Get more from your shiny box of joy
From the category archives:
Version 0.2 of Couch Surfer brings you support for History and the ability to load “new window” links. Brandon has also made available custom webkit frameworks in a separate file.
Thanks, Brandon.
Let me know how it goes. Just got the files from Brandon. I haven’t even installed it yet.
After a little run in with the lawyers from Apple concerning the the name and the logo of “Safari HD”, Brandon has decided to change the name of his immensely popular browser plugin to “Couch Surfer” along with a new logo.
The files are listed below. Download away!
Even more love from Brandon.
He has just updated Safari HD with the ability to access http password protected sites. So for those of you that have already downloaded the previous version, try again.
The URLs are still the same:
Now go and get some sleep, Brandon. Don’t tire yourself out.
[Update] All links removed to comply with Apple’s lawyers requests.
3 cheers for Brandon Holland! Safari HD is officially released. Now you can browse the web right on your big screen TV from the comfort of your couch.
Safari HD is available for both Apple TV 1.1 and 2.0. All you need is an ssh-enabled Apple TV. The installer script should take care of installing all the components for you. It’s pretty straight-forward, really!
To use the 2.0 version, you first need to do a safe update from version 1.1 of the Apple TV software to 2.0. Currently, there is no way to directly patch the Apple TV via the PatchStick method once you have updated to 2.0. The instructions on how to do a safe update is available on AwkwardTV.org here.
The plugin also comes with a Bookmark file called Bookmarks.plist so you can add bookmarks for use with Safari HD.
For those that downloaded the files from our site before they were available officially (you know who you are), please download and install again. Brandon has since fixed the problems found in the 1.1 version of the software.
By the way, Brandon has put in a lot of time into this plugin. We encourage that if you find his software useful, please make donations to Brandon. It will only keep good quality software like this one coming.
Let us know of your experience. We can’t wait to hear from you.
A note to Brandon. Hey, maybe you can work on a visualizer next.
[Update] For those who have already installed Safari HD, send us some screen shots of it running on your Apple TV. We would like to share them with the other readers of the site. Send them to submission@appletvhacks.net .
Thanks in advance.
[Update 2] All links removed to comply with Apple’s lawyers requests.
Just got an email from Brandon that the plugin has been released. The file image is available here.  It is in DMG format for Macs only.
If you have already hacked your Apple TV to run the ATV Loader, which accesses Awkward TV’s plugin directory, then you can just install it from there. Just select the Skype plugin entry and install. Can’t be any easier than that.
As mentioned previously, the plugin works as a front end for Skype. So you need to already have Skype installed on your Apple TV in order for this to work.
Brandon is providing this plugin without any documentation or instructions for now. So, please proceed with caution. He should have some instructions available soon.
If you like the plugin, we highly recommend that you donate to Brandon. The guy has been doing some good work for our community and deserves some compensation.
Now, go make some calls.
Introduction
Are you just bored sick waiting for iTunes to offer movie rentals? Yes, you’ve probably been hearing about it for weeks (months?) that Apple is going to offer movies for rent via iTunes soon. I guess, it is just not soon enough. It was a rumor then it STILL is today. Meanwhile, subscribers of services like Amazon Unbox, Movielink and CinemaNow are already enjoying their rented movies on their PCs, Xbox 360′s and Tivos. Yeah, I know, you’re contemplating listing your Apple TV on Craig’s list and trade it in for an Xbox 360 (Halo 3, anyone?).
But wait, there is still hope. OK, not just hope. It’s a soon-to-be reality. You WILL be able to watch rented movies on your Apple TV very very soon.
Jaman, a movie download service featuring some of the top movies from all over the globe, is gearing up for the release of their JamanTV player. You might have heard about this application when it was featured on gigaom back in June. In that post, Om Malik wrote about an application that allowed rented movies from Jaman to be viewed right on the Apple TV. And, boy, was he excited about it. However, since then, there had been no update on that news.
