ATV interface for watching episodic TV?

[Chileman]

Hi,

Am considering swapping over from PC to Mac (after 20+ years of PC!). I have terabytes of my ripped DVDs, blurays, TV shows etc sitting on a Netgear NAS box. Currently I use a Netgear NTV550 for streaming the media to the television, but not sure I'd be able to continue this method if I went the Mac route.

On the Netgear, the interface allows me to browse through the folders on the network, eg:

Video
-->Movies
----> Bluray
----> DVD
-->Television
---->TV Drama
------>CSI
-------->Season 01
---------->CSI SE01E01 The Pilot (avi, mkv, etc)
---------->CSI SE01E02 Episode 2 (avi, mkv, etc)
---------->etc

I guess my question is, if I was to convert my entire collection to iTunes friendly format, how would the user experience be, on the Apple TV interface? Are there any example screenshots anywhere?

Appreciate any help you can give...and please be gentle, long-time PC user tip-toing carefully into Appleworld... :-)

Cheers,
Gareth

[bushido]

took some pics for u

Menu



TV-Show Menu_unwatched



TV-Shows Menu_general



(u can tell by the blue dot next to the file what u havent seen it yet)

Music Menu



---

the Movies menu is basically the same as TV Shows, sorted by "genre, name, unwatched

[blevins321]

Try Plex. It's seriously terrific. Only trick is that you need to have a server feeding the files to a device. Some NAS units support the server. And there's an iOS app that you can use to AirPlay media to the AppleTV.

[thasan]

Originally Posted by blevins321

Try Plex. It's seriously terrific. Only trick is that you need to have a server feeding the files to a device. Some NAS units support the server. And there's an iOS app that you can use to AirPlay media to the AppleTV.

i found videostation in my synology better than plex to be honest.

[KevinC867]

Originally Posted by blevins321

Try Plex. It's seriously terrific. Only trick is that you need to have a server feeding the files to a device. Some NAS units support the server. And there's an iOS app that you can use to AirPlay media to the AppleTV.

The Plex "channel" that was added to the Roku devices made them much more useful boxes. Now my Roku box can stream all my own media as well as Netflix, Amazon, etc.

This way, I don't have to tie up a computer or iOS device to get Plex streaming.

[Chileman]

Thanks everyone for the advice...and for the screenshots. Much appreciated.

So am I reading correctly that I'm still better off converting my existing movies/TV collection to something more iTunes friendly?

All of my movie and TV files have an associated jpg and .NFO file. Is there a decent app which will convert this information into iTunes? The .NFO file includes fields like genre, director, description etc, would they be converted as well to iTunes friendly information?

I understand Handbrake seems to be the best choice for the actual media conversion...looks like my processor is gonna be busy!

Thanks

[NMF]

Originally Posted by Chileman

Thanks everyone for the advice...and for the screenshots. Much appreciated.

So am I reading correctly that I'm still better off converting my existing movies/TV collection to something more iTunes friendly?

All of my movie and TV files have an associated jpg and .NFO file. Is there a decent app which will convert this information into iTunes? The .NFO file includes fields like genre, director, description etc, would they be converted as well to iTunes friendly information?

I understand Handbrake seems to be the best choice for the actual media conversion...looks like my processor is gonna be busy!

Thanks

Once you have the Mac, I highly recommend purchasing iDentify 2 on the Mac App Store. Drag video file on to it, video file is populated with iTunes metadata. Nearly always works on its own, but in the rare case that it gives you some issues, simply manually paste the IMDB code (so it knows what the file is) and then it'll auto-populate correctly.

NFO files... pfft.