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With the addition of an Apple TV to the entertainment center, I’m all-of-a-sudden more interested in having more content available to me – in a form I can really use. I’ve fought the desire to rip all my DVDs to this point, however, due to 1) Quality issues, and 2) Usability concerns. For the former, since the Apple TV can handle full-HD quality media content, that’s a bit lessened (although I’d still have to have a separate file for iPod sync’ing, since these max out at 640×480).

For the latter, it’s always bugged me how much I “lose” by ripping to a single movie file on disk. Not only are the extras (interviews, deleted scenes, etc.) gone – which, arguably, are one of the primary reasons I would buy a physical DVD versus a download – but also you end up with no easy navigation within that huge file. No chapter marks, etc.

Turns out there is an easy way around this latter (er, of the latter) concern: There are methods of scanning the VIDEO_TS contents as you rip to MPEG4, retaining each chapter mark – see this Mac OS X Hints entry for some details.

Also, note that the newly-merged HandBrake MediaFork HandBrake can handle this as well – see its (very slow-loading) homepage for specifics.

The end result is that you can playback to your Apple TV and navigate through the tracks, just as if you were playing a DVD. Still no extras, but at least one of the usability concerns is alleviated. Now to just get that 500 GB drive online and fleshed out with content…

UPDATE: Some extra details on optimal settings for ripping those DVDS:
– http://appletvhacker.blogspot.com/2007/03/mikes-hands-on-report-step-by-step-how.html (great site, BTW)
– http://metroxing.blogspot.com/2006/10/handbrake-mpeg4-or-h264.html