[CityOnAHill]

The AppleTV looks interesting. I have a WD TV Live device which is similar in concept, but doesn’t have very refined features. I’m assuming the AppleTv will have a more intuitive user interface, which makes it appealing for the “wife approval factor”.

One thing I’ve been curious about, but haven’t seen addressed anywhere, is if the AppleTV can stream pretty much any video from the local network? Not just the stuff you rent through iTunes. I’d like to rip my DVDs to a big network attached disk and be able to play them through the AppleTV. Can it do this? Will it support the DVD menus?

[SnakeDoctor]

I rip DVDs all the time. I’m running 2 terabytes of storage for movies/TV shows alone, any of which I can play on my AppleTV with the click of a remote.

It does not support DVD menus (or at least not that I’ve figured out).

SnakeDoc

[ccmay]

One thing I’ve been curious about, but haven’t seen addressed anywhere, is if the AppleTV can stream pretty much any video from the local network? Not just the stuff you rent through iTunes. I’d like to rip my DVDs to a big network attached disk and be able to play them through the AppleTV. Can it do this? Will it support the DVD menus?

If you're using a Mac, get HandBrake, rip your DVDs to iTunes, and stream them to this new device.

[stripes1776]

One thing I’ve been curious about, but haven’t seen addressed anywhere, is if the AppleTV can stream pretty much any video from the local network? Not just the stuff you rent through iTunes. I’d like to rip my DVDs to a big network attached disk and be able to play them through the AppleTV. Can it do this? Will it support the DVD menus?

That is exactly my question too. It seems certain that you can convert movies to H.264 format, import them to iTunes, and stream them from there. But can you stream a DVD or a disk image without importing into iTunes?