HD/SD Dual Rips

[Omne666]

OK.....due to my mixed ATV environment (5xATV1 + 1xATV2), more and more of my library is not accessible on most of my ATVs as I rip for the higher specs of the ATV2. But Ive just ripped a mini series in HD, and because my wife wants them accessible on our bedroom (ATV1) system, and knowing iTunes supports a single listing of dual resolutions of the same thing, I thought to give it a go.

Well, works a treat...iTunes has the HD/SD icon beside the names...but how in hell does it know which one to play? Because when I tried playing it on a ATV1 unit, it obviously accessed the HD version as it locked up/behaved sluggishly(under statement)/required a reboot (at the wall).

Anyone know?? Is it a play/button combination on the ATV remote??

I ripped both versions in HB, selecting ATV2 and ATV preset respectively.

 

[The Mad Hatter]

OK.....due to my mixed ATV environment (5xATV1 + 1xATV2), more and more of my library is not accessible on most of my ATVs as I rip for the higher specs of the ATV2. But Ive just ripped a mini series in HD, and because my wife wants them accessible on our bedroom (ATV1) system, and knowing iTunes supports a single listing of dual resolutions of the same thing, I thought to give it a go.

Well, works a treat...iTunes has the HD/SD icon beside the names...but how in hell does it know which one to play? Because when I tried playing it on a ATV1 unit, it obviously accessed the HD version as it locked up/behaved sluggishly(under statement)/required a reboot (at the wall).

Anyone know?? Is it a play/button combination on the ATV remote??

I ripped both versions in HB, selecting ATV2 and ATV preset respectively.

As far as I can tell, you can't specify which one the the ATV1 should play without breaking them out into individual files. I think the problem is that the ATV1 can play the specs of the ATV2 preset, but not the encoding scheme. I have both myself, and just use the ATV1 preset with a bumped up resolution. I've never got into the big/little version thing myself. Since all my mobiles (iPhone, iPad, etc.) can play my big files. If not, then I stream via AirVideo. The only time I encode SD is when I'm doing a DVD.

So if you're going to stay with both the ATV1&2, then I would suggest using the ATV1 preset and bump the width to 1280 if you doing HD.

HTH

 

[Sedulous]

I think the OP is talking about how iTunes movies/TV have both a SD and a HD version that seem to be packaged together. The movie/TV is broken into two files with the only difference as far as I can tell is that one ends with a (HD) marker. So the OP may want to take the HD file into Subler and mark it as "HD Video" under the "Other Settings" tab. Then place both the SD/HD files into iTunes. Perhaps that would do the trick?

 

[chenks]

I think the OP is talking about how iTunes movies/TV have both a SD and a HD version that seem to be packaged together. The movie/TV is broken into two files with the only difference as far as I can tell is that one ends with a (HD) marker. So the OP may want to take the HD file into Subler and mark it as "HD Video" under the "Other Settings" tab. Then place both the SD/HD files into iTunes. Perhaps that would do the trick?

no it's not as simple as that.
both the SD and HD files need to have the same "contentID".
the "contentID" is usually a number of varying length (example of 1 i have is 212332421)

 

[Omne666]

Actually, the hd/sd thing worked fine....I ripped the hd versions first and had them loaded into iTunes and they showed up with the HD symbol at the end. Then when the wife fussed about not being able to watch them in the bedroom, I reripped them to the atv1 preset, and itunes duely added the SD symbol at the end also, but still with only the single listing. So both versions have been recognized by iTunes as the same show, and as differing formats.

But how does the atv know which one to access, cause when I tried to play it on the atv1, like I said, the world became a place of hurt to the point I had to power off the atv1 at the wall and restart it. It obviously accessed the HD version.

I love the single listing/ dual file idea in iTunes, but how then do you actually select to play the SD version?

 

[tbayrgs]

Actually, the hd/sd thing worked fine....I ripped the hd versions first and had them loaded into iTunes and they showed up with the HD symbol at the end. Then when the wife fussed about not being able to watch them in the bedroom, I reripped them to the atv1 preset, and itunes duely added the SD symbol at the end also, but still with only the single listing. So both versions have been recognized by iTunes as the same show, and as differing formats.

But how does the atv know which one to access, cause when I tried to play it on the atv1, like I said, the world became a place of hurt to the point I had to power off the atv1 at the wall and restart it. It obviously accessed the HD version.

I love the single listing/ dual file idea in iTunes, but how then do you actually select to play the SD version?

