bit rate on the apple tv is not set in stone mind you. I accidentally encoded a 1080p mkv at 6600 kbits/sec (the maximum is supposed to be 5000) and it worked just fine and looked awesome - actually like an HD movie - unlike some of my other visualhubed mkv files that just look good, but not really super HDish. granted, I find that really only certain blu ray/HD DVD movies really look HDish. 5th element, i robot, narnia, king kong, are a few. Some things like the older rambos look good, but not really that much better than dvd (i think the apple tv just does a really good job of upconverting dvds). just my two cents.
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Convert mkv movies into mp4
- Thread starter Aegelward
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I do have QTPro, but it can only do Stereo Audio, i want to retain the 5.1 AC3 that is in the mkv file
Also reading about a program called GOTSent that might be able to do the trick. I'll be working overtime on this tonight, hopefully i'll have a solution for you guys. I've hacked my AppleTV and don't like the results really, I'd much prefer a video/audio passthrough mkv to mp4.
Ah yes Audio, I wonder when Apple will update to include 5.1 passthrough.
Ever heard of edit? GOTSent Link if it is D/Lable.
I've been working on this for days, and I couldn't do it on a mac.
I found some good leads for windows, but instead of installing bootcamp (which requires a defrag) and going through all the trouble, I just bought visualhub for 23 bucks.
Here's some tips for people still trying to do it without conversion:
http://forum.videohelp.com/topic349617.html
MKVTools for Mac
Videora for PC.
h264info for pc.
You should be able to figure it out.
There's a very easy to use windows tool
H264info will let you change the properties of the H.264 video file, after demuxing using MKVTools or something similar. You can change to profile 4.1 very very easily using this h264info.
Good Luck.
for me though, I just used Visual Hub last night, and I'm very impressed.
I had Transformers 720P (566x1280 or so) H.264 and AC3 5.1 in an MKV that I got online (Septic version).
I used Visual Hub with AppleTV 5.1 Preset, H.264 encoding, 2 Pass, and Audio passthrough.
I haven't watched it yet but I skipped to an hour and a half into the movie and the video/audio is perfectly in sync, also I can't tell the difference between this and the mkv at all maximized on my 24'' monitor.
After work today I'll compare the two on my 73'' 1080P and let you know how it is.
I have compared the DVD Transformers with 1080P upscaling to the 720P .mov that VisualHub spit out (after 10 hours...), and the difference is amazing on the 73''.
I would go with visualhub for the time being because of it's convenience, ease of use, and guaranteed compatibility with
TV
I found some good leads for windows, but instead of installing bootcamp (which requires a defrag) and going through all the trouble, I just bought visualhub for 23 bucks.
Here's some tips for people still trying to do it without conversion:
http://forum.videohelp.com/topic349617.html
MKVTools for Mac
Videora for PC.
h264info for pc.
You should be able to figure it out.
There's a very easy to use windows tool
H264info will let you change the properties of the H.264 video file, after demuxing using MKVTools or something similar. You can change to profile 4.1 very very easily using this h264info.
Good Luck.
for me though, I just used Visual Hub last night, and I'm very impressed.
I had Transformers 720P (566x1280 or so) H.264 and AC3 5.1 in an MKV that I got online (Septic version).
I used Visual Hub with AppleTV 5.1 Preset, H.264 encoding, 2 Pass, and Audio passthrough.
I haven't watched it yet but I skipped to an hour and a half into the movie and the video/audio is perfectly in sync, also I can't tell the difference between this and the mkv at all maximized on my 24'' monitor.
After work today I'll compare the two on my 73'' 1080P and let you know how it is.
I have compared the DVD Transformers with 1080P upscaling to the 720P .mov that VisualHub spit out (after 10 hours...), and the difference is amazing on the 73''.
I would go with visualhub for the time being because of it's convenience, ease of use, and guaranteed compatibility with
TVAnyone knows if you have an mkv with a DTS track - how to change it to ac3? I can extract the dts track via mkvextract - but if I then use mkvmerge to merge it back to a new mkv file, I just get two DTS tracks.
Anyone?
Anyone?
