Apple TV & The Box Master: How To Watch PPTV on Apple TV

Date:  Mar 10, 2014

***** Notes 10/10/2014 *****

1.  Apple TV is a very good set top box for Netflix & Hulu.  I pay about S$10-$12 per month for the Netflix & Hulu service.  

2.  If you can afford a Xiaomi Box or any Quad Core Android Box, you should be using those box to watch PPTV or any other Chinese TV streaming sites.

3.  Using Apple TV to watch PPTV, will need to change DNS, profiles and so on.  It will work, but it is slow.  And sometimes, the updates will break this hack.

4.  If the below method does not work, that means, you have upgraded the firmware of the Apple TV.

5.  I no longer using the Box Master method on Apple TV to watch PPTV.  As I have YunOS or Xiaomi TV box at home.  So, please do not email me and asked me how to do it.

6.  There are some hacks to get around, if you really insist to do so.

http://www.tvapk.net/thread-3885-1-1.html

http://www.tvapk.net/thread-3883-1-1.html

7.  My advise, go buy Xiaomi Box.  Better.

***** End of Notes *****

Greetings!  My boss FaceTime me from Shanghai yesterday, asked me how to watch PPTV on Apple TV, and our friend Mike are not very well verse on reading Chinese, so, I thought of writing this Tutorial in English to show the SIMPLE STEPS to watch PPTV, LIVE TV, YouKu on Apple TV set top box.

Look At This Video First!

Just look at the following video first.  I am demonstrating what my Apple TV can do at home.

1.  After the modification, I can still access US contents.  i.e. Netflix & Hulu (from ViewQwest FreedomVPN) with no problem.  That is good!

2.  Next, I am going to show magic.  Click on the TRAILERS icon.  

3.  Yoohooo…. All the China contents are now available on the TRAILERS page.

4.  Let’s go to PPTV, and take a look.  

5.  1-2 seconds later, the latest show from PPTV.  

6.  Let’s fast forward.  And It works well.  The streaming is good.

7.  Let’s go to see other shows.. I can access Youku too!

8.  Youku gives very good High HD quality streaming too.

9.  Let’s take a look at LIVE TV.  Let’s choose PPTV.  Wah.. so many channel.

10.  All these channels are currently running live on China Televisions.

11.  Cool?  This is how it is done.  By simply adding a new PROFILE on Apple TV. 

What is this?

This is Apple TV.  This should be the only Set Top box you should have at home to replace your Starhub TV or MIO TV.

Forget about buying those TV Streaming boxes from Sim Lim.

Apple TV is selling for SGD$148 in Singapore.  Now, in this blog I will give you one more reason to buy Apple TV.

Look at the remote.  It is so SIMPLE.

You should not use a complicated remote control to select shows you want to watch.

Choose The Correct ISP!

Once you bought the Apple TV, the next thing you need to choose is the correct ISP.

I used ViewQwest!

Because ViewQwest give me Freedom VPN that I can watch Netflix and Hulu.  This is the main reason why ViewQwest is good.

OK.  There are also My Republic & others. 

http://miniliew.blogspot.sg/2013/11/netflix-hulu-on-viewqwest-freedomvpn.html

But ViewQwest is UNIQUE because it gives SUPERIOR QUALITY on PPTV.

Why?  Because PPTV choose Viewqwest to put their PPTV CDN Servers/Caching.  So, Watching PPTV is like 2 seconds thingy.

The following blog entries tells you why there is a difference running PPTV on different ISP.

http://miniliew.blogspot.sg/2014/01/pptv-viewqwest-vs-others.html

If you choose a not so good ISP, such as St*, M*, Si*, etc etc.  Your PPTV quality will not be good.  And the content is old.  And the streaming is slow.

Connect Apple TV to Your WiFi

In order for this method to work, you need to connect the Apple TV to your home WiFi with SSID.  Can do it with or without password.

Disclaimers

Seriously, you have to use Apple TV to do it.  They may be some other method, but you are certainly welcome to try it.  You can try it with other ISP, but the expectation of your ISP must be there.  If the ISP is crapy, then, you will not enjoy this hack at all.  So, if you want to enjoy the best entertainment at home, please follow what I use.  Don’t sent me emails asking me why this why that if it does not work.  It is most likely you do not have the latest firmware, do not have apple TV, do not have the correct ISP.  So, I will be very very slow reply those emails.  :)

OK.  Let’s get to the point.

