Thanks 6 of 1 and Nana, that's what I suspected (No recording- storage) just transmitter but I wanted to be certain I hadn't missed anything.

I wish you could build movie archives on it (like music on an iPod) and just type in a name and it'd play the movie- that'd be cool !!

I have one of the original ones too (40GB HD) and all I do is stream.

David,
I also rip my DVD's to my iMac and stream them to my AppleTV. It's even EASIER than typing in a name to watch..you just point and click! I love my AppleTV and will probably get a new one too.

Agree. If you want to access your library from your Mac, this really is a no-brianer =)

Not really sure, David, what you mean by "build movie archives" means, though. The Apple TV can (and will in the new version) be able to access the entire iTunes library on your Mac. Is that what you are asking about?

iTunes would be where I'd get streaming movies from Apple, right? But they go away after a bit of time. So they're not archived. *

My DVDs I copy are stored in my Documents folder in a folder named Movies. They are archived right?

Can I put those movies in Movies folder in iTunes? Should I?

I get confused. [ smile ]



* I don't know where streamed movies reside as you view them from Apple or NetFlicks [that other place].


.

Stuff that you stream from the ITMS are probably only archived temporarily (if at all) on your local device -- speculation is that the new Apple TV actually has some sort of storage for this very reason. So basically, that kind of content stays in Apple's cloud ;-)

DVD's you rip yourself are stored wherever you want them to be stored -- they're yours and you can do whatever you want with them (except, you know, make money off of them and stuff ;-) In order for that content to work with Apple TV, they'd have do be saved in a certain format (H.264?) and included in your iTuned library so the Apple TV can find 'em. Alternatively, if the movie lives on an iDevice (iPod, iPad, etc.), you'll have the option of streaming the video from one of those =)

John and 6 of 1,

so let me "dream",

Could you take your whole movie collection, save it on large HDs (2 Tb) from your Mac, and then access any movie you wanted from the archive like you select a song in iTunes ? IF you can do that, I'm sold. What I hate now is having 800-1000 DVDs and wanting to see a movie and having to go through binders of DVDs to get it. I have them cataloged but it's still an annoiance to retreive it and then put the DVD and binders back. Plus they take up a very large space; I'm on binder #5 right now. I'd like to have a system I can do everything electronically. Select a name and BAM ! starts playing on the HD TV.
Is that possible with Apple TV?
(BTW- these are not commercial copies, but ones I've burned off TV - TCM, AMC, Fox, etc. They're in standard DVD format. How would you save in H.264?)

I greatly appreciate your expertise.

That's exactly what I do right now -- although most of my content is actually from the ITMS. Connected to my Mac I have a 2TB drive where I store all my iTunes content, which I can then access through the Apple TV to play on the HDTV in the living room. The only drawback I've found so far is that you have to have your Mac turned on and iTunes open in order for it to share stuff with the Apple TV. This will especially be true with the new Apple TV which has no (or little) onboard storage of its own ...

As for converting to the right video format, I haven't really had cause to rip my own stuff, so I'm not even sure if H.264 is the right format, much less how to convert stuff (maybe as simple as choosing "import" from iTunes?) ... anyways, I'll leave that bit to John or someone who actually would know what they're doing ;-)

I have ripped a few kids dvds and put them in my library for access via AppleTV. I believe they were regular MPG2 rips... hafta check.

How do you do that?