Hi All,

Just found this fantastic forum and hoping you can help a newbie (and yes.. I have tried a search on this topic but could not find an answer)

Just bought a second hand ATV 160GB which should arrive next week. I have searched loads on this site (and the net) and am looking forward to hacking it to use XMBC. I don't know what it has installed on it and whether or not it has been hacked.

My main question at the moment is, do I have to install iTunes on my Vista PC to operate/install/update/hack the ATV. I had a bad experience with iTunes a year ago when I installed it on my PC to help a friend put music on his new iPod, it insisted on putting all sorts of software on my PC and it took me ages to uninstall it and get my music/videos tagged as I wanted.

Anyway, I'm hoping that I can get away without having to have iTunes on my PC again.

Also, if I can do without iTunes, if I put content on the ATV disc, will it be useable on the PC or wireless laptop. What I mean is - at the moment I have about 90GB music on my PC and play it on the PC or (laptop connected to my TV/Music system). If I move it all to the ATV, can I still get to it from my PC/laptop in windows. (Will the ATV act as a separate drive or will I have to duplicate everything)?

Another thing I'm interested in is the ability of the ATV to "learn" other remotes. If I do the patchstick hack to install XBMC etc, will that alter the abilty of the ATV to learn other remotes?

First off though, I have to get the ATV working on my non HD Plasma with component/scart. I have read all the hacks on that and think I can do it. Wish me luck.

Sorry for all the questions - Thanks all for reading and any info you can give will be great.

Stoobie

You don't need iTunes installed. as a matter a fact you can replace the atv(osx) with atv(linux).

HOW-TO install a Miminal Ubuntu and XBMC with sound over HDMI on the AppleTV - XBMC

no, once your ATV is hacked you dont have to use iTunes - actually it would be more difficult to get to iTunes synced content from XBMC

with stock ATV OS (non-Linux) sharing out is a bit difficult - the old MacOS version there can only do NFS / AFP or ftp - but NOT CIFS/SMB (server)

so unless you have a MacOS client you would either have to duplicate content or keep it on your PC or a NAS and connect to it via network