MKV to MP4 for AppleTV

MP4Tools is what you are looking for (as long as the mkv contains h264/x264 video)

If the contents of the file are ATV 2/3 compatible, then you want Subler.

A.

chenks said:

I do know that the AppleTV needs 2 audio tracks (AAC and AC3 pass-thru), but when I quickly tried MP4Tools, it created an M4V file that only had the AC3 audio track?

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You need to check the "add a 2-channel track" box, that will add an AAC track in addition to the AC3 track.

Yes, just don't forget to set Device to "Apple TV." All it really does is make sure the output file gets the .m4v extension instead of mp4.

Bill.the.Cat said:

Yes, just don't forget to set Device to "Apple TV." All it really does is make sure the output file gets the .m4v extension instead of mp4.

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does that actually matter? the tech specs says it supports .m4v .mp4 and .mov

chenks said:

is some instance it does matter.
for example if the file has an MP4 extension, sometimes chapters don't work. but change the extension to M4V and they do.

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ah that's good to know

chenks said:

got this prompt appear when working on one file.
something to be concerned about? and what is the appropriate response for what I am doing?

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The answer is sometimes. It doesn't hurt to let MP4Tools remux the mkv to remove the header compression. Then load up the remuxed mkv and then convert that to mp4. Skipping this sometimes doesn't seem to result in any problems but sometimes I have had problems with the converted .mp4 behaving in weird ways (i.e. one audio track refuses to play).

Please help a newbie here. I'm wondering if there should be some adjustments to the video frame rate, and the audio bit rate for my "soon to arrive" ATV3. Does this look ok? Isn't the audio bitrate to high? Should I use 29.97 for the frame rate?

littfam said:

Please help a newbie here. I'm wondering if there should be some adjustments to the video frame rate, and the audio bit rate for my "soon to arrive" ATV3. Does this look ok? Isn't the audio bitrate to high? Should I use 29.97 for the frame rate?

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Don't change the framerate. Audio would be out of sync.

BTW, if you want to keep the subs, you can check those and choose mux (soft). This would allow you to turn subs on/off during playback.

Sedulous said:

BTW, if you want to keep the subs, you can check those and choose mux (soft). This would allow you to turn subs on/off during playback.

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Though, unless the handling of soft subs changes on the aTV3 from the aTV2, you won't be able to turn them on. The aTV2 will only play back closed-captions (or hard subs of course)

chenks said:

got round to testing playback on the AppleTV (v2) today, and all seems OK so far.

One strange anomaly is that iTunes thinks the file is 720P even though the resolution is actually 1920x800.

Guess there must be yet another iTunes meta tag somewhere that tells it whether it is 720P or 1080P.

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My guess is the calculation is based on the vertical resolution more then the horizontal. Since the vertical at 800p is closer to 720p then 1080 - it went with tagging the file at 720.

Just a wild guess though.

slothrob said:

Though, unless the handling of soft subs changes on the aTV3 from the aTV2, you won't be able to turn them on. The aTV2 will only play back closed-captions (or hard subs of course)

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You can turn off and on subs now with the ATV2 -it allows selection of multiple soft subs. Just hold down the select button while a movie is playing and you can change the subtitle track or the audio track selected.

Nice if you want to include a commentary track in your movie.

chenks said:

adding a few more with varying resolutions above 720, so will see what those come out as.

as a side note, the tracks have a stereo and 5.1 audio track (both English), when selecting a different audio track on the AppleTV, they are both just listed as "English" so know quick way of telling which is which. Is there a way to set it so that it shows what each track actually is ?

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nope it's not that.
added a full 1920x1080 file and it still reckons it's 720P

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probably a hidden meta tag somewhere that defaults to 720P unless specifically changed.

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That's interesting. I've never even tried feeding a 1080p file to iTunes. Maybe it is a bug since 1080p is a new "thing" for the iTunes ecosystem?

chenks said:

as a side note, the tracks have a stereo and 5.1 audio track (both English), when selecting a different audio track on the AppleTV, they are both just listed as "English" so know quick way of telling which is which. Is there a way to set it so that it shows what each track actually is ?

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No I don't - I know in Subler you can select the language of the track. I've never actually tried changing it to anything but english. Maybe instead of English you could put "AAC" or something along those lines to distinguish tracks.

Which ever is the "selected" track should be the one that plays by default (which also means if you have more then one audio track only one should be selected) but it's something I never played around with.

In regards to the 1080p tag - I'm guessing you are right. I guess we would have to open a new iTunes 1080p file and see what it's meta tags are. Previously Apple just tagged hi-def as HD. I guess now they are distinguishing it.

Edit:

The latest beta of Subler allows 1080p tagging.

chenks said:

yeah that will be it.
the original HD tag is probably now the "720P HD" tag. so apps like Subler and MP4Tools etc will probably need to update to support the new 2 tier HD tag.

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Check out the latest beta of Subler (15 beta 3). He added support for 1080P tagging. It's also a pretty sweet tool that auto adds other meta tags (description, directors, etc).

slothrob said:

Though, unless the handling of soft subs changes on the aTV3 from the aTV2, you won't be able to turn them on. The aTV2 will only play back closed-captions (or hard subs of course)

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That is not true. If a video has soft subs, press and hold select during playback (the button in the center of the directional wheel). A menu will appear allowing you to select a soft subtitle.