www.makemkv.com

I have a home theater PC and have about 140 movies on my HD (that I have copied from DVDs I own). I have used MakeMKV exclusively to rip to DVDs into a single folder called VIDEOS. I also have, for another TV, a first gen Apple TV. From iTunes, I have selected the VIDEO folder on the HTPC to import for the Apple TV. Less than half of the movies show up in iTunes for me to transfer to the ATV. All the movies were ripped using the default settings. How can I get the missing movies onto the Apple TV?

iTunes does not support MPEG-2/MKV videos.

Using it's import function if it at all worked meant it was converting the videos into H.264/M4V format. If you want to convert the media use Handbrake to generate compatible video.

What you should really do is generate a patchstick then install XBMC on the ATV1 from there you can play the videos in XBMC without any conversion.

I'm going to use the ATV in my motorhome, so no internet, no streaming. Can I get the .mkv videos on the ATV without using iTunes?

You should make this request to iTunes software team.
(or just stop using iTunes.)

The best shoot should be reencode with (handbrake) or unjoin/rejoin to mp4 format.

Good luck

thanks, all. I did as suggested w/handbrake and all is well.