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Avi>iTunes>Apple Tv

T

ThisIsMatty

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 31, 2011
3
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So i bought my apple tv about 4 months ago and havent really got to add a bunch of movie liked i hoped. The problem is i can easily download movies but they are all in AVI. file format. So I have to convert them with handbrake, But with handbrake it takes way too long and would be impossible to convert 100's of movies & tv shows.

One option I try'd was saving the avi file in quicktime pro to refrence movie but the file won't even play in quicktime and of course it won't play in iTunes. Every program i found it for the Mac So I couldnt find anything for windows (7).

If anyone can lead me in the right direction that would be great!!

Thanks in advance for anyone who trys to help :)
 
You can queue up a bunch of the files on Handbrake. I would just make a queue of the movies and let them encode When you're going to sleep.
 
ATV can play xvid...

Use mp4 tools to remux to m4v and add an AAC audio track. No lengthy conversion times required.
 
Pretty much impossible right now.. Are you strictly trying to stream from your pc to your apple tv? Or do you have a ipad or iphone? If the later, you could use airvideo to live convert and stream to your apple tv, or when ios 5 is released they are implementing wireless mirroring which will basically be the same thing minus the live converting.
 
I use a program called iVI pro. Its on the app store and you can also get it from the developer directly.

It basically takes your avi file, does a lookup for the show/movie name and fills in all of the meta data and cover art etc them converts it and sticks it in iTunes. For 5.1 movies it creates an AAC stereo track too so that the files all work with the Apple TV 2.

I converted 1300 shows and 150 movies over the period of a week. Its supports passthrough for h264 files so they shoot through quickly.
 
irnchriz said:
I use a program called iVI pro. Its on the app store and you can also get it from the developer directly.

It basically takes your avi file, does a lookup for the show/movie name and fills in all of the meta data and cover art etc them converts it and sticks it in iTunes. For 5.1 movies it creates an AAC stereo track too so that the files all work with the Apple TV 2.

I converted 1300 shows and 150 movies over the period of a week. Its supports passthrough for h264 files so they shoot through quickly.
Click to expand...
Does it support h263 (which the OPs files are)?
 
You can also run them through MKV tools and save it as an MKV, it won't change anything other then the extension from avi to mkv.
 
ashman70 said:
You can also run them through MKV tools and save it as an MKV, it won't change anything other then the extension from avi to mkv.
Click to expand...

ATV doesn't support MKV any more than it supports AVI. MP4 tools will dump the h263 stream and convert audio to AAC, put it in an m4v container which ATV does support.
 
Boxee App with IPad

Converting all your movies through Handbrake is really your only long term option to having the best streaming library possible.

A short term option I went with since I have an IPad is use the free Boxee app - this allows you to stream any file format from your PC to your IPad and use Airplay to push it to your Apple TV.
 
Why do you even have AVIs?
if you have the source of the AVI you can obviously convert the source to the M4V file to play on your appletv.

BUt assuming that is not possible and I will presume it is not, stop downloading torrented avi crap files and get actual physical media and convert that way or atleast get a VOB file to convert in Handbrake for much better quality and compatibility not only on Mac/AppleTV but every computer.
 
Or just jailbreak your apple tv and put xbmc or something else on it.
That way you could just play all your avi's without lengthy conversions...
 
technologylive said:
Or just jailbreak your apple tv and put xbmc or something else on it.
That way you could just play all your avi's without lengthy conversions...
Click to expand...

How do i go about doing that? I know how to jailbreak my apple tv but after I jailbreak it what the process of using AVI files?
 
Guys it sounds like the OP is using Windows (7) so none of these Mac solutions are going to be much help...

I agree that XBMC is a good solution, but there might be a Windows program that will remux an AVI file to MP4/M4V while converting the audio to AAC? Avidemux is available for all platforms and I've used it on the Mac to remux AVIs to MP4. You could try it on Windows: http://avidemux.sourceforge.net/

Whether it will work of course depends on what's in the AVI file. It's true that most of them contain MPEG-4 Part 2 playable video (e.g. Xvid) which iTunes and the ATV will accept up to 640 x 480. But there could be anything in there.
 
install XBMC as others have suggested (seasonpass / greenpois0n), its what i use and its perfect for conecting to my NAS where all my movies are, and i dont have to care about file formats as they all work.

If you need to encode any in itunes friendly format (mp4/m4v) then use handbrake (also available for windows), this is what i do if there are any movies or tv shows i want to watch on the ipad.
 
iVI is simply the way to go. I have an 8TB NAS with nearly every TV show and movie you can possibly suggest. I've converted all of my DVDs and downloads with that program. I literally just drop the files/disc into the program and press Convert All. It "just works". And it organizes all of the metadata and cover art for you. It looks pro as can be.

Now, myself or my wife can watch anything on the ATV, drag and drop to an Ipad whenever we want, or stream over 3G/Wi-FI with a 3rd party program anywhere in the world.

I almost don't understand how any other solution can be better.
 
peterjcat said:
Whether it will work of course depends on what's in the AVI file. It's true that most of them contain MPEG-4 Part 2 playable video (e.g. Xvid) which iTunes and the ATV will accept up to 640 x 480. But there could be anything in there.
Click to expand...
but is that a real restriction? I mean, Apple claims that Main profile is the limit for ATV when it actually handles High@L4.1 with no trouble (from what I've heard about people remuxing 'MKVs').
 
AdrianK said:
but is that a real restriction? I mean, Apple claims that Main profile is the limit for ATV when it actually handles High@L4.1 with no trouble (from what I've heard about people remuxing 'MKVs').
Click to expand...

Actually it seems like it's only a real restriction for syncing (with iTunes), not streaming. Apple is indeed conservative in its listed specs.
 
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