Apple TV Final Verdict

This morning I was finally able to access SMB shares and test the Apple TV for HD capacity; it choked on 720P MKV files and could not even load 1080i MKV files...  A little research showed the CPU in the unit is a Pentium M 1GHz and the unit packs 256MB of DDR2 RAM... Some people are saying this is fine for 500MB MKV files (I am assuming VERY lot bit rate movies?) but a 4GB - 8GB file (the size of most 120min 720p movies) just won't go...

However, during the process I learned a bit more UNIX:

EXTRACT AN APPLE 'PAX' FILE:
pax -r -z -f Archive.pax.gz

INSTALL KEXTLOAD:
sudo mount -uw /
sudo touch /.readwrite
sudo sync

<reboot>

sudo rm /.readwrite
sudo sync
sudo mount -ur /
chmod +x /sbin/turbo_kext_enabler.bin
sudo /sbin/turbo_kext_enabler.bin
sudo kextload /System/Library/Extensions/smbfs.kext

INSTALL SMBFS:
sudo cp -R /Users/frontrow/Downloads/os/System/Library/Extensions/smbfs.kext /System/Library/Extensions/smbfs.kext
sudo cp /Users/frontrow/Downloads/os/sbin/mount_smbfs /sbin/mount_smbfs
sudo chmod -R 755 /System/Library/Extensions/smbfs.kext
sudo chmod +x /sbin/mount_smbfs
sudo chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions/smbfs.kext
sudo chown root:wheel /sbin/mount_smbfs
mkdir /Users/frontrow/Movies/movies
mkdir /Users/frontrow/Movies/videos
mkdir /Users/frontrow/Movies/hd
mkdir /Users/frontrow/Movies/extracts
sudo mount_smbfs "//user:password@192.168.10.106/movies" /Users/frontrow/Movies/movies
sudo mount_smbfs "//user:password192.168.10.106/videos" /Users/frontrow/Movies/movies
sudo mount_smbfs "//user:password@192.168.10.106/HD" /Users/frontrow/Movies/hd
sudo mount_smbfs "//user:password@192.168.10.100/Extracts" /Users/frontrow/Movies/extracts

INSTALL ATVLoader:
sudo mount -uw /
cd /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/PlugIns
cd AwkwardTV.frappliance/Contents/Resources
sudo chown root:wheel SetupHelper
sudo chmod 4555 SetupHelper
cd ~
sudo mount -ur /

INSTALL nitoTV:
sudo mount -uw /
sudo chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/PlugIns/nitoTV.frappliance/
sudo chmod u+s /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/PlugIns/nitoTV.frappliance/Contents/Resources/nitoHelper

 

The Apple TV is great, but if it cannot play my 720p movies then it is not any more useful than my xBox running XMBC.  The Apple TV is a great appliance, but it seems to be designed for an 'average Joe' consumer that will not be pushing the unit to its limits- and I doubt that Apple will ever sell 720p high-bit rate HD movies on iTunes until the next generation of Apple TVs... 

I guess I will return the Apple TV to Fry's tonight and pickup an xBox 360 (to play the copy of Halo 3 I picked up today).  I heard rumor it already has H.264 support and Microsoft is going to add XviD and DiVX support with the next update (or I can use TVersity to convert the files on the fly to WMV).