streaming MKV movies from rMb to Apple TV3

[Geert76]

Will the new rMB be streaming easily MKV movies (average 8GB, 1080P) to my Apple TV3?

Or you think it will go with stuttering or hickups?
I have a very good WiFi connection at home

thanks in advance!

 

[Rigby]

Will the new rMB be streaming easily MKV movies (average 8GB, 1080P) to my Apple TV3?

Or you think it will go with stuttering or hickups?

It's hard to say without some testing. Apple TV does not support the MKV container format, so you cannot just stream the original video content to it. You'll have to use either:

1) Airplay mirroring; this works by doing on-the-fly compression of the entire screen content and streaming that to the ATV. It will probably not run at full framerate on the Macbook (even more powerful hardware struggles with that).

2) Streaming software such as Beamer that can repackage and if necessary transcode the video stream on-the-fly into a format the ATV understands. Depending on the content of the MKV (codec, resolution etc.) the CPU may be too slow to transcode the video without quality degradation. If your MKVs already use H.264 encoding and Beamer is smart enough to recognize that (and not transcode), it will probably work fine.

I'd suggest you wait until somebody has tested it before making a decision.

 

[Geert76]

Sorry, I forgot to mention that I am using Beamer with my current Macbook.

But tnx for your reply

 

[Cloudsurfer]

My 2010 MBP works just fine with Beamer so I see no reason why the rMB shouldn't handle it like a charm.

 

[Geert76]

My 2010 MBP works just fine with Beamer so I see no reason why the rMB shouldn't handle it like a charm.

sounds promissing then! thanks 🙂

 

[Queen6]

Alternatively you can use Subler to repackage you MKV`s to M4V`s, as MKV is just a container takes just a couple minutes 🙂 then your Mac`s etc will playback the movies natively.

Q-6

 

[Geert76]

Alternatively you can use Subler to repackage you MKV`s to M4V`s, as MKV is just a container takes just a couple minutes 🙂 then your Mac`s etc will playback the movies natively.

Q-6

ah, thats a great tip! thanks

 

[Rigby]

ah, thats a great tip! thanks

Remember that this only works if the codecs in your MKV files are H.264 for the video and AAC and/or AC3 for audio. MKV can contain many other formats as well.

If the codecs do match, another alternative to very easily remux MKVs into MP4s is ffmpeg. It takes just one command:

ffmpeg -i movie.mkv -vcodec copy -acodec copy movie.mp4

 

[Geert76]

Remember that this only works if the codecs in your MKV files are H.264 for the video and AAC and/or AC3 for audio. MKV can contain many other formats as well.

If the codecs do match, another alternative to very easily remux MKVs into MP4s is ffmpeg. It takes just one command:

ffmpeg -i movie.mkv -vcodec copy -acodec copy movie.mp4

Thanks Rigby! #

 

[flyinmac]

Handbrake handles converting files to MP4 for Apple TV quite well, and is also free.

I've used it to convert AVI files and Mkv files to MP4 with functioning audio. Other titles either dropped frames or lost audio or both.

Handbrake is straight forward, simple, no command lines, etc.

 

[Queen6]

Handbrake handles converting files to MP4 for Apple TV quite well, and is also free.

I've used it to convert AVI files and Mkv files to MP4 with functioning audio. Other titles either dropped frames or lost audio or both.

Handbrake is straight forward, simple, no command lines, etc.

Equally it consumes a vast amount of CPU and can equally consume a lot of time. If your MKV is H264, AC3 etc, Sublar will repackage the video & audio in a fraction of the time.

I use and like HandBrake a lot, equally I prefer to get through things a efficiently as possible.

Q-6

 

[Geert76]

thanks for the Handbrake and Sublar tips! 🙂

Hopefully the new retina Macbook can handle my mkv files with the Beamer app, if not, I'll use either Handbrake or Sublar

 

[cbautis2]

Equally it consumes a vast amount of CPU and can equally consume a lot of time. If your MKV is H264, AC3 etc, Sublar will repackage the video & audio in a fraction of the time.

I use and like HandBrake a lot, equally I prefer to get through things a efficiently as possible.

Q-6

Handbrake is perfect for iMacs but it makes macbooks as hot as an oven. I really hope Handbrake will use quicksync in the future so we wouldn't need raw CPU power.

 

[mi7chy]

Should be able to. I can stream 1080p MKV from Thinkpad Helix2 with more power efficient Core M 5Y10 with Videostream Chrome extension to Chromecast perfectly.

 

[Geert76]

Should be able to. I can stream 1080p MKV from Thinkpad Helix2 with more power efficient Core M 5Y10 with Videostream Chrome extension to Chromecast perfectly.

Sounds promissing! Thanks

 

[mi7chy]

Streaming a MKV to Chromecast and it's using between mostly 2% of 800MHz and spikes to 15% of 1.5GHz. While streaming can locally play full screen 1080p YouTube in Chrome fine at the same time.

 

[alec6542]

Beamer is the only practical solution. Just right click the mkv file, select open with Beamer, and that's it, the video plays on your television. In fact I set up a keyboard shortcut "cmd B" which automatically opens a highlighted file in Beamer. No need to waste all that time converting the large mkv file to m4v and having to mess with iTunes. Beamer is awesome, and it would be nice if Apple natively implemented such a feature.

 

[JTToft]

I expect it will handle that perfectly fine.

Beamer is awesome!