Enabling AFP on the Apple TV will give a more "plug and play" approach to file sharing and streaming with Apple computers and network devices such as Airport Extreme and Time Capsule.
Requirements
AFP can only be enabled on those Apple TV units that originally came with the 1.0 Apple TV software. Typically these are Apple TVs that were purchased prior to October 2007. The required software was removed from later version of the Apple TV. If you have the required Apple TV, follow the steps below to enable AFP network streaming.
Process
1. Connect to the AppleTV via command line SSH as described here.
2. Enter the following command to copy the contents of the 'Restore Partition' on the AppleTV.
sudo dd if=/dev/disk0s2 of=/Users/frontrow/Documents/recovery.dmg bs=1m
3. Enter frontrow as password when prompted. (Note: Once password has been entered, the necessary files will be copied to the Documents folder. This may take several minutes).
4. Run the Smart Installer
For more info on AFP and streaming over the network, please view the Network Streaming guide.