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Purakane

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 27, 2011
11
0
Hey guys,
Is there a way to upload my movies which are in .avi .mkv to itunes on my mac. Then stream it on my tv via apple tv gen2?

Is there a step by step I can follow?

Thus far i'm guessing the first step would be to convert the video files to. .mov? so i can upload to itunes.

Do i need to jailbreak my apple tv? Do i need xbmc? (My goal is to watch high quality 720p/1080p movies on my 70" LED tv.)

thanks
 

upaymeifixit

macrumors 6502a
Feb 13, 2009
787
1
Hey guys,
Is there a way to upload my movies which are in .avi .mkv to itunes on my mac. Then stream it on my tv via apple tv gen2?

Is there a step by step I can follow?

Thus far i'm guessing the first step would be to convert the video files to. .mov? so i can upload to itunes.

Do i need to jailbreak my apple tv? Do i need xbmc? (My goal is to watch high quality 720p/1080p movies on my 70" LED tv.)

thanks

The first step would be to convert the video to .mov (or some other compatible format) using a program like HandBrake.

From there I have never done it, but I think you can do something like that with Home Sharing on iTunes.

Keep in mind your only going to get 720p at 30FPS without jailbreaking.
 

Purakane

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 27, 2011
11
0
The first step would be to convert the video to .mov (or some other compatible format) using a program like HandBrake.

From there I have never done it, but I think you can do something like that with Home Sharing on iTunes.

Keep in mind your only going to get 720p at 30FPS without jailbreaking.

720p at 30fps is slow right? it should be 60fps?

so then once I jail break it with xcmb what will the fps be?
 

brand

macrumors 601
Oct 3, 2006
4,390
456
127.0.0.1
720p at 30fps is slow right? it should be 60fps?

so then once I jail break it with xcmb what will the fps be?

I assume that you meant XBMC and not xcmb. XBMC is a media player and not a jail breaking tool so you would use XBMC after jailbreaking the AppleTV. FPS does not change after the AppleTV is jailbroken.
 

upaymeifixit

macrumors 6502a
Feb 13, 2009
787
1
720p at 30fps is slow right? it should be 60fps?

so then once I jail break it with xcmb what will the fps be?

Well, 30FPS isn't that bad for watching things on. It's not great for playing games on though. The bad part is the 720p. Your TV probably supports 1080p, so you would be loosing out there.

I am pretty sure there are programs that will allow you to play in 1080p, but I don't know what they are. I would Google: AppleTV 1080p
 

peterjcat

macrumors 6502
Jun 14, 2010
457
1
There is no way for an ATV2 to display 1080p content at 1080p. There are ways to make it play, but it will always be downscaled to 720p.

There is basically no commercially produced video content available at higher than 30fps so it's only a limitation if you want to play your own home movies.

You can repackage your AVI and MKV files as iTunes-compatible MP4/M4V files using iFlicks, Subler or MP4Tools without having to convert the video. There's no guarantee they will play as the underlying video may have been encoded using wacky settings, but in my experience most things play.

Or you can jailbreak your ATV2 and play them with XBMC without having to repackage or reconvert. Alternatively you can use Plex which will convert or repackage the files on the fly as needed, though conversion (but not repackaging) will always result in some loss of quality.
 

Purakane

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 27, 2011
11
0
There is basically no commercially produced video content available at higher than 30fps so it's only a limitation if you want to play your own home movies.

What do you mean? please elaborate. Are you saying blu rays and dvds are all below 30 fps and that I need a program to boost it up??


You can repackage your AVI and MKV files as iTunes-compatible MP4/M4V files using iFlicks, Subler or MP4Tools without having to convert the video. There's no guarantee they will play as the underlying video may have been encoded using wacky settings, but in my experience most things play.

Or you can jailbreak your ATV2 and play them with XBMC without having to repackage or reconvert. Alternatively you can use Plex which will convert or repackage the files on the fly as needed, though conversion (but not repackaging) will always result in some loss of quality.

So once I jail break my AP2 I can access movies on my mac hard drive that isn't loaded to itunes?


Btw apples coming out with a 1080p capable apple tv
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2...le-tv-rumored-to-be-going-1080p-this-fall.ars
 

upaymeifixit

macrumors 6502a
Feb 13, 2009
787
1
What do you mean? please elaborate. Are you saying blu rays and dvds are all below 30 fps and that I need a program to boost it up??

