It will be coming to XBMC on OSX, Linux, and Windows via the Broadcom Crystal HD Hardware Decoder (BCM970012). It is available now in a mini-PCIE card with ExpressCard and 1X PCIE form factors.

Good news is that it has a common programming API and it’s an open source solution with full source code for driver and library available for OSX and Linux under a GPL/LGPL license. Go ahead, 3rd party developers!

The Windows driver binary, as well as the Linux source code for the driver and library can be found at the Broadcom web site. For OSX, the binaries and source code for the driver and library will be hosted at google code. Users in the USA can purchase the Crystal HD mini PCIE card from Logic Supply for $69, and of course there’s always ebay for those outside the USA.

Source: XBMC

Another great work from Danny! He has published a tutorial explaining how to install transmission (bittorent client) on the Applet TV and run Clutch web-interface to control bittorrent from browsers.

To get through this new tutorial you first need to enable SSH on your Apple TV (check out Danny’s previous tutorial). The new hack is generally based on installing transmission, MAMP web server and Clutch.

It’s then possible to control the Clutch even via the iPhone.

Users had reported some errors but the problem seems to be solved now, after Danny made some corrections. Go to the comments to learn more.

Check it out!

On his blog dannyruchtie.nl, Danny has published short but exhaustive tutorial on how to hack the Apple TV to run boxee, XBMC and enable an external hard drive.

In just four steps he explains how to create and install a patchstick, access Apple TV and enable external USB drives. He ensures the whole process is completely free.

Read the article here.

NitoTV appliance is a front end for the popular mplayer media player perian and Apple’s DVDPlayback.framework (if installed).

You can create/edit playlists and add files or folders of your choice. By now it should support just about any media format. Create afp, nfs and samba mounts (with bonjour support) Install the kextloader, a variety of kexts/frameworks/binaries, perian, mplayer codecs, play nes, snes, genesis, game gear and gameboy advanced roms, view RSS feeds and 3-day Weather forecast, Launch Applications, and much much more!

Click here to read whats new in 0.6.4

Installation instructions and more information can be found at here

Boxee will play any non-DRM content, and let users share information with each other and their existing social networks about what they’re watching or listening to. It will also aggregate all your entertainment (video, music, images) into one place and add in any RSS/XML/MMS feed (with mainstream content from sites like Hulu & ABC coming soon).

You can read more about Boxee in this article, or watch the video below.

The installation is very simple, thanks to an installer which formats a USB drive and sets it up to do the installation for you once plugged into your Apple TV.

If you would like to get an invite to the Boxee alpha, simply follow this link http://www.boxee.tv/atvhacks. You can then grab the USB-drive installer software from here.

This version is comes with ssh, bin tools, and two plugins (XBMC for Mac and Boxee for Mac). That’s right, two full blown OSX applications with their own AppleTV plugin to launch and get updates.

Currently, it is only available to run on OS X, but Linux and Windows versions should be following within the week.

Download it http://atvusb-creator.googlecode.com.

With the built in features and third party plugins, this really is a flexible media center. You can find out more on how to install XBMC on your Apple TV at this thread on their website.

A USB installer is in the works, but is currently not quite ready. For now you have to do the installation manually.

Nels Johnson has done exactly that, and has posted the details for how to do it yourself at his site http://www.quickanddirty.tv/.

We’d point out that you should probably have someone else controlling the tunes, whilst you pay attention to the road!

Josh Lee is not a typical kind of guy so why should his Apple TV be like anybody else’s? Why settle for a 40GB traditional hard drive when there are solid-state drives out there that run faster, quieter and cooler?

And that was exactly what Josh did. He replaced his clunky old 40GB hard drive on his Apple TV with a new state-of-the-art Transcend 32GB SSD. All he did was taking an image of his 40gb drive, doing a little diskutil repartitioning trick and then writing the image back to the new drive. Voila – the world’s first SSD-equipped Apple TV.

So was it worth it? Josh reported that the heat coming off of the Apple TV has been reduced. However, as far as speed, it is more or less the same. He mentioned though that it might have made a difference if he got a faster version of the SSD.

Here is Josh’s original email to me:

attached are a few pics..

its the Transcend 32GB SSD model# TS32GSSD25-M
I picked it up for about 160 bucks + shipping..

all i did was take an image of my 40GB drive..

then mounted it, resized the Media Partition with “diskutil resizePartition disk sizeG”

which didnt change the size of the DMG file, i suspose there is a way to compress it with hdutil.. ?

then i DD’d the image to the SSD, which took forever. it came back and said it was full not enough space..

i tried it anyway in the apple tv. then did a factory restore, (i think this recreates the partitons) and came out like you see in the pics… then it asked if i wanted to upgrade, and i did.

used the patch2stick and im up and running without all that HEAT! lol

its basically the same process for upgrading the drive…. as far as space is concerned.. who needs so much space on the ATV anyway? i store everything on a NAS..

Here are the photos forwarded to me:

Did somebody not just ask me if Jaman TV was available for Apple TV Take 2?  Well, I guess, the answer is “yes”.

Jaman just informed me a few days back that the Jaman TV plugin is now available for Apple TV Take 2.  I played around with it and am happy to report that it works flawlessly on my updated Apple TV.

As far as I know, there are no new features.  Just the ability to work with the new Apple TV 2.0 software.

The Patchstick zip file is available for download here.   You can refer to the original Jaman TV post (located here) for installation instructions and how to use the player.