DynaFlash Tech

Since the demise of the AppleTV 1 I went about several months ago to find new functionality for the semi maligned Apple product. I have an AppleTV 2 but frankly find the lack of local storage less than encouraging for my needs/wants. Knowing that the folks over at the XBMC project had managed to get much more performance out of the device via the Broadcom CrystalHD chip I decided to take the plunge and see what this software mod was all about. Now, as you may or may not know AtvCloner will let you upgrade your hard drive in your AppleTV 1 fairly easily to increase local hard drive space via re-imaging a newer larger hard drive with the AppleTvs original stock partition images. It occurred to me that if I could create a decent install of XBMC with the proper CrystalHD drivers on it that was reliable … well I just might have something.

Now, in all candor the folks at awkwardtv and xbmc have been doing this for the last few years but from what I have read it’s typically been booted off of a usb ‘patchstick’ stuck in the usb port. This is all fine and well but … not my cup o’ tea. So, I set out to pick up a couple of used atv 1s for around $50 US apiece. Then you can pick up a Broadcom Crystal HD chip which replaces the wireless card in the atv for about $48 or so US. So for about $100 US you have an AppleTV 1 that can theoretically decode 1080p blu ray! But, how easy is it to get it to work ? Frankly unless your a command line terminal geek, its a pain.

That said much like AtvCloner was designed to take the command line work out of imaging and re-partitioning a new AppleTV drive, I figure if I could get a useable XBMC + CHD (short for Crystal HD chip) install running … maybe I could make an image that I could use AtvCloner to work with. Well, it worked!. However I found after testing both xbmc (mac) and xbmc (linux) for the AppleTV 1 there are several differences at this time. One is that xbmc (mac) uses almost all of the AppleTV s ram. Meaning it leaves about 5 – 10 mb free while xbmc (linux) for AppleTV only uses half of the ram which leaves a much snappier interface. As well, xbmc (mac) is actually an app on top of the atvs os. While xbmc (linux) is in fact its own OS which is much leaner than the stock atv os plus can reside on its own partition. Given the hardware constraints of the AppleTV 1 the choice was clear in terms of performance. So yes, this mod will utilize Linux and XBMC.

Now, here is where I am at. I need some testers. It’s not required that you have knowledge of AtvCloner previously but it might help.

Please reply in the comments if your interested in this on your AppleTV 1.

Now what is required ? Three things:

1. The new version of AtvCloner
2. A modified recovery.dmg (to boot into the xbmc linux image).
3. The xbmc (linux) image.

The rest is done like normal with AtvCloner on your mac.