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Blu-Ray to Apple TV

One Love 1867 said:
Thanks mate, same to you, and thanks again for the help.

I'll be carefull what i download then in that respect, will keep an eye out. So you've already downloaded Blu-Ray rips from the net and played them through Plex the same as i plan to do? Anything i should know from your experience? Any tips or dangers i should be aware of?

Will deffo need an external Hard Drive or 2 if they're 10gb a piece though!
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yup ive done the exact same thing your planning on doing! its really a piece of cake! there are really only two minor issues.

1. you will have to buy a few video cables, its nothing to complicated. DP->DVI, then DVI->HDMI.

2. the video cant do sound, so you will have to have a good stereo to connect to or put up with the tv speakers.

plex is a little hard to get used to, using the mac remote is useless, meaning you have to get up to change settings or anything (a wireless keyboard is a good idea). umm thats about it really... oh except for - if your gonna put it over the network make sure you have ethernet haha.
 
Yeah, i've already ordered a Mini-DVI to HDMI adapter to hook upto my TV, and a 3.5mm Jack to Optical converter to plug into my 5.1 surround amp. Just need to sit the Mini under the TV, connect it all up and get going!

Regarding the Mac remote, i was going to buy one but have decided to download the Rowmote app for iPhone instead. Not had chance to test it yet obviously but hoping it'll do a job. What's so difficult about Plex? I know it doesn't have mouse support enabled from the go, but does Keyboard support need to be switched on in the settings aswell?

Appologies for hijacking the thread aswell somewhat, i'll stop now that i've got my answer to the Blu-Ray/Handbrake question. Thanks for your help guys :)
 
One Love 1867 said:
Yeah, i've already ordered a Mini-DVI to HDMI adapter to hook upto my TV, and a 3.5mm Jack to Optical converter to plug into my 5.1 surround amp. Just need to sit the Mini under the TV, connect it all up and get going!

Regarding the Mac remote, i was going to buy one but have decided to download the Rowmote app for iPhone instead. Not had chance to test it yet obviously but hoping it'll do a job. What's so difficult about Plex? I know it doesn't have mouse support enabled from the go, but does Keyboard support need to be switched on in the settings aswell?

Appologies for hijacking the thread aswell somewhat, i'll stop now that i've got my answer to the Blu-Ray/Handbrake question. Thanks for your help guys :)
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ahh well your all sweet to play it then!!!!

plex's user interface is one of the hardest ive ever had to learn to use. you will see when you try it. i consider myself an avid + pro user, and even for me it was a learning curve. i can use it easily now but its just... different :)

for instance.. if you have the apple remote, the << & >> buttons skip it x seconds instead of fastforwarding rewinding as you would normally expect. its annoying because if you want to watch a part again and you forget that it skips back (i think its a minute or maybe even 5 mins) then you have ot watch it all again.. the menu button does something wierd... etcetc

its just a learning curve. im not sure if the iPhone app you are getting can utilise it fully. but goodluck! bedtime for me, exam in 7 hours :-S
 
Question on Plex: It does indeed work perfectly with unencrypted m2ts files on the local drive; what engine is it using? As in, is there anything ELSE that will play those files like it does?

I ask because VLC chokes horribly on the same 1080p m2ts file that Plex plays smoothly (and without VLC's stream-related skipping), but I prefer a mouse-based interface to Plex's entirely "remote-ready" one.

[Edit: Ok, it's just FFmpeg based, so I guess my actual question is "Is there anything ELSE that handles m2ts files as well as Plex?" 'Cause every other player I've tried doesn't even recognize the file as playable, except VLC with the stated issue.]
 
OK lets get this back on track, LPCM audio? how do the people here deal with it? I have had a hard time trying to convert to AC3 :(
 
I used AnyDVD HD, it is the Extras from Wallace and Gromit in "A Matter of Loaf and Death", all I need to know is how I can convert the LPCM Audio to AC3 using whatever programme I need :)
 
northy124 said:
I used AnyDVD HD, it is the Extras from Wallace and Gromit in "A Matter of Loaf and Death", all I need to know is how I can convert the LPCM Audio to AC3 using whatever programme I need :)
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Well I have done a ton using tsmuxer I think once you select the audio track the second tab I think gives you the option to convert to AC3. Are you importing in the playlist file or the m2ts file. Cause I do it with the m2ts file under the stream folder I usually go for the largest one and drag and drop into tsmuxer.
 
I have done the dragging and dropping part, I just see no way to downcovert LPCM to AC3 within the programme, is there another programme I can use?
 
Is anyone else having trouble with the Blu-ray rips crashing Quicktime? Quicklook and iTunes have no problems, but when I try to open them in Quicktime Player, it crashes
 
AliensAreFuzzy said:
Is anyone else having trouble with the Blu-ray rips crashing Quicktime? Quicklook and iTunes have no problems, but when I try to open them in Quicktime Player, it crashes
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I've had quicktime crash because the language was set to unknown in my rips. I changed that to English using Subler and the crashes went away.
 
northy124 said:
OK lets get this back on track, LPCM audio? how do the people here deal with it? I have had a hard time trying to convert to AC3 :(
Click to expand...

I always ignore the LPCM track and get the TRUE-HD (downmixed to AC3) or DTS-HD (downmixed to DTS). I then use Handbrake to transcode to :apple:TV 720p at 62% constant quality. 7 hours later I have what I want and throw away the m2ts.
 
Getting to this party a little late but I just finally was able to get BD/HDDVD player to start getting them on the media server. First, thanks tons for all the great information you guys have put out there. It has been super helpful.

