Hi everyone,

I am trying to make a completely MAC based home theatre network. After having to repurchase many disney DVDS that my son has scratched/broken, it is definitely time for me to build a good home theatre solution.

I have tried a few different methods for launching and maintaining my movie library. First distantDVD, then DVDassist with DVDPedia, then Plex, and finally just Front Row 2.

Using the new Front Row 2 for DVD playback of all Video_TS folders on an external backup drive attached to my MacMini, has been the most straight forward approach and of course has some nice menus. So far I have been happy with the results and love using the remote instead of a keyboard. The one exception of not being able to change audio tracks or activate any subtitles is a problem though. I generally re-author my backups to eliminate menus and extra junk so that I get the highest quality vs. file size ratio. But I don't know how to activate subtitles or change audio from Front Row. Is this even possible?

So my next question is about networking. Since I plan on using Front Row and having all of my movies stored on external, I wanted to know if anyone has setup a home theatre network. Specifically using Apple TV. I have been thinking that Apple TV may be my cheapest method to do this. If it can connect to and launch movies from my external with Front Row.

Basically I have a MacMini in my family room that can be repurposed for my home theatre if need be and I have a G5 tower in my office which has my 1Tb drive attached. I would really like to try adding Apple TV to this setup instead of turning my mini into an exclusive HTPC, since it is the only community PC for the house. I would like to use an Apple TV connected to my Projector and stereo, and also add an Apple TV to my son's bedroom. Since the AppleTV prices have come down, it makes more sense to try and do this instead of buying two more MAC Minis for the other rooms just to watch movies.

So what does everyone think? Can the Apple TV provide me with the networking capability I need to watch movies via Front Row and my external drive on the network?

Thanks.

So I have been investigating more and wanted to see what everyone thinks about this.

If I get a couple of AppleTVs (far cheaper than Mac Minis) and can get OSx installed, then I can network them all to my external HDD or TimeCapsule with all my back up video_ts folders and launch all movies through Front Row on each machine. I could get 3 AppleTVs for the price of one Mac Mini so that means I could have the home theatre network I envisioned, with DVD playback in every room!

Does this make sense?

So I have been investigating more and wanted to see what everyone thinks about this.

If I get a couple of AppleTVs (far cheaper than Mac Minis) and can get OSx installed, then I can network them all to my external HDD or TimeCapsule with all my back up video_ts folders and launch all movies through Front Row on each machine. I could get 3 AppleTVs for the price of one Mac Mini so that means I could have the home theatre network I envisioned, with DVD playback in every room!

Does this make sense?

I'd like to suggest another option.

Transcode your TS_Video to h.264 and add them to an iTunes Library on either the mini or your G5. This makes streaming to ATV much much easier, and no hacks are required. I've done this with a few movies using Handbrake, modifying the ATV default settings to an average bitrate of 3000 Kbps, using double pass.

Do you loose some quality.... yes, a bit over MPEG-2. And while this works on a wireless G network, you would do much better with N or by wiring directly to your switch.

I recommend this, because it sounds like your ready to buy a bunch of equipment at once, this maintains your warranty on all items, and it still gives you access to the iTunes store if you want to quickly rent something thats not in your library... such as a scratched disney movie! ;-)

SDLeary

Hey Steven,

Thanks for the suggestions. I am not sure I want to spend the time transcoding all of my movies all over again. I have a 500gb drive of backup movies right now, mostly my son's disney stuff and my favorite action/comic book/sci-fi movies. I also don't want to lose quality. I actually converted all of my movies as "movie" only with no menus. I kept the subtitles and audio and used no compression. This gave me the exact quality of the DVD itself. Some of the movies took up more space, but some took up way less.

I am going to be buying a 720p projector and want my backups to play with the best quality possible.

I have read that atvFlash is capable of playing video-ts folders on the ATV. Is this true?

