Couple of Questions.....

[cagetheanderson]

I'm thinking of buying an atv but have a couple of questions:

1. Is it possible firstly to rip HD DVDS or blu-ray on my macbook and play them in HD on the ATV? and if so what software do I need?

2. If I have 720p HD avi/divx files on my macbook how would I go about converting them so I can watch HD movies on the ATV?

Thanks in advance and sorry if my question have already been answered I did spend 10 minutes looking for previous articles.

 

[Tallest Skil]

Install Windows in Boot Camp. Give the partition at least 50GB of free space. Buy AnyDVD HD. Buy a Blu-ray/HD DVD movie. Pop it in, follow the instructions for ripping. Use EVOdemux to split the feature.evo file into MPA and MPV files. Use vc1conv to convert the MPV to a .vc1 file ("vc1conv movie.mpv movie.vc1"). You can then delete the MPV file. Use vc12avi to encapsulate the VC-1 content into a set of AVIs. You can now delete the VC1 file. Use eac3to with the -libav switch to change your MPA from E-AC3 to regular AC3 ("eac3to movie.mpa movie.ac3 -libav"). You can then delete the MPA file. Merge the set of AVIs into one big one with VirtualDubMod. You can then delete the partial AVIs. Transfer the AC3 and large AVI onto the Mac side. Everything's done in OS X from here. Ensure that you have A52Codec and Flip4Mac installed so that QuickTime can read the sound and video. Open the AC3 file in QuickTime Player and export it to AIFF. Check that the resulting AIFF plays correctly, then you can delete the AC3. Open the AVI file in MPEG Streamclip and re-save it as MOV. You can then delete the AVI. Open the MOV in QuickTime Player, Select All, and Copy. Open the AIFF in QuickTime Player then choose Edit > Add to Movie. This will paste the video into the file. Save out to a new MOV and you'll have a complete, playable file! You can delete all other intermediate files at this point. You need Flip4Mac Player Pro to perform the final export.

Kudos to Nermal for that.

 

[ugacdawg]

On the PC side it's actually very simple (as long as you don't need subtitles or chapters) for blu-ray (HD DVD is real easy, HandBrake knows all about it).

Just get a copy of tsmuxergui and select the main movie (1080p) and the main soundtrack (you need to select to downconvert to AC3 if it's not already AC3 - sorry, no DTS). Save the result as another m2ts file and then point Handbrake to it.

Tell Handbrake to use the 'AppleTV' preset but then change the loose anamorphic resolution setting to 1280 (instead of 1920) and change the constant bit rate setting to between 4500-5000 (you can use 55-57% instead if you like).

Then let it encode - I find on a 3ghz quad core box it takes about 2+ hours to encode the 720p m4v file.

PS. Word is the next release of Handbrake is going to be able to handle Blu-Ray discs much better and easier (hopefully eliminating the tsmuxergui layer).