iFlicks question...

[GarrettL1979]

Originally Posted by Che Castro

I tested 7 mkv movies & they all played fine on the Apple TV

Seems like they would take a long time to load, no?

[Che Castro]

Originally Posted by GarrettL1979

Seems like they would take a long time to load, no?

They all loaded right away on the Apple TV

What do mean ?

I have a fast connection & I'm wired

[GarrettL1979]

Originally Posted by Che Castro

They all loaded right away on the Apple TV

What do mean ?

I have a fast connection & I'm wired

It just seems like a 30-40 GB file would load more slowly than a 6-10 GB one. Guess that's not the case?

[mic j]

Originally Posted by GarrettL1979

It just seems like a 30-40 GB file would load more slowly than a 6-10 GB one. Guess that's not the case?

Not necessarily. The movie will start playing once a sufficient about of the movie has been buffered. However, if your network cannot feed the buffer fast enough, you will experience pauses in playback while the buffer fills back up.

[Che Castro]

Originally Posted by GarrettL1979

It just seems like a 30-40 GB file would load more slowly than a 6-10 GB one. Guess that's not the case?

These are 1gb mkv files



I have another question


If I add a movie to iTunes from my hardrive & then I move that movie to another location on my drive ,will iTunes still find it automatically ?

[GarrettL1979]

Originally Posted by mic j

The movie will start playing once a sufficient about of the movie has been buffered.

Wouldn't this take longer with a larger file though?

[mic j]

Originally Posted by GarrettL1979

Wouldn't this take longer with a larger file though?

No, I don't think so. Say it takes 1GB of streamed data in buffer to start to play. It wouldn't make any difference if that 1GB came off a 5GB file or 50GB file.

[Che Castro]

My iTunes question?

[mic j]

Originally Posted by Che Castro

My iTunes question?

Not sure.

[Che Castro]

One more thing

I have an AirPort Extreme

I want to get another Apple TV for the guest room, I already have the AirPort Extreme setup for a guest account
Can my guest connect to my iTunes home sharing movies using the guest account wifi ?

, and can they airplay to the Apple TV from there phone using the guest wifi ?

[DP812]

Originally Posted by Che Castro

If I add a movie to iTunes from my hardrive & then I move that movie to another location on my drive ,will iTunes still find it automatically ?

There's an easy way to find out. Try moving one movie, then go into iTunes, right-click the movie and select Show In Finder (or choose Get Info and see what the file path is). If it shows the correct path, then you know it works.

Originally Posted by Che Castro

I have an AirPort Extreme

I want to get another Apple TV for the guest room, I already have the AirPort Extreme setup for a guest account
Can my guest connect to my iTunes home sharing movies using the guest account wifi ?

, and can they airplay to the Apple TV from there phone using the guest wifi ?

Two Apple TVs can work with the same iTunes library. But as far as iTunes sharing on the guest network and the main network, that I don't know. From what I understand, guest networks are pretty much only for accessing the Internet and not accessing your files.

Again, easiest way to find the answer is to try it. You've got everything you need. Switch your Apple TV to your guest network and see if AirPlay and computer sharing still work.

[Che Castro]

Ok I converted all my mkvs using iflicks

Everything works fine on the Apple TV , I know you can control which movie to play using your ipad
But is there a search option on the Apple TV home sharing ?
I only see 3 tabs genre- movies-new. I don't see an option to search

Is there a button on the remote I can press to bring out search ?

I can search from my ipad or iPhone but I'm wondering if I can search for movies on the Apple TV

[DP812]

You can only search through the iTunes Store. There's no search option for home sharing (for some bizarre reason). Also no alternate views like coverflow or grid view, just the Front Row.

[bohbot16]

Originally Posted by Che Castro

One more thing

I have an AirPort Extreme

I want to get another Apple TV for the guest room, I already have the AirPort Extreme setup for a guest account
Can my guest connect to my iTunes home sharing movies using the guest account wifi ?

, and can they airplay to the Apple TV from there phone using the guest wifi ?

No, one of the points of the guest account feature is that it's a separate network from the main one.

[GarrettL1979]

Originally Posted by mic j

No, I don't think so. Say it takes 1GB of streamed data in buffer to start to play. It wouldn't make any difference if that 1GB came off a 5GB file or 50GB file.

