How do I play DVDs through Apple TV on my HD TV?

Is your Mac compatible and running Mountain Lion - see feature specific requirements here:

http://www.apple.com/uk/osx/specs/

I have a bunch of mkv files that I usually run through a third party app as a pass-through to turn them into .mp4 files which my PS3 will recognise (and Apple TV).

But with Mountain Lion, all of these files are now silent - each has AC3 audio, and a quick Google tells me that AC3 audio no longer works in Mountain Lion. Is this the case, or am I doing something wrong?

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If you have a Mac supporting Airplay Mirroring, you could play the DVD on your Mac and then mirror the Mac's entire display to the Apple TV. Or you could purchase an app like Airparrot that lets you Airplay Mirror your Mac's display if it isn't officially supported by Apple. Another option is that you rip a copy of the DVD using Handbrake and add it to iTunes, then Airplay it to your ATV from iTunes. (Of course, you need to legally own the DVD to be allowed to do this).

VLC worked like a charm the first time I played a dvd. The second time it started stuttering bad. I googled help for that ("how to fix stuttering on VLC") and found you tube video explaining how to fix that. It works like a charm again!

Leaving aside the issue of most DVD's being copy protected (we can't discuss copy protection circumvention here, but not all DVD's are copy protected, so...)

People use Handbrake to convert video files to the best format for the Apple TV, then inport that into iTunes. If you know you want to watch a movie and are willing to wait for the conversion to occur, this is a good idea. Handbrake can convert directly from (unprotected) DVD to an AppleTV friendly file.

BUT I've always wanted to try this method http://www.tuaw.com/2010/12/21/dvds-are-playing-back-on-my-apple-tv-and-its-not- really-that/ which uses VLC in a real-time streaming from terminal, then uses airflick to send the stream to your apple TV. In between VLC and Airflick you need to activate the apache webserver on your computer. It all seems very daunting in principal, but it looks like it might actually be easy as long as you have a few clues and some skills with the Terminal program. The post is from 2010 but I'm assuming it would still work pretty much the same -- neither VLC nor Airflick have changed much AFAIK.

Sorry to bother as it's an old thread... but have anyone tried hooking macbook with Apple TV with HDMI cable? Would Apple TV read DVDs from the internal DVD ROM directly?

no it would not in terms of hdmi on the Apple TV it's output only and video signal only

and even if the appletv's hdmi port was bidirectional and supported networking over hdmi and dvd's were not drm protected

then how would you get the tv to display what the Apple TV was playing when the hdmi port was being used as input from the macbook

but on the other hand if you connected your macbook directly to your tv's hdmi port without mixing the Apple TV into it then the tv would display the dvd being played on the macbook on the tv screen too

Thank you Rudegar, I was really confused by the Apple TV as it's the first time for me to try a streaming box. Guess I'll try connecting mac to TV directly. Btw I googled and found a guide with exactly the same title with this topic...have anyone tried this ripping tool? Does it really make a DVD copy that work both on my macbook and Apple TV3?

How do I play DVDs through Apple TV on my HD TV via Mac?

You can use VLC to stream the DVDs and mirror your entire display to the Apple TV. http://streaming-blog.com/watching-dvd-apple-tv-airplay/