HOW DO I HACK MY APPLE TV SO THAT IT HAS PPTV ON IT!

I used the word “hack” simply for fun.  There is no need to “hack” or “jailbreak” your phone.  You simply have to make sure that your firmware is un to date.

1.  Select “Settings” and Click.

2.  Goto “General” and Click.

3.  Go down to the menu item “Send Data to Apple”, do not click the SELECT button. 

Instead click the PLAY/PAUSE button.

If you click the SELECT button, then, you need to choose send or not send data to Apple.  This is not what we want.

4.  After you have press the “PLAY/PAUSE” button, you will see the “Profiles” page.

Select "Add Profile" and click.

Note:  Ignore the “ttdianshi” profile I have there in the sample screen.  Your screen should have no existing profile. 

5.  Select “OK” and click to add profile.

6.  Now, you need to key in the following….

http://proxy.ttdianshi.com:8000/mc?s=YOUR_SSID&p=xxxx

Please note, the SSID is your WiFi SSID.

Please note, this method only works when you connect your Apple TV to the WiFi Network.  

http://proxy.ttdianshi.com:8000/mc?s=mouse6&p=xxxx

So, if my WiFi does not have password?  You keep in...

http://proxy.ttdianshi.com:8000/mc?s=mouse6

7.  Once you have done so, you can go back to the main screen.  At this time, your screen will show that “You are not connected to the INTERNET”.

So, what you do, is go back to the Settings -> General -> Network and read in the WiFi Network.  Key in the password if prompt.

8.  Lastly, you need to change the iTunes Store to “United States”.  If you are watching Netflix or HuluPlus already, then, you can ignore this step.

9.  Once everything is done.  Go back to the main screen, and click on “Trailers”.

10.  Welcome to the Box Master 盒子大师.

DONE!

If you need more information.  Please refer to this Chinese pages.

How Does This Works?

1.  Whenever you click the “Trailers”, Apple TV suppose to go to a Apple Website to import in the XML data base so that it can read these data and display it nicely on the Apple TV.  

2.  This hack, add in a profile so to add in a PROXY for Apple TV when it use my WiFi router.  

3.  A Proxy server function is to intercept you and the original website, you can choose to give the copy of info stored on the proxy server to return you or bypass the proxy server.

4.  So, after the hack, when you click on “Trailers”, the proxy server by 盒子大师 will hijack the Apple Trailers website address, and instead of giving all the Trailers XML, it gives the Box Master web content, which is all the links to China content.  i.e. PPTV. QiYi, Sohu, Youku and so on.

5.  What happen to the Trailers?  Well too bad.  After the hack, Apple TV no longer can show you the trailers.  But there are so many way to get those trailers.  So, not to worry.

6.  After the hack, every thing seems per normal, I can still stream Netflix and Hulu.

7.  If you want to remove the hack, go to Settings -> General -> Profiles and remove the "ttdianshi" profile.  That’s it!

 

Screen Shots

All the Channels are there.  For me, PPTV is the main objective here.  Some of these channels really gives good quality of HD content.  But some gives SD contents.

Sohu.

Wow.  Most of the video files search are displayed here.

Wow!  All the MH370 Missing Malaysian Airlines News are presented here.

With ViewQwest DNS redirection (FreedomVPN) you can now access youku.

A lot of new contents too.

Also quite good shows here.

Quality is very clear HD too.

QiYi

QiYi Contents.

You also can get all the 720p or 1020p American shows on these Chinese TV streaming sites.

PPTV running on ViewQwest will gives superior quality.

Only running on the FreedomVPN from ViewQwest then you can get so many TV series, and most updated to date.

We can enjoy all these on Apple TV, we have to thank 盒子大师 (Box Master)

The Korean Alien show.

Super clear HD quality.

Lots of movies to select from.

You can set the filters too.

The music channels is pretty good too.

Sometimes you just leave the TV on just listen to the music.

The Live TV section.

So many channels to watch from.

OK.  Apple TV does the job!  Thanks Apple!