I'd prefer to be able to tag, as that's half the reason to use an AppleTV the categorization.
But I also don't want to lose quality.
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Convert mkv movies into mp4
- Thread starter Aegelward
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I'd prefer to be able to tag, as that's half the reason to use an AppleTV the categorization.
But I also don't want to lose quality.
Well first you can't passthrough in QT Pro every files, I'd say almost none, and when you can you have to encode the audio in AAC Stereo instead of Multichannel. Second, if you simply passthrough with this technique the movie won't be read neither by AppleTV or PS3, because most of the mkv are made in High Level 5.1 profile, which PS3 or AppleTV don't read. You can fake the video to be High Level 4.1 profile, by manually changing the video resource in an hex editor, but to do that you'll have to extract the video track from the Mkv.
For now, the quickest and easy way to have a quality loss, compatibile file is to extract the video track, trick the level profile, extract and convert the ac3 audio track to AAC audio, then mux the two files togheter in an mp4 file. The real problem is that the 2 muxing tools available (MP4Box, mp4creator) are buggy, at least under macintel, and don't like bigger files (MP4Box stall with files larger then 2 Gb, mp4creator with files larger than 4 Gb).
Unless somebody talented updates the sources of those 2 binaries we won't have a perfect working solution.
Oh, by the way, passthrough in visualhub never worked for me, to activate it simply goes in the advanced panel and select the -vcoded copy option in the video section, anyway it will convert the audio in stereo, but the resulting file never worked for me.
For now, the quickest and easy way to have a quality loss, compatibile file is to extract the video track, trick the level profile, extract and convert the ac3 audio track to AAC audio, then mux the two files togheter in an mp4 file. The real problem is that the 2 muxing tools available (MP4Box, mp4creator) are buggy, at least under macintel, and don't like bigger files (MP4Box stall with files larger then 2 Gb, mp4creator with files larger than 4 Gb).
Unless somebody talented updates the sources of those 2 binaries we won't have a perfect working solution.
Oh, by the way, passthrough in visualhub never worked for me, to activate it simply goes in the advanced panel and select the -vcoded copy option in the video section, anyway it will convert the audio in stereo, but the resulting file never worked for me.
Are your files HD H264 High Profile Level 5.1 with AC3 sound in Mkv container?
Edited: and even if you can passthrough the video, you can only convert the audio to AAC stereo and can't change the level profile the 4.1.
So basically, there is no good way to do it. You're going to be losing something either way.
You do it with QT Pro and you lose the ability to tag, and 5.1 ?
You do it with VisualHub, and you lose quality? (how much are we talking?)
And the other options are unstable and don't work?
You do it with QT Pro and you lose the ability to tag, and 5.1 ?
You do it with VisualHub, and you lose quality? (how much are we talking?)
And the other options are unstable and don't work?
I Don't Know If They Are All Are H.264 But Most Had 5.1 And A Couple Had DTS-HD Still Passthrough And So Do Many Of The AVI's I Download.
So basically, there is no good way to do it. You're going to be losing something either way.
You do it with QT Pro and you lose the ability to tag, and 5.1 ?
You do it with VisualHub, and you lose quality? (how much are we talking?)
And the other options are unstable and don't work?
I Don't Think You Lose 5.1 If You Do I Haven't Noticed It. If You Have Access To Windows Use MKV2VOB (To Convert To .Vob) And Then Encode In VisualHub (Handbrake Does Not Pick Up On It) I Did It last Night Didn't Lose Very Much Quality Just Went Down By 1% I'd Say, But They Came Out As .Mov Which Confused Me Abit As I Wanted .Mp4 So I'm Having Another Try Later.
MKV2VOB works well if you have parallels or VMware. If not MP4Box works (but only 2 challen audio).
See my earlier post for more info.
Mike
Sorry but this is nonsense. We're talking of H264 video files contained in Mkv, with AC3 soundtrack. So if you want to use them on AppleTV or Ps3 you have to put the video in the mp4 container. Now, the mp4 container can only receive AAC or Mp3 sound, but cannot accecpt AC3 audio stream. Saying that is absolutely impossible to passthrough the audio on those files using whatever method (quicktime, visualhub, etc..).
The only option is to convert the 5.1 AC3 audio stream to AAC, but quicktime only allows to convert it in AAC Stereo (2.0) when doing a simple one to one conversion. So you're doing something different or basically you don't know what are you doing and what kind of files you're dealing with.
Regarding the visualhub conversion, the quality loss is barely noticeable, even if there's a quality loss of course, but the problem is that when you passthrough the video and convert the audio manually the process took at max 20 minutes, while converting the whole file with VisualHub can took up to 4 hours or more for a medium length movie at 1280x720 in H264, and you still end up with stereo sound.
MP4Box works great with TV Shows, with are usually around 1 Gb, but don't work with movies, that are at least 4Gb. You have to split the original mkv file to process it with MP4Box, and after you can cat the files togheter still using MP4Box, unfortunately the resulting file plays well in quicktime but not on the PS3, and I still don't understand why.
