Hey folks! Just adding my latest experience. So my AppleTV HD crashed somehow and I would get the 6 blinks/pause/6 blinks, rinse, repeat. After much research and failed attempts, it dawned on me that maybe the updated remote I purchased to replace the glass/aluminum original version was a problem. (dropped, broken glass, still functional.) I still kept the old remote as a back up and charged it, as I was having not luck with the latest remote version that I had upgraded to.
I held down home + play/pause and the slow 6 blinks quickly changed to the rapid blinking light mode. I then connected it to iTunes, and the AppleTV appeared in the side bar, and I was able to do a restore on the AppleTV HD. So thank to everyone on this thread for their help with this issue. Much appreciated!