AppleTV hacking goes to the next level

What started out as a thread on the somethingawful forums has progressed into a veritible orgy of Apple TV hacking- Xvid support with Perian, external USB storage, bluetooth, people monkeying with the screensavers in quartz composer.. in fact so much is going on it's becoming difficult to track. Apple's YouTube update set hackers back a bit- it didn't shut them out completely, it just removed a lot of the superfluous bits of OS X that were making hacking in extra features so easy. Luckily AwkwardTV seems to be tracking the majority of the hacks and plugins as they spring up (after briefly being Digg'd into oblivion). I need another few hours to parse all this information before I start modding my AppleTV, but if it saves me all the time I've been spending transcoding XviD files, gives me subtitle support, and lets me play my HD files without waiting a whole week to convert them to a format that may or may not play on the AppleTV, I am there.

(There's a good compendium of command line hacks here as well, make sure to check whether or not they work after the YouTube update though.)

Wireless video teddybear.

Creeptastic.
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Found Via BoingBoing

Create Digital Motion - Why I Want a Portable VHS Video Case, from Museum of Lost Interactions

Righteous commentary on CDM about a joke design for a portable VHS walkman, and how it would actually be a cool piece of equipment.
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The Scanimate - 70's Analog electronic motion graphics!

Awesome page about the Scanimate- a scanner-analog video synth the size of a room that they used to do very early title animation and motion graphics- Think wiggling letters on The Electric Company and the opening title of Logan's Run.

The Scanimate is basically an analog computer connected to a scan converter. This means that high-contrast artwork is placed onto a light table under a "high rez" camera. In the late seventies, that meant it was about a 500 line vidicon camera, but was not interlaced video, for reasons I'll get into below.
The image then appeared on a "high rez" CRT, (cathode ray tube) which in turn was scanned by a regular monochrome NTSC video camera. The reason for this "re-scanning" is that the analog computer could do all sorts of wierd and wonderful things to the sweep on the CRT, thus animating the artwork. The only trick was that the "animator" actually had to "program" the move by wiring up a complex analog circuit and adjusting any (and sometimes all) of about 250 knobs. The wiring was done at several "patch panels" where you had access to the innards of the analog "CPU" waveforms. You had horizontal and vertical sawtooth waveforms, a variety of oscillators which could phase lock to the horizontal or vertical sweep or each other, and summing amps and multipliers. Ramp generators could be fired off in sync with a specific timecode on videotape, and each ramp could "multiply on" an oscillator, offset, or whatever you needed to wire up to "bend" the raster to the client's content.

The original raster could be "sectioned" so that if the artwork had up to five words, the words could be individually animated. The second camera's output (the one viewing the CRT) was colorized according to the greyscale values it saw, and that image could then be layered by keying it over videotape of previous "passes". The passes were recorded on 2" IVC helical analog video recorders, which could (sometimes) manage an embarrasing number of generations before the client noticed it. You could never get away with it when you needed to.

The client(s) would sit on couches at the rear of the room, and at least at Image West, there were two Scanimates, one on either side of the room. A video switcher and monitors were at the front of the room, and through a door were the video tape machines, which were 2,000 pound monsters that ran on megawatts of power and required compressed air.

Because the Scanimates produced output in "real-time", the clients could literally sit down and say things like "Make it move a little faster", or "Can you make it more of a teal color?", and the animators would tweak it, get an approval, tape it, and the guy would walk out with his master. It was hundreds of times faster than cel animation, and so $2,500/hour to command the entire facility was a bargain. If the client wanted something more complex, of course it took longer, and cost more. If he couldn't make up his mind, we could keep trying this and that, and he paid for his own indecision.

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Thanks Jesus!

Setting up an automated workflow to convert files for Apple TV on OS X - vellery.net

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Video to film- via inkjet printer!

A very cool hack that is surely the seed for a new product- A method of Transferring video to 16 or 35mm film using an inkjet printer.

Found Via BoingBoing

HD For Indies - Final Cut Studio 2 details

Mike has more details about Apple's next generation production big-box than you'll know what to do with. Some things that excite me: The new color correction application that incorporates recently purchased Final Touch, Zspace animation and virtual cameras in Motion (I guess I don't need after effects any more) and "open format timelines", mix formats, resolutions, framerates, all in a timeline and it doesn't matter- it just works.
HD For Indies, nab 2007 notes from apple sunday press

Run Lola, Ruuuuuuuuuuuuun! at daniel shiffman

Processing guru Daniel Shiffman has set up a system with thousands of 60x32 pixel cells, all playing Run Lola Run, each one frame ahead of the next, spread out across a bank of displays.
Check out the video.

