Apple sent an alert out to AppleTV users on the 7th advising those who downloaded AppleTV 3.0 to go get 3.01 right away. If you don’t use aTV Flash do it. If you use aTV Flash, wait a few for the update advisory from aTV Flash as the 3.01 update will likely break your aTV Flash install

I am giving the credit for finding this to Don McAllister of the awesome Screencasts Online. i subscribe to his excellent service and watched the episode on the aTV Flash and AppleTV.

I love my AppleTV. I’ve used Handbrake to put movies on it, watch TV shows I’ve bought from the iTunes store and use it everyday to watch the video podcasts I subscribe to. There are some things the AppleTV cannot readily do such as view different video formats, browse the web, run apps, you get the picture as it were.

You purchase the aTV Flash code and download to your Mac or Windows PC. Then you run the installer. It builds a bootable disk image on a USB stick that you supply. i used a 1Gb stick that was lying around and it was partitioned and set up automatically. The installer sets the stick as an OSBoot device.

You plug the stick into your AppleTV and restart it. The AppleTV boots from the stick which is running a small version of Linux that installs the aTV Flash code on the AppleTV. Takes less than a minute and when prompted, unplug the stick and restart the AppleTV. It will reboot a couple of times and come back up as your AppleTV, but with a ton of additional features.

Your AppleTV will now have support for most all media types including WMV, RMVB, DivX, Xvid and AVI. You’ll be able to place ripped DVDs on the internal drive, and even connect an external USB drive because the formerly braindead USB port now works. You can even connect a USB keyboard and mouse. You’ll be able to install apps and set up things like RSS feeds. A number of other apps come with the installer that you can selectively install.

Best of all, your Apple warranty remains intact as do all the original AppleTV functions.

I only completed the install today but already am getting even more value from my proven AppleTV.

Head over to http://www.atvflash.com for more info and to purchase your own copy.