Extract the .zip's or whatever format you downloaded. We need to copy some files over from the OS image, so double-click on the apple tv .dmg file to mount it

2. Open up a finder window, and go into the OSBoot image that you just mounted. Navigate to the /System/Library/CoreServices/ folder and copy the Finder.app found there to your DESKTOP.

3. Now, right-click on the Finder.app on your desktop, click "show package contents", and navigate to /Contents/MacOS/ . Find the "Finder" file you downloaded earlier (the one without the extension, the patch file) and drag it into this folder. Let the old one be replaced. Now rename this file to "Front Row". Go back a directory (/Contents) and double-click on "Info.plist". Expand the root and change the value of "CFBundleExecutable" from "Finder" to "Front Row".

4. Close the Finder window and rename the Finder app that we were just working on to "Front Row".

5. Fire up old Terminal and go into the folder we were just using. The command should look something like this:

CODE

cd /Users/[username goes here]/Desktop/Front\ Row.app/Contents/MacOS/

(the backslash is to escape the space character)

6. In Terminal set these permissions for the "Front Row" file:

CODE

sudo chown root:wheel Front\ Row
sudo chmod 755 Front\ Row

(you need the backslash to escape the space character)

7. Head over to /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/ in your OSBoot image that should still be mounted in the finder, and drag iPhotoAccess.framework and BackRow.framework to your desktop. It will give you an error about special permissions, just hit continue.

8. After that we need to add these frameworks to your OS X system. Go back to Terminal, "cd" to your Desktop and run these commands:

CODE

sudo cp -pr ./iPhotoAccess.framework /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/.
sudo cp -pr ./BackRow.framework /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/.

(periods included)

9. Log out and log back in. At this point we should have a working Front Row.app that would launch the apple TV interface if you clicked it. HOWEVER, we can't terminate appleTV when we're using it so we need to set a mouse trigger to quit it for us when it's running.

If you want an 'exit' button in appleTV, download this file:
http://www.mediafire.com/?ffynjg0nbzj
and place it in the /Contents/PlugIns/ folder of the front row app. If you choose this, skip to 14. Otherwise, read on.
Edit: I find this sort of buggy since it screws up some of the menus (no trailers list item, etc). Use at your own risk. I much prefer the method starting at step 10.

10. Download SteerMouse ( http://plentycom.jp/en/steermouse ). Install & reboot.

11. Download PascalW's amazing appleTV closing app:
Mirror 1: http://www.gigasize.com/get.php/1019401/Cl...AppleTV.app.tgz
Mirror 2: http://www.mediafire.com/?3ixjktnnmzz

12. Open up steermouse in system preferences. You'll see the different mappings for the buttons on your mouse. To make SteerMouse truly invisible and only used for appleTV, I recommend these settings:
-Leave left button as "Click"
-Leave right button as "Contextual Menu"
-Change the middle button option to Click Action - > Middle Click
-Change the side button to Click Action -> Default Click
Now SteerMouse won't conflict with your normal mouse & keyboard settings in system prefs.
We want to create a new application profile for appleTV. At the top of the window, select the drop-down menu and click "add/remove applications". Go to "Add" and browse to your modified Front Row.app on your desktop (or wherever else you decided to put it). Click OK, and now select your new Front Row profile from the drop down box at the top. Pick any button on your mouse to be your exit trigger for appleTV (i picked the side button) and tell it to open the Close Apple TV.app file you downloaded earlier, wherever you put it. The rest of the buttons should be set to "same as default". I also recommend going into the "Cursor" tab in SteerMouse and disabling "automatic moving" (in the default profile)

13. Finally, we need to give the apple tv closer-app your default resolution so it can switch it back once you're done with appleTV (appleTV uses a lower resolution). Navigate to Close Apple TV.app, right-click, and show contents. Go to /Contents/Resources/Scripts/ and open resolution.txt. The first line is the width in pixels (on my iMac it's 1680) and the second line is the height (1050 for me). The third line is the refresh rate, but don't bother with that unless you're using a CRT. Save the text file.

14. Now, all we need to do is replace the existing front row with this one:

- Back up /System/Library/CoreServices/Front Row.app
- Make sure you haven't used front row since you logged in (if you did, log out and log back in again)
- Drag the patched Front Row file to this folder (make sure you have a backup of the original first!) - you need to click "Authenticate", "Replace", and then enter your password
- Log out and in
- Make sure your key trigger is set to the front row app in /System/Library/CoreServices/ that we just copied over, and NOT the one on your desktop.
- Pressing "menu" should now launch AppleTV - you can quit it by clicking your pre-assigned mouse button or by using the "exit" item in appleTv - if you used that.

make sure you're not listening to any music or watching any content before you quit, because it could corrupt the files.

Have fun!

UPDATE:

Use this tip to use the media on your local computer!

Found at http://www.hackint0sh.org/forum/showthread.php?p=3654

Greetings to MACDAD82 for this wonderful hack !

Don't Forget to Backup the file you gonna modify

- Open hex edit or 0xED. (make sure it is set in Overwrite mode)

- Load the Front Row binary file inside /System/Library/CoreServices/Front Row.app/Contents/MacOS

- Search for this Offset > 45DDFA



check the image to make sure you are at the right place

replace the string BRFullscreenRenderer to BRWindowRenderer....

When you have done it:



check the image to compare if you've made it right.

Note: There are 8 dots after BRWindowRenderer and the dots are supposed to be 00's. If you see 2E, change it to a 00 (directly in the hex view)

Save and start Front Row

Now if you want to switch to another app you can press Apple+Tab keys and you'll have full support of the mouse and the Keyboard.

