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hankkosovo

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 23, 2009
48
0
I have a bunch of 1080p videos that I want to play through iTunes on my TV and also on my iPhone/iPad via home sharing. Using handbrake do I have to convert these at two different rates/resolutions or is possible to just convert them to H.264 with 1080p resolution and they'ed play on everything?
 
I think you are going to have to. I think there is a bitrate issue as well. I have a ATV 1 and 2 and anything I encode with the ATV2 setting will not play on my ATV1.
 
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I have a bunch of 1080p videos that I want to play through iTunes on my TV and also on my iPhone/iPad via home sharing. Using handbrake do I have to convert these at two different rates/resolutions or is possible to just convert them to H.264 with 1080p resolution and they'ed play on everything?

Dont hold me to this but I believe since the iphone 4 and the ATV2 have the same hardware under the hood you wont need to re encode for two separate files.
 
If iTunes plays it, your other Apple devices will, no?

Not true your desktop is "usually" much more powerful than say an apple tv 1 or an apple tv 2 etc. Plus if you encode it for 1080p for an iphone 4S or ipad 2, and then someone with an apple tv 1 or a first gen ipod touch, there is no way they will be able to handle the bitrate from them.
 
Heres what I have been doing lately. I have been creating 2-3.5 gig "intermediate" sized videos. They are all 1280x576 if the source is 2.35:1 and I crop to appropriate so it does not look stretched and they contain an AAC Dolby Pro Logic II or Dolby Surround track first for compatibility with almost everything and a second AC3 track with Dolby Digital 5.1 or Dolby Pro Logic if 5.1 isn't possible. All these are encoded from 1080p and I like to keep the bit rate above 2100 usually more. My iPhone 4 plays them fine and it gives my macs internal drives a break on size. I keep the bigger 1080p versions in .mkvs or .m2ts containers on my external for safe keeping depending on if I liked the movie :D :p. I have no idea if the Apple TV will play something with a 2100 bit rate but you can check Apples site or ask around. I find if you down sample the resolution and keep a high bit rate you can get better quality at lower resolutions allot of the time. For example I used to encode 1gig 720p videos before I really started to become a picture quality and cinema Nazi so what I do now is downsample to 960x540p which is the iPhone 4s resolution and the quality looks better....just my experience though..
 
Dont hold me to this but I believe since the iphone 4 and the ATV2 have the same hardware under the hood you wont need to re encode for two separate files.

I know I don't. I use Handbreak, and the ATV2 setttings - the resuling file plays fine on my ATV2, my iPhone 4, my iPad2 and my wifes iPhone 4S
 
Heres what I have been doing lately. I have been creating 2-3.5 gig "intermediate" sized videos. They are all 1280x576 if the source is 2.35:1 and I crop to appropriate so it does not look stretched and they contain an AAC Dolby Pro Logic II or Dolby Surround track first for compatibility with almost everything and a second AC3 track with Dolby Digital 5.1 or Dolby Pro Logic if 5.1 isn't possible. All these are encoded from 1080p and I like to keep the bit rate above 2100 usually more. My iPhone 4 plays them fine and it gives my macs internal drives a break on size. I keep the bigger 1080p versions in .mkvs or .m2ts containers on my external for safe keeping depending on if I liked the movie :D :p. I have no idea if the Apple TV will play something with a 2100 bit rate but you can check Apples site or ask around. I find if you down sample the resolution and keep a high bit rate you can get better quality at lower resolutions allot of the time. For example I used to encode 1gig 720p videos before I really started to become a picture quality and cinema Nazi so what I do now is downsample to 960x540p which is the iPhone 4s resolution and the quality looks better....just my experience though..

Thanks for this.

If I rip everything at 1080p to a H.264, am I correct in thinking this will play on an iPhone 4, Mac and ATV 2 (it downsizes it to 720p)? Will it also play on an iPad 1?
 
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