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Convert videos to Apple Tv

K

kevinmorisson

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 3, 2008
6
0
Hi

i know this topic may have been posted like a million times. However, i did not have any problems converting videos for apple tv with visualhub. that is gone. My question now is how im i gonna survive? VisualHub converted .avi files very fast and in good quality. anything else ive tried (including Quicktime Pro) converts videos with good quality but it takes AGES!
Moreover, im not an expert on hacking the apple tv to play .avi

Is there any program free or paid to solve my problem, or, a guide to hack my apple tv? (note: that i s**k on programming)


I am open to any suggestions

Thank you,
KM

(needless to say;im using a mac)
 
I have been working on the the same thing. I have been experimenting with a lot of different options. I have used Toast 9, however it was extremely slow. If I find anything soon I will let you know, but I would say keep an eye on this thread as I posed a similar question.
 
I haven't tried it yet, but I hear that the latest Handbrake snapshot works with avi's. Maybe give that a try.
 
Your best bet is Handbreak to encode and Mactheripper to rip, but handbreak does rip ... to each is own.
 
kevinmorisson said:
Yeah ive just tried Hadbreak. I cant open an .avi file in it
Click to expand...

You need to use Handbrake Snapshot, not just Handbrake. I am encoding video as I type this thanks to a recommendation from another user Cave Man... So far seems to be working well.

As far as MTR, I have read all of the place how hard it is to get the darn thing, (at least 3.0). A lot of hoops one has to jump through to get it. Am I missing something.

Handbrake has worked thus far on my DVD's decrypting them, but I do all of my decrypting on my PC and then use Handbrake to encode. But I have used Handbrake to decrypt and have had no problem, but then again, the DVDs I was trying to rip are older. Newer ones may cause a problem. I would like to try MTR so I can do it all on the Mac, but all I can say is DA*m when I look at what you need to go through to get it. Again, unless I am missing something.
 
Well ive tried it. first conversion was ok.. a bit slower than visualhub but ok. the second one ive tried... kept "quitting unexpectedly"... i dont know why...
 
kevinmorisson said:
any other ideas guys?
Click to expand...

You can install Boxee, which works with avi's. It requires an invite to the alpha test and a very easy patchstick hack.

If you have an older computer (especially a G4 or a G5), you can try elgato's Turbo.264. It's a USB dongle and software that offloads h.264 video encoding to a dedicated chip. It great speeds up encode times on older machines. The software for it has gotten a lot better, too, although it tends to produce a slightly soft picture. It also works with any QT-based application.

I haven't used it, but you can try iSquint, Visual Hub's little brother. I think it's still available.

There's also ffmpegx. It works well but it has a rather user-unfriendly interface. MPEG Streamclip should also do the trick. I'm not sure if either of these will be any faster than QT, though.
 
tom1971 said:
Just patch your ATV and play your movies on your aTV without a hitch.
Boxee is still in a very early stage and does not work that well yet.
Click to expand...

Doh! Yeah, I should have suggested other hacks as well as Boxee. Sorry, Boxee is currently stuck in my head since I've been tooling around with Hulu on the ATV.
 
I'm confused.. You used Visual Hub before, what happened to it?

Mine program still works fine.

Maybe I missed something.
 
spice weasel said:
Doh! Yeah, I should have suggested other hacks as well as Boxee. Sorry, Boxee is currently stuck in my head since I've been tooling around with Hulu on the ATV.
Click to expand...

I would say XBMC (the one that comes with Boxee) is one of the greatest apps I've seen on AppleTV. I do like Boxee and the social media aspect of it, but when it comes down to just sitting down and watching movies with a mature interface.... XBMC is GREAT. With the ATV Patchstick creator it's dead simple to install.

I made the mistake of hacking all my Xvid AVI files into MOV containers using a script called AppleTV fooler. I don't recommend it as those files will NOT play anywhere other than iTunes or Quicktime.

I tried the development snapshot of Handbrake for the first time last night and even though it was slower than VisualHub, the encode was PERFECT. I started with a blueray hidef rip of Journey Into the Center Of The Earth... it made VisualHub stutter and hiccup like crazy. The encode from Handbrake? Amazing.
 
nobleach said:
I tried the development snapshot of Handbrake for the first time last night and even though it was slower than VisualHub, the encode was PERFECT. I started with a blueray hidef rip of Journey Into the Center Of The Earth... it made VisualHub stutter and hiccup like crazy. The encode from Handbrake? Amazing.
Click to expand...

Setting for setting, the HB snapshot will always be faster then VH. If only simply because it uses the very latest x264 contrib library which is much faster than the version bundled in the ffmpeg backend that was distributed with VH. If HB seems slower you either a. are using slower (though usually better quality) options or b. You are feeding HB a much higher res source than you were feeding VH.

The higher res the source the slower to encode as either program has way more information to encode. Hence Blue-Ray rips will always be slower than sd dvd rips to encode given the exact same settings. Its just a mathematical fact.

Glad the encode worked out for you. :)
 
nobleach said:
I would say XBMC (the one that comes with Boxee) is one of the greatest apps I've seen on AppleTV. I do like Boxee and the social media aspect of it, but when it comes down to just sitting down and watching movies with a mature interface.... XBMC is GREAT. With the ATV Patchstick creator it's dead simple to install.

I made the mistake of hacking all my Xvid AVI files into MOV containers using a script called AppleTV fooler. I don't recommend it as those files will NOT play anywhere other than iTunes or Quicktime.

I tried the development snapshot of Handbrake for the first time last night and even though it was slower than VisualHub, the encode was PERFECT. I started with a blueray hidef rip of Journey Into the Center Of The Earth... it made VisualHub stutter and hiccup like crazy. The encode from Handbrake? Amazing.
Click to expand...



Interesting, didn't know handbrake would do blurays.
What settings did you use? Just the atv preset?
 
I'm still using iSquint and it works every time. If you can find a copy that would be a good choice.

I finally got boxee on a patchstik and will be testing it this morning. Guess there was an update recently and it was taking awhile to download. Tried again last night and it was done in 2 minutes. I was watching dl.tv and Dave Matthews was on talking about the update.

I was wondering why some users, like the o.p. here don't like boxee.
 
NJuul said:
Interesting, didn't know handbrake would do blurays.
What settings did you use? Just the atv preset?
Click to expand...

I actually accidentally just used the "normal" settings. Two pass encoding, and Turbo First Pass were checked. I DID make sure that I was up around 2500kbs and set the audio to 5.1 ac3. Other than that, everything was default. The only issued I encountered was while playing on the appleTV the entire video was ONE chapter..... meaning bump the FF button on the remote and BAM, you're back to the menu... try to hit "resume" and you'll never get anywhere. Video quality on my 720p screen was great though. (sorry I'm not a 1080p person... but I'd rather spend the money on sound at the moment... and a popcorn hour)
 
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