Cult of Mac Readers - Become a Boxee Alpha Tester!

8:38 am, October 6th, 2008, Lonnie Lazar

Interested in trying out a cool media center for use with your Apple TV? Cult of Mac readers are invited to receive expedited applications for testing the alpha release of Boxee, a music, video and picture management solution to let your Apple TV play practically any DRM-free multimedia file. Follow this link to receive your alpha testing invitation.

Boxee for (Intel based) Mac works on OS X 10.4 (Tiger) and 10.5 (Leopard). Boxee for Linux is supported on Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) or 8.04 (Hardy Heron) x86 (not x86_64) operating systems. The Boxee patch works with the 2.2 update to Apple TV, but remember to install the update before you install the Boxee patch.

Detailed instructions for installing the Boxee patch after the jump.

Boxee integrates with your Apple TV via a flash drive that, if not configured as “bootable” out of the box, at least must be able to be made so. You don’t have to do that yourself, the Boxee patch creator will handle it. Keep in mind these notes from the people at boxee.tv: no need to format the flash drive, the creator takes care of that. A 1gb thumb drive is more than enough. smaller will work too (even a 256mb should work). The unit MUST support being made bootable. The creator will take care of enabling the flag, but there are some units that might not work. To quote Scott Davilla (the creator creator) on this, “even same brand units may not have the same capabilities, geometry, etc. If the stick does not work, get a another one.”

Step 1
Download the ATVUSB-Creator.

Step 2
Insert a “bootable” USB drive into your Mac.

Step 3

Run the ATVUSB-Creator and select your Apple TV version number (e.g., 2.1) and Boxee for Mac.

Step 4
Remove the USB drive and plug it into your Apple TV.

Step 5
Power on your AppleTV. The patchstick will run the ATV bootloader.

Step 6
After the bootloader finishes, remove the thumb drive from your AppleTV.

Step 7
Restart your AppleTV

Step 8
Click Boxee on the main menu. Then select update (this will download Boxee from the Internet).

Step 10
Once Boxee is done installing, restart your AppleTV.

Step 11
Click Boxee, and then select Boxee in the sub-menu to start the interface.

Posted by Lonnie Lazar in AppleTV, Hardware Hacks, Media, News, Software, Web | Comment on this article