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How or can you VLC AirPlay MKV to Apple TV?

R

RolledUp20s

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 14, 2011
243
0
Wrexham, North Wales
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I'm kind of taking 2 steps back & 1 foot forward here. Selling my mac mini which is setup at my Main Tv, so watching MKV files hasn't been an issue as VLC play all types.
However, that's all my mini was doing..not getting enough use really, so out he goes and I'm getting the MacBook Air & the new ATV. (1st time with an ATV aswel, been reading up on this but just finding old posts from 2007...surely theres a fix?
I'd like to have VLC again on my mac air and AirPlay the MKV files to my ATV, or if not VLC, is there another programme to do this now.. In 2012 :). ??
 
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To add...

I have an iPhone 4S aswel, could I use the VLC app? Transfer the mkvs to iPhone then AirPlay to ATV?
 
Airplay of MKV doesn't work

In my experience AppleTV is expecting to receive compatible files to play via airplay, so sending files with VLC, AV Player HD, etc. Presumably this is because the airplay system is not converting the video file into an AppleTV-compatible format.

There are a couple of options. The easiest I have found is to use iFlicks, which converts the file into AppleTV compatible format. For most MKV is doesn't need to reencode the video file, it just puts a new wrapper around it, so the conversion is quick and the file is AppleTV friendly.

Another option that may work is to try Airplay mirroring from your iPad or iPhone to AppleTV. I'm guessing (though I haven't tried it) that mirroring should show whatever is on the screen of your iPad rather than interpreting and playing a specific movie file. However I've had problems with screen resolution formatting using airplay mirroring, so don't think it's a great solution for playing movies.

The other option that I use is to plug a cable between a Macbook air and the TV. One end is the mini-display adaptor and the other end is HDMI. This allows both video and audio to go through one cable, and works well. There is the inconvenience of having the laptop showing the movie while it's also showing on the TV.

Overall I'm happy with my purchase of iFlicks and have a lot of movie and tv show files in AppleTV compatible format, but it may not be the best solution for everyone.

Cheers
Robin
 
I have a solution which will work

Simple steps:

1) Get AirParrot 1.3.2 (you could also get a cracked version I guess! :) )

2) Airparrot will put a icon in the top status bar in Lion usually (don't know about other operating systems)

3) Click on the icon under devices select your Apple TV.

4) Enable Audio (Important).

5) you entire Mac Screen must be visible on your TV now.

6) Open VLC Player on your MAC and do the usual movie watching, the only difference is video will come on both screens (your mac and TV) but audio will stream from your TV connected speaker system (probably your surround sound)

7) Thats it, you not only mirror your Mac but also your movies (any format, .MKV, Avi etc etc) all depending on the movie player software you are using at Mac.

All the best, and if this works do like this post and comment back

Thanks
Ravi
 
ravisirsi said:
Simple steps:

1) Get AirParrot 1.3.2
Click to expand...

What he said!

Also, make sure you get 1.3.2 (or newer if it exists). The older versions had problems with audio, even when it worked, the audio was very low.

The only drawback with AirParrot is that it's a compressed stream that depends on your graphics hardware.

There's also second monitor mode in AirParrot so you can use you TV as a second monitor (for the movie or whatever) and continue to work on the main screen on your Macbook.
 
AirPlay mkv files to atv simple

all you need is the airvideo app on your iPhone(or iPad etc)along with the airvideo server running on your computer. You can AirPlay any format to atv with this setup.
 
ravisirsi said:
Simple steps:

1) Get AirParrot 1.3.2 (you could also get a cracked version I guess! :) )

2) Airparrot will put a icon in the top status bar in Lion usually (don't know about other operating systems)

3) Click on the icon under devices select your Apple TV.

4) Enable Audio (Important).

5) you entire Mac Screen must be visible on your TV now.

6) Open VLC Player on your MAC and do the usual movie watching, the only difference is video will come on both screens (your mac and TV) but audio will stream from your TV connected speaker system (probably your surround sound)

7) Thats it, you not only mirror your Mac but also your movies (any format, .MKV, Avi etc etc) all depending on the movie player software you are using at Mac.

All the best, and if this works do like this post and comment back

Thanks
Ravi
Click to expand...

I have not had success with it. Motion is not smooth. Have contacted them for support, and although they quickly responded, they were not able to help. Came down to my 2.66GHz Core Duo MBP was not up the requirements to stream smoothly.
 
I like Beamer myself. $7, drag and drop MKV to play on Apple TV. Not as configurable as AirParrot you can check that one out as well. Both have time limited free trials available.
 
I just use Playback (http://www.yazsoft.com/products/playback/) to remux the MKV as an MP4 and then Airplay to my ATV through iTunes. Cost $15 but worth it for this feature alone, I've tried some of the free tools that do the same thing but the audio seems to lag in the final MP4 file.
 
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yup just like what everyone else has said. If your files are in mkv then youre mostly in luck with a remux software program. i use subler. so in 5 mins you can convert mkv to mp4. i then use identify to add metadata then drop it into itunes. Then setup home sharing and pull the file right off your itunes library. Of course you need your itunes library always on from your air. but this way you dont lose any quality from an airplay conversion. Also like others have said if you do have other files other than mkv then airvideo works just as good. Run the app on your phone, run the server on the air...airplay from the phone to the atv.

----------
richardsonad said:
I just use Playback (http://www.yazsoft.com/products/playback/) to remux the MKV as an MP4 and then Airplay to my ATV through iTunes. Cost $15 but worth it for this feature alone, I've tried some of the free tools that do the same thing but the audio seems to lag in the final MP4 file.
Click to expand...

why do you do that work to convert it to mp4 and put it into itunes using only to airplay it? why not connect directly to itunes via the ATV homesharing and play directly?
 
