There must be an awful lot of criminals in this country.

Yes but sky and related groups spent alot of time and money to specifically outlaw format shifting of movies when the copy right law was reviewed. Before that ripping audio was illegal. All those iPod users breaking copyright law...

Actually, there was such a service, USA only of course, and, from what I understand, it was kind-of supported by the studio's:

https://www.kaleidescape.com/

I know most people say to use Plex for playing and Handbrake for compressing files, but I ripped all my Blu-rays using MakeMKV and just left them at full size.  It was cheaper, time wise, for me to buy a larger drive than compressing hundreds of files.  And I prefer Kodi over Plex.  You can run it on 2nd and 4th gen Apple TV's. http://www.redmondpie.com/kodi-on-apple-tv-4k-heres-how-to-sideload-install-it-guide/ 

If you prefer quality, stick with the full size rips.

Does Apple TV play mkv files natively? 

Ok, I'm still confused, why would you want to go to all the time and effort to convert a DVD into another format, when you can just pop the disc into a DVD player and watch it in the first place? 

What am I missing here?

afe66:

 

Does Apple TV play mkv files natively? 

 

Depends what app you're talking about. Infuse should.  FileExplorer might.

There's no such this as "natively" on apple tv...it's all in apps.

dafman:

 

Ok, I'm still confused, why would you want to go to all the time and effort to convert a DVD into another format, when you can just pop the disc into a DVD player and watch it in the first place? 

 

What am I missing here?

 

With DVDs you have to get out of bed to change disks when you get bored with the one you're watching.

It's retro though. We still have a local dvd store, and I got some blurays out the other day, because it was cheaper then hiring them online and I go past it all the time. But that option will be gone soon.

People though are getting too lazy and fat, if it is too much effort to put the disk into a machine. But I must admit I am also like this sometimes. We have even come to the point where people are too lazy to operate button on the remote to find the streaming movie online, and instead use voice control to say 'play movie name'  

I can't see why it's worse (more illegal) to download a digital copy of a movie when you own the DVD/BD, compared to ripping it yourself.  The end result is the same - digital copy on HDD, optical disk on bookshelf.  If we accept that a ban on format shifting (Thanks Sky! :)) is silly, which judging by the historic sales of MP3 players, blank DVDs etc we do, then the mechanism of how the format is shifted doesn't seem very important.

davidcole:

 

afe66:

 

Does Apple TV play mkv files natively? 

 

 

Depends what app you're talking about. Infuse should.  FileExplorer might.

 

There's no such this as "natively" on apple tv...it's all in apps.

 

 

 

I've ripped all my dvds to mp4 and serve from Plex NAS to ATV Plex client.

I know I can theoreticaly rip my Blu-ray to mkvvbut was wondering whether Plex can stream them to ATV Plex without transposing.

I've been planning on ripping my Blu-ray for a year or two and was wondering whether it could be a winter project.

afe66:

 

I've ripped all my dvds to mp4 and serve from Plex NAS to ATV Plex client.

 

I know I can theoreticaly rip my Blu-ray to mkvvbut was wondering whether Plex can stream them to ATV Plex without transposing.

 

I've been planning on ripping my Blu-ray for a year or two and was wondering whether it could be a winter project.

 

Yes and no, most blu-rays are native h264 some are VC1.   Apple TV does not support VC1, so the video will be transcoded.  Most/all? audio is a variance of DTS which gets transcoded.  So it depends on you Plex media server performance.

My Plex Blu-ray collection is straight rips.

I have an Apple TV4 which the limitation seems to be the network causing micro pauses (Hard Wired) so I've stopped using it to watch Blu-rays

I prefer to use the Xbox One X to watch blu-rays rips

I have started my iTunes movies collection, look at out for sales and cheap movies. Depending on your movies you could be paying 5-24$. I have also a nice plex server, but having to mointor this buy HD and power bill, Only think i would do with iTunes is work out how to share with my family members. Back to your question I would sell the movies you have a buy digital versions.

I don't have an ATV so this is based on the specs I've read but it appears that the ATV cannot process DTS audio.

https://support.apple.com/kb/SP724?locale=en_US

• HE-AAC (V1), AAC (up to 320 Kbps), protected AAC (from iTunes Store), MP3 (up to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Apple Lossless, FLAC, AIFF, and WAV; AC-3 (Dolby Digital 5.1) and E-AC-3 (Dolby Digital Plus 7.1 surround sound)

Given most BD's have DTS audio (sometimes with a Dolby Digital track) then your Plex server is going to be transcoding audio much of the time with potential audio degradation or when you rip the BD you are going to have to perform a DTS to AC-3 transcode to avoid this.

As somebody else pointed out, better to just leave the discs as discs and play them when you want do.

I'm happy watching Blu-ray discs.

Physical space is starting to be a problem though.

lchiu7:

 

Given most BD's have DTS audio (sometimes with a Dolby Digital track) then your Plex server is going to be transcoding audio much of the time with potential audio degradation or when you rip the BD you are going to have to perform a DTS to AC-3 transcode to avoid this.

 

I'm no audiophile, transcoding of audio from DTS to AC3 is very low CPU (Synology NAS) and wouldn't let that stop you, it will still be surround sound.

Other media devices play DTS, VC1 just fine.

afe66:

 

I'm happy watching Blu-ray discs.

 

Physical space is starting to be a problem though.

 

This what drove me done the Plex route.