Then, it happened. Last week, I was given the opportunity to preview the upcoming JamanTV application when the company contacted me to take a look at it. Of course, I jumped on it. I couldn’t have waited another day to be able view rented movies on my Apple TV.
How it works
There are two components to getting Jaman movies to work on the Apple TV: the Jaman Player for your PC/Mac and JamanTV player for your Apple TV. The computer-based player behaves similar to iTunes, in which it manages the downloaded movies and also keeps track of external devices allowed to sync with it. Once the JamanTV player is installed on the Apple TV, it can then be added to the device list to be synced with the computer-based player.
The Jaman Player for your computer is publicly available from the site and is actually required to view movies from the service. On the other hand, the yet-to-be-released JamanTV for the Apple TV has to be installed via a PatchStick.
For those not familiar with a PatchStick, it is bootable USB flash drive that contains scripts for enabling SSH and installing other 3rd party components on to the Apple TV. You can read more about it at awkwardtv.org.
Installation
Installing the Jaman Player on the computer was a no brainer. It installed just like any application out there. With the player installed, you can log in to the service and start renting movies right away.
Installing JamanTV via a PatchStick was relatively simple too. However, there was one major requirement: an Intel Mac. This is needed to run the script for creating the PatchStick. I am confident that this requirement will go away in the future but for now, this is the way it is.
A Jaman representative gave me a zip file called Patchstick.zip, containing applications and scripts to create my very own PatchStick.
The Patchstick.zip file contains the main install script, createPatchstick, 2 instruction files in PDF and two folders caled “Patchstick” and “root”.
The install script needed the following:
Before the install script could be run, the Apple TV 1.1 software update had to be extracted and mounted first. Opening it would mount a volume called “OSBoot” in the Finder. The script needed some files from the “OSBoot” mounted volume to be copied to the Patchstick.
I found the two instruction files to be very detailed and informative. Following the instructions in the “ModifyAppleTV2.pdf” file, I managed to run the install script with ease.
The install script partitioned the USB drive into two partitions: an Apple TV Recovery partition and a regular OS X partition. All the tools and software resided in the Apple TV Recovery partition to be copied to the Apple TV.
Just to be sure that the install script was solid, I ran it through about 10 – 15 times. On certain occasions, I ran into a minor glitch in the script. The script used the command “diskutil unmountDisk” to unmount the USB drive. This was not always successful. After changing it to “disktool -u”, the problem went away.
Once the Patchstick was created, I plugged it into the Apple TV and booted from it (“menu” and “-” buttons). With the Patchstick connected, Apple TV booted from it and the install script copied necessary components to the Apple TV. After a couple of reboots, my Apple TV now had a new entry on the root menu called “Jaman Moviesâ€.
At this point, there was just one more step left: adding the patched Apple TV to Jaman Player’s list of devices to sync with. The player required the serial number of the Apple TV for this. The serial number could be obtained from the following sources: iTunes, Jaman Movies menu and Settings menu.
Once the Apple TV was added, the player immediately started the syncing process to transfer the downloaded movies to the Apple TV. It couldn’t be any easier than this.
Depending on your network speed, each movie should take only a few minutes to be transferred. However, some movies might take up a few gigabytes of storage. My network runs on Airport Extreme (802.11n) so transferring a few gigabytes of movies did not take long at all. On the other hand, downloading a movie from the service via the Internet took about 40 minutes to an hour.
Conclusion
Overall, I am very impressed with the JamanTV software. Hats off to the developers for keeping the install process simple and making the players well-polished.
The only thing I would like to see in the future is maybe the ability to preview and rent movies right from the Apple TV without syncing with the PC.
Last I heard, Jaman is ready to get the JamanTV out to the public any day now. Once it is released, you can finally enjoy rented movies on your Apple TV too.
Update
I was given the permission to go ahead and post the Patchstick file for download. It is available here.
Enjoy.
