Heres a great site for Apple TV hacks. http://www.appletvhacks.net/

Has anyone tried the "nito tv" hack. Apparently it lets you play AVI files. I just ordered my Apple TV so it should arrive in the next couple of days and i want to get my file system sorted before then

Yep -
It's great - there's not much in the way of a manual for it though and I am still trying to figure out connecting from ATV>my imac and other share-mounts so I can browse directly from there -
but for the time being I simply drop the avi files into the movies folder on ATV via Fugu on my imac and it works a treat.

I hacked my ATV using Patchstick <http://wiki.awkwardtv.org/wiki/Patchstick/Testing> which was pretty easy and saved me having to physically open the unit up. It also puts ATVLoader on there so you can simply select which plugins you want to install right from within the ATV menu.

Good to hear you got it going

I found some instructions here: http://www.appletvhacks.net/2007/09/...-all/#comments

anyone know if you can rip off the apple tv

my dads laptop hard drive went and now the only copy of whats was on his laptop's itunes and iPhoto library are in the apple tv

any ideas

Yeah - the trick is to make sure you install the 1.1 safe update (manual installation)
http://wiki.awkwardtv.org/wiki/Safe_...1_Step_by_Step
If you use NitoTV with the apple standard 1.1 update it doesn't like sharemounting.
(you can still dump files via Fugu into the ATV frontrow Movies folder if you wish - but I prefer to run the files directly from my mac)

So essentially what I've done to get it all working is:
•*Create the patchstick as per the instructions here (but don't install yet on ATV):
http://wiki.awkwardtv.org/wiki/Patchstick/Testing
•*Do a factory reset on the ATV to bring the software back to 1.0
•*I then set it up on my wireless network; and linked it to my itunes library (didn't sync though)
•*Run the patchstick on the ATV as per instructions
•*Enable ssh and afp via the AwkwardTV menu (which patchstick installed)
• Install the safe update
•*At this point you need to run patchstick again as you lose the AwkwardTV menu

At this point everything has been working great - I've got all my avi's in my movies folder on my imac and I have a sharemount set up so I simply navigate to it from within ATV.

it's really now the device I was hoping for all along when I purchased it - rather than the expensive juke-box it has been up until now. (Although my new imac was converting avi tv shows to mp4s in around 20 minutes, so I had been converting a few shows prior to this)

Have fun!