HD movie size limit???

[cenetti]

I hear file size should be under 4gb in order to tag these files.....is that correct?
all my HD files are in mkv format and way over 10gb...some of them are over 20gb....

what options do I have inorder to play (and tag) these files via itunes and tv?

I have visualhub....
do I need to limit the file size in visualhub...but then what happens to quality?

 

[LouTreize]

Take a good look in here. You might find some useful information about .mkv files. Now, with the upcoming Take 2 upgrade, there are hopes that .mkv files can be played on the AppleTv. My guess, won't happen. Then again, you never know. Either way, good luck!

 

[EvilRob]

Matroska containers ("MKV" files) will not play on an unmodified AppleTV, for a large number of boring reasons. For a variety of equally boring reasons, there's no chance of MKV container support in any mainstream consumer electronics devices, including the AppleTV, and it's unfortunate that the warez community doesn't see that as a limitation.

Transcoding (that is, copying the contents of the file from one container to another without re-encoding) the contents of an MKV file into a proper MPEG-4 file is difficult, because of the wide variety of near-random junk that can be stored in a legal MKV file (see link to that discussion above).

For now, one foolproof solution is to re-encode the MKV file using VisualHub and the AppleTV preset, using either the "High" or "Go Nuts" quality settings. This reliably provides a file of good quality, at a compatible size (<4096MB), with the trade-off that the current version of VisualHub will mix down whatever the source audio is (AC3 or 6ch AAC) into 2ch stereo.

Preserving multichannel audio tracks is a much requested feature for the next major version of VisualHub. Also, be warned that re-encoding HD footage requires a great deal of processing power.

 

[cenetti]

ok thanks guys....I finally made it all work....Everything is working perfectly..
here is what I do for those might be looking for the same setup in the future..

Keep in mind, my main purpose was to preserve "QUALITY" as much as possible while shrinking the file size.....


-Open .mkv file with visualhub. Select appletv preset, select H.264 Encoding and "go nuts", in the "advanced section" , select "2-pass" and select "best possible" (you better have some serious power here, or it'll take hours. New Mac Pro, takes about 2 hours for a 8.5gb 720p movie"

-now should have a 3-5gb .mp4 file, open MetaX, get all the info and artwork written to the file. Metax will automatically send the file to Itunes, and you're done...

-Go back to living room, select your Itunes library as source for tv and enjoy amazing quality HD movies....

this setup rocks!

 

[LouTreize]

Awesome, glad to hear you got things working. Enjoy watching your movies!