AppleTV: Good Medium for HD Home Video?

I've been shooting HD for several years, long before HDDVD or BluRay came out. I've been assuming that eventually a good HD medium, +mostly just for home movies+, will come out.
However, now that BluRay does exist, I'm not sure that it's the best viewing medium for home movies. BluRay drives and disks still seem to be pretty rare and expensive whereas hard disks are very cheap. That, plus my particular BluRay player won't play recorded BluRay disks anyway.
So it suddenly occurred to me: Should I just typically use Apple TV for my FCS-generated HD home movies?
Just speaking in generalities, what do you folks think are the positives and negatives of taking that approach?
Thanks for your thoughts!

Nick Holmes wrote:
Apple TV is the same principle as an iPod except it connects to your TV.
Aha. Yes, that was my impression from what I saw at the local Apple store. Thanks for confirming that.
Someone here might have one and be able to help but it wouldn't hurt to cross-post your questions in the [TV forum|http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1185].
Yeah, I wasn't sure which would be a better venue, so OK, I'll do both.

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AppleTV: Good Medium for Final-Cut-Studio-Generated HD Home Video?

I've been shooting HD for several years, long before HDDVD or BluRay came out. I've been assuming that eventually a good HD medium, mostly just for home movies, will come out.
However, now that BluRay does exist, I'm not sure that it's the best viewing medium for home movies. BluRay drives and disks still seem to be pretty rare and expensive whereas hard disks are very cheap. That, plus my particular BluRay player won't play recorded BluRay disks anyway.
So it suddenly occurred to me: Should I just typically use Apple TV for my FCS-generated HD home movies?
Just speaking in generalities, what do you folks think are the positives and negatives of taking that approach?
Concerns that pop into mind might include: First, the 160GB hard-disk space. I'm guessing that might be 10-20 feature-length HD home-movie productions? Well, maybe that's fine... Second, does AppleTV have any provisions for typical DVD-menu features, like alternate soundtracks, subtitles, and especially, chapter selection menus?
Thanks for your thoughts!

I think the first point to appreciate is that the tv will only play up to 720p content, in reality though you'd likely end up creating 540p movies as at 720p the tv will only work at 24/25 fps. I suppose it all depends on what you think of this reduction in resolution versus convenience.
There is no doubt that 540p isn't 1080p but for many tv users the difference is not significant enough to outweigh the convenience. Personally I'm just glad to get my numerous home videos onto the tv in a way that the whole family can just click and watch without needing to connect various cables, understand difficult interfaces, look for missing/damaged disks etc etc.
I wouldn't worry about storage, my library is now on a 4 TB external drive attached to my mac, I stream all my content to the tv and don't see any need to put any of it on the tv itself. Of course this relies on the mac being available whenever we want to watch something via the tv.
The tv can play alternate sound tracks, subtitles and does include for chapter selection. Of these adding subtitles may be the area of most difficulty, alternate sound tracks and chapters should be quite simple given your background.
Of late the tv also supports additional features such as bonus tracks and the like that would often be found on a typical DVD, however this is a relatively new feature and to my knowledge there is no easy way of adding home made extras.
Yes the tv does run very hot, or at least appears to. In fact id only consumes around 20 W (48 W peak) and it's unique approach to heat dissipation through its casing often gives the wrong impression about heat.
Some people do have issues with the tv, but I think every device will produce issues for someone or another. Most issues seem to relate to network connectivity though which is generally an area outside the control of the tv.
I think for you the primary consideration may be the tv resolution, I have no issues with it, I do hope that one day they will update the tv with additional hardware specifications that will allow me to watch my 1080p home video, but for now I just export 2 versions and put the 1080p version away for the future, as no-one in our family is willing to stand around my computer monitor to gain a little extra quality, when they can sit together in the lounge and watch it in comfort.

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I am trying to get a good copy of my home video on DVD using IDVD. On editing the video all the viewing screens show the video perfectly in HD. When I burn the video to DVD all the end results are buzzy with squiggly lines. Any fix? Thanks?

I am trying to get a good copy of my home video on DVD using IDVD. On editing the video all the viewing screens show the video perfectly in HD. When I burn the video to DVD all the end results are buzzy with squiggly lines. Any fix? Thanks?

Hi
There are several layers to this Q
A. There are no HD in DVD - DVD is as standard only SD-Video what ever tools used to produce it !
iDVD or DVD-Studio Pro or Roxio Toast™ - will only make SD-Video on DVD
B. DVD can be better or worse
• Using "Share to iDVD" is no good way - Better is Share to Media Browser and as Large (NOT HD as result will be worse)
• Using iMovie'08 or 09 or 11 - are not tools to chose if highes quality is of importance - iMovie up to HD6 or FinalCut any version is far better as they send over all lines to iDVD and not only every second one.
• Using Right encoder quality depending on movie and Manu duration is very important
• Use of high quality brand of DVD - is important - I use Verbatim DVD-R
• Type of DVD - DVD-R plays on more DVD-Players (even old ones)
• Burn speed - I set it down to x4 - resulting in less burn errors - plays on more players
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• What You feed iDVD does matter
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Come on people - THERE HAS TO BE A BEST PRACTICE out there for storing and viewing family video!!
I'm the typical dad out there taking photos and video of my kids playing soccer, family trips ect ...
When I get home I hook my camera up to my MacMini (which is hooked up to my Plasma TV - and backed up to an external HD) and within mere seconds, my photos are nicely captured in iPhoto. Friends and family come over, I flip on the MacMini, select iPhoto (or Front Row) and we enjoy great slide shows.
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Cast and Crew Credits for Home Videos

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When I purchase a movie from the iTunes store It comes with limited cast and crew credits shown alongside the cover art. How can I add similar information for my Home Videos?
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http://www.hp.com/canada/products/landing/mediasmart/ex.html
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It would make a great server. Bonus over Apple TV for example is that you have access via both wired ethernet and wireless. Plus if you load tools from XBMC, Firecore and others you have a significant media server. Cost is right too.
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Best practice for viewing short home videos on AppleTV?

Please help me find a simple way to view short home videos taken on a digital video camera, photo camera or cell phone on my Apple TV.
I've been using AppleTV to showcase my photos for a couple months now, but all the short little videos I take along the way have been gathering dust in a general folder. None of them are significant enough to warrant building a full on iMovie, and all are in Nikon's AVI format. To date I have about 300 of them, hoping that one day they won't just gather dust.
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This is awful. For comparison, here is my current workflow for photos to get them to show on AppleTV...
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Thanks pvonk. I get that video is more complex than photos, but Apple still wrote its photo applications to accept all sorts of photo file types (even the many proprietary RAW formats). So I don't think it's crazy to question why this workflow isn't easier for video. Especially when Apple is the biggest champion of integrated video solutions.
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~ if one could automatically add a meta tag (let's say "AppleTV") they could be added to a smart album on iTunes that is set up to sync with AppleTV
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AppleTV: Good Medium for HD Home Video?

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