Blu-Ray to Apple TV

[kevinbal]

1) It takes forever.
2) Quality is degraded.

Just get one of these wdtv units.

Sure it has no ethernet port.

But It is easily hackable to use a USB ethernet.

And it plays all these ripped formats mkv, m2ts, etc. at 1080p. No loss in video quality.

1) Takes only a bit longer than a standard DVD encode for me on my 3.06 Ghz iMac. Maybe if you are using a G4 processor, or an older CoreDuo, sure. With a newer machine, its not a time issue at all.

2) Quality is fantastic over DVD-encode at an increase of only a gig or so per movie. Sound quality is superb with AC3 pass-thru. On my 1080i/720p plasma the difference is night and day.

Why would anyone encode blu to appletv? For starters, I really don't feel like rebuying new physical media for all the movies I already have. I know legally it has no grounding, but I've paid for all this once, why do I need to keep paying for it every time a new media format is released? F-that.

I'm also past keeping physical media around and having to swap out discs, etc. It is much easier to just scroll through the list of movies and click on whatever one I want to start. Will I keep media around for some movies? Sure, most likely when I have the money to be able pick up a full, 120hz 1080p set. Not happening any time soon, I also don't want to buy a $200+ player just to view them.

Just because -you- don't see the value in converting blu-rays for use on the AppleTV doesn't mean there isn't any value for others.

 

[Cave Man]

Why would anyone want to rencode blu-ray to ATV

1) It takes forever.

A little hyperbole?

2) Quality is degraded.

I cannot tell the difference between my Apple TV and Blu-ray on my 40" 720p TV.

Just get one of these wdtv units.

I had the ATV long before the WDTV came out. Besides, it probably has a WD hard drive in it and I don't buy those.

 

[pprior]

Can anyone give a link to an internal BR burner, hopefully cheap, that will work with a MP for this purpose.

 

[mmoran27]

You have missed the point of my post

The wdtv is a device that plays back native blu-ray and hd-dvd rips without re-encoding.

I have ripped my whole library and they all play back at blu-ray quality.

I am saying that for the cost of the unit 89-129 online I have saved myself alot of time to re-encode for a device that can't do 1080p

Why?

The WDTV is a nice addition to the appletv.

I am not saying not to use appletv. I am saying don't waste your time re-encoding.

 

[dynaflash]

I know hard drives have gotten cheaper, but if you have any decent sized movie library and are using native blu ray rips at say .... 10GB a piece ... that's a lot of hard drive space imo.

 

[bukiwhitey]

mmoran.

What is your process for ripping bluray's to use with the WD media server.


Thanks,

David

 

[northy124]

I have ripped my whole library and they all play back at blu-ray quality.

What a waste of time, you ripped your entire library when you could of just used the disks and player, what a waste of money on HDD's and time IMO.

 

[mmoran27]

How is this a waste of time?

I can play all my movies within seconds (Don't have to go searching for discs).

That will save a few minutes every time plus the fact that the discs are stored away safe.

To each his own I guess. For me it is worth the time. Everyone here is ripping blu-ray to apple tv.

I am just saying you can save yourself time getting one of these wdtv things or some other media player as a nice add-on to apple tv.

Makemkv works good for ripping blu-ray.

AnyDVD plus BDclown also works good.

Plus hard drives are cheap. 1.5 TB for 114 at Frys. That holds my entire library with room to spare.

 

[Cave Man]

I can play all my movies within seconds (Don't have to go searching for discs).

So can I.

That will save a few minutes every time plus the fact that the discs are stored away safe.

So do I, and so are mine.

To each his own I guess. For me it is worth the time. Everyone here is ripping blu-ray to apple tv.

If you truly believed "To each his own" then you would never have started this tangent. It only takes me 30 seconds to start a Blu-ray transcode with Handbrake.

 

[stlredbird]

Having a problem with my Office Space Blu-Ray

I have ripped several blu-rays in the past but running into a problem here. After using tsmuxer I can usually view the .m2ts file via VLC before I run it through handbrake. With office space VLC won't play the movie, well it tries but it's just checkered or pixelated, mostly black. Then if I try to put it in Handbrake it just sits at scanning source.

Any ideas?

 

[aj350z]

Remake guide for just using MakeMKV and Handbrake

I am getting a Blu-Ray player/DVD burner so i can start ripping Blu-ray dics. I have been reading this thread since Caveman updated it but it lacks the guid for just using these two programs. Is it i rip using MakeMKV and then just toss into Handbrake for most movies? DO i have to use tsmuxer at all???

Thanks for the help.

 

[bestthereis27]

Sorry for the dumb random question but if I rip a Blu-Ray and stream it either to a Apple TV or Popcorn Hour or some type of media streamer can I fast forward like a normal blu-ray disk? Or will it chapter skip and start the buffer to where you want the chapter to start?

Thanks.

 

[Cave Man]

I am getting a Blu-Ray player/DVD burner so i can start ripping Blu-ray dics. I have been reading this thread since Caveman updated it but it lacks the guid for just using these two programs. Is it i rip using MakeMKV and then just toss into Handbrake for most movies? DO i have to use tsmuxer at all???

Handbrake svn2592 should open the file without problems. I don't know about the tsmuxer step since I cannot use Make MKV yet, but it's my understanding that it extracts AC3 or DTS from the HD audio, thus HB should handle it just fine.

Sorry for the dumb random question but if I rip a Blu-Ray and stream it either to a Apple TV or Popcorn Hour or some type of media streamer can I fast forward like a normal blu-ray disk? Or will it chapter skip and start the buffer to where you want the chapter to start?

