Mac only (for now): The ATV USB Loader, a free tool to boot third-party software on an Apple TV unit, has updated to include the slick media centre Boxee amongst the booting options. We liked Boxee's new looks and social flair when it was available for Macs (and, later, Linux), and the Apple TV implementation looks just as crisp. By loading Boxee, Apple TV users get access to nearly any kind of unrestricted video or audio files, can send recommendations to friends and stream Last.fm tunes, and do nearly anything else in the (currently invitation-required) Boxee. Of course, ATV also maintains support for Xbox Media Centre. If you've grabbed Boxee and tried it out on Apple TV, share your likes and wants in the comments.

Mac OS X Tiger only: ATV4mac runs Apple TV take 2 as a Mac application, bringing all the cool multimedia features of the Apple TV to your Mac. ATV4mac is a fairly young project, hence the unfortunate Tiger-only support at the moment, but it's already sporting most of the features available to Apple TV along with a few of its own. ATV4mac is freeware, Mac OS X Tiger only. I wasn't able to try it because of the Tiger limitation, but if you give it a go, share your thoughts in the comments. If you're dying to get more advanced media centre support than Front Row has to offer but you've already upgraded to Leopard, check out previously mentioned XBMC for Mac.

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DivX has started showing off their prototype "Apple TV killer"  - a low cost networked media player device with 720p output. The Ubergizmo blog got a look at the device and wrote it up:

"DivX made a technology choice that is completely opposite to Apple’s. The Apple TV is basically an entry-level computer without an OS. It has a CPU, a GPU, and a hard drive, these are generic components found in all recent computers. However, AppleTV still need to be connected to a bigger computer (to talk to iTunes).

By leveraging the fact that their device is connected to a computer, DivX shows that the same basic functionality can be built at a much cheaper price, because instead of using general-purpose hardware, it uses only stream-decoding hardware that is a lot cheaper to make."

DivX is claiming the device could retail at $US99 within a year - that's a third of the price of an Apple TV. Will be interesting to see if any hardware manufacturers decide to take a punt on it. Mind you - as Apple is no doubt finding in Australia with its Apple TV - without easy access to content, the media player itself is pretty redundant.

DivX’s Apple TV, but smarter [via PVRblog]