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BD-ISO to AppleTV format

B

browerjs

macrumors member
Original poster
So I'm in the process of thinking about moving from PC to Mac (for my daily computing), and in my transition, I'm also contemplating switching from my Netgear NeoTV550 media streamer to an Apple TV.

Currently I have all my BluRays ripped to movie only BD-ISOs with no quality loss, and I stream these from a 8TB Netgear ReadyNAS.

I would like to maintain zero compression with the AppleTV (if possible), so what do I need to do?

I will probably do further ripping of my BDs on a Windows PC, so I don't have to worry about finding a USB BD player to hook into a Mac.

So I guess what I'm asking is what software and settings do I need to rip the video stream out of the ISO container into a non-compressed format playable by the AppleTV?
 
browerjs said:
So I'm in the process of thinking about moving from PC to Mac (for my daily computing), and in my transition, I'm also contemplating switching from my Netgear NeoTV550 media streamer to an Apple TV.

Currently I have all my BluRays ripped to movie only BD-ISOs with no quality loss, and I stream these from a 8TB Netgear ReadyNAS.

I would like to maintain zero compression with the AppleTV (if possible), so what do I need to do?

I will probably do further ripping of my BDs on a Windows PC, so I don't have to worry about finding a USB BD player to hook into a Mac.

So I guess what I'm asking is what software and settings do I need to rip the video stream out of the ISO container into a non-compressed format playable by the AppleTV?
Click to expand...
If the only reason you are staying with ripping your BD's on a Windows PC is a USB BD player, there are several that work just fine with the Mac. Do you plan to just rip with the PC or rip and process. That would impact the suggestions for what software you need.
 
mic j said:
If the only reason you are staying with ripping your BD's on a Windows PC is a USB BD player, there are several that work just fine with the Mac. Do you plan to just rip with the PC or rip and process. That would impact the suggestions for what software you need.
Click to expand...

To begin i'd like to start using my pc to convert my current collection of isos. When i actually get a mac i may eventually get a bd player, and change my process.
 
browerjs said:
I would like to maintain zero compression with the AppleTV (if possible), so what do I need to do?
Click to expand...

why?

AppleTV supports this formats (no BD ISOs)

Video Formats
H.264 video up to 1080p, 30 frames per second, High or Main Profile level 4.0 or lower, Baseline profile level 3.0 or lower with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps per channel, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats

MPEG-4 video up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats

Motion JPEG (M-JPEG) up to 35 Mbps, 1280 by 720 pixels, 30 frames per second, audio in ulaw, PCM stereo audio in .avi file format
Click to expand...
 
browerjs said:
To maintain bluray quality (and so the rip/conversion process doesnt take forever)... It looks like atv won't work for me right now...
Click to expand...

If they are h.264 codec, you can convert to mp4 using Subler or mp4tools (there are probably other tools too, but those are the ones I have used and like). Not sure you can go directly from BD-ISO to mp4 though. You may have to go through an intermediate process of converting to a mkv. No loss in audio or video quality in conversion to mkv but you will lose some quality if the audio is dts or dts-ma because they will need to be converted to AC3. The aTV and mp4 container is not dts friendly.

Edit: Subler is mac only, not sure if mp4tools is mac only.
 
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Quotenfrau said:
what does mp4tools (Closed Source), what Handbrake (Open Source) can't do?
Click to expand...
mp4tools can pass through video, handbrake cannot.
mp4tools can join multiple mp4's into a single file, handbrake cannot.
mp4tools may cause audio sync issues, handbrake does not
mp4tools can only transcode using constant bitrate, handbrake can encode using variable bitrate or constant bitrate (variable bitrate is the better choice)
 
Quotenfrau said:
thank you nice comparison. What's that "pass through video"?
Click to expand...

if your movie was encoded using h.264 codec (most blurays, many downloaded mkv's and few if any dvd's), you can change the container from mkv to mp4 lossless (no transcoding). Of course that also means same file size.
 
would a jailbroken :apple: tv 2 pass thru the lossless audio (dts hd / doby true hd) from a bd iso and downsample them to dts & dd??
 
The simple answer to this question is yes and not no

browerjs said:
So I'm in the process of thinking about moving from PC to Mac (for my daily computing), and in my transition, I'm also contemplating switching from my Netgear NeoTV550 media streamer to an Apple TV.

Currently I have all my BluRays ripped to movie only BD-ISOs with no quality loss, and I stream these from a 8TB Netgear ReadyNAS.

I would like to maintain zero compression with the AppleTV (if possible), so what do I need to do?

I will probably do further ripping of my BDs on a Windows PC, so I don't have to worry about finding a USB BD player to hook into a Mac.

So I guess what I'm asking is what software and settings do I need to rip the video stream out of the ISO container into a non-compressed format playable by the AppleTV?
Click to expand...


Yes the apply TV can Do this as long as you have an iPhone iPod Touch or iPad that has the 5GHZ band radio. The older 2.4GHz band may work. About to test it with the 2.4 now.

Basically buy the app Air Video HD. Install the desktop client from there website and add your monitored folders. Anything pretty much H.264 streams without conversion. I convert all my blurays to 720p at 5Mbps but I went ahead and redid one into a mkv using the trial of MakeMKV and it was 28GB. Tried and no conversion was taking place. At this point the app supports Apple TV stream So then just tell the app to display on apple TV. FULL 1080P lossless. This App has been out for a few years now people, come on and get with it. Though I am a SYS Admin so I tend to know about these things.

ENJOY
 
If you keep the bit rate high enough and set the x264 preset to "slow", you will not see any artifacts and even the "film grain" that is so popular on Bluray will maintain as well (without any artifacts).

However AppleTV will only support 5.1 AC3 with a maximum bitrate of 640Kb/s. Typically you will want to make (audio) stream #1 an AAC stereo and stream #2 the AC3. If the original disc supports it, I include stream #3 with DTS-HD. This does not affect AppleTV. This is more for future compatibility incase AppleTV starts supporting it. You will have to make a personal choice if AC-3 is adequate for you. I went through that phase several years ago, and I decided in the end it was enough for me.

I was originally using 16-18Mbps and x264 preset "normal". This gave me decent conversion speed, but I ended up with about 15-20GB per movie...with longer movies like Gone With The Wind coming in at 30GB.

I then moved to 14Mbps and "slow" preset and on an 82" DLP, I cannot see any pixilation or artifacts. This gives me 10-15GB per movie, which adds up over time.

Oh it's not show below, but also check "Web Optimized" for all your videos. It helps with buffering, especially the HD stuff. Subler (OSX) and MetaX (Windows) can do this after the fact as well, but saves time to do it at encode time.

handbrake-bluray.jpg
 
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