You might want to give it a test then and see if the quality is acceptable to you. Your dualie G5 should have no problem with handbrake. In fact, it should do quite nicely, as Handbrake has a batch mode, and you can just queue things up and walk away if you decide to go ahead.

If you decide to stay with the full quality rips though, then you will have to go with Minis... the ATV has a 5 Mbps cap on movie files (+ or - a bit from what I read), and while a hack might allow different format files, I'm not sure the hardware would be up to smooth higher bandwidth playback.

SDLeary

That is a shame. I think I will have to stick with the Mini's then. I don't want to lose quality on this.

Two other questions I have maybe you could help with, unless I should post new threads on them.

Do you know if there is a way to get subtitles working with FrontRow? I can not seem to figure this out.

And is there a way to correct aspect ratios with the movie_ts rips? Some of the movie seem to show black bars on all side of screen when launched.

Hey Steve,

How much quality do you really loose in converting the video_ts files? If I am not using 1080p display and staying with 720p/1080i would it be noticeable downgrade? How comparable is the quality to real DVD playback?

In all my research it looks like people are using handbrake with aTV and/or nitoTv. I also read that the mac mini doesn't have very good playback in leopard as it did in Tiger. Is this also true with aTV?

I guess after all of my research I am down to these main concerns in this priority order:

Excellent Image Quality
Clean 5.1 or higher Audio
Correct Aspect Ratio
Use of Subtitles when necessary
Nice Interface, IE. cover image usage like in FR2
Categories/Organization like Genre
Remote Functionality

I am still considering trying this with aTV just for my son's disney movies at least. If I can get aTV and stream just his movies in decent quality, then it might be worth it.

Hey Steve,

How much quality do you really loose in converting the video_ts files? If I am not using 1080p display and staying with 720p/1080i would it be noticeable downgrade? How comparable is the quality to real DVD playback?

In all my research it looks like people are using handbrake with aTV and/or nitoTv. I also read that the mac mini doesn't have very good playback in leopard as it did in Tiger. Is this also true with aTV?

I guess after all of my research I am down to these main concerns in this priority order:

Excellent Image Quality
Clean 5.1 or higher Audio
Correct Aspect Ratio
Use of Subtitles when necessary
Nice Interface, IE. cover image usage like in FR2
Categories/Organization like Genre
Remote Functionality

I am still considering trying this with aTV just for my son's disney movies at least. If I can get aTV and stream just his movies in decent quality, then it might be worth it.

Your priority concerns above are handled fine via ATV IMO; Using Handbrake, the audio is perfect DD5.1, correct AR (even anamorphic), subtitles, etc.; regarding the picture quality, you can set this level in HB (more passes, higher rez, better quality). I use a 720p 60" plasma and do not notice a difference from TS (or original DVD). When I originally did some close compares, it was a rare scene or 2 to find a difference... Just not worth it for me - However, I suggest you make your own test and decide.

One con in converting is the extra convert time; but the disk space savings are substantial on the positive side. Given the price, the ATV is a no brainer IMO - The HD rentals are exceptional quality; and they just added HD TV shows (plus NBC back in play)...

ken

Hey kenliles,

Thanks for the info. So, more and more I am getting convinced in giving the aTV a try. I think I will at least try it out in my son's room for all of his kid movies to start with.

So any suggestions on what else I will need?

I know that Handbrake seems to be the standard in converting the video_ts folders, but do you have any details on the best settings to use? And will I be able to use the resulting Handbrake files instantly on the aTV or do I still need to hack/nodify it somehow? I read about nitoTV but was not sure if I need it to read handbrake files or just to read video_ts?

Thanks.

will I be able to use the resulting Handbrake files instantly on the aTV or do I still need to hack/nodify it somehow? I read about nitoTV but was not sure if I need it to read handbrake files or just to read video_ts?

I've been reading your posts for the past couple of days, and feel for your situation dvdflashbacks. You want it all, you want to know what to do and you don't want to spend much. That can be tough to synthesize. Here's my advice: it'll be better for you--and us--if you focus on making things less difficult for yourself, and get some basic hands on experience with the aTV, so you can make up your own mind and figure out what'll work best for you. It'll be $199 well spent.