Anyway, you can have the multichannel audio using this method, basically you process the video as you described in your tutorial, for the audio part you open the mkv in quicktime (with perian installed), extract the Sound to Aiff, this will maintain the AC3 soundtrack, then open the Aiff in quicktime, export to Mov container, in this process quicktime will convert the ac3 stream to multichannel aac (6 channels), then you open the mov in quicktime, export to mp4 with passthrough.
Now you have an mp4 audio file with 6 channels, with the correct channels mapping, and you can mux it with the video using MP4Box.
I've done all my Lost and Heroes HD TV shows with this technique and they works great on the PS3. I'll try to tag one to see it the tagging works and I'll let you know.
Edited: Ok, I've tried to tag the Lost Season 4 Episode 1 I've made with MP4Box and Quicktime audio conversion and worked great. All the tags appear in quicktime, even the movie poster.
No mp4 Container Can Accept 5.1 As I Wouldn't Be Able To Passthrough So Many Of The MKV's I Have So You Don't Know What Your On About Unless I Have Some How Worked Out How To Do It Without Re-Encoding With Out Realising It Then I Guess I'm Smart.
Either Way i Can Passthrough 5.1 Audio So Get Over It And I Don't Wish To Start An Argument Alright Unless You Want One
No mp4 Container Can Accept 5.1 As I Wouldn't Be Able To Passthrough So Many Of The MKV's I Have So You Don't Know What Your On About Unless I Have Some How Worked Out How To Do It Without Re-Encoding With Out Realising It Then I Guess I'm Smart.
Either Way i Can Passthrough 5.1 Audio So Get Over It And I Don't Wish To Start An Argument Alright Unless You Want One
You probably have a movie with 5.1 AAC audio, the mp4 container don't support AC3 audio stream. If you have managed otherwise, please provide a sample of it.
I am also very confused.
I'm trying to watch HD movies on
TV. You can't buy them, only rent, so I have to use torrents. I downloaded a couple 720p .mkv files and converted them with VisualHub using the TV 5:1 preset at Go Nuts.
The conversion took a while but I was able to add it to iTunes then play it on myTV but I had no audio. I tried using the Quicktime Pro + Perian method and have the same issue: great looking video, no audio.
I don't have the files with me, I'm at work right now but I am pretty sure the audio was .ac3 on both. I do have the Visual Hub logs if anyone wants to look at them. http://www.isquint.org/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST&f=10&t=5480&st=#entry26226
I have no experience with Terminal and don't have access to a PC.
I'm trying to watch HD movies on
TV. You can't buy them, only rent, so I have to use torrents. I downloaded a couple 720p .mkv files and converted them with VisualHub using the TV 5:1 preset at Go Nuts. The conversion took a while but I was able to add it to iTunes then play it on my
TV but I had no audio. I tried using the Quicktime Pro + Perian method and have the same issue: great looking video, no audio.I don't have the files with me, I'm at work right now but I am pretty sure the audio was .ac3 on both. I do have the Visual Hub logs if anyone wants to look at them. http://www.isquint.org/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST&f=10&t=5480&st=#entry26226
I have no experience with Terminal and don't have access to a PC.
six channel sound
Are you sure it was AC3? Although the MKV file might have had six channels, it probably was DTS or six channel AAC, if you run that through Apple TV 5.1 preset, then you won't get any audio. You'll have to re-output it using the Apple TV setting as that then makes a stereo track that is playable. There isn't anything yet that can convert or embed DTS into a mov stream for playback on Apple TV.
Happened to me loads of times
Jason
Are you sure it was AC3? Although the MKV file might have had six channels, it probably was DTS or six channel AAC, if you run that through Apple TV 5.1 preset, then you won't get any audio. You'll have to re-output it using the Apple TV setting as that then makes a stereo track that is playable. There isn't anything yet that can convert or embed DTS into a mov stream for playback on Apple TV.
Happened to me loads of times
Jason
there are different ways to convert ac3 into AAC 5.1 (in windows) which let u mux the h.264 video with the aac 5.1 and play it in atv.
But this is not my problem, the thing is I'd really like to have a mp4 with 2 audios (english and spanish) and a optional subtitle. I could even do this in windows with aac 5.1, but quicktime doesn't recognize different audios, its downmix both languages. anybody know how to mux 2 audios into mp4 and make quicktime (or itunes) recognize them????
Sorry for my bad english
But this is not my problem, the thing is I'd really like to have a mp4 with 2 audios (english and spanish) and a optional subtitle. I could even do this in windows with aac 5.1, but quicktime doesn't recognize different audios, its downmix both languages. anybody know how to mux 2 audios into mp4 and make quicktime (or itunes) recognize them????
Sorry for my bad english
@r12ski: For the AC3 audio with AppleTV, you should use an optical audio cable connected to the digital amplifier. Make sure you have the right connection, and check on AppleTV if you have to set some setting in the menu.
The file is in a mov container right? Because Apple, with the new AppleTV and quicktime update allows H264 video + AC3 audio stream in .mov container, 'cause .mp4 don't support it.
