In addition to its lack of 5.1 channel audio support, the Apple TV doesn’t support a wide variety of video formats. Although Apple stresses that the Apple TV is designed for use with the media files in your iTunes library, many people will want to play media files that iTunes doesn’t support, such as DivX, AVI, and Windows Media video files, which are commonly found on the Web. The Apple TV supports only MPEG-4 and its variant, H.264. There are tools aplenty for transcoding video to a format compatible with the Apple TV, but it would be nice if either the device played additional formats natively or Apple included a tool for easily transcoding video within iTunes, in the same way that you can now convert audio within the program.
In this regard, Apple is limited more by media companies than its own desire to provide the tools its customers want to convert their commercial DVDs. The Apple TV is the perfect destination for commercial DVDs that you’ve ripped from your personal movie library, but such a practice is of questionable legality, and I understand Apple’s desire to stay on the right side of the law (and appease its media partners). On the other hand, transcoding unprotected media files is a different matter, and one that I hope Apple will pursue
In this regard, Apple is limited more by media companies than its own desire to provide the tools its customers want to convert their commercial DVDs. The Apple TV is the perfect destination for commercial DVDs that you’ve ripped from your personal movie library, but such a practice is of questionable legality, and I understand Apple’s desire to stay on the right side of the law (and appease its media partners). On the other hand, transcoding unprotected media files is a different matter, and one that I hope Apple will pursue
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