Bloggers with access to units (at the announcement?) have reported 1920x1080 output and noted an improvement in clarity of the main menus. Don't remember exactly where I read it but Google should help you track that sort of information down easily.
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Update improves 1080 playback on Atv 2
- Thread starter osohardy
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kagharaht
macrumors 68020
+1 for MP4Tools. I'm paying to support the developer.
My next test is to see if the muxed m4v file which can be up to 30gb can stream via wifi to ATV2. Seems that ATV2 caps at 65mbps. No matter how close I put it to the Airport Extreme Base station. Im going to test today and see if it can play the stream without having to stop and buffer data during play.
Is anyone else experiencing excessive buffering times when streaming 1080p content to Apple TV 2? I tried streaming one via wi-fi and gave up after 10 minutes.
I noticed mine does look a little better. So I may just stick with it instead of getting another one. We'll see.
kagharaht
macrumors 68020
I did a couple of muxing .mkv to .m4v, each around 27gb and 33gb. Data rates end up around 30.
There is no way this can stream immediately on wifi to atv2 without a huge amount of time loading buffering. Even on "n" 5ghz speed since atv2 seems to be capped at 65mbps. Perhaps wired will work.
J@ffa
macrumors 6502a
Just got done testing an uncompressed blu-ray rip (about 21GB). Starts playing pretty quickly — almost as quickly as a 720p movie would, in fact. This is on 802.11n, for the record. As soon as the picture moves too quickly, however, it distorts quite a bit. They look like decoding artefacts to me — very similar to interlacing, but only around particular objects. I'm guessing the ATV 2 just can't keep up with the bitrate.
I'll be getting an ATV 3, so will test again to see if it works ok there.
EDIT: After this did the same thing on the ATV3, I started to suspect the file. Lo and behold, that was the problem. Remuxed with a different application and all was well.
I'll be getting an ATV 3, so will test again to see if it works ok there.
EDIT: After this did the same thing on the ATV3, I started to suspect the file. Lo and behold, that was the problem. Remuxed with a different application and all was well.
Last edited:
kagharaht
macrumors 68020
Can your ATV2 connect faster than 65mbps? I have two and it can't connect faster than 65mbps.
J@ffa
macrumors 6502a
kagharaht
macrumors 68020
The new version of handbrake (released just last few days) works with DTS. But I don't know if DTS passes through at theTV (haven't tried it yet).
That is correct. Much to my surprise, Handbrake now supports DTS and AUTO passthru for m4v containers. However, a non-jailbroken unit will not support DTS.
Currently I am still using my 1st gen Apple TV with a Crystal HD graphics card, and it handles everything I through at it from my attached NAS.
I pre-ordered the new Apple TV then cancelled my order. I'm not impressed, still a single core A5 with little RAM and no option for attached storage as Apple wants everything streamed through their services. I don't want to have to keep the jailbreaking battle with my devices any longer, no time. So I'm thinking a base Mac Mini w/ after market RAM from OWC or Crucial, and someone mentioned HP TV Connect 2.0 although I know nothing about it.
Trust me, its not a walk in the park getting everything to work smoothly on a mini as well. I have xbmc running on my mini and it has its share of issues.
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My mkv to mp4 workflow -
Assuming the source mkv, "input.mkv", contains a h.264 video track and a DTS track
1) Use ffmpeg to extract an ac3 track
Binaries are available @ http://ffmpegmac.net/
ffmpeg -i input.mkv -map 0:1 -acodec ac3 -ac 6 -ab 640000 -f ac3 output.ac3
2) Use mkvmerge to merge the ac3 track into the mkv "input.mkv"
I use mkvmerge in a windows VM
3) Use subler to open "input.mkv" and select the video, audio tracks (original dts and new ac3 track) and chapter track
Re-order the audio tracks and check the ac3 track (so that it is the default track). Mux the tracks
Note that subler has a couple of neat features that allow for -
- generation of chapter preview images
- metadata import from online databases (movie description, poster art, etc)
I have tried tools like mp4tools but ran into an issue where the audio is out of sync
Have you tried iFlicks or iVI? The workflow is: drag and drop files, press convert, done. Automatic import into iTunes, deletion of files afterwards, meta data being added... It's fantastic!