Unfortunately, chapter markers are difficult in Blu-ray rips and Handbrake does not put any in. There is a convoluted process over at the Handbrake forums that apparently works, but I have not tried it. Otherwise, the Apple TV treats the movie (transcoded to m4v, of course) like any other - except there's only one chapter.

 

[bbadalucco]

Are you certain that you set the frame rate to 24fps? Every time I've had a failure to sync (because of high bit rate) using the CQ encoding it was because I forgot to set 24 fps.

Cave Man, if we want to rip to play on a mac mini, should/can we increase the FPS of the blu ray transcode?

 

[Cave Man]

Cave Man, if we want to rip to play on a mac mini, should/can we increase the FPS of the blu ray transcode?

Which mini?

 

[bbadalucco]

Which mini?

The latest one with 2.26 CPU and 2 gb RAM

 

[Cave Man]

You should be able to do Handbrake at CQ of 60% with 24 fps at 1080p without any trouble, I should think. Just do the Apple TV Preset and change to 1920 wide, 24 fps and bump up the CQ 1-2%, check your audio and go.

 

[mrchristianq]

Is anyone else having audio sync problems with all their Apple TV Blu-Ray rips?

Here is my process:
Rip Blu-Ray with ANYDVD HD
Use TSMuxer, select 1080p video track and AC3 audio track
Output is a large ts file (usually around 20 GB)
I then open this TS file in Handbrake and use the Apple TV settings (60%, 1280 x whatever, etc)

When I play the file on Apple TV, either streaming it or directly from the Apple TV, the video is perfect, audio is working, but it always seems to be a slight delay, and it is really distracting. It's happened with all my rips so far, even when playing them on the pc.

When I rip a movie to MKV with MAKEMKV, it plays fine on the pc, no audio delay.

Is anyone else having this issue? Any ideas?

 

[stlredbird]

Having a problem with my Office Space Blu-Ray

I have ripped several blu-rays in the past but running into a problem here. After using tsmuxer I can usually view the .m2ts file via VLC before I run it through handbrake. With office space VLC won't play the movie, well it tries but it's just checkered or pixelated, mostly black. Then if I try to put it in Handbrake it just sits at scanning source.

Any ideas?

bump, any ideas

 

[pprior]

Just starting my first blu-ray encode tonight (got my drive today).

Two questions:

1) I don't understand why I want 1280 width under picture, that gives me only 544 height, which is barely above DVD resolution. I would think I want to keep it at 720 height. I this because blu-ray still encodes black bars for anamorphic?

2) The first movie I'm trying happens to be DTS. I only have apple TV currently, not plex/mini. I know I can't play DTS using ATV, but can I somehow change the DTS to AC3?

Thank you. Very excited to see the improved quality, I've never seen high definition movies before.

Addendum: I note that the handbrake build referenced in post 1 (svn2592 x86_64) is only using 4 cores. Before I updated it would routinely max out all 8 cores on my machine. Is that a limit on this particular build? I'm getting an ETA of 1hr40min, if I doubled my cores, it should be right around an hour.

 

[stlredbird]

Just starting my first blu-ray encode tonight (got my drive today).

Two questions:

1) I don't understand why I want 1280 width under picture, that gives me only 544 height, which is barely above DVD resolution. I would think I want to keep it at 720 height. I this because blu-ray still encodes black bars for anamorphic?

2) The first movie I'm trying happens to be DTS. I only have apple TV currently, not plex/mini. I know I can't play DTS using ATV, but can I somehow change the DTS to AC3?

Thank you. Very excited to see the improved quality, I've never seen high definition movies before.

Addendum: I note that the handbrake build referenced in post 1 (svn2592 x86_64) is only using 4 cores. Before I updated it would routinely max out all 8 cores on my machine. Is that a limit on this particular build? I'm getting an ETA of 1hr40min, if I doubled my cores, it should be right around an hour.

1. ATV can only play 1280 max width. Most movies aren't a perfect 16:9 aspect ratio.

2. When you highlight the audio track in tsmuxer there is a box to check to downconvert the HD audio, if that's what you're asking.

 

[almabanuelos]

Can anyone give a link to an internal BR burner, hopefully cheap, that will work with a MP for this purpose.

You could try this - http://eshop.macsales.com/item/LG/GGWH20L/ it's $209.99 (LG) - The pioneer ones are $329 or so. They are both internal SATA based drives.

 

[pprior]

I ended up getting a $75 external burner on ebay, works fine.

I was asking above about changing DTS soundtrack to AC3. I really don't want to go back to DPL just to get better picture using ATV.

Do I need another software program to do that conversion? handbrake won't seem to do it (dts -> AC3)

 

[dgarmaise]

Convert DTS for ATV?

I'm just a simple guy. I don't understand complicated things like 18-step procedures or writing your own code. I use Handbrake SVN2592, the latest beta version (which, by the way, is way more stable than the latest regular version) to convert HD MKV files to M4V so that they can play on Apple TV. My problem is that I have an MKV file with DTS sound, and I guess Handbrake can' cope with that. It keeps on giving me stereo sound on the M4V files. Is there, by chance, an EASY way to convert the DTS to 5.1 before after Handbrake does its thing?

 

[Rich1963]

Just as a point of clarification, Handbrake doesn't have a problem with DTS, Dolby has a licensing problem with DTS that Handbrake, being open source, can't really work around with regards to conversion to AC3. Also, on the same subject, as far as I know, there currently is no way to place a DTS stream into an mp4, which is yet another roadblock.

I thought I read on Handbrake's forum that there was an unapproved patch to put DTS in mp4's, but that it was pointless as the AppleTV won't recognize it anyways. Correct me if I'm wrong (my wife does - she's turned it into a hobby).