In your case, that means stop pursuing any line of inquiry that has to do with hacking the aTV. That means no aTVflash, no nitoTV, no awkwardtv.org, etc. For now. You can always come back to the subject later.

Get the Apple TV, and begin using it right out of the box as Apple intends. Use Handbrake to generate some content for it--it has an aTV preset--and see for yourself how it works and what its limitations are. THEN begin to peek into the hacking side of things with a firm grounding underneath you of what the aTV does and how it works.

Once Handbrake transcodes your VIDEO_TS into an aTV-acceptable format you can add it to iTunes--and then your aTV can sync or stream that file. You don't need to "do" anything special.

Have you read the threads here about handbrake and the aTV? Here's an old Macworld how-to to get you started with Handbrake, I'm sure there are tons of other guides available if you google a bit:

http://www.macworld.com/article/59605/2006/12/handbrake.html

Version 0.9.2 added DD 5.1

So, while Part 1 of your experiment is underway--putting an aTV in your son's BR, learning how to use Handbrake to generate aTV-acceptable files, you and your son experiencing firsthand what it's like to organize and access all his content with the Apple remote on that aTV--you can also work on Part 2 concurrently--what to do in your in your family room with the Mini and projector, which you already started experimenting with.

Rereading your posts, the thing that struck me is you really liked the simplicity and minimalism of using Front Row and the Apple remote. So stay with that for a while. You were a bit penny-wise and pound-foolish, as it turned out, initially trying to save hard drive space by ripping to movie only, because later on you found out that from within FR you had no way to change subtitles or audio tracks.

Now you know that if you had kept full disc VIDEO_TS rips instead, you would be able to go into the dvd menu within FR and make those changes just using the Apple remote. Granted, it's a little awkward to button press/back out to the menu, but it works with probably 95% of dvds out there. Some dvds just have screwed up menu structures and won't navigate properly from within FR, but will within Apple dvd player.

My approach to video is kind of like my approach to audio--I record high def QAM and keep it that way, I rip a dvd once, keeping the full VIDEO_TS even if it's 7-8GB, just like I rip all my cds once to Apple lossless. Then, if I want a smaller, a movie-only version, or something transcoded for an iPod, or something full quality but just without all the extra crap, I turn to tools like DVD2OneX and Handbrake.

We have 6 Macs in the house, two MDDs storing and serving up content, with separate iTunes libraries for listening (Apple lossless) and syncing iPods to (192-256.)

Basically what I'm saying is now is your time to reassess your approach before you plunge into a whole house hardware commitment--what you used to do may not be valid any longer, for any number of reasons. Hard drive prices have dropped, it's now more affordable than ever to store content. Another might be improving software and video quality--on your equipment you may or may not notice a meaningful difference between the VIDEO_TS rip and the version you've transcoded to aTV with Handbrake. Only you can decide this--so as part of your test you take that aTV and connect it to your projector in the family room and play back some of those Handbraked movies. That'll help you assess whether staying with VIDEO_TS in there really makes a difference--or whether you can pop another aTV in there, returning the Mini to general use rather than HTPC. That'll bring you to your real decisions: 1) can you live comfortably within the Apple walled garden of the aTV throughout your house; 2) are you better off with a hybrid Mac + aTV approach, retaining separate files for each, in which case you may have to re-rip your dvds and 3) is it necessary for you to "hack" your way beyond the Apple walled garden in order to experience ultimate Mac HT happiness.

Give yourself some time to experience things first hand before you jump ahead to #3. Only you can determine what'll work best.

In my situation, I pretty much stay within the "walled garden" and don't hack--since most of what we watch is high def TV in addition to dvd, I keep a Mac at every HDTV in the house--and I've never felt it worth the time or effort to transcode to smaller file sizes. Intel Macs as extenders, Front Row and the Apple remote (with Perian installed) handles EyeTV, VIDEO_TS and the odd .mkv and .avi over the home network just fine.