Good point.

[MonkeySee....]

I tried iFlicks but IDentify 2 is so easy I can't do with out it.

[Che Castro]

Originally Posted by MonkeySee....

I tried iFlicks but IDentify 2 is so easy I can't do with out it.

Iflicks is the easiest program I have ever used

Now subler I didn't get

[Che Castro]

Another question

I have some old avi files , they don't have the highest resolution so when I convert them in iflicks using the Apple TV 3 preset
Most of the avi have black bars on the right and left side when I play them on my Apple TV
Is there a way to make it full screen

[bohbot16]

Originally Posted by Che Castro

Another question

I have some old avi files , they don't have the highest resolution so when I convert them in iflicks using the Apple TV 3 preset
Most of the avi have black bars on the right and left side when I play them on my Apple TV
Is there a way to make it full screen

The Apple TV doesn't have a wide stretch mode. You're better off trying to stretch it using your TV's settings.

[Che Castro]

Is there a way to add a recently watched tab on Apple TV home sharing , like Netflix has

[DP812]

Originally Posted by Che Castro

Another question

I have some old avi files , they don't have the highest resolution so when I convert them in iflicks using the Apple TV 3 preset
Most of the avi have black bars on the right and left side when I play them on my Apple TV
Is there a way to make it full screen

Are these files TV shows? If so, you should keep in mind that those black bars are probably due to the aspect ratio as TV shows used to utilize the 4:3 ratio. If you want to change the aspect ratio, then once again, you should pick up a copy of Handbrake. It's free and it can do a lot more than iFlicks can, including changing the aspect ratio.

Originally Posted by Che Castro

Is there a way to add a recently watched tab on Apple TV home sharing , like Netflix has

No. The only kind of customization you can do on the Apple TV 3 is rearranging the app icons on the main menu. If you want to do anything more than that, you'll need to pick up an Apple TV 2 and jailbreak it.

[hafr]

Originally Posted by Che Castro

These are 1gb mkv files



I have another question


If I add a movie to iTunes from my hardrive & then I move that movie to another location on my drive ,will iTunes still find it automatically ?

If iTunes is running, and you're moving it on the same drive, then yes - since the file location is updated in real time. If you're moving it to another drive, internal or external, then no. In that case you'll have to locate it manually.

[hafr]

Originally Posted by mic j

No, I don't think so. Say it takes 1GB of streamed data in buffer to start to play. It wouldn't make any difference if that 1GB came off a 5GB file or 50GB file.

It doesn't work that way. The ATV will look at the size of the file and the transfer speed, then it starts playing when it thinks that it has buffered enough in order for the film not to stop during playback.

For instance, if you have a two hour long movie that weighs in at 5 GB, that's an average bit rate of 40 960/7 200= 5.7 Mbps. Say you've got a crappy wifi connection and you only get 2,85 Mbps (half), then the movie wouldn't (shouldn't) start playing until after about an hour worth of buffering. If you've got 5.7 or above, it will start playing pretty much as soon as it can (maybe the drive from which you're playing need to spin up first, and it will definitely need to transfer for a second or two before having decided the transfer speed).

So, for an instant (as instant as possible) playback of a 5 GB, two hour long movie, you just need to have a connection that's faster than 5.7 Mbps. For a 50 GB movie, it would be 56.9 Mbps (7.1 MBps, which by the way is more than what any ATV handles in terms of wireless transfer which is capped at 56 Mbps, and you'll experience buffer issues during action scenes, where the bit rate will reach above the 100 Mbps wired transfer limit).

[Idgit]

Menneisyys,

There's a much easier way to tell if an MP4/M4V has been optimized. Use Atom Inspector from the Quicktime Developers page.

And iFlicks does not appear to optimize MP4/M4Vs after updating metadata. If you update your movies in iTunes via iFlicks, you'll have to re-optimize them using Subler or iDentify.

Originally Posted by Menneisyys2

iFlicks does optimize automatically its remuxed output while remuxing (and this can't be disabled, even if you absolutely don't need to waste time on this) - I think this might be the case when adding metadata.

