Tell me if I'm right on this...I've gathered from the forums that AppleTV will not be able to play our DVDs backed up and stored on our Macs. Is that right?

Secondly, I need some advice....I have 600+ DVDs. I'm pondering selling them all to make some fast money to pay for my new son and car. Would it be dumb to back them all up to some externals and then play them off of the HD's via a Mini or AppleTV (if that's possible).

Perhaps I could get $6000 ish for the whole lot, and spend $2500 on the HDs and Mini and come out way ahead.

Suggestions or thoughts? Thanks!!!

First, it's illegal. Just have to say it.

Secondly, I think it's likely a pretty fair assumption that the device will be able to play anything that an iPod plays, i.e. quick time.

I think the best course of action would be to use sometihng like Handbrake to convert the movies over, and they'd likely work. Of course, you end up losing all your resolution that way. The other alternative wuold be to siomply convert them to H.264 through quicktime, but I'm not sure if your resolution is maintained or not.

I've gathered from the forums that AppleTV will not be able to play our DVDs backed up and stored on our Macs. Is that right?

No, it'll play them just fine, you'll have to rip and/or transcode them into one of the few video formats iTunes supports, though. Once you do, and add them to your library, you'll be able to play back these lower quality versions, without 5.1 or DTS, of course.

I have 600+ DVDs. I'm pondering selling them all to make some fast money to pay for my new son and car. Would it be dumb to back them all up to some externals and then play them off of the HD's via a Mini or AppleTV (if that's possible).

Not dumb, just illegal and perhaps unwise. Most of us rip AND hold onto the original dvd, but even doing that is still technically illegal. There's no provision or exemption allowing us to defeat copy protection in order to make a backup digital version or in order to keep the original media "safe." You'll have to decide for yourself whether selling off that original copy yet keeping the digital backup makes sense.