The Apple TV has been around for quite a while but with the release of Movies in the cloud it recently got 1000% more useful. Once again, after almost two years, you can now buy as well as rent movies from iTunes. But oddly this article doesn’t cover that, no I will let Apple do that. This after is all about importing your dvd library into iTunes to watch on your Apple TV.
You se the first Apple TV was large and feature packed (a few more features than the subsequent releases amazingly) but the body often overheated, it was slow and it came with next to no storage. When the Apple TV 2 was released I considered it a joke for reasons that recently became redundant.
If you have a good collection of movies, TV shows, and photos sitting in your iTunes library then buying an Apple TV for your lounge room is a very good investment. And as it turns out, with a little bit of effort it is also a very good investment for your DVD collection.
In this article we will cover things to consider after you buy an Apple TV. It wont go into how to set it up – that is covered very well here – but rather how to get older, non-iTunes content, into your library and onto your Apple TV.
What you’ll need
1. Download and install Handbrake.
2. A stack of your previously purchased DVDs
Converting your DVDs
This is- strictly speaking- illegal. Copyright laws in this country are very strange in so much as they permit making “backup copies” of your media but ignore the fact that in order to do so you need to circumvent the encryption of the DVD which is illegal. But most people consider that making backup copies of your own media is a fair thing to do.
Movies
1. Insert the DVD into your Mac. If this automatically launches the DVD player quit it before going any further.
2. Launch Handbrake and it will ask you to choose a source.
3. Handbrake will then scan the disk and locate all the video files.
4. From the Title menu choose the longest title (this will nearly always be the actual movie) and then use the Browse button to select a location for the video file. In this example I’ve used the Desktop folder.
5. For the best quality choose the APPLE TV3 Preset. Hint: You might ned to click on Toggle Presets to see the list
6. Click on Start
7. When the conversion is done Handbrake will place a video file on your Mac.
Getting your stuff into iTunes
1. Once the converting process is over open iTunes and choose Add to Library from the File menu.
2. Locate the file on your desktop (or wherever you chose to save the file) and choose Open
3. Click on the Advanced menu and choose Turn on Homeshare
4. Enter your iTunes username and password.
5. Go to your Apple TV in the lounge and choose Computers and then Movies and you’ll see your movie listed there.
What to do next
You don’t really have to do anything more to enjoy your movies after they have been imported but if you really wanted to finish it off you can visit the internet Movie Database and copy the info into the movies file and go to impawards and find the movie poster or better still download and buy something like iDentify that will do this
automatically.
