Bruji

Hi - don't know whether you have fiddled with an Apple TV yet .. but your software is just what Apple TV requires. I have used DVDPedia for a few years... and really really miss the interface and information that it give me when I am assessing movies to view via my Apple TV.
Since the Apple TV is simply a slowish mac then I would guess (I'm not a developer/coder) that the modifications to make it work on an Apple TV would not be massive.
I envisage being able to have DVDPedia as a "front end" to the movies section of Apple TV and to scroll through the movies that I own and check them out for imdb ratings, synopsis, covers etc. Once I select a movie to view then DVDPedia would get this and stream it via iTunes... or know (because I have told it that it is on my boosted hard drive) to play it from my hard drive .. or tell me to go get the dvd from a cupboard and switch on my dvd player etc.
Your front end really is what is missing from Apple TV - I am sure that it would be a big seller.

DVDpedia works as you mentioned in that it can run on a Mac; many users use a Mac Mini for such purposes and DVDpedia as the media center. However to install Mac OS X and DVDpedia on an AppleTV you must hack it in a complicated procedure.

We do hope that in the future there will be a supported way for DVDpedia to interact with the AppleTV. At the moment it's a closed system.

Conor,

Apple brought the shareware program CoverFlow into their system integrating it into iTunes, AppleTV and the iPhone.

Do you think the Apple my be interested in working with you (or you with them?) to integrate DVDpedia into AppleTV. It would be a perfect fit. I'd love to have DVDpedia html sheet directly on my iPhone instead of accessing them over the web.

I do hope that both the AppleTV and the iPhone will become more open with time. They could both do with a Apple sanctioned way of integrating third party support. Mac OS X with each growing version number is more developer friendly and open to possibilities and although the comparison is not adequate we would like the AppleTV and iPhone as they mature to be as open (however, the iPod is quite mature and the only third party support is via some text notes). There is a lot of integration coming and these devices will be more open via those channels. (I fully expect the iPhone to be able to import widgets as little programs in the future).

There is nothing Apple needs from us that they couldn't roll out on their own (although it would be a thrill to work with Apple in any capacity). It is an inevitability that iTunes will sooner or later eat into our market. With the distribution of media on a digital format iTunes will become the one application to rule them all. Luckily for us it will be later rather than sooner as the movie studios continue to drag their heels in joining the new digital world.

Conor, I think perhaps a good strategy would be to be proactive with Itunes integration. Currently, the tools available for "tagging" video files are pretty shoddy, especially in comparison to dvdpedia, and Itunes offers almost zero native file tagging abilities (with the exception of adding cover art).

My vision for DVDPedia is as a shell for itunes. Like cdpedia, dvdpedia would read the itunes movie library and autopopulate a dvdpedia library with movie title, file location (dvdpedia link would be added), and cover art (just extract from itunes cover art), and any other information that has already been tagged to the file. From within dvdpedia, users could add information such as director, year, description, etc. for which there is a standard defined by atomic parsley to files for which this information is not already present. They could still use additional dvdpedia fields to keep track of additional information which will not be added to itunes in the near future (imdb #, etc.) On quitting dvdpedia, it would updated all tag information for itunes files.

As the program advanced, you could add features like multiple itunes library management, etc.

DVDPedia as a meta-manager is much more useful to me than as a completely separate library from itunes that I must keep up to date.