No Hulu (Steve Jobs will roll-over in his grave before he supports Hulu)
I used to think that, but then Apple added Netflix support to the ATV2. That blew me away: I thought Apple would never put Netflix on the Apple TV, since it would directly compete with iTunes movie rentals. And yet, there it is. I think Apple changed it's business model when they released the ATV2. iTunes will always be there (and currently has the widest selections of movies/shows to purchase), but Apple is not going to stop Netflix and other services like Hulu from offering subscription services, so why not join them and capitalize by getting people to purchase the ATV hardware?
I expect Hulu+ will be available on ATV at some point in the future. They just need to strike the same deal with ATV that Netflix did.
Not enough filters for shared movies. Genre, Viewed, Nonviewed are the ONLY filters. (see Plex or XBox Media Center to compare)
AGREE. I want the ability to organize my home movies in iTunes in file structure like: year --> event. Such that I have one "folder" for all home movies from 2009, one for 2010, etc. And then within those, another subdivision for different events with multiple movies in them, like "Hawaii trip", or "Christmas videos" or things like that. As it currently stands, the only thing I can do is assign my home movies different "genres" in iTunes (my genres are things like "Hawaii trip 2010", or "Videos of the dog", etc.). So you can do "folders", in a sense, but you can't do sub-folders.
So in other words, when I'm adding my movies to iTunes, uncheck it, but since I consolidate all of my music when I add it, I'll have to remember to check it again? Bleh. But I'll deal I suppose.
Tip: Instead of unchecking that box in the preferences, just leave it checked. Now, when you want to import an item (music or video), just drag the file into itunes: Before you let go of the mouse button, there will be a green plus sign that appears on your cursor to show you that the file will be COPIED into the iTunes Media Library. If you DON'T want the file to be copied, just hold the "option" key and you won't see the green plus sign. The movie will be "imported" into itunes in the sense that iTunes will now see it, but the file itself won't be duplicated or moved.
So, just remember to use the option+drag when you don't want the file to be copied, and the regular drag or import when you want the file to be copied into the itunes media library.
I have over 300 avi-format movies on my Drobo. The AppleTV is going to force me to scroll through all of those without a way of filtering. That's after the 600 hours of transcoding with VideoMonkey... oh well.
Out of curiosity, how long did it take you to rip all those DVDs onto your Drobo? I've heard on these and other forums of people talking about all their DVD content they've ripped to their hard drive, but I have trouble understanding why someone would want to spend the time, money, and storage space to put that many movies onto a hard drive array. The only benefit I can see is the ability to watch any of them without having to put a disk into a DVD player tray. . . and I don't see that as being worth the effort.
Especially nowadays when most of those movies are probably available to stream for a $10/month netflix subscription, and you probably don't watch most of those movies more than once a year, so in many cases it costs less $-per-view to rent it than to own it.
It is a rare movie that I am willing to purchase (on disk or from iTunes or however), nowadays. If I love the move, I might get it on Blu-ray on sale. But otherwise I have access to just about any movie I want via Netflix disk (within a couple days) or Netflix streaming instantly, all for $10/month. Or if I really want to watch it right now I can rent it from iTunes / Amazon On Demand / Cinema Now/ Pay-per-view instantly.