^^wiser words could not have been spoken^^
dvdflashbacks - you would be well advised to heed them. Most of us go through a similar process to fit our individual needs. I ended up doing one-rip CDs to AppleLossless keeping even iPod as Lossless because music is my most critical media source.... and adopted an mp4 (atv) approach to nearly all my movies - But there are a few classics I love where I keep the video_TS rips or buy the Blu-Ray disk if available for the most prestine viewing... Everyone has their own priorities and thresholds -

a process of you're own discovery will serve you best. The ATV for the price is about as easy a try as you can get;... performs so many things for the price, it serves as a great start and can be a useful piece even in a bigger setup later....

ken

A few questions that haven't been addressed yet:

And is there a way to correct aspect ratios with the movie_ts rips? Some of the movie seem to show black bars on all side of screen when launched.

I also read that the mac mini doesn't have very good playback in leopard as it did in Tiger.

Actually, it's the inverse: after years of complaining around here about dismal Apple dvd player.app performance in Tiger, Apple substantially improved things in Leopard.

With at least a core duo Mac mini or better, most of us around here feel that Apple's dvdplayer.app is now quite good--not just from a GUI perspective, but also good in terms of tools, deinterlacing and performance. Even though I love FR, I find I still use Appledvdplayer.app an awful lot.

One of those DVD Player tools is a nifty little "video zoom" controller in the Window drop down menu, that can help with dvds that aren't anamorphic or are windowboxed or pictureboxed.

Nothing like this is available from within FR, of course, because Apple wants that experience to be as simple and straightforward as possible, the "it just works" for all users...but, this is another of those little reasons why you might want to go with a Mac instead of an aTV--and why you might like having alternative apps and front ends to experiment with. (In case you're already thinking, but how can I control all this with the Apple remote? Does that mean I'd need a BT mouse and keyboard as well? And the answer for you may be something like Remote Buddy, which allows you to extend the functions of the Apple remote, toggle between apps and menus, etc. And options for the iPod touch as wireless HT touchpad controller are expanding all the time, too.)

thanks for all the info Chefklc

so once again, it appears that there is no definitive way to go here.

I love Front Row because of the organization, I have all my movies in sub directories such as action, childrens, etc., so being able to select a movie from the nice GUI works well. But the playback features are limited compared to actaul DVDplayer.app. The lack of full control over the app is frustrating. I thought it used DVDplayer.app so why the limitations on preferences and controls?

I also sent distantDVD an email to see if they plan on adding some sort of functionality to their app that would make it easier to create genres/categories. This would make it function more like FR and be awesome since it launches the movies via VLC/DVDplayer.app and retains all control such as subtitles/audio/zoom. And I like just selecting a movie cover and pressing enter, but no Apple Remote support.

I tried installing Plex but it seemed so darn complicated. I couldn't figure out how to even add a single video_ts movie from my HDD. And I am not about to purchase something that I am not 100% works well.

I keep getting mixed information on what aTV can and can't do. I was told from atvFlash people that if you install the atvFlash plugins, then you can watch video_ts files from ext hdd. But then I read on another forum that the playback would not be so good because the aTV can not handle them correctly due to hardware limitations. Others have said that if I use handbrake and convert all of my movies then they will play fine on aTV either through iTunes or through nitoTV.

What to do? What to do?

chefklc,

I'm curious, is your network wired or wireless...? I'm assuming that it's wired, as you've made no comments concerning the speed of one's home network. But I'm curious if you've integrated an AirPort Extreme, Time Capsule or even an Express in your setup.

I've got a Dual Band wireless network, as my house really wasn't pre-wired with a network in mind and running Cat6 cabling really isn't an option. The house is on a slab and I don't be access to the attic space above one of my bedrooms.

So, I'm always curious when I see posts from others with Mac running as servers and providing content to their network.

TIA :D

What to do? What to do?

