Filed under: Apple TV
Apple TV on Mac

Ever wanted to run Apple TV on your Macintosh? ATV4mac 1.4.3 lets you do just that--with a few limitations. It's a Tiger-only, Intel-only release. You'll need OS X 10.4.8 and higher and Leopard is a no-go at this time.
With it, you can run Apple TV take 2 as a Front-Row style Macintosh application, which can be a very nice thing if you plan on using a spare mac mini as an Apple TV replacement. Your mileage, as they say, will vary.

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
mingistech said 1:10PM on 3-31-2008
Too bad i'm Leopard across the board on my home systems... hopefully they update it soon.
I really like how AppleTV Take 2 organizes TV Shows by season in the same directory with a Season header over the shows instead of how the current FrontRow makes multiple folders with the same show name.
I have a Hackintosh in my bedroom hooked up to an LCD TV that would be ideal for this.
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Rainer said 1:14PM on 3-31-2008
Can it stream in HD?
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Rainer said 1:18PM on 3-31-2008
And by stream, I mean: can you rent HD movies?
Peter Zich said 1:41PM on 3-31-2008
I hope so, downloading now...
Matt G said 1:34PM on 3-31-2008
Wow, this is great! I really want to be able to run this on my Media Mac Mini hooked up to my TV. Thumbs up for this app!
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peter said 1:52PM on 3-31-2008
Looks great. I just demoted my Core Solo 1.5 mini since it was lagging for music production so this would be perfect!
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carson said 2:11PM on 3-31-2008
I'd be down for the leopard version for sure. I like the tv but I LOVE my mini.
C
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Johnny said 2:30PM on 3-31-2008
Put me down for the Leopard version - especially if it allows HD rentals. What would be really nice is if the hack allowed 5.1 to come out of the mini-plug as well. I think Apple should consider selling the AppleTV software for Mac at a nice price, but below the aTV itself (with HD and 5.1 of course). I guess they want to move the hardware, though. They should at least consider licensing 5.1 for the Mac. I'd pay extra for it. Is there third-party software that allows this?
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Johnny said 2:39PM on 3-31-2008
DOH! I guess I could have done a little research first.
http://geekwithfamily.com/2007/07/05/home-theater/howto-5-easy-steps-to-output-dolby-digital-from-quicktime-player/
Philip said 3:55AM on 4-01-2008
I'm new to the world of macs, so I apologize if this is an idiot question...
Over wifi, I'd like to use an iTouch as a universal remote control. Is there an iTouch user interface for Front Row or something else?
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qwert said 4:57AM on 4-01-2008
finally after all this leotard only apps, a tiger only app.
Now make it powerPC only, and i would be happy.
what is this shit? until 2 years ago OS9 was bundled with every mac, to make the transition to the newer system as easy as possible, and now with leopard you can easily build apps that either dont work on leopard or on tiger.
OF course backwards compatibility has to end somewhere, but thats a bit too much.
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DJCraze said 8:14AM on 4-01-2008
All the guy did was port over the correct system files and patched the AppleTV Finder.app to work. The current OSX Version on AppleTV is 10.4.7 soooo it wont work on leopard, the FrameWorks don't communicate to the system properly. I too am waitinf for a leo version, but I don't see it happening anytime soon, unless it requires some small tweaking to the frameworks :).
Ruud Welten said 7:16AM on 4-01-2008
Well ... I tried installing it, came up with a 'succesfull install' message and a 'please reboot' one. So I did, ... reboot my MacBook Intel C2D 2,16Ghz. But now I never reach the login screen.
The loading bar with the text 'Starting Mac OS X' loads very very slowly and when it is at 100% it stays there (http://www.flickr.com/photos/rwelten/2380062298/) ...
Anyone know how I can fix this?
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DJCraze said 8:14AM on 4-01-2008
Boot from your Tiger CD and reinstall the following frameworks: iPhotoAccess.framework, BackRow.framework and QuartzCore.framework.. If you don't know how to do this, then errr.. Its on google :)
Ruud Welten said 10:46AM on 4-01-2008
Thanks but that is the problem, I do not know how to do this and Google doesn't either. I've tried looking for things like 'restore frameworks OS X' and 'restore QuartzCore.framework' but couldn't find a thing (except for the ATV4mac post.
So any links that might help me?
Ruud Welten said 12:48PM on 4-01-2008
Yay! Figured it out, and everything is fine again. After figuring out how to boot from the CD (holding C didn't work anymore, but holding Option did) I noticed that the QuartzCore.framework was missing from /System/Library/Frameworks so I copied it from the Tiger 10.4.8 cd. And voilá, boots as new.
Thanks for the help DJCraze.
Oh and if anyone gets this problem, the HackTV Take 2 post from Erica was helpful to me because it showed the locations of these frameworks on the CD and the Hard Drive.
provosaint said 4:08PM on 4-14-2008
I'm still on the fence about getting an Apple TV - i found this review but l'm looking for others...
Here’s a great review of the AppleTV that covers the new Internet TV device from the user experience perspective. Yeah, we all know you can watch your favorite shows and movies on it. But is it easy to use? How about getting YouTube videos? How is the search function? And most of all, what is the quality like? I found this report from Daisy Whitney at TVWeek. She answers all those questions in this two-minute take.
http://blip.tv/file/824014/
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