BTW, it's very easy to quickly test whether an MP4 (mov / m4v) file is optimized. Here's a full tutorial on it (I copy it here in its entirety as I don't want to promote my blog by just giving you a link to the original. Sorry for the length: when writing tutorials, I tend to be as clear as possible):

Apple TV users and Streaming Video Providers attention: deciding if a video file is optimized

In yesterday's article, along with a lot of benchmark data, I've explained the advantages of optimizing your iOS- and Apple TV-native (that is, MP4, MOV or M4V) video files, should you want to stream it or watch it from a, head seek-wise, inherently slow(ish) medium like an optical disc or a traditional hard disk.

In the current one, I explain how you can find out whether a video is indeed optimized or not. That way, you can save you a lot of time by avoiding re-optimizing it. If the tool you use allows it at all – for example, iFlicks or MP4Tools don't allow for separate optimizations, “only” during at the end of a full, (compared to a quick, manual checking) time-consuming remuxing. (Subler, of course, does it – see yesterday's article on using this feature.)

It's very-very easy to find out whether a particular video file is optimized. I show you two ways of doing it.

[Menneisyys2]

Originally Posted by Idgit

Menneisyys,

There's a much easier way to tell if an MP4/M4V has been optimized. Use Atom Inspector from the Quicktime Developers page.

Yup, I should have added it's much easier to find out where the moov atom is by just looking at the order of atoms in the upper left corner: whether mdat is before moov (non-optimized case) or after it (optimized one). In both isoviewer (the one I recommended) and, of course, Atom Inspector. Will add the info promptly.

BTW, do you know a built-in function of Atom Inspector to do this - that is, not to rely on the user to check out the order of those two atoms?

BTW2, I noticed Atom Inspector (as opposed to isoviewer) can both edit and, unlike isoviewer, save(!) changes in MP4 (MOV etc.) files. However, it doesn't convert for example the atom/box type for AVC / H.264 (more info at http://thompsonng.blogspot.com/2010/...at-part-2.html ) to human-friendly names (unlike isoviewer - see my last screenshot above), which makes it harder to edit e.g. AVCLevelIndication. Do you know whether this will be fixed some time?

EDIT: here's my quick tutorial addition:

In my previous article, I've shown you some ways of finding out whether a video file is optimized. (Optimizing videos is of extreme importance if you stream them to iOS devices, particularly to Apple TV's. Check out my previous article on how optimization needs to be done - with, for example, the absolutely excellent Subler - if you encounter a non-optimized video.)

At MacRumors, user “Idgit” pointed my attention to Apple's own “Atom Inspector” (available for download HERE; download requires a free Apple Developer account.)

With that (or any video atom lister app keeping the order of the atoms, including ISO Viewer), it's even easier to decide whether a video is optimized for streaming or not. Just check out the relative order of the “mdat” and the “moov” top-level entries in the list. If “moov” is before “mdat”, the file is optimized; if it isn't, then, un-optimized.

An example with THIS optimized video (linked from the Closed Captioning bible):



As you can see, “moov” is before “mdat” (I've annotated both); that is, the file is indeed optimized.

Now, let's see an example of a non-optimized video (HERE):



As you can see, the order is just the opposite (“moov” is after “mdat”) showing the file isn't optimized.

What about ISO Viewer?

Incidentally, the same applies to the, as opposed to Apple's tool, multiplatform (Java-based) ISO Viewer, of which I've already talked about in my previous article. The respective screenshots of the two files loaded to ISO Viewer (I also annotated the entries the relative order of which you'll need to check out):



(Optimized)



(Non-optimized)

Other, useful features of Atom Inspector

Atom Inspector (as opposed to ISO Viewer) can both edit and, unlike ISO Viewer, save(!) changes in MP4 (MOV etc.) files. However, it doesn't convert for example the atom/box type for AVC / H.264 (more info HERE; it's the same value that I annotated in the last screenshot of my previous article) to human-friendly names, which makes it harder to edit e.g. AVCLevelIndication. An example shot; in this case, the AVC Decoder Configuration Record is annotated by me:



As you can see, all you can see (and edit) are hex values, not human-readable names. However, using the standard (or the above-mentioned article), it's fairly easy to navigate the file and edit the values you need.