It seems to me you have only two choices: 1. continue using Front Row and give up the features you want or 2. use Apple's DVD player or VLC or another DVD player of your choice and get the features you want. The only other possibility I know is DVDPedia, but I have no idea if it will give you all the features you want.

I'm curious, is your network wired or wireless...? I'm assuming that it's wired, as you've made no comments concerning the speed of one's home network. But I'm curious if you've integrated an AirPort Extreme, Time Capsule or even an Express in your setup.

Wired. Now that I'm 5 years or so in to the whole Mac home theater thing, the deeper I get the less patience I have and gigabit is the only way to go. The Macs that we use the most for home theater tasks (two old MDDs packed to the gills with content, a 24" C2D iMac and a C2D Macbook) all are on gigabit. Our place wasn't "pre-wired" either, but it is small, we live close to the city, and it's only about a 1000 sq ft. It's a very dense area, with lots of other wireless routers and competing networks close by. So, while we didn't really have a choice but to wire, it also wasn't difficult or expensive to do so, though we did build a few special cabinets and wall systems to conceal and accommodate it all.

At the moment I have a Airport Extreme "n" with gigabit with two Netgear gigabit switches to tie everything together--our two older G4 aluminum Powerbooks (a 12" and a 15") are the only Macs on wireless--and basically the 12" serves as my whole house "touchpad" controller using Leopard screen sharing.

Going way back, when I first put a G4 mini in the main HT, we had the two PBs and a "g" Extreme with a "g" Airport express to stream iTunes to the bedroom AVR and loved that (LOVE the Airport express...) controlling everything with VNC from the 12" PB. It became pretty clear to me, though, that wireless wasn't going to cut it--again, I'm impatient, so when it comes to moving things around I want it to take 3-4 minutes to move an 8GB file, and "g" couldn't even handle streaming VIDEO_TS seamlessly. Pretty early on I realized I'd need a decent Mac at every HDTV because I wanted access to our high def recordings everywhere in addition to dvd and music.

my house really wasn't pre-wired with a network in mind and running Cat6 cabling really isn't an option

I'm always curious when I see posts from others with Mac running as servers and providing content to their network.

Good point: the route I took in terms of planning, equipment purchases and upgrade path...once I figured out the kind of things like the OP of this thread is dealing with...was definitely influenced by the fact that I could go gigabit fairly easily. Faced with $600+ for a diskless Infrant ReadyNAS ($800 now that Netgear bought the company) or $300 for a dual 1.25 MDD with gigabit and FW800 off Craigslist--I went with the MDD because I knew I could just wire it up and stick it out of sight (and sound) and even hang externals off it as my needs grew. I liked it so much, that when Leopard was released, I picked up another one, for $250 this time, initially just for spare parts but now that's full of content, too.

For whatever the reasons, if I HAD to rely on wireless to tie all or most of my home network together, I probably wouldn't have grown to love the MDDs and re-thought how I'd share content. Instead I might have spent that money on storage devices that could plug into my Extreme "n" via gigabit or USB--a NAS or a Drobo--and I probably would have been more willing to utilize the aTV and "n" Express, been more willing to convert everything to aTV format with Handbrake, as others have done within the forum. As it is, I transcode very rarely, just some TV stuff so my wife can watch it on her iPod, and it gets deleted pretty quickly.

It seems to me you have only two choices: 1. continue using Front Row and give up the features you want or 2. use Apple's DVD player or VLC or another DVD player of your choice and get the features you want. The only other possibility I know is DVDPedia, but I have no idea if it will give you all the features you want.

I think I am going to buy 1 aTV and see how well it works. My wife will at least like to have something like that in our bedroom. I have 32" LCD and a simple 5.1 HTiB setup in that room, so I may be able to get away with less quality. The smaller the screen, the less likely you are to notice flaws I think. The price is cheap enough that it may be worth it.

I think I am going to buy 1 aTV and see how well it works.

Good
and let me know, your experience should help me to choose.