I've even got it setup so that uTorrent is watching an RSS feed, takes the new episodes of favorite shows when released, automatic unpacking if needed, automatic conversion and so on. The only thing I have to do is to switch to HDMI 2 on my TV (to access the ATV2) to see which new shows has been added to iTunes since the last time I looked 🙂
Hey hafr, haven't tried these apps. Do they support pass thru muxing for h.264 tracks and dts-to-ac3 conversion?
Pass thru for video, yes. I'm not sure I fully understand your audio question, but I've seen dts and ac3 in the names of rips and I've never experienced any problems with missing or out of sync-audio after conversion, so I'm guessing the answer is yes 🙂
I think iFlicks has a free trial, so start there...
Thanks mate, appreciate the advice. I've handbraked my m4v's and mkv's with the first audio track being stereo as defaults for iDevices, track 2 being either AC3 or DTS Passthru and remaining tracks should there be commentary and such.
I have a 12-Core Mac Pro with 10 GB's RAM so encoding isn't a long process. I have rather high settings:
H.264 w/ either mkv or m4v container (mostly m4v now that is supports DTS)
FPS same as source, Variable Framerate, Constant Quality around 18
Loose Anamorphic w/ wither 16 or 8 modulas to keep source output the same for even scaling on various screens.
Advanced string is as follows:
Blu-Ray encodes take about 7-8 hours, but cuts ~60-70% of the original data without losing as much quality as you may believe.
Using a Mac Mini with Plex, as my friend has set up, would allow me to use more codecs, attach my server using the same protocols (SMB) directly through CAT5e or 6 to the Mini, HDMI out to my Pioneer AVR then to my Pioneer 60" Elite. My Apple TV with the HD graphics card can handle a ~20 Mbps mkv without stammering, so I'd like to keep that and improve it. I wouldn't need to remux my mkv's and I'd have a lot of options.
For what it's worth, I tested out an uncompressed* Blu-Ray rip on my Apple TV 2 today and it played fine, no dropped frames or artifacting. A little slower to stream than a 720p file, but still perfectly acceptable.
*Alien: Resurection Director's Cut, ripped using MakeMKV, muxed into a 1080p m4v file using iFlicks, and added straight to iTunes. File was around 31GB.
*Alien: Resurection Director's Cut, ripped using MakeMKV, muxed into a 1080p m4v file using iFlicks, and added straight to iTunes. File was around 31GB.
For those using Subler to remux .mkv files to .m4v... You don't have to add your AC3 tracks to your .mkv files first before the remux process in Subler. That takes you a lot of time, why not just import all the files from the .mkv which are supported by Subler (e.g. the video track) and then the AC3 track separately?
ftaok
macrumors 604
For posterity, did you ever play that particular file on your aTV2 before updating to 5.0? If so, did you have frame drops, stuttering, etc?
Thanks.
Never that exact file, but anything significantly over 1280x720 would noticeably stutter pre-update for me.
J@ffa
macrumors 6502a
I posted on this thread previously to say I was getting visual artifacting with an uncompressed blu-ray rip on an ATV2. I got an ATV3 (because, well, 1080p!) and had exactly the same problem. I suspected the file, and lo and behold, something had gone wrong when remuxing it with MP4tools. I used Remux instead and the problem went away on both boxes. No idea why it happened, but perhaps MP4tools choked on the file size.
Remux is a pretty good app, but a problem I've noticed is that sometimes you can't open the files it generates in Subler/etc to tag them, although they do playback fine. Has anyone else encountered this problem?
Remux is a pretty good app, but a problem I've noticed is that sometimes you can't open the files it generates in Subler/etc to tag them, although they do playback fine. Has anyone else encountered this problem?