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You are here: MacNN Forums > Hardware - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Consumer Hardware & Components > Does last AppleTV release have ability to "Play DVD"?

Does last AppleTV release have ability to "Play DVD"?
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Daracle
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Jul 2, 2008, 11:06 PM
 
I am thinking of trying store my DVD collection away and I was wanting to make it available on an External Drive and give me a reason to buy an AppleTV.
What I would like to do is rip my DVDs with full menu and in DVD quality, I know this is huge but I am not worried about space.
I have never sat down with an AppleTV yet, does it look like Front Row? In Front Row, I have the ability to go to "Movies" and then "Movies Folder" and then click on the folder I created with the VIDEO_TS, which is just an alias on my computer that points to my external share, it plays just like it was a regular DVD.

REALLY hoping I will get the same results with AppleTV and be able to pack away these DVDs for awhile.

Thanks and sorry if this was covered, Everything I find on the net seems to be from last year and MacNN only seems to have 3 pages of discussions.

Thanks again
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Atheist
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Jul 3, 2008, 12:11 AM
 
Nope... Apple TV does not natively play DVD's via a VIDEO_TS folder. I believe there may be hacks out there to do so, but I don't really know for sure. Your best bet is to create H.264 encoded MP4 files using Handbrake.
( Last edited by Atheist; Jul 3, 2008 at 12:28 AM. )
     
turtle777
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Jul 3, 2008, 12:16 AM
 
Handbrake FTW.

Works great.

-t
     
frdmfghtr
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Jul 3, 2008, 12:25 AM
 
I agree...I did essentially the same thing. I encoded all my DVDs using Handbrake and the Apple TV preset, and it works quite well. I have all my movies on an external Firewire drive connected to an old iMac (see sig) which is acting like an "iTunes server." I encode on my MacBook and transfer the resulting file to the iMac external drive. The streaming works very well, even though the iMac is connected to the network wirelessly through an Airport Express 802.11n.
     
Daracle  (op)
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Jul 3, 2008, 10:53 AM
 
Thanks for the info guys.

Don't you miss the menus and special features when you just rip the movie itself? I was hoping I would be able to keep those.

I guess I could rip the special features aswell and just keep them in the same folder for when I do want to play them.

Thanks
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frdmfghtr
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Jul 3, 2008, 06:37 PM
 
Miss them? I encode DVDs partially to get away from the special features and PREVIEWS.

My idea of a DVD: when you load it up and press "Play" it immediately jumps to the main feature. I've had DVDs where on loading, if you don't hit the menu button almost immediately, it launches into preview after preview after preview, and the only way to get out of the previews is to eject the disc.
     
Daracle  (op)
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Jul 4, 2008, 01:16 AM
 
Yea, I can agree with you on the previews but I do like the Special Features....Which are still available, it will just take longer to rip.
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fesdds
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Jul 4, 2008, 11:30 PM
 
frdmfghtr,

So are the movies stored in iTunes or just on this external harddrive. I have the 160gig Apple TV and only have about 60gigs in my itunes library currently so it just syncs all of my entertainment. If you are not storing it in iTunes how do you get to it through the Apple TV? Sorry if this is an easy answer.

I agree Handbrake is great and I like just having the movie pop up and no other interferences to mess with.
     
Parky
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Jul 5, 2008, 04:48 AM
 
Originally Posted by fesdds View Post
frdmfghtr,

So are the movies stored in iTunes or just on this external harddrive. I have the 160gig Apple TV and only have about 60gigs in my itunes library currently so it just syncs all of my entertainment. If you are not storing it in iTunes how do you get to it through the Apple TV? Sorry if this is an easy answer.

I agree Handbrake is great and I like just having the movie pop up and no other interferences to mess with.
Content MUST be in iTunes to sync to the Apple TV.
Computers - Au MacBook 2.4Ghz, iMac 24" 2.8Ghz Core 2 Duo
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Arkham_c
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Jul 5, 2008, 01:09 PM
 
90% of what I use my AppleTV for is watching my DVDs, ripped via Handbrake. It is the "killer feature" for me that made me buy it.

If you want full-function DVDs, you can do that with AppleTV too, but you have to hack it with a patchstick to make that work:

http://www.markandjo.com/markblog/?p=404
Mac Pro 2x 2.66 GHz Dual core, Apple TV 160GB, two Windows XP PCs
     
   
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