Great thread.
My goal is to view HD movies on ATV2.
My favorite weapon to convert MKV to M4V (which is better than MP4) without (or with) conversion is: MKVTools. It smartly warns you when something in the original is not going to work by highlighting in red text. Here are my simple steps:
1. Open MKV source file in MVKTools.
2. Go to the MP4 tab.
3. Select AppleTV device.
4a. Select Pass Thru for Video when the source is already 1280x720 or smaller. No transcoding here, thus pretty quick turnaround time.
-or-
4b. Select H264 2-Pass and set the Resolution width to 1280 when the source is larger than 1280x720. This is transcoding the source file, which will take a long time.
5a. Select Pass Thru for Audio when the source is AC3 (5.1).
-or-
5b. Select AC3 (5.1) when the source is a 5.1 channel configuration (DTS, PCM, AAC). I've read that ATV2 will pass thru the AC3 audio and let the audio receiver decode AC3, which most current receivers can do (I don't have one yet). AAC will also work for ATV2, in fact I was doing a lot AAC before I read that ATV2 downmixes AAC 5.1 to stereo (this needs to be confirmed). I am still learning about AC3 vs AAC.
6. Click convert.
Re: Subtitles and Chapters. I haven't been able to mux in subtitles or chapters successfully. Sometimes they show up on my MBP but not ATV2. Or not show up at all entirely. (Update: I've gotten better results for subtitles now using Subler.)
I then use Subler, to add metadata, artwork, and the HD tag.
Also, I use Quicktime with Perian to inspect (Command-I) the MKV source file which tells me what the video and audio formats are beforehand.
MKVTools replaces Handbrake in my view for converting (or not) MKV to M4V. I'd look into Handbrake a little more, if I knew how it did Pass Thru video. Maybe it does not.
Thanks for this write-up. I downloaded a .mkv today which had the following:
Video: h624, 5712 kbps, 24fps, 1280 resolution
Audio: dts 6ch
My samsung LED tv I believe can actually .mkv files but the prob is that I don't have it set up to put sound out through the home theater system. The PS3, cable box etc are set up to.
So in order to utilize my home theater system, I have to convert to something the PS3 can play. I followed along on your write-up. Video was fine for the pass through but the audio gave me a red on the "Pass Thru" so I Went with AC3 (5.1) like you suggested.
After this is done I'll figure out what subler's all about so that I can get these subtitles ( in .srt format) in since the movie is in french.
One last question, in reply to this statement: " M4V (which is better than MP4) ", why is that? And how would I have selected to put it in that format? and if I did, would I have not been able to use w/ my PS3?
UPDATE: ok, it actually outputted a .m4v file (so my now other question is, how do I make it a .mp4 file? when would I want to do this?). The problem is that the resulting file (after putting in the .srt file via subler) was that it was 7.33 GB. The 8gb USB drive I had was originally in FAT format so I converted it to Mac Journaled in disk utility and the PS3 can't read it it seems. I think my option is to split but I don't know easiest way to go about that and how to handle it with a .srt in there
No ********!
To convert from x264 to H264 for playable via playstation 3:
Use:
MKV2VOB (
http://www.videohelp.com/tools/mkv2vob)
select always Transcode DTS and choice vob! The whole operation takes 30 second! maybe 1 minutes if the cpu is 5 years old! no quality loss everthing is the same! Like you wanted!
stumbled on this post after I already got started following sampdoria's instructions. Will keep in mind for next time.
Used this today, took about 20 min for a 4GB MKV file. Really nice app. Used about 9% of my processors.
http://www.shedworx.com/mkvwatch
I'd like to give htis a shot but it only converts the first give minutes for free