So once I jail break my AP2 I can access movies on my mac hard drive that isn't loaded to itunes?

Btw apples coming out with a 1080p capable apple tv
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2...le-tv-rumored-to-be-going-1080p-this-fall.ars

I think what he meant by that is that there is no 60FPS content available to be played. I don't think that is right though.

Don't worry about the FPS though, even if you did find some way to push out 60FPS, it wouldn't be worth the trouble. You won't notice a difference in picture quality, and the average person can't even really tell the difference between 30 and 60FPS.

I don't remember anyone saying anything about accessing movies on your hard drive that are not in iTunes. I suppose there might be a program to that if you jailbreak, but I don't think it's work jailbreaking over. Just add the videos to iTunes, set up Home Sharing, and test it.
 

peterjcat

macrumors 6502
Jun 14, 2010
457
1
Isn't NTSC 60FPS?

NTSC is 60 interlaced fields per second, rather than frames (a field is half a frame). However that reminds me that some 720p broadcasts are shot at 60fps so if you've recorded one of those off TV you won't be able to play all the frames on the ATV. That's almost entirely sports and occasionally concerts though, just about all TV shows are shot at 60 fields or 24 frames, and all movies at 24 frames; and no, there are no commercial DVDs or Blu-rays at more than 30 frames but they don't need to be boosted by software, the ATV2 will do that just by repeating frames as necessary.
 

peterjcat

macrumors 6502
Jun 14, 2010
457
1
So once I jail break my AP2 I can access movies on my mac hard drive that isn't loaded to itunes?

Yes, if you jailbreak and install either XBMC or Plex they will play movies on your Mac (or on network storage) that aren't in iTunes.
 

Purakane

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 27, 2011
11
0
Yes, if you jailbreak and install either XBMC or Plex they will play movies on your Mac (or on network storage) that aren't in iTunes.

thank you peter and if I don't jailbreak, I can just convert the avi/mkv files into .mov or m4v and drag into itunes then stream off ATV2?

Will this be same as blu ray quality?
Should I wait for the 1080p ATV3 coming out OCT?
Or Should I avoid ATV altogether and get this? I want blu ray quality not dvd.

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/370536889329?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649
 

newagemac

macrumors 68020
Mar 31, 2010
2,091
23
There is a huge difference between DVD quality and Blu Ray quality. The Apple TV supports far, far better than DVD quality. But you can't get Blu Ray quality on ANY box other than playing it right off of the Blu Ray disc.

By the way, Blu Ray is in 24 FPS so the frame rate Apple TV supports is not a limitation.

You mentioned you had .avi files. AVI is old technology and anything you have in avi is nowhere near Blu Ray quality. The Apple TV supports the superior and more modern h.264/m4v format. Unless you sit very close to the screen on a very large TV, you likely won't be able to nice a difference between 720p and 1080p.

The biggest difference between Blu Ray and other sources is that Blu Ray streams much higher bit rates. MKv files downloaded from the internet usually aren't very high bit rate so they don't really compare to Blu Ray either.

You can rip your Blu Ray disc with Handbrake on the ATV2 preset and get near Blu Ray quality that plays on the Apple TV and you can play with the settings to get higher bit rates but you'll be increasing the file size significantly with relatively little gain in quality.

To put it simply, the ATV2 preset in Handbrake produces a very good quality HD video at an amazingly small file size. None of the videos I've created with it left me wanting higher video quality.
 

upaymeifixit

macrumors 6502a
Feb 13, 2009
787
1
NTSC is 60 interlaced fields per second, rather than frames (a field is half a frame). However that reminds me that some 720p broadcasts are shot at 60fps so if you've recorded one of those off TV you won't be able to play all the frames on the ATV. That's almost entirely sports and occasionally concerts though, just about all TV shows are shot at 60 fields or 24 frames, and all movies at 24 frames; and no, there are no commercial DVDs or Blu-rays at more than 30 frames but they don't need to be boosted by software, the ATV2 will do that just by repeating frames as necessary.

I have learned a lot from this thread.
 

DustinT

macrumors 68000
Feb 26, 2011
1,556
0
iFlicks is a one stop shop for what you need. Very easy to use... just do it.
 
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