I don't think there is a way to request to play a specific version of a film when you have both 'packaged' under one listing in iTunes. Again, no specific facts/specs to back it up but I believe the TV will play the version with highest resolution that it supports. As The Mad Hatter explained, TV1 "can play the specs of the ATV2 preset, but not the encoding scheme." In other words, the TV1 thinks it can playback the version encoded with the TV2 preset when it actually cannot.

I also have both versions of the TV and if you want an HD version to be able to play on both, you need to encode to the lowest common denominator--in this case TV1. Personally, I really don't think there will be a hugely noticeable difference between an encode using the TV1 preset vs. using TV2 preset when playing back on an TV2 so as he suggested, I'd just do one encode using the TV1 preset and just manually bump up the resolution to 720p.

 

[Omne666]

Yep. Thought that'd be the answer which kinda begs the question....why build the dual standard feature into iTunes in the first place?

I think the only people who can answer this one are probably working for Apple, and on iTunes in particular. It's like a feature that's not a feature.

So....in this case, I'll delete the references in iTunes to all the files, then just reload the SD versions.

The beauty of it is, I'm using this to showcase to my wife why we need....
1. To upgrade the atv1s at some point and (is is the real winner)
2. Upgrade the bedroom tv as this one whilst being a panasonic vietta, does not have any hdmi ports and only the single component port.

 

[Sedulous]

I never had an ATV1. Is there a setting to prefer SD videos?

 

[peterjcat]

It's a pretty useful feature for people who have some combination of Apple TVs, iPhones and iPads. By default, the SD version will sync to the iPhone and the HD version will sync to the Apple TV or iPad. You can override this default to get the HD version on an iPhone or the SD version on an iPad, but there's no such override for the Apple TV because it's assumed that you'll always want the HD version (since storage isn't a factor).

I can appreciate what you're trying to do but the SD-HD setting is really for files that are SD vs HD, not ones that are both HD but with different x264 encoding settings.

 

[tbayrgs]

It's a pretty useful feature for people who have some combination of Apple TVs, iPhones and iPads. By default, the SD version will sync to the iPhone and the HD version will sync to the Apple TV or iPad. You can override this default to get the HD version on an iPhone or the SD version on an iPad, but there's no such override for the Apple TV because it's assumed that you'll always want the HD version (since storage isn't a factor).

I can appreciate what you're trying to do but the SD-HD setting is really for files that are SD vs HD, not ones that are both HD but with different x264 encoding settings.

Yup--I have all of my kids movies encoded in both HD and SD versions as they like to take movies with them on their 2nd gen iPod Touches---versions encoded using the TV1 preset don't work. That, and with only 16 GB of memory on each, loading HD versions would fill them up pretty quickly. I also load up my old iPhone 3Gs with movies for playback on the entertainment system in our cars and there is no need for HD versions when playing back on the build in lower res. screen.

Considering our movie library has about 300 items, having the dual listing is a time/space saving when browsing iTunes on the computer.

 

[rayward]

If the source files are ripped Blu Rays, what is the advantage of the ATV2 preset over the ATV1 preset? From what I know, the only practical difference is that the ATV2 can play up to 30 fps, but this is moot as almost all Blu Ray content is 23.976 fps.

IMHO, there are two ways to fix the OP's problem: (1) rip everything under the ATV1 preset, making sure to increase the width/height to 1280 x 720; or (2) replace the ATV1s with ATV2s.

 

[peterjcat]

If the source files are ripped Blu Rays, what is the advantage of the ATV2 preset over the ATV1 preset? From what I know, the only practical difference is that the ATV2 can play up to 30 fps, but this is moot as almost all Blu Ray content is 23.976 fps.

IMHO, there are two ways to fix the OP's problem: (1) rip everything under the ATV1 preset, making sure to increase the width/height to 1280 x 720; or (2) replace the ATV1s with ATV2s.

The ATV2 preset takes advantage of advanced x264 encoding options to give a smaller file for a given quality setting (or better quality for a given filesize) compared to the ATV1 setting. I agree that both of your solutions would work!

 

[rayward]

The ATV2 preset takes advantage of advanced x264 encoding options to give a smaller file for a given quality setting (or better quality for a given filesize) compared to the ATV1 setting. I agree that both of your solutions would work!

Ok, thanks. If it was an either/or situation, it would make sense to try to take advantage of the ATV2's smaller file size. But if an ATV1-friendly encode is going to look the same on an ATV2 as an ATV2-friendly encode, only just be a bit larger in gigs, then the all-ATV1-friendly option has to be the best solution instead of keeping two large HD copies of the same movie.