ATV 2.2 on a 4:3 TV now that displayutil not an option?

[Hithah]

(My apologies if this is a duplicate thread, but the only other threads I've found on the topic suggest displayutil, which no longer works!)

Since displayutil no longer works with the current ATV software, are there any options that anyone is aware of for using an Apple TV with a 4:3 TV that has no widescreen mode?

XMBC and Boxee allow me to adjust the video enough to "squish" everything to 4:3, and that all looks great, but I'm hoping there's a way to hack the current version of the ATV software so that I can view my iTunes-purchased movies on a 4:3 screen without distorting them.

I've been Googling extensively and have turned up nothing, other than the suggestion of rolling back to ATV 1.0 and using displayutil. But then I won't be able to rehack it with ATVFlash's patchstick and get back Boxee and XBMC, will I?

Thanks, everyone!

 

[danny_w]

I would like to know the same. I recently reverted mine to 1.0 (what it was originally) so that I could use displayutil to change the screen format to 4:3 (800x600 to be exact). It works great, but I would like to have some of the newer features, in particular sort movies by genre. However, I don't know if 4:3 is realistic on 2.x because of the new wider menu system (I liked 1.x much better). I wish we could get the 1.x menu system but the new features, with 4:3 mode.

EDIT: I know that Boxee and XBMC did support 1.x, but I don't know about patchstick. I used patchstick to enable ssh and run displayutil after I downgraded to 1.0, but it didn't add the Boxee and XBMC menu entries. You could probably get them to work without too much trouble though I would think.

 

[GregA]

Did you guys have any luck with this?

 

[kolax]

Not a solution - but I'd much rather invest in a new widescreen TV than an Apple TV that is only going to be hooked up to a 4:3 screen (which most likely would be an old tube one).

 

[KevinC867]

Not a solution - but I'd much rather invest in a new widescreen TV than an Apple TV that is only going to be hooked up to a 4:3 screen (which most likely would be an old tube one).

True, but it would be nice to be able to bring the Apple TV along when on vacation, visiting relatives, etc. I usually don't find widescreen TVs in those situations.

I ended up buying a Western Digital WD TV to solve that problem. The user interface is not great, but with my movies on a portable hard drive, I can play them on any TV with either a composite or HDMI input.

 

[potatis]

I would also be interested in hooking atv up to a 4:3 tv, is it only possible with the 1.0 software, and can you nowadays downgrade atv to it or only early models? is it only possible to get 480i or can you get 720p for say, a 1280x960 screen?