Apple TV should include DVD player

[notjustjay]

I know it's not going to happen because of DRM concerns, but what one needs to work with an Apple TV is a one-step way to rip a DVD movie into the hard drive or iTunes library, and FAST. Ideally in a way that would preserve everything, e.g. the chapters, menus, audio tracks, subtitles, extras and all that.

Yeah, I know there's Handbrake and them, it's slowly getting better and faster, but it's still not as easy to rip a stack of DVD's as it is to rip a stack of CD's into iTunes (e.g. insert, wait, eject, insert, repeat).

When the technology gets there, I want to rip a shelf-full of DVDs onto a hard drive on a server, and watch any movie I want from any TV in the house using Apple TV's.

(I know it's perfectly possible to do this today, and many of you are, but this needs to be so easy and fast that this how EVERY consumer does it. Only then will this device really take off.)

 

[jeremy.king]

That is not the case with iPods and music from iTunes

They have sold 3+ BILLION songs for some reason, you really don't think its the 100+ million iPod owners out there driving most of that? If so, I think you are wrong. Also, remember that the iTMS came out nearly 2 years AFTER the iPod.

but it's still A LOT bigger than the margins are in ITMS.

One word: Volume

And are the margins on ATS really that small?

Yes. Keep in mind, this doesn't include any R&D or marketing and packaging costs.

 

[tronic72]

Insert & wait.....

"insert, wait, eject, insert, repeat"

Um how simple do you want it?

I've got all my DVDs on my Apple TV and I did it while I was working. Handbrake works brilliantly in the background like you said, you just insert, wait and drag into iTunes. A DVD player/burner on the Apple TV wouldn't make this any faster. In fact, due to it's basic specs, ripping on the Apple TV would be horribly slow.

For those that keep requesting the Apple TV have more features, the Apple TV is already "not cheap" and adding an optical/HD drive will only drive the price up further.

Personally I'm quite happy to use the power of my mac for ripping and use the Apple TV for the purpose it was designed; that is a conduit between my TV/Hi-FI and my Mac.

 

[tronic72]

Nice Post

ATV 2.0 necessities;

- AM radio
- hotplate for cooking stuff (wait a minute- it already has this...)
- cassette player
- Pong game with paddles.

Now THAT's what I'm talking about.

Picture this.....

We've all done it.....

I'm feverishly reading and posting, trying to find other posts to backup my opinion (which is all it is) and I come across your post.

Ha Bloody Ha.

Amen to that brotha. You just saved me from taking myself to seriously. Thanks for my evening giggle..

 

[Evangelion]

They have sold 3+ BILLION songs for some reason, you really don't think its the 100+ million iPod owners out there driving most of that? If so, I think you are wrong. Also, remember that the iTMS came out nearly 2 years AFTER the iPod.

Yup, it did. And yes, it's iPod-owners buying those songs. And remember that for the first few years, iPod wasn't that huge.

One word: Volume

two words: neglible profits. It has been widely reported that Apple does not really earn any money from ITMS as such. The purpose of ITMS is to drive sales of iPods, THAT'S where Apple makes it's money, not the store! Labels take most of the money Apple makes from sales in ITMS, Apple itself only gets few pennies from each song sold, and with that money they need to keep the store up & running. I have seen estimates that Apple takes in about 10 cents for every song sold. So 3 billions songs would equate to about 300 million over the course of the entire existence of ITMS, and from that money they need to pay for the upkeep of the store (servers, personnel, storage, bandwidth etc.).

300 million over the course of 4.5 years? iPods make more than that in one quarter. Really, this is not rocket-science. It doesn't take a genius to see where the money is.

Yes. Keep in mind, this doesn't include any R&D or marketing and packaging costs.

Um, they say that it has lower margins than iPods, not that it has low margins as such.

 

[Evangelion]

Um how simple do you want it?

I've got all my DVDs on my Apple TV and I did it while I was working. Handbrake works brilliantly in the background like you said, you just insert, wait and drag into iTunes. A DVD player/burner on the Apple TV wouldn't make this any faster.

well, here's the actual process:

- Launch Handbrake
- Insert DVD
- Kill DVD-player that launches automatically
- Select source in handbrake
- Select correct subtitles
- Listen for next two hours as the fans and DVD-player in the computer kicks in as it encodes the video
- Import the video to iTunes
- Go set the metadata right

What about CD's? Pop in the CD, see iTunes fetch track-information automatically, answer yes when iTunes asks about importing the tracks to iTunes, wait 5 minutes as it encodes the disc.

The process is vastly different. I know, I have spent past several days encoding video on Handbrake.

In fact, due to it's basic specs, ripping on the Apple TV would be horribly slow.

Um, I don't think that anyone is wanting to do the ripping on the AppleTV...

For those that keep requesting the Apple TV have more features, the Apple TV is already "not cheap" and adding an optical/HD drive will only drive the price up further.

It's been close to year now, during that time the component-prices have gone down significantly.

Personally I'm quite happy to use the power of my mac for ripping and use the Apple TV for the purpose it was designed; that is a conduit between my TV/Hi-FI and my Mac.

Same here. But fact remains that while it's quite easy to get music on ATV, getting movies in there is considerably harder. Hell, Apple has idiot-proof tools for importing CD's to iTunes (even copyprotected ones), but there are no tools to do the same with DVD's.

 

[MacBoobsPro]

Although AppleTV is good it could be freakin great...

AppleTV with DVD drive that can play and rip DVDs right onto the harddrive with a Handbrake like app made and preinstalled by Apple and controlled via iTunes. The ripped movies can then be synced back to iTunes. To stop movie companies pissing and moaning about piracy and all that once a movie is ripped on an AppleTV it could be 'locked' to the iTunes library that ripped it. So it cant be copied to another machine etc or burnt back to a DVD. Much like iTS authorization now.

Just my two cents.

Theres more but I should be working.

 

[Roy Hobbs]

Just a thought, but think about it. Every house hold consumer with a TV has a DVD player.

This is the exact reason why the Apple TV doesnt have a DVD player built in

 

[peeaanuut]

This is the exact reason why the Apple TV doesnt have a DVD player built in

But we are at a time when people will be upgrading those dvd players to either an upconverting, hd-dvd or blu-ray player. I think now would be a good time for Apple to introduce a player that does the trifecta. Just getting a drive in an enclusure would not be too expensive and I would be willing to pay $300 for an add-on that plays all 3 and integrates nicely into the form factor. As much as everyone wants to wish it, digital HD content is not going to be main stream for quite sometime and discs are still going to rule the movie world for quite sometime. Apple could be seen as the great equalizer where you dont have to choose a specific piece of hardware because their box could play all 3 discs, plus cd's as well as digital content.