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WIRED: Visual history of the television

From Bakelite to Plasma: TV Through the Ages -

MAKE: Cellular automata video synthesizer kit & Videothing CONTEST!

We're so excited about the new video cellular automata kit from MAKE magazine, that we're going to hold a contest to see who can make the coolest implementation of it- bend, hack, unexpected use or just a sweet case design, the sky is the limit.. Get the kit here and send your entries (pics, video, descriptions!) to wiley at mediatronica dot com. *


The winner will be chosen by a panel of Video Thing participants and the prize is your choice of a neuros mp4 recorder or an elgato eyetv hybrid! The deadline for submissions is July 1st of this year.

From the Make page:

We have a new kit for sale in the Maker store, the Cellular automata video synthesizer kit. This easy to contstruct kit is a fun way to play with cellular automata and video synthesis. When complete you will be able to uncover endless visual and sound patterns on any TV with a composite NTSC video input. The kit provides a pre-assembled, pre-programmed Video Critter Mini board, three potentiometers, and a push button. Just solder up the potentiometers and button to the circuit board, add an enclosure, and you're done!

(* this contest isn't sponsored or endorsed by Make magazine, but we love them and hope they will smile on it as a celebration of all things MAKE)

MAKE magazine Link

BoingBoing post about the kit

Wikipedia: Cellular Automata

Elgato's Turbo 264 USB stick painlessly coverts vidz to H.264 - Engadget

Elgato's Turbo 264 USB stick painlessly coverts vidz to H.264 - Engadget

More Apple TV early reports

VideoThing's Mike Curtis' new blog: Apple TV Hacker!

Macworld: Video: Macworld Video: Exploring Apple TV

Warranty Voiding at MacDevCenter

Apple TV reportedly hacked for XVid support

Apple TV Dissected

QuickTime gains 720P Apple TV high-definition export mode

Looks like I'm going to get an Apple TV after all...

In an undisclosed and largely unnoticed update to its QuickTime video playback and conversion software, Apple has quietly added an “Export to Apple TV” feature capable of creating high-definition videos viewable on the Apple TV accessory. Unlike Export to iPod, which currently creates sub-DVD-quality 640 by 480 videos, Export to Apple TV creates not only full DVD-quality 720 by 404 videos, but also 1280 by 720 videos. These videos are viewable in iTunes, but cannot be transferred directly via iTunes to an fifth-generation iPod.

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picturephoning.com: Neochroma enlarges tiny mobile phone displays to desktop monitor size

Via picturephoning.com: a prototype stereoscopic (?) phone attatchment that enlarges mobile phone displays to desktop monitor size.

Torch Computers for artists

Torch makes large VESA mount displays with small form factor computers for multimedia art installations. No logos, hidden cables, and nice white or black enclosures. Look pricey, They do custom work as well.
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Found via Paul Slocum

Retro Thing: A New Super 8 Movie Camera!?

Retro Thing: A New Super 8 Movie Camera!? first in about 20 years, has some interesting features - read on...

Numark 3 screen lcd display

The Numark VM03–MKII is a 3–screen/6–input LCD video display monitor designed for any video monitoring application. The advanced design of the VM03–MKII allows the user to monitor video sources in either a rack–mount (3 rack spaces required) or tabletop setting.

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Found via Create Digital Motion

CDM's 2006 Best-of list

Create Digital Motion has a good year end best-of list of products for 'visualists', a term they use in reference to multimedia artists, VJ's, and motion graphic pros. CDM blows us out of the water as far as the VJ, processing, and mograph stuff goes and is worth a look for anyone who works deep in any of the pro-video realms.

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50 dollar helmet video camera

The Tony Hawk Helmet Camcorder straps to any helmet and comes with a 32MB memory card recording up to 30 minutes of video and sound. It weighs less than 1/2 lb and uses just two AAA batteries. The Tony Hawk Helmet Cam also features auto focus and 640 X 480 resolution, plus a built-in microphone with a 12 foot range.

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AACS Cracked

From Reuters:

A hacker known as Muslix64 posted on the Internet details of how he unlocked the encryption, known as the Advanced Access Content System, which prevents high-definition discs from illegal copying by restricting which devices can play them.
The AACS system was developed by companies including Walt Disney Co., Intel Corp., Microsoft Corp., Toshiba Corp. and Sony Corp. to protect high-definition formats, including Toshiba's HD-DVD and Sony's Blu-ray.

Link to Technorati Search for AACS