I take it then that it does not (I could not find any reference to video_ts or .iso in the reference).
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Thinking of selling AppleTV...
- Thread starter brobins
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Unless there is a third party patch, which there might very well be. It doesn't look like it does that right out of the box.
I would also try this site too:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=39
I know there are folks who are running the xbox 360 as an extender. You might have to do some searching but there are a lot of knowledgable folks there. Just be warned it is PC dominated.
It's very good. I have the A-100, which is already really good; I believe the A-110 supports SATA and stuff.
The PCH A-110 can play video_ts folders with full menus. I tested it this morning over my network.
It's great if you'd rather spend two hours ripping your movies rather than spending two seconds pushing a button to buy a movie from iTunes for $10. Personally, I don't like the thought of media management becoming a full-time job.
The Popcorn hour is more flexible, but less user friendly/convenient. You have to like hacking the hardware, managing your network, and futzing through clunky interfaces.
Convenient yes, but at what cost? I for one would much rather rip my dvd's to video_ts and store them on a an external hdd than having to repurchase all of my 300 or so dvd's and not getting anything but the bare movie (no extras, no subtitles or other languages, no surround sound) at a much reduced image quality. And iTunes probably doesn't even have half of the movies in my library anyway.
I hear ya.
I was in the same boat too, for awhile, but after I ran the numbers and figured out it was going to take something like 160 hours of effort to rip my moderately-sized DVD collection (rip, encode, apply metadata/cover art), I warmed to the idea of just repurchasing the movies I really wanted for $10-$15 and not have to worry about time taken, or bad rips or anything like that.
I figure you're basically working for minimum wage to get your movie collection ripped if you choose to and it's just not worth it to me.
That said, I think you have a good point about the amount of content on iTunes. There are several movies like "Goonies" and "The Neverending Story" that I'd like to be able to watch on Apple TV/iPhone with my family when we're at home or travelling, but since I can't purchase it in iTunes, my only choice is to rip it.
I pretty much do it as I see fit. I did most of the wife's movies first. I am pretty much doing the rest when I have time etc. I have a pretty good system down and the batch processing saves time. I rip a few disks to my hard drive. Fire up handbrake and process them while I sleep. Then fire up the metax do the same batch while I am at work etc. Granted this does take up a little more space to begin with because of ripping to the hard drive but I just delete those files when the process is done.
This is the exact process I follow. Rip about 15 DVD's to my hard drive and batch them through handbrake over night. I then copy them to my NAS and re-run the indexing script to catalog them (YAMJ). YAMJ brings in all the artwork and IMDB info for me and creates the html code for my PCH to read. I prefer this process as it let's me customize my encoding scheme to my exact needs. But like others have said, at the cost of my time. Personal preference.
Well I would much rather keep the original VIDEO_TS folders and forgo the lengthy encoding process; the folders take more space but give you better image quality, full menus, extras, languages, everything that was on the dvd. What I would really like is something that will catalog and play these folders just like the original dvd, but there don't seem to be a lot out there to do that. Basically I just want a dvd jukebox without the physical dvds, and with a better cataloging system.
The PCH and YAMJ can do this quite easily. Just rip as a full DVD and run the YAMJ script. I was in the same boat as you. I wanted a jukebox that could provide movies on demand instead of having to dig around for a particular DVD. I spent a lot of time thinking about how I wanted to do this and what was important to me and where I could make sacrifices. For me, I decided to only rip the movie itself which saves space on my NAS allowing for more movies. I encode with a high quality h.264 setting so the quality is very good still. Again, just my personal preference.
Not at all. YAMJ (Yet Another Movie Jukebox) is a great piece of software available for the Popcorn Hour NMT's. It's very simple to set up and only needs to be run when you update your library. It scans your movie directory and connects to IMDB to download the associated artwork, movie info, ratings, etc. It then creates the appropriate HTML pages on the fly. The whole process takes only a minute or two depending on how many movies it has to update for. I usually do about 15 movies at a time and it takes about 2 minutes to run the script to update for those new additions. The PCH reads the index.htm file that YAMJ created that sits on my NAS and provides the interfaces to my movie library. Quite slick. And since it's just simple HTML pages used for this interface, I can browse my library from any browser on my home network.
http://networkedmediatank.com/showthread.php?tid=9862&pid=73102#pid73102
The PCH and YAMJ can do this quite easily. Just rip as a full DVD and run the YAMJ script. I was in the same boat as you. I wanted a jukebox that could provide movies on demand instead of having to dig around for a particular DVD. I spent a lot of time thinking about how I wanted to do this and what was important to me and where I could make sacrifices. For me, I decided to only rip the movie itself which saves space on my NAS allowing for more movies. I encode with a high quality h.264 setting so the quality is very good still. Again, just my personal preference.