Now for my question. I tried to find an answer by searching and didn't come up with anything so if I missed it sorry. What I was wondering is where you guys might have suggestions in cutting corners to get a decent quality HD rip that will stream to the AppleTV over 802.11n.

I have a HTPC set up in one room and then an AppleTV set up in the bedroom that streams from the HTPC. The HD rips are fantastic on the HTPC but stutter like crazy on the AppleTV. I just started taking a swing at this and have been using the settings suggested for Handbrake.
AppleTV preset.
6000kbps quality
2 audio streams 1x Ac3 pass through 1x DPLII

Not super educated on all of these things and just trying to stumble through. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks!
 
GrimPixel said:
I have a HTPC set up in one room and then an AppleTV set up in the bedroom that streams from the HTPC. The HD rips are fantastic on the HTPC but stutter like crazy on the AppleTV. I just started taking a swing at this and have been using the settings suggested for Handbrake.
AppleTV preset.
6000kbps quality
2 audio streams 1x Ac3 pass through 1x DPLII
Click to expand...

First of all - congrats on getting past the 'hard' part of figuring it all out and doing your first set of HD movies. It gets addicting, trust me.

How I encode them in Handbrake is start with the AppleTV preset then keep it as Constant Quality but bump the slider down to 57%. Then I change the picture size to 1280x720 with turning anamorphic off. I also de-select create chapter markers since I'm lazy and don't do all the chapter stuff and I don't want 1 giant chapter either so I can at least skip around.

I haven't had any problems streaming movies with this setting - my AppleTV is wired but the iMac where the files are is wireless, not even N.

Good Luck!
 
Thanks for the tips Omni! That really seems to have worked. I was able to get three movies encoded and they stream perfectly to the ATV now!

One more question if you don't mind. What do you do if the movie doesn't resize to 1280x720. I have run into 3 movies today - 300, Harry Potter, The Fountain, and I can not maintain the aspect ratio and get them to 1280x720. I can get one or the other dimension but then the other dimension is always really strange like 1280x528 or 1728x720. From the limited testing I did it looks like i have to make the 1280 conform or it will not play on the ATV. Is this normal?

Thanks again!
Grim
 
GrimPixel said:
One more question if you don't mind. What do you do if the movie doesn't resize to 1280x720. I have run into 3 movies today - 300, Harry Potter, The Fountain, and I can not maintain the aspect ratio and get them to 1280x720. I can get one or the other dimension but then the other dimension is always really strange like 1280x528 or 1728x720. From the limited testing I did it looks like i have to make the 1280 conform or it will not
play on the ATV. Is this normal?
Click to expand...

I'm assuming all 3 are letterboxed? 1280x720 usually goes down to 1280x528 due to the black bars. It's still 720 but you aren't rendering out unnecessary black bars.

Hope that helps.
 
omni said:
I'm assuming all 3 are letterboxed? 1280x720 usually goes down to 1280x528 due to the black bars. It's still 720 but you aren't rendering out unnecessary black bars.
Click to expand...

Yeah. I was just running with 1280x528 since it worked but was just curious if I had missed something.

Thanks again!
Grim
 
omni said:
First of all - congrats on getting past the 'hard' part of figuring it all out and doing your first set of HD movies. It gets addicting, trust me.

How I encode them in Handbrake is start with the AppleTV preset then keep it as Constant Quality but bump the slider down to 57%. Then I change the picture size to 1280x720 with turning anamorphic off. I also de-select create chapter markers since I'm lazy and don't do all the chapter stuff and I don't want 1 giant chapter either so I can at least skip around.

I haven't had any problems streaming movies with this setting - my AppleTV is wired but the iMac where the files are is wireless, not even N.

Good Luck!
Click to expand...

Interesting you are happy with 57%. I didn't like the default 59% because I could still see posterisation so I bumped it up to 62% which eliminated that and also made the picture look distinctly crisper than with the lower settings such that it is much harder to tell the difference between 1080 and 720. Much of the reason people badmouth 720 has to be down to the compression being too heavy handed because high bit rate (mine are all in the 6Mbps range) 720 looks very good.

Another thing too, I have not had trouble streaming my rips over my G network since 6Mbps is well below the peak it is capable of and my wireless router is pretty close to my ATV but if I was in any doubt I would run ethernet instead. Incidentally, my Mac is on the other end of an ethernet over mains adapter which connects my upstairs network to the one downstairs and it streams over that just fine too.

Finally, my rips judder like mad in Quicktime and iTunes on my CD MacBook Pro but VLC plays them fine as does the ATV. Apple better fix Quicktime up soon.
 
Not sure if I should post this here?, or start a new thread. Does anyone have any experience adding subtitles to mp4 HD files created from blu rays for the apple TV. Is there any particular apps that I should use, either on the Mac or more likely I presume on Windows? I have searched for this, but cannot seem to find an easy solution.
 
GreatDrok said:
Interesting you are happy with 57%. I didn't like the default 59% because I could still see posterisation so I bumped it up to 62% which eliminated that and also made the picture look distinctly crisper than with the lower settings such that it is much harder to tell the difference between 1080 and 720. Much of the reason people badmouth 720 has to be down to the compression being too heavy handed because high bit rate (mine are all in the 6Mbps range) 720 looks very good.
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So I encoded an episode of Lost Season 3 both at my standard 57% and at your suggested 62%.

The 57% file is 1.95gb in size and bitrate is around 6300. The 62% is at 3.5gb in size and the bitrate is 11k. The 62% doesn't even play on the appletv.

I bump my dvd encodes up to 62% because the default appletv preset at 59% looks really bad IMO.

I'm totally willing to try to make my HD encodes better but it seems using the default appletv preset and bumping it up to 62% for HD stuff doesn't work, at least for me.
 
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