Thread: Invoke full sleep with Apple TV

There are several things that make the Apple TV difficult to use in the car.

1. No touchscreen or integrated control (such as a powermate) support. This makes it difficult to operate in the car.

2. No DC-DC power supply. This means you need to operate it on an inverter.

3. No way to startup or shutdown automatically. See number 2, above.

4. No way to fully sleep device.

The Mac Mini with Front Row is very, very similar to the Apple TV and because it has the full OS X installed, is more flexible for the car environment. In addition, because it can run VM Ware or Parallels, it can run Windows based GPS programs or even full Windows front ends. Power up is quicker than minutes, although it still probably takes a good 60 seconds to get up and running.

The problems you are citing are not insurmountable. I know you can hack the Apple TV and you may or may not be able to solve many of the problems but for just $100 or $200 more you can find a used Mini that will make it much easier and will include Bluetooth.

The ATV is not completely unsuitable for the car, however. You can easily install it as a backseat entertainment system for passengers, although it doesn't come with a CD/DVD drive so all movies will need to be ripped and synched ahead of time.

I already have a nice GPS/Bluetooth capable headunit, I just wanted to use the AUX inputs (video/audio) for the Apple TV. I only want to use this for 2 channel Audio.

If I went with a Mac Mini, it's alot more than $100-200. The cheapest used Mac Mini I can find is from the first generation, which uses IDE hard drives, not SATA. I'd like to keep it all contained in one unit, finding large hard drives are more common if they're SATA. Thats about $400 for a used Mac mini that can support that.

Then theres the carnetix power supply, that's $100, plus $25 for the special mac mini harness. So, let's say I sell the Apple Tv for $200, I"m still out close to $400 for just parts. This is why I wanted to use the Apple TV... Don't care about touch screen, I can use the remote.

I was browsing the other threads, it appears there is a way to invoke sleep/wake-up from tieing a few wires together from an ethernet cable, but these options are configurable in XP/Vista, but don't see that stuff in OSX. The power supply isn't a big deal, 5V 6AMPS DC is doable.

Originally Posted by narkotic

Then theres the carnetix power supply, that's $100, plus $25 for the special mac mini harness. So, let's say I sell the Apple Tv for $200, I"m still out close to $400 for just parts. This is why I wanted to use the Apple TV... Don't care about touch screen, I can use the remote.

Sounds like you're aiming for a different type of install than is common. It just seems like you want to overcome a lot of problems just to run the ATV interface in the car, but by all means, if you are able to make progress on these issues, please post the how-to's so others can learn from it.

BTW, I'm not aware of a way to shut down the Mac via ethernet but if there is, it would probably require both a hardware and software hack to make the ATV do it. You are probably better off trying to fit a relay to the power switch for on/off functions, to get it working in the car. Then concentrate on solutions for deep sleep/hibernation.