Help! BluRay MakeMKV to Apple TV .MKV .M2TS .TS files fail

I've found an easy way to convert .MKV files: use QuickTime. If you use QuickTime's pass-through settings when converting to a .mp4 file, it will use the same video portion of a .MKV file and only re-encode the audio. If you don't need a .mp4, maybe you could try doing this quickly with QuickTime then converting the .mp4 to whatever file format you need. I couldn't find any video converters that would actually convert .MKV files decently without a very noticeably hit on quality. QuickTime was the best option by far from what I found for the Mac.

If I were a betting man, I'd say that the problem was likely with the ffmpeg libraries HandBrake uses to read the file. ffmpeg has a known issue with interlaced VC-1 sources that I've run into with a Nine Inch Nails concert Bluray. There's been talk about fixing it for awhile now, but as far as I can tell no progress has been made.

What NightStorm said. The BBC use interlaced VC-1 encodes on their Blu-Ray releases, or at least the ones I have - notably Dr. Who.

There are two different Life blu-rays, the one narrated by David Attenborough is VC-1 1080p and the one with Oprah Winfrey is VC-1 1080i

As for the Dr Who blu-rays some are 1080p and some are 1080i, would it kill them to be consistent with there encoding

ichaddy said:

You know what - Quicktime did it!

MKV files straight into Quicktime and hit export with a custom mp4 1280x720 setting. I just changed the .mp4 to .m4v and it's ready for iTunes. Perfect.

Although it seems the backbone of this was Flip4Mac and I consequently purchased Flip4Mac WMV Player Pro at $28 for the pleasure of a non-watermarked export.

So, that's another piece of video software I didn't think I needed.

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Just a quick question. Are you using QT Pro with the Flip4mac plugin? I have a few movies in VC-1 1080i/25 that I just can't convert to mp4. This seems like the perfect solution but I just want to confirm.

ichaddy said:

Yes, I'm using Quicktime 7 Pro (found in apps/utilities) and Flip Pro Plugin.

Money well spent and the export has so far been perfect. (if a little slow as QT7 is only 32bit, not native 64bit like Handbrake)

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Thanks for the info mate. I've been looking for ages for a way to do VC-1 1080i!

How are you finding the quality vs Handbrake?

ichaddy said:

Really fantastic! The quality is just as good if not better than Handbrake.

I export from QT7 at 1280x720 at 25fps 2300kbs, H264 Audio 128mp4 so that if there's any spikes in the data rate the Apple TV will handle smoothly. 1hour of video is roughly 900mb.

The quality is perfect. My example encode was the BBC Life series which heavily uses slow frame rates on the video (to capture animals etc) , the playback is smooth as you like.

I'm happy.

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Great news. Thanks again for the invaluable info. Much appreciated.