So, The wife and I have decided to ditch cable and the monthly $100 bill completely. I Work in IT currently so im pretty well versed in the tech world.

From everything Ive seen picking up and Apple TV (a 160gb) one and hacking it would be somewhat of a replacement for cable. We just have a few shows we like to watch but, nothing worth keeping cable. With so many options im lost on what route to go.

What I want the apple tv to do :

Watch TV shows from say, Discovery's Website. Like a web browser would. So maybe install a web browser on it ?

Watch .avi Formats + other formats the box doesn't support now. Just movie formats basically.

Use a keyboard and maybe a magic trackpad ? Not a deal-breaker though.

Play Mp3's still on shuffle

play sound through optical out still (again not a deal-breaker)


What do you think the best route to go is ?
OSX install ? Just mod a lil bit now ? Please let me know.

Forgot to mention I need to be able to connect a USB external hard drive aswell.

Originally Posted by sYnOnYx

So, The wife and I have decided to ditch cable and the monthly $100 bill completely. I Work in IT currently so im pretty well versed in the tech world.

From everything Ive seen picking up and Apple TV (a 160gb) one and hacking it would be somewhat of a replacement for cable. We just have a few shows we like to watch but, nothing worth keeping cable. With so many options im lost on what route to go.

What I want the apple tv to do :

Watch TV shows from say, Discovery's Website. Like a web browser would. So maybe install a web browser on it ?

Watch .avi Formats + other formats the box doesn't support now. Just movie formats basically.

Use a keyboard and maybe a magic trackpad ? Not a deal-breaker though.

Play Mp3's still on shuffle

play sound through optical out still (again not a deal-breaker)


What do you think the best route to go is ?
OSX install ? Just mod a lil bit now ? Please let me know.

The ATV v1 is pretty old tech and low powered. It will do most of what you want - with the ATV-OS however the web browsing experience can be pretty poor, especially if you need to rely on flash at all.

Installing Mac OS gives you the most flexibility but it is slower due to memory footprint.
The fastest option is to put linux on it, you get a lot more memory that is not used by the OS.

Linux is what I was leaning towards as it is. Im pretty familiar with Fedora and Ubuntu.

Wonder if they support the apple bluetooth keyboard using a dongle.... hmm.

what Flavor does ATV support ?