PlexConnect on Windows: How To Hijack iMovie Theatre Or WSJ Instead Of Trailers App

Hijack iMovie Theatre or WSJ (Wall Street Journal) app instead of Trailers app to get Plex Media Server and PlexConnect running on your Apple TV. For Mac users, there is an app solution, called OpenPlex, for easy switching the Apple TV app you want to hijack. However, OpenPlex is not available for Windows systems. Therefore, you need to switch manually the app for hijacking.

Prerequisite: Before switching to hijack iMovie Theatre or WSJ (Wall Street Journal) app, you should have correctly installed PlexConnect according to the post “Installing PlexConnect On Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 After Apple TV Update“. This is important to be sure that Plexconnect is generally running on your Windows PC. The latest version of PlexConnect from Github needs to be downloaded, too. It will add the “hosttointercept” config parameter. Further more, you’ll need to add another certificate file onto your ATV. It can be installed alongside the one you’ve already installed in your profile.

Short instructions: You can also install 2 certificates (or even more) on your Apple TV and switch between iMovie Theater and Trailers app by changing two parameteres in the ‘settings.cfg‘ file (hosttoIntercept and certfile). To make this change effective, you have to restart PlexConnect and reboot the ATV3 (proved on my Acer Aspire 1810T running on Windows 8.1 Pro Update):

1. Hijacking Trailers app: Generate the trailers.der, trailers.key and trailers.pem files (for trailers.apple.com).
2. Hijacking iMovie app: Generate the iMovie.der, iMovie.key and iMovie.pem files (for www.icloud.com).
3. Hijacking WSJ app: Generate the wsjapp.der, wsjapp.key and wsjapp.pem files (for secure.marketwatch.com).
4. Install trailers.der, iMovie.der and wsjapp.der in the certificates repository.
5. Create a single profile with the above three certificates (using iPhone Configuration Utility).
6. Load that profile into the Apple TV (using iPhone Configuration Utility and a micro USB cable).
7. Changing ‘Settings.cfg”:

• ‘hosttoIntercept = www.icloud.com’ and ‘certfile = ./assets/certificates/imovie.pem’ for the iMovies Theater App.
• ‘hosttoIntercept = secure.marketwatch.com’and ‘certfile = ./assets/certificates/wsjapp.pem’ for the WSJ App.
• ‘hosttoIntercept = trailers.apple.com’and ‘certfile = ./assets/certificates/trailers.pem’ for the Trailers App. (default)

Notes:

• Before all above 5 steps, I deleted all previous profiles from my Apple TV 3 running on Apple TV 7.0 software (beta 4) and on my Apple TV 3 running on Apple TV 6.2 software.
• Hijacking Trailers app, iMovie Theatre and WSJ app works on Apple TV 6.2 software. However, hijacking iMovie Theatre on Apple TV 7.0 software (beta 4) gives back an error (KeyError: ‘baseURL’). Otherwise, Trailers app and WSJ app operate successfully on Apple TV 7.0 beta 4 software.
• If you’re running PlexConnect on a Synology NAS, you have to copy the 6 files created in steps 1 & 2 to the Synology NAS using the instructions published by bwynants for the Synology installer package for PlexConnect  (replacing the 3 files included in his Synology installer).

Tutorial: Now you can start to hijack iMovie Theatre or WSJ app instead of Trailers app:

1. Create certificate files for Windows (Step 2). However, you download and execute the file
   1. ATV Cert Create iMovie (cert_create_imovie.bat) for hijacking iMovie Theatre, automatically generating the 3 certificate files imovie.der, imovie.key and imovie.pem [wpfilebase tag=”file” id=7 /] and/or
   2. ATV Cert Create WSJ (cert_create_wsjapp.bat) for hijacking WSJ app, automatically generating the 3 certificate files wsjapp.der, wsjapp.key and wsjapp.pem. [wpfilebase tag=”file” id=11 /]
2. Copy all iMovie and/or all WSJ app certificate files to default directory of your Windows PC (C:/).
3. Copy all iMovie and/or all WSJ app certificate files to the PlexConnect certificates folder ( …/plexconnect/assets/certificates)
4. Complete Apple TV configuration steps in the PlexConnect Install Guide (4 & 5 in Windows guide)
5. Install the iMovie certificate file ‘imovie.der’ and/or the WSP app certificate file ‘wsjapp.der‘ on your Apple TV using either the method without USB (PlexConnect: Installling Certificates On Apple TV Without USB) or iPhone Configuration utility for Windows (Step 3 in the PlexConnect Setup guide). Thelater one seems to be the more stable one because I got sometimes problems to install certificate files using the ‘without-USB’-method. Further more, you can add at least 3 certificate files to one profile using the later option:
   1. Start the iPhone Configuration Utility. You should find the iPCU.exe file there: C:Program Files (x86)\iPhone Configuration Utility and click on ‘Configuration Profiles‘. Then click on ‘New+‘.
   2. Give it a Name and Identifier (I suggest one word without any special characters).

