Can Apple TV play x264?

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tveric said:

I know it can play h.264. Does that mean it can play x264? Has anyone actually done this with an HD x264 file?

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I did not understand x264 is an encoder. I never use that side of Handbrake. Yes it should. Sorry.

Isn't x264 just an encoder for H.264? So I'm pretty sure it would play. After all apparently Handbrake (now merged with mediafork) use it to rip DVD's to H.264.

The x264 is just an open-source H.264 encoder. There isn't such thing as a x264-file.

I dont think there would be any video out there are formatted with .x264

ilovewoody said:

I dont think there would be any video out there are formatted with .x264

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With all the complaints about no DivX support, I was wondering if there was something out there.

A few sites list x264 files for TV episodes, especially for popular shows like Lost. They are x264, 720p ".mkv" files. They are either 700MB or more often 1GB, instead of what looks like a standard 350MB

I assume that these are the closest thing to AppleTV format as you are likely to find (but maybe they aren't 24fps?). Given that the handbrake forums say that their x264 works for AppleTV, maybe it's all fine.

Anyway, would the .mkv container format be recognised by iTunes? Is there a way to simply switch the container to .mov without re-encoding the h264?

GregA said:

Anyway, would the .mkv container format be recognised by iTunes? Is there a way to simply switch the container to .mov without re-encoding the h264?

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Apple TV works with .mp4 and .m4v files, I'm pretty sure .mkv files won't work and maybe even not .mov (unless it only serves as a wrapper for MPEG-4 or H.264 video with AAC audio).

If the data inside the .mkv files is real MPEG-4 or H.264 video data, along with AAC audio, then a simple "rewrapper" program should be able to rewrite the data inside a standard .mp4 file.