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New Apple TV DOES Handle 1080P
- Thread starter newagemac
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For almost all movies you should actually be adjusting the width, not the height -- since that is the longest edge, that will determine what can be displayed. 1280 x 528 is still 720p but taking into account (and removing) the horizontal black bars at the top and bottom of the screen.
Anamorphic is NOT used on Blu-rays. Coding it at 1744 x 720 is weird; it may play on the Apple TV but the Apple TV will scale it to 1280 x 528 itself and the picture will look exactly the same for a much larger file size.
There's no reason to turn Autocrop off. All that does is remove the top and bottom (or left and right) black bars -- being black these don't take a lot of space to encode and decode, but they do take some space and your files will be smaller (but look the same) if you crop them out.
Because Blu-ray has no anamorphic flag, unlike DVD (see above) the black bars you see are really there on the disc, which is an inefficiency that Blu-ray can afford since it's got so much room, but we don't need to put up with it!
There's no real concept of a standard file size when you're using the Constant Quality (RF) setting. The file will simply be as big as it needs to be, to maintain that quality in every part of the film, and so one movie may be four or five times bigger than another if it's a complex movie to encode (eg if it has a lot of film grain). It'll all average out across your movies; but if you feel your average filesizes or a particular filesize is too big, just lower the constant quality a point or so and see how it goes.
For what it's worth, 5.7GB is definitely on the high side for my 720p encodes, though not outrageously so.
Sorry, i answered that question incorrect. What i meant was i never do custom crop just leave it on default.
But it can be used to enhance the quality of a handbrake encode of wide screen material. With custom anamorphic setting selected and keeping the aspect ratio, you can designate a full 1280x720 encode that has an effective resolution of 1744x720. The 1744 number is not real. It is really 1280, but you can imagine the pixels as being rectangles as opposed to squares, so that 1280 horizontal pixels are 1744 pixels wide. However, you do actually get 720 pixels of real vertical resolution. That is much better than 528 and vertical resolution has a bigger impact on perceived picture quality than horizontal. This gives you more picture information in your encode. These files can be played on your computer, on your old apple tv, on your new apple tv, on your iPhone 4, and your iPad in their proper aspect ratio and they look great.
It should be noted that custom anamorphic for HDDVD/Bluray encodes only helps when your content that is wider than 1.78:1. You can use Handbrake to calculate the PAR for you, but be sure to double check the picture output before encoding as I've had it generate some screwy numbers before. If you aren't careful, you can end up with some strange results that wastes hours of encode time.
Did you read his whole post? He is saying when streaming 1080p to the new Apple TV, the actual computer the file is streaming from is doing the conversion to 720p. So if you have a less powerful machine or if you are doing processor intensive stuff while streaming 1080p, then you might get stutters.
Also, whatever was done while the conversion was going on is going to be saved into the cache so that also explains why your stutters still exists even once the movie is fully loaded onto the Apple TV.
I am well aware of this because it works the same way when using other streaming apps like Eyetv and Airvideo on my iPhone 4. Those apps use the host computer to do all the hard work and if your host computer is over taxed, you get stutters on the iPhone. If you record a streaming HD video from an HDHomerun device with Eyetv and it stutters while recording due to high processor load, the stutter will stay in the file even once it is no longer streaming and just saved to the hard drive.
With that being said, my 2010 Mac Mini has no problems at all unless I am trying to decode more than one HD video at a time. Like for instance if I am watching a 1080 resolution .mpg on the Mac with Eyetv while also trying to stream that video to the iPhone. Also, when I have my Chrome browser open I can get stutters if I have too many tabs with Flash in them. Flash absolutely sucks when it comes to processor usage. I have Flash disabled on Safari (with Click2Flash) so it doesn't cause any video streaming stutters. I am sure with a more powerful computer like an iMac you could do a lot more because of the stronger processor. You can actually see the conversion programs taking up large CPU cycles with Activity Monitor on your Mac.
How about posting your processor usage when you're playing the 1080p trailers on the ATV and the specs of your host computer?
so if im taking a source that is originally 1920 x 1080 and scaling it down to 1280 x 528 (with anamorphic off) is this correct? im just confused how everyone else is getting 1280x720. the only