      

   3. Scroll down and click on ‘Credentials‘, click on ‘Configure‘.

      

   4. Scroll down to find the certificate files you just created and installed. It is named ‘www.icloud.com‘ for the iMovie Theatre certificate file (imovie.der). Click on it and then click ‘OK‘:

      

      

   5. To add another certificate, click on the ‘+‘-button and scroll down to find the second certificate file you just created and installed. It is named ‘trailers.apple.com‘ for the Trailers certificate file (trailers.der). Click on it and then click ‘OK‘:

      

      

   6. To add another certificate, click on the ‘+‘-button and scroll down to find the second certificate file you just created and installed. It is named ‘secure.marketwatch.com‘ for the WSJ app certificate file (wsjapp.der). Click on it and then click ‘OK‘:

      

      

   7. I’ve done it three times to have all 3 certificate files installed: trailers.der, imovie.der and wsjapp.der:

      

   8. Now plug in your Apple TV 2 or 3 to a power source, wait till the light stops flashing and then connect it to the Windows PC via a micro USB cable. Wait till your Apple TV is recognized by your PC and the iPhone Configuration Utility program.
   9. Click on your device and then the Configuration Profiles tab.
   10. Click the install button. Wait till this button will have changed from ‘Install‘ to ‘Remove‘!

       

       

   11. Close the iPhone Configuration Utility and disconnect the Apple TV from the computer and connect the Apple TV to your TV. The profile with three certificates is correctly installed (Go to ‘General’, ‘Send data to Apple’, Push ‘Play’-button):

       

       

6. Now edit the ‘Settings.cfg‘ file in thePlexConnect folder.

   

   

   1. If you want to hijack iMovie Theatre, change ‘hosttointercept = www.trailers.apple.com‘ to ‘hosttointercept = www.icloud.com‘ and ‘trailers.pem‘ to ‘imovie.pem‘. Or simply download ‘Settings_imovie.cfg‘, take instead of “ip_pms = 192.168.178.10″ (it’s the IP of my PMS in my network) the line of your original Settings.cfg file, rename it to ‘Settings’.cfg‘ and copy it to the PlexConnect folder to substitute the original one: [wpfilebase tag=”file” id=12 /]
   2. If you want to hijack WSJ app, change ‘hosttointercept = www.trailers.apple.com‘ to ‘hosttointercept = secure.market.watch‘ and ‘trailers.pem‘ to ‘wsjapp.pem‘. Or simply download ‘Settings_wsjapp.cfg‘, take instead of “ip_pms = 192.168.178.10″ (it’s the IP of my PMS in my network) the line of your original Settings.cfg file, rename it to ‘Settings’.cfg‘ and copy it to the PlexConnect folder to substitute the original one: [wpfilebase tag=”file” id=13 /]
7. Change the DNS of your Apple TV to the IP-address of your Windows PC on which is Plex Media Server is running, following the part ‘Configuring your ATV’ of guide on github.
8. Restart PlexConnect.py from C:\PlexConnect.
9. Go to your Apple TV and try the app you want to hijack. It should be working now. Done! 🙂

PlexConnect can hijack iMovie Theatre or WJS app instead of Trailers app by adding new certificate files and adapting the ‘Settings.cfg’ file in the PlexConnect folder. Kudos to syphr and Lucian, both members of the Plex Forums for their original posts about hijacking Wall Street Journal app (WSJ) and iMovie Theatre app.

Stay tuned! 😉