First off I want to thank everyone for supporting Apple TV Junkie through out our first year of existence. Technically the site went live in February of ’08, but we’ll celebrate properly then.

Why don’t we leave ’08 with a year in review poll and the big question being, Did the Apple TV live up to your expectations this year? We did get Movie Rentals, and in HD, same day as DVD release purchase titles, the ability to purchase movie content, HD TV content and other various interface improvements.

Let us know what you think, Yay or Nay, by taking the poll to the right, and maybe leave a comment about what you would realistically like to see come to the Apple TV in ’09.

Everyone have a Safe and Happy New Year!

Below is the list of new HD Rentals that have been added to Apple TV.

It’s hard to believe that this will be the last Daily HD Rental post of the year, but with recent events regarding rentals and the Apple TV, I’ll be happy to ring in a new year where we can rent movies a little more conveniently.

So for today, as far as I can tell, we are only getting two new HD rental titles. Both of them would be The X-Fles: I Want To Believe and the Special Edition version of the same title. Again as far as I can tell, a general search in Apple TV will bring up this title to rent in HD as it seems as Apple has stopped listing new titles in the HD section of the Apple TV.

The X-Files: I Want To Believe (Special Edition)
The X-Files: I Want To Believe

Head on over to the HD Rentals page to see this weeks entire list of new titles.

The Showtime series The Tudor2, Season 2 is now available through the Apple TV and iTunes Store in HD.

Head on over to our HD TV Shows page to see the entire list of available HD TV Shows.

Below is the list of new HD Rentals that have been added to Apple TV.

Update – I have been able to find both Towelhead and Hancock (Rated Version) as HD rentals in Apple TV, but not your normal way, this also may work for the few of you not seeing TDK as a rental. Just search for a particular movie which may share the same actors which are either in Towelhead or Hancock. In this case, Aaron Eckhart in Meet Bill and Charlize Theron in the Italian Job (2003). Once you are in either of those movies screens in Apple TV click on the “More” button. This will take you to the “More Info” page with all of the actors listed. In the case of Charlize Theron, highlight her name and on the right you will see all the movies associated with her, including Hancock (Rated Version). Select Hancock and you should be presented with the ability to rent the title in HD. Again this should also work for Aaron Eckhart in Towelhead. Yes I know, crazy work around, but I would be interested to hear if anyone else can repeat this little trick.

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As of this posting there are no new HD rental additions today, technically there are no new additions this week at all. This explains why Apple dumped so many movies toward the beginning of last week before the Christmas Holiday, a lot of people must be taking the holiday break off at Apple.

A few more interesting “Rental” events to pay attention to today will be, one, the new purchase title Towelhead is to be released today. According to the affiliate link I can create for this movie, we should be able to Rent this title and in HD on Apple TV. You can see a screen shot of the iTunes page below. But, if I try and either do a general search for this title or click on the title in the Coming Soon section it does not show as a purchase or rental title yet. We’ll see if this titles release goes as smoothly as TDK, so far it’s not looking good. I will list this title as an HD rental once I am able to see it in Apple TV as a rental.

Second, I am expecting Hancock to be released as a rental title as well today. Again you can see the screen shot below stating the release date, and again, based on Apple’s successful release of TDK and even problems with Hellboy II I won’t be holding my breath.

Head on over to the HD Rentals page to see this weeks entire list of new titles.

System is a fantastic show over at Revision3. Every week they do some DIY geek stuff that well gets me excited, and this week is no exception. On this week’s episode Patrick and Roger start a DIY video jukebox; part 1 shows you how to rip your DVD collection and make it playable on a media extender, and of course our favorite the Apple TV. So get on over and watch or better yet download the HD version right to your Apple TV.

Update: A few months ago I wrote about a program called DVD43. If you are a PC guy like me this is a must have using DVD43 with handbrake makes ripping and encoding a snap.

“On a crisp Friday morning in October, the final truckload of VHS tapes rolled out of a Palm Harbor, Fla., warehouse run by Ryan J. Kugler, the last major supplier of the tapes.”

With one less competitor out of the way, Apple can now focus its all mighty media dominating power on trying to figure out how to distribute a digital file in a reliable way. Maybe Apple can borrow a few of those trucks formerly used to distribute loads of VHS tapes to stores and hand deliver movies the old fashioned way.

You can read all of the gory details about the demise of the VHS tape over at latimes.com.