Tip from me (DsurioN) : lower your resolution ( to 800 x 600, for example) so that when you launch appleTV it does not take up the whole screen. Now you can move your iTunes window around and set the streaming settings in iTunes.

EDIT >> turn off all the AppleTV Syncing in iTunes, just use the standard iTunes sharing and you can directly access all your iTunes library locally by using the Sources menu in Back Row and select the iTunes sharing (not Sync).
With this tip, you will never get duplicates files.

Personally, after I got the streaming working I switched back to the FullscreenRenderer to avoid the hassle of setting the resolution manually every time ( you have to set it to 1280 x 800 before launching it with this trick).

Bugs/Missing Features:
-When I go to the wireless preferences in appleTV settings, the whole system locks up (but you don't really need those anyway)
-With the apple + tab trick, you now have to set your resolution manually to 1280 x 800 before launching it (or whatever appleTV normally uses on your system), or else it will not display properly.

ANOTHER UPDATE!
There's an app that will prevent Front Row from changing you resolution in the first place. Unfortunately it's only a trial, but you can use it for now (or uh.... "borrow" it...)
http://www.madrau.com/html/SRX/indexSRX.shtml
Just setup a profile for the front row.app and don't let it change the resolution.

Screenshots:

Attached File(s)

 screen1.jpg ( 121.29K ) Number of downloads: 743

 

[ResX]

No Way!

I got to see a pic of this.

Nice Work

[neztik]

Wow. Cant wait to try this. I can then try some of my HD content. Then off to buy an AppleTV!

[Urbz]

I can indeed confirm that this works on my Mac mini.
Props to DsurioN for writing this flawless guide!

-Urby

[f#a#oo]

The progress everyone has made on the AppleTV over the course of a week is outstanding!

Good show internet

edit: I'm going to test this in a little bit also

[hackand]

Runs pretty well on my iMac. Now if we could find a way to get the media to the software without more than one Mac and if we could figure a good way to exit the UI, we'll be all set.

Maybe that extra menu item hack some guy published earlier…

[MrG299]

I have tried this method and the original method posted by appletvhacks. Both times the finder simply doesn't boot. the OS boots and I get no finder. Does anyone know why this is?

[DsurioN]

Someone over at hackint0sh.org has replaced front row with the apple tv's "front row 2.0":

http://www.hackint0sh.org/forum/showpost.p...mp;postcount=52

[MrG299]

this is the message i get from terminal when i try and open the modified finder

/Users/appletv/Desktop/Finder.app/Contents/MacOS/Finder; exit
Welcome to Darwin!
MAC:~ appletv$ /Users/appletv/Desktop/Finder.app/Contents/MacOS/Finder; exit
dyld: Library not loaded: /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/BackRow.framework/Versions/A/BackRow
Referenced from: /Users/appletv/Desktop/Finder.app/Contents/MacOS/Finder
Reason: image not found
Trace/BPT trap
logout

[DsurioN]

Did you copy all the frameworks like the tutorial said? Also, are you trying to run the "Finder" file? Because that will not work since it is simply the binary and not the whole program. You have to run Finder.app

[MrG299]

Hey thanks for the quick response. Ya it turns out all of the frameworks did not copy over haha. So its up and running now! anyone have any ideas on accesing the itunes library its installed on?

[ptaylor]

I installed it on my 20" iMac and it seems to work as described, except I can't seem to figure out how to connect it to iTunes on my wife's Mac... It says something about selecting the Apple TV in the Devices list in iTunes, but I don't see anything there... Running the latest iTunes...

Anyone else able to get it sync'ing or streaming from another machine?

[kevin_4e]

Great news and thanks for sharing

[kennyGS13]

I get the opening movie, then it crashes, mines hackintosh though so its probably the lack of ir remote. I did a bit of digging in the appletv os image looking for some sort of pass, like the frontrowpass that you can change the vendor id to a mouse, but no luck

[DsurioN]

I installed it on my 20" iMac and it seems to work as described, except I can't seem to figure out how to connect it to iTunes on my wife's Mac... It says something about selecting the Apple TV in the Devices list in iTunes, but I don't see anything there... Running the latest iTunes...

Anyone else able to get it sync'ing or streaming from another machine?

You'll only see the device in iTunes if you go to Sources -> and then (if you want to stream) "connect to another itunes" and if you want to sync, go to the syncing menu item (i forget exactly since I'm not in appleTV right now). You'll get a screen with a number on it, and then you have to enter that code in iTunes. It worked perfectly for me and my other computer sees it as a 170 gig apple TV!


As for your problem kennyGS13, as far as I know with this method you're not supposed to get the opening movie... Did you follow these instructions or did you just restore the image to a partition?

[kennyGS13]

As for your problem kennyGS13, as far as I know with this method you're not supposed to get the opening movie... Did you follow these instructions or did you just restore the image to a partition?

I followed all the instructions and when it didn't work the first time, I did it all over again.

[DsurioN]

Yeah I'm not sure... I don't really have a hackintosh to test on, but you just might be right: it can't detect an IR receiver. Let's see what others come up with for OSx86.

[kennyGS13]

Yeah I'm not sure... I don't really have a hackintosh to test on, but you just might be right: it can't detect an IR receiver. Let's see what others come up with for OSx86.

It's no biggie though, i'll just buy an apple ir remote off ebay and a mantra tr1. Thanks for the help though DsurioN....

[imacg5ranger]

This means with my imac 20inch duo 2 and apple tv I can do exactly what?

And can I expect to be streaming my desktop to my apple tv so I can play battlefield 2 on my 42 inch anytime soon?

Pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!

[DsurioN]

No.