Converting DVD for AppleTV

October 3, 2009 in Featured, Home Media, Tutorials by David John

So you have invested your hard earned cash in an AppleTV, you have added all your home video, music, photos and podcasts and you want to add some of your full films to your home media centre. There are a number of key advantages of storing your films on the AppleTV. Firstly there is the sheer ease of use, click on My Movies and select the film from the menu and there it is in full screen glory.

dvds [Photo Credit : Flixelpix]

The second advantage is DVD protection, I have found myself having to replace ‘classic’ DVDs over the years due to mistreatment by the kids. Converting the DVDs for the Apple means your master stays safely on the shelf. I should state early in the post this tutorial is for the converting of DVDs you have paid for, we do not condone the copying of DVDs that you do not actually own.

It is actually amazing how simple it is to add your DVD content to the AppleTV via your Mac computer using a free application called “Handbrake”.

You can download Handbrake from the handbrake.fr website. On first run Handbrake will prompt you to install the free and excellent VLC media player which it needs to cope with commercial DVD films.

Converting DVD films is as easy as 1,2,3. Insert the DVD and load the handbrake application.

hand

1. Open Source

Click Source (see 1) and select the DVD in the finder window. Handbrake will now index the various chapters of the DVD, this make take a few minutes depending on the number of chapters on the disk.

2. Select the Preset

Handbrake comes ready prepared to export film to AppleTV format. Click the presets button on the top right of the handbrake screen and select the AppleTV preset.

3. Start

Click the start button for Handbrake to get to work. Converting a DVD for viewing on the AppleTV can take a few hours but it is worth the wait. The average DVD exports to about 1.5 GB.

4. Import to iTunes

Open iTunes and import the converted film into your iTunes Library. You may have to rename the film to make it easier to recognise but once synced you can then watch the film on the AppleTV, better still without the trailers ! Easy !

Please note we do not condone piracy of DVD movies. This guide is for the transfer of film you own to your AppleTV device!

7 Comments

October 3, 2009 at 11:58 am | Ralph Nader

Handbrake is extremely slow. What I prefer to use in all my Apple TV actions is Roxio’s Toast 10. I download a lot of TV show avi files, drag and drop into Toast, which then converts to Apple TV format. Same with DVDS, although I have to remove the anti-piracy protection using Rip It first before I drag and drop into Toast
October 3, 2009 at 1:52 pm | Chris Ridd

Handbrake really benefits from running on a multi-core Intel system. If it *still* isn’t fast enough, there’s the Elgato Turbo.264 HD available – and there’s a great review of that by David at http://www.digmo.co.uk/news/hardware/turbo264-hd-review/

Transcoding using Handbrake loses all the interactive content on the DVDs, which my kids enjoy. Is there any good way of preserving the raw VOBs for use with Apple TV?
October 3, 2009 at 3:49 pm | Rob elkin

If you want to convert the entire DVD and keep the extra features, use a free program called mactheripper which will literally take the contents of your DVD and put them in a folder on your hard drive. Then you can use vlc etc to play (not sure if front row supports these, I think plex does though.)

David – didn’t realise that you were that into your ripping, when I get home later I will send you a nifty little script that I have to help you rip faster.

Oh, and to ralph, give the cli version of handbrake a try, I find it to be about 50% faster than the GUI version.
October 3, 2009 at 4:01 pm | Chris Ridd

I used to use MTR but switched to http://ripitapp.com a while back.

I was interested in how you’d play the results on an ATV, not in a Mac app. DVD Player.app can already play the rips
October 3, 2009 at 4:02 pm | Ian Fitter

Didn’t realise Handbrake could handle a DVD directly. I’ve always used MacTheKnife to produce a copy on the HDD, then Handbrake to process that while MacTheKnife works on the next one.
October 4, 2009 at 6:23 pm | Chris Ridd

Handbrake can only rip direct from DVDs if you also have VLC installed – David mentioned the need for VLC. Handbrake dynamically loads in a VLC library to do the dirty work.
October 5, 2009 at 3:16 pm | John Lockwood

While Front Row can play full VIDEO_TS folders with all the original DVD content, the Apple TV as standard cannot. You can however relatively easily install XBMC on to the Apple TV and this can play VIDEO_TS folders as well.

See http://lifehacker.com/5057411/atv-usb-creator-loads-boxee-and-xbmc-on-apple-tv