I've poked through a lot of this thread but have not found a current and specific answer to my question... 🙁
What is the best possible setting I can use to sync with my Apple TV and the iPhone 3GS? Has anyone figured it out yet, and if the new 3GS will support more than the old iPhones? I used to use the "iPod High Res" option but I know the iPhone and Apple TV can handle better, but I have no clue what to adjust because so many of these threads get so detailed and complicated. 😛
Can someone help me out please? iPhone 3GS + Apple TV, that's all I need. 😀
A bit late... I'm sure you've figured out your preferred settings by now.
For me, I do different things for movies and TV Shows.
For movies, the iPhone, iPod Classic (2007 version) and my Apple TV all support 720x480. I convert my movies via Handbrake with the Apple Universal setting, and only tweak the audio. This gives me DVD-resolution video that plays on everything and looks great on everything, including my HDTV via the Apple TV.
For TV Shows, I will do the same if the show is movie-esque, such as 24, Prison Break, The Sopranos, Lost, etc.
If it's a sitcom or show where I'm less concerned about audio, I still use the Unviversal preset but take the resolution down to 640x480 and usually do away with the AC-3 track and just go for a single AAC audio track. The video still looks very decent on everything, but TV Shows sometimes have large file sizes. Most half-hour shows I've encoded come to an average of 250mb (which is fine for me), but I sometimes have an odd episode that comes out at around 400mb (because of the VBR encoding) and I will usually go back to that episode and re-encode it with a lower bitrate to lower the file-size. Its rare that I have to do this (I've encoded probably over 400 episodes of TV) and have only had to do it about three times.
But to sum things up in simplest terms and if you don't care about multiple audio tracks (i.e. commentary, 5.1 audio), then just do the Universal pre-set and you'll end up with a file that plays on everything (except the 5G iPod video) and looks good on everything.