That is pretty much how I looked at it also. If I wanted to see the extras I would break out my disk. But for now I am pretty darn happy with just the movie.
Very nice..... That is pretty slick. I was reading about at avforums.com. Quick google search lead me there.
That is not to shaby at all.
While searching just now I came across the Argosy HV685 Media Player. Has anybody tested this box? It seems to be very similar to the Western Digital TV except that it also includes component output, and it advertises dvd folder (I assume video_ts folder) support. And it is certainly cehap enough at $80-$90.
EDIT: Apparently they also have models with an internal hdd (empty, 500GB, 1TB, 1.5TB) for very reasonable prices as well. They sell them at Newegg as well as other places. I am still looking for a review.
EDIT: Apparently they also have models with an internal hdd (empty, 500GB, 1TB, 1.5TB) for very reasonable prices as well. They sell them at Newegg as well as other places. I am still looking for a review.
I'm just now reading about this unit for the first time. I'm in the middle of converting my 250+ DVD library over to an AppleTV compatible format with Handbrake (already imported my 400+ CD collection into iTunes in both Lossless and 256kbit AAC variations (former for archive and broadcast around the house and latter for iPod and car use via my new JVC USB powered car stereo) along with all my photos and a growing music video collection (200+ so far).
Overall, I've been loving the ability to stream my media wirelessly around the house and using my upgraded old PowerMac as a server (was about to buy two new WD 2TB drives that just came out to hold all my music/movies/photos on one drive plus about an extra terrabyte left for future expansion. I use my iPod Touch to control the system with the "Remote" app and have an extra Airport Express "Airtunes" room as well available (giving me 4 zones of music and 3 possible ones for video).
The only thing bugging me after reading a little about the Popcorn unit is that AppleTV is too format limited (without having to convert everything) without hacking, but even if you do hack the thing, it STILL can't do 1080P or pass a 48kHz DTS signal (44kHz DTS CDs play fine through it, though). The DTS thing isn't a huge deal (although my home theater downstairs is 6.1, so DD EX isn't as nice as true discrete 6-channel, but that amounts to all of about 6 titles in my 250+ library.)
I've been thinking of hacking it anyway and adding boxee, a web browser, etc, but I'd be interested in hearing about what people think are the pitfalls and pluses to the Popcorn unit versus a hacked AppleTV (other than the 1080P thing) or vice versa. What total potential does the ATV have that the Popcorn might not have (without its own hacking?) and what can Popcorn do that a hacked ATV cannot do (other than 1080P and pass DTS)?
Perhaps more importantly to me given my setup, are there any simple ways to do the Popcorn unit with wireless? It appears at a glance to be wired ethernet only, which would be a major PITA to run around the house when 802.11N has been working great for me with ATV. I can rent 720P HD movies on ATV and they're ready to play in less than a minute in most cases. And what about streaming music around the house? I can use Airtunes to stream to multiple rooms and even sync them all together to create one giant whole house party mode. I'm guessing that sort of thing is beyond the scope of the Popcorn player?
How does the interfaces compare overall (including boxee on ATV) and are there hacks for Popcorn as well to do more than what it includes? I plan on reading some more reviews, but it's all still pretty new to me on that end. I just read about Western Digital's new player, but its lack of networking sounds bad to me since I want to stream a central collection of music/movies/photos/videos all around the house, not attach a single hard drive to one player unit in one room only.
I have an 
TV v1.0 hacked for 4:3, but have been contemplating a Popcorn Hour or WDTV mostly for native 4:3 support. I generally love my TV except for that one aspect (pun intended). The added format support would also be nice, so that I wouldn't have to reformat all of my movies.
TV v1.0 hacked for 4:3, but have been contemplating a Popcorn Hour or WDTV mostly for native 4:3 support. I generally love my TV except for that one aspect (pun intended). The added format support would also be nice, so that I wouldn't have to reformat all of my movies.