I use an app called video stream for iOS to stream the MKV video to my iPhone and airplay it to my Apple TV. It works with every video format i've thrown at it.
 
I used to use a MacMini running Plex, but recently switched to an ATV3.

So now I have the Plex Media Server running on my Mac and then the Plex iOS app on my iPad. I can browse and stream all my mkv's to my iPad from the app and then Airplay to my ATV3. Works flawlessly.
 
chiefpavvy said:
I like Beamer myself. $7, drag and drop MKV to play on Apple TV. Not as configurable as AirParrot you can check that one out as well. Both have time limited free trials available.
Click to expand...

I found Beamer to be close to unusable. Resulting picture on ATV3 beaming from MBP via wired Eithernet was choppy. Tested with AVI, less choppy, but still no good.
 
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe that any of the on-the-fly transcoding options (e.g., Air Video, Plex) support maintaining the 5.1 audio, so if that's important to you, your best option is to convert the MKV files ahead of time using something like Handbrake or Subler.

Subler will maintain the same PQ as the source, but requires that you're working with a movie that was encoded as MPEG4 (which most movies are, but two other Blu-ray encoding methods exist: VC-1 and MPEG2, and you won't be able to use Subler with those). If it's MP4, Subler should be fast, and PQ will be as good as the origin Blu-ray rip. Filesize should be about the same as the original, too.

Handbrake will be able to work with MPEG2 and VC-1 encoded movies, and can give you a smaller file, but because it's transcoding, the PQ will decrease somewhat. And unless you have a high-powered machine, the conversion process could take quite a while (several hours or more).

Personally, if you have one room in your house where 5.1 audio and high-quality PQ is important, and you don't mind keeping the original Blu-ray .MKV rips at full size (18-28GB or so), I would recommend getting something like a WDTV Live (about $100) which can play those MKV files as-is. I don't own one of those (though I've thought about getting one for travel purposes). I own an older Acer Revo 1600 ION nettop which runs Windows 7 and Plex/XBMC, which I use in my main movie room. For the other rooms in the house, stereo audio is fine and the TVs are smaller, so I can live with using Plex server on my main PC transcoding on-the-fly to an iPhone, and then AirPlaying that to the bedroom TV.
 
Another option is iSquint. It's free to download, and simple to use. If you want, you can use advanced settings to customize the video rate, frame rate, audio rate, dimensions, or even crop the video. Otherwise, there's a simple slider that you can use to set the quality you want.

It has options to optimize for iPod or TV, and a box you can check that will automatically upload it to iTunes. From there, you treat it as you would any other AirPlay video.

EDIT: i tested this with a couple MKV files; some worked and others came up with an error message.
 
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dockingbay94 said:
I used to use a MacMini running Plex, but recently switched to an ATV3.

So now I have the Plex Media Server running on my Mac and then the Plex iOS app on my iPad. I can browse and stream all my mkv's to my iPad from the app and then Airplay to my ATV3. Works flawlessly.
Click to expand...

How is that any better? You switched from one device to three devices needed to play the video from a hard disk.

I really want to like the (unjailbroken) ATV but in my scenario it is useless. I have old DVDs and BluRays ripped to an external hard drive, which I can even make available on the network via my router (== a NAS). Now I want ONE device that I need to turn on to get and watch the movie on my TV.

In my opinion that can only be a net top (for example a Zotac) running XBMC or whatever, or in the Apple universe a Mac mini (running XBMC or Plex etc).

Or am I missing anything here?
 
hanzoh said:
How is that any better? You switched from one device to three devices needed to play the video from a hard disk.

I really want to like the (unjailbroken) ATV but in my scenario it is useless. I have old DVDs and BluRays ripped to an external hard drive, which I can even make available on the network via my router (== a NAS). Now I want ONE device that I need to turn on to get and watch the movie on my TV.

In my opinion that can only be a net top (for example a Zotac) running XBMC or whatever, or in the Apple universe a Mac mini (running XBMC or Plex etc).

Or am I missing anything here?
Click to expand...

Have you thought of one of these or similar? WD TV Live Media Streamer.....

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Dig...Player/dp/B005NYOKC2/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

should be able to stream straight from NAS.

I too would ideally like to use apple tv but i dont like the fact you have got to have a computer running an itunes library to do so...

only downside i can see with the WD TV live is that you can't play movies downloaded from itunes store.
 
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Or instead of airparrot, because you have a new MacBook Air, you can just use the built in airplay mirroring, which will work substantially better. But honestly, I would convert them all over to mp4/m4v. You can use them right in iTunes and transfer them to your iOS devices. I would use Handbrake for that.
 
lunaoso said:
Or instead of airparrot, because you have a new MacBook Air, you can just use the built in airplay mirroring, which will work substantially better. But honestly, I would convert them all over to mp4/m4v. You can use them right in iTunes and transfer them to your iOS devices. I would use Handbrake for that.
Click to expand...

this is the methods I use with great results. Mirroring can degrade video quality, but if original file is 720/1080 you shouldn't notice a difference.
 
Beamer works ok for me. http://beamer-app.com. Takes quite a while to drop movies from my NAS into beamer though. Other than that. I am happy.

Thanks everyone for posting a solution.
 
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latecomer said:
Beamer works ok for me. http://beamer-app.com. Takes quite a while to drop movies from my NAS into beamer though. Other than that. I am happy.

Thanks everyone for posting a solution.
Click to expand...

I just played an MKV with VLC like the OP intended and AirPlay mirroring to my ATV 3. Works like a charm, and free of charge.
 
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