@JasonKerner: with the new AppleTV Take2 you can output AC3 sound if it's contained in .mov, wasn't possible before.
@javidal: if you mux the 2 audio track with MP4Box it will work, unfortunatly the subtitles won't work in quicktime, because it don't support .srt subtitles, and Perian will be disabeld for files decoded natively. You could see the subs in VLC, but that's not an option!
The file is in a mov container right? Because Apple, with the new AppleTV and quicktime update allows H264 video + AC3 audio stream in .mov container, 'cause .mp4 don't support it.
@JasonKerner: with the new AppleTV Take2 you can output AC3 sound if it's contained in .mov, wasn't possible before.
@javidal: if you mux the 2 audio track with MP4Box it will work, unfortunatly the subtitles won't work in quicktime, because it don't support .srt subtitles, and Perian will be disabeld for files decoded natively. You could see the subs in VLC, but that's not an option!
Since I have received my Apple TV, like many people in this thread, I have being looking for an easy way to convert MKV to MP4. After long periods of research I abandoned the idea:
At home, over Toslink I hook my ATV to the amp which can decode any audio stream so I have no audio track/format issues. This does reduce my problem to the MKV container and elimintaes the need to re-encode the audio track. My MKV files are stored on my network shared drive mounted to the ATV via SMB.
In the end I gave up my quest because:
a) using ATVfiles + Perian 1.1 on the Apple TV allows me to play the MKV files
b) my experience is that MKV->MP4 conversion options do not support multiple audio tracks. When you use a tool like MP4box to add two audio tracks e.g. English/French you get mixed results. VLC playback provides audio track selection, Mplayer only plays one track and the other is not selectable, Quicktime plays both tracks at the same time and none are selectable (=>not good for ATV).
If you have an ATV, like me you are likely to have ATVFiles plugin with audio passthrough enabled + Perian 1.1 (and/or nitoTV - I use nitoTV just to playback DVD VOB files) otherwise you are really missing the point of an ATV.
The great advantage of this route is that I don't waste hours and hours of time of MKV to MP4 conversion. The only downside of this approach is that when opening an MKV file QT must read the video file first (10-20minutes) otherwise you might experience choppy playback.
I must admit that I did come across 2 files in my collection that would not play the audio track, for these specific files I did convert using MP4box and only one audio track.
My conclusion for MKVs ... if you can't beat them join them !
At home, over Toslink I hook my ATV to the amp which can decode any audio stream so I have no audio track/format issues. This does reduce my problem to the MKV container and elimintaes the need to re-encode the audio track. My MKV files are stored on my network shared drive mounted to the ATV via SMB.
In the end I gave up my quest because:
a) using ATVfiles + Perian 1.1 on the Apple TV allows me to play the MKV files
b) my experience is that MKV->MP4 conversion options do not support multiple audio tracks. When you use a tool like MP4box to add two audio tracks e.g. English/French you get mixed results. VLC playback provides audio track selection, Mplayer only plays one track and the other is not selectable, Quicktime plays both tracks at the same time and none are selectable (=>not good for ATV).
If you have an ATV, like me you are likely to have ATVFiles plugin with audio passthrough enabled + Perian 1.1 (and/or nitoTV - I use nitoTV just to playback DVD VOB files) otherwise you are really missing the point of an ATV.
The great advantage of this route is that I don't waste hours and hours of time of MKV to MP4 conversion. The only downside of this approach is that when opening an MKV file QT must read the video file first (10-20minutes) otherwise you might experience choppy playback.
I must admit that I did come across 2 files in my collection that would not play the audio track, for these specific files I did convert using MP4box and only one audio track.
My conclusion for MKVs ... if you can't beat them join them !
You'r right in everything!! I'm giving up too. it just could be amazing to have all my hd movies in itunes with all the extras like different audios and subtitles, but I think apple is not perfect at all, they just wanna get money from itune store and that is.... they really should improve it. I dont have de atv cos I saw a few media center like "popcorn" which play mkv perfectly, we'll have to wait then.
Ok, It seems I've missed to whole point. So, lets say I need to convert mkv to Apple TV (no matter what format) with pass-through. I don't mind stereo,though. What should I do? I have both Visual Hub and QT Pro. I've tried pass-through video with QT Pro to MPEG-4, and I've managed make it work in QuickTime, but I couldn't sync it then to Apple TV. Audio settings I leaved as it is, AAC-LC, Stereo. The question is, why I couldn't sync it to Apple TV? I only care about video and don't want to wait 4 hours to convert MKV to Apple TV... Also, is to possible to pass through to *.mov format? In quicktime pro, there's no such option, but there's Compression Type: none. What's that mean?
Apple TV is picky about the H264. It can handle the MP4 fine. It only supports up to 5 Mbps, Progressive Main Profile (CAVLC) and AFAIK upto level 3.1.
In my experience the majority of mkv files containing h264 do not meet the above requirements and therefore require re-encoding.
macshodan, could you please describe how to change high level 5.1 to 4.1 in hex editor. Thanks