I also would love to know how to do this
5.1 DTS to 5.1 Anything that will play on Apple TV!!! (AC3 would be nice).
It'd be even nicer if I didn't have to demux then remux, i.e. just do an mkv ->mp4 anc change the audio in the process.
stomer had the answer:
1) download visual hub and install it
2)
run this command on your $file:
"/Library/Application Support/Techspansion/vh131ffmpeg" -i $file -vn -acodec libfaac -ar 48000 -ac 2 -ab 128k audio.mp4
...how exactly do I do this?
i'm sorry, but I'm not a visualhub pro.
Does this just change the demuxed dts track, or can I convert it without de/remuxing?
Yes, you just run the command from Terminal. The audio WILL be resampled into mp4 (aac).
Awesome! Thanks, I've been avoiding the MKV files with DTS, but most of them are that way.
If you have access to Windows then the easiest way to do this is to use a program called eac3to. You then need to install a couple of drivers for good DTS decoding. Takes about 10 minutes to convert 2 hours of audio. The program also offers the ability to decode HD audio tracks.
I won't give you the link but if you type eac3to into Google just look at the second hit on the first page.
It currently seems the biggest hurdle in getting MKV's with DTS on the Apple TV is in converting the DTS to AC3. I found a link with utilities and a script to extract the DTS audio from an MKV and reincode it as AC3 then insert it back into the MKV's original file.
http://www.networkedmediatank.com/wiki/index.php/Convert_DTS_to_AC3#Linux.2FOS_X
I'm assuming with a process like this you could then drop the newly created file into Visual Hub and process an Apple TV 5.1 setting to get something that will play in discreet surround on the ATV.
http://www.networkedmediatank.com/wiki/index.php/Convert_DTS_to_AC3#Linux.2FOS_X
I'm assuming with a process like this you could then drop the newly created file into Visual Hub and process an Apple TV 5.1 setting to get something that will play in discreet surround on the ATV.
Quick one on Resolution
Hey Guys,
I wasn't sure where to put this one, but I have a question. If I create a movie at 1080i on my machine and then stream it to the Apple TV, does it automatically perform a resolution change to 720p? How does this work? Are there streaming issues? And will there be a 1080 version?
Sorry, I know there are a few questions there, and I don't know all the info, but just wondering if someone there may.
Thanks!
Hey Guys,
I wasn't sure where to put this one, but I have a question. If I create a movie at 1080i on my machine and then stream it to the Apple TV, does it automatically perform a resolution change to 720p? How does this work? Are there streaming issues? And will there be a 1080 version?
Sorry, I know there are a few questions there, and I don't know all the info, but just wondering if someone there may.
Thanks!
Here's how to get an MKV (H.264 + DTS 5.1) to an MP4 (H.264 + AAC5.1):
1. Encode the video using VisualHub, but add the -an flag to stop the audio from being transcoded and muxed.
2. Transcode the audio from DTS 5.1 to AAC 5.1.
3. Mux the audio and video
You might need to increase the audio bitrate with it having 6 channels instead of 2. Just increase the -ab value in that case. Imagine that this process would also work with AC3 5.1 to AAC 5.1.
1. Encode the video using VisualHub, but add the -an flag to stop the audio from being transcoded and muxed.
2. Transcode the audio from DTS 5.1 to AAC 5.1.
Code:
/Library/Application\ Support/Techspansion/vh131ffmpeg -i sample.mkv -vn -acodec libfaac -ar 48000 -ac 6 -ab 128k audio.mp4
Code:
/Library/Application\ Support/Techspansion/vh131ffmpeg -y -i audio.mp4 -i video.mp4 -acodec copy -vcodec copy newfile.mp4You might need to increase the audio bitrate with it having 6 channels instead of 2. Just increase the -ab value in that case. Imagine that this process would also work with AC3 5.1 to AAC 5.1.
Converting DTS to AC3
After six days of frustration, and dealing with command line converters, trying to get files into bootcamp and such, I think I've come up with a compelling solution for converting DTS to AC3 for use on the Apple TV that's fairly straight forward and contains no command line converters! As a result I started a blog to talk about getting your media on the different types of devices like Apple TV.
