Where can I find a good Intro to Setting up a Home Theater?

[nycrnr]

So We have a few macs and an airport, tons of moves on our respective drives, a few more on DVDs we can't copy due to whatever... and a few itunes libraries of music.

I would like to move my movies on my laptop to an external drive that sits off of airport. And I would like to put a DVD in my computer and stream it to my TV. And all that other good stuff.

Most conversations are a few steps ahead of where I am now. I can't figure out what Apple TV would cover and where its limitations are. Or any other alternative for that matter.

So is there is good, basic rundown of what I can do with Apple TV (that isn't from Apple's shiny, one-sided web site)?

Thanks!!

 

[hafr]

So We have a few macs and an airport, tons of moves on our respective drives, a few more on DVDs we can't copy due to whatever... and a few itunes libraries of music.

I would like to move my movies on my laptop to an external drive that sits off of airport. And I would like to put a DVD in my computer and stream it to my TV. And all that other good stuff.

I'm not too sure about playing a DVD from the computer to the TV, never did try it. But if you have the Airport Extreme, all you need is an external hard drive with USB connectivity.

Most conversations are a few steps ahead of where I am now. I can't figure out what Apple TV would cover and where its limitations are. Or any other alternative for that matter.

The Apple TV would mean you will have to convert those movies not already in an iTunes friendly format in order to add them to iTunes, then you'll need iTunes running in order to access the library (or libraries) that you're after on your TV.

Another common solution is the Western Digital TV Live. You won't have to convert anything, you can connect the USB-drive directly to the WD TV Live box and it will even act as a network storage, meaning you can keep your media on there and still have it in your iTunes library on your computer.