Thinking about Apple TV

Apple TV is the best way to ditch your DVD/Blu-Ray player.

Copy all your movies using HandBrake, and you have access to all of them while sitting on your couch with a remote control. No more getting up, switching DVDs, waiting through the FBI warning, going through previews to get to the main menu, then starting the movie....

With Apple TV and HandBrake, one click of a button, your movie starts. One click of a button, back to viewing other movies.

I was sort of in a similar situation. I was using my PS3 for Blu-Rays and my Xbox 360 for everything else (Netflix and DVDs).

Then I got an Apple TV and it changed everything! I use MakeMKV to rip all my DVDs (movies + shows) to my iMac. Then use Handbrake to convert them to the Apple TV format. Then use iDentify to automatically rename the files, add the DVD cover picture, genre, summary, actors, etc and add to iTunes!

From there, I can access my entire library from my Apple TV and use the remote (or iPhone!) to scroll through my selection and pick whatever I want to watch. As bbeagle mentioned, no previews, no commercials... just on-demand movies and shows!

Additionally, there's also Netflix and Hulu+ on the Apple TV. But one of my favorite features is mirroring and AirPlay. With mirroring, I can put whatever is on my iPhone/iPad/Mac onto my TV. This is convenient with a Mac since you can just pull up Hulu/CBS/etc in a web browser and mirror it to your TV. With an iPhone/iPad, you can pull up games, pics/vids you've taken, anything!

And with AirPlay, you can make the Apple TV the sound output of your Apple device (no need to mirror) and play sound. This is convenient if your Apple TV is hooked up to a nice sound system and you want to play music from your iPhone/iPad/Mac through it. Quick and awesome.

i'm torn between appleTV and the Roku

atthecross said:

i'm torn between appleTV and the Roku

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For what it's worth - I have both. Now that AppleTv supports Hulu Plus as well as Netflix and MLB streaming I don't really use the Roku anymore.

I keep the Rokus as a backup or just to confirm a problem with Netflix isn't limited to the AppleTV.

@cdavis11 thx

Tyler23 said:

I also have a MBP and iPhone 5 if that helps determine what I could use an ATV for.

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My Sammy BR player already supports DLNA (plays media from a server, multiple formats, not limited to MP4, mov as ATV is). and has all the normal widgets: youtube, netflix, hulu blah-blah.

TWO THINGS:

The only reason I got a ATV is for mirroring. Let you push your other Apple device's screen to the big TV. Very useful. Then of course if you have a large iTunes library and you will like to play those on the big screen/stereo.

Warning: successful Mirroring may requires you to upgrade and or tweak your WIFI router.

Tyler23 said:

I have a large DVD collection, probably 350+, is handbrake the best option for ripping my DVDs to my MBP? How long does the process usually take, per DVD?

Also, I have about 30-50 Blu-Ray discs as well. How can I rip those since Macs don't have Blu-Ray compatibility?

My girlfriend decided an iPad-mini was too expensive to get me for Christmas (she just started her first salary job out of college though so hopefully soon..) so I'm thinking an ATV might be a good Christmas present solution

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IMHO Handbrake generates the highest quality for file size. It does this at the expense of encoding time. My Mac is similar to yours and it takes a couple hours to transcode a dvd and 9-11 hours for a BR. These numbers vary a lot based on the content. When I converted my library, I would queue up several 4-5 dvd's or 1 BR to transcode overnight.

Tyler23 said:

That sounds pretty good. So my 2009 MBP can still transcode BR disc, even though it couldn't play it? Hopefully so, that'd be good news.

And how would you queue several DVDS to transcode over night? Don't you have to insert one at a time? (that'd mean waking up a few times to put a new DVD in).

What kind of effects will using Handbrake to transcode all these DVDs have on my MBP? It's over 3 years old and I'm concerned it'll be to much for the poor little guy to handle

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In order to rip BR's, you have to have a external USB BR player. You can get them for <$100.

I use MakeMKV (free) to rip the dvd to an mkv file. That has to be done, one at a time but is very quick, like about 30m/disc. It yields a decrypted file. I then queue those files in HB for transcoding.

Your MBP will be fine. The process produces some heat so you will notice the fans running on high, but the MBP has built in protection to shut down if temperature limits are exceeded. Has never happened to me.

Speaking from personal experience, the time it will take you to rip your library will be weeks, if not months, and require a very large amount of hard drive space. I would guess just under 1GB or so per DVD, and between 2-6GB per blu ray depending on if you want 720p or 1080p (they can of course go far higher if you want, but unless you are a nut about superduperbeyondwtfholycrap video quality it really isnt necessary). My library now consists of all 450 of my movies, the majority of which are blu rays (mostly 720p, some 1080p), and about 1200 TV shows (individual episodes) of which most are DVD rips, some are blu ray. My library is now approximately 4TB in size and growing quickly as I now do 1080p encodes for my movies.

All of this took me about 4 months to sit down and do and I am currently debating whether or not I care enough to re-rip all of my blu rays in 1080p since the ATV3 now supports it (I don't actually own an ATV3 yet, but maybe one day). I will say that I'm leaning heavily on the "I dont care enough" side as it is a massive pain for little gain.

I will say, though, that I love my ATV2's to death and will probably never go back to watching a Blu-Ray again. I would absolutely recommend the 4 months of work for what you get in return. The only downside is that it doesn't support DTS audio, but again, maybe one day...

Tyler23 said:

That sounds pretty good. So my 2009 MBP can still transcode BR disc, even though it couldn't play it?

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Are you sure it can't play a non-transcoded dics (assuming you've already ripped it)? VLC running on a C2D-based 2009 MBP won't have any problems with 1080p H.264 or VC-1 MKV files directly ripped from a BD dics with MakeMKV. VLC has very efficient decoders.

Menneisyys2 said:

Are you sure it can't play a non-transcoded dics (assuming you've already ripped it)? VLC running on a C2D-based 2009 MBP won't have any problems with 1080p H.264 or VC-1 MKV files directly ripped from a BD dics with MakeMKV. VLC has very efficient decoders.

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What he means is that he doesnt have a blu-ray drive in his machine. As was answered previously, if he purchased an external blu-ray drive, he would be able to play and rip them with no problem. Otherwise, he can stick a blu-ray in his DVD drive, but it will just sit there and his laptop will go