Anyhow, the conversion looks like a lot of steps, but I really tried to make it easy for people that don't know what they're doing. So there might be extra steps there for some. Check it out and let me know what you think.
http://www.mymediadelivered.com/2008/07/how-to-convert-your-mkv-dts-audio-to-ac3-on-the-mac-for-apple-tv/
I should mention these steps are for an unmodified ATV 2.1 software.
After six days of frustration, and dealing with command line converters, trying to get files into bootcamp and such, I think I've come up with a compelling solution for converting DTS to AC3 for use on the Apple TV that's fairly straight forward and contains no command line converters! As a result I started a blog to talk about getting your media on the different types of devices like Apple TV.
Anyhow, the conversion looks like a lot of steps, but I really tried to make it easy for people that don't know what they're doing. So there might be extra steps there for some. Check it out and let me know what you think.
http://www.mymediadelivered.com/2008/07/how-to-convert-your-mkv-dts-audio-to-ac3-on-the-mac-for-apple-tv/
I should mention these steps are for an unmodified ATV 2.1 software.
My workflow for MKVs with DTS is (unfortunately) mainly windows based but it works in VMWare.
Extract the DTS track using the mkve wizard
Recode the DTS track to AC3 using DAudioK
Remux the MKV, using MKVMergeGUI removing every soundtrack and subtitle, adding my new AC3 track
Recode in VisualHub using AppleTV 5.1 & 2.0 so that the file will play in surronund sound in the living room and stereo in the bedroom.
works for me and the whole process takes about an hour (45 mins of recoding in VisualHub, gotta like the Mac Pro).
Extract the DTS track using the mkve wizard
Recode the DTS track to AC3 using DAudioK
Remux the MKV, using MKVMergeGUI removing every soundtrack and subtitle, adding my new AC3 track
Recode in VisualHub using AppleTV 5.1 & 2.0 so that the file will play in surronund sound in the living room and stereo in the bedroom.
works for me and the whole process takes about an hour (45 mins of recoding in VisualHub, gotta like the Mac Pro).
Following Stomer's method...is it possible to create a script that would automate the process?
create a batch conversion in VH (vid 1, vid2, vid3) go through the audio conversion of the batch created creating a file called (vid1audio.mp4) and then convert?
Blimey, what a thread... 
So I'm able to get most stuff on my ATV no problem using VisualHUB
However I have a couple of UK TV torrents that just don't want to play. The convert seemingly OK but when I playback on ATC the motion is very stop/start and the frames jump. The MKV film plays perfectly in QTP with Perian and in VLC.
I tend to sync the ATV with cable - I encode a load of video then bring the box upstairs and plug-in for an hour, saves killing the wireless network (which is g right now).
So I'm able to get most stuff on my ATV no problem using VisualHUB
However I have a couple of UK TV torrents that just don't want to play. The convert seemingly OK but when I playback on ATC the motion is very stop/start and the frames jump. The MKV film plays perfectly in QTP with Perian and in VLC.
I tend to sync the ATV with cable - I encode a load of video then bring the box upstairs and plug-in for an hour, saves killing the wireless network (which is g right now).
Attachments
DVD Burn
I used Visual Hub to try to convert a saved .mov file that was originally opened in QT Pro as a .mkv file. QT Pro stalls trying to export the .mkv file and trying to convert to a .vob DVD file in Visual Hub leads the minutes remaining indicator to go ridiculously high and never finish. Visual Hub does not provide a very good manual as to the specific tweaks to the advanced section of the window to make the conversion. Every attempt leads to minutes remaining to gradually increase. The soundtrack is Vorbis 48 kHz and this file also has a subtitles track so maybe thats the issue but if anyone could enlighten me, great.
I used Visual Hub to try to convert a saved .mov file that was originally opened in QT Pro as a .mkv file. QT Pro stalls trying to export the .mkv file and trying to convert to a .vob DVD file in Visual Hub leads the minutes remaining indicator to go ridiculously high and never finish. Visual Hub does not provide a very good manual as to the specific tweaks to the advanced section of the window to make the conversion. Every attempt leads to minutes remaining to gradually increase. The soundtrack is Vorbis 48 kHz and this file also has a subtitles track so maybe thats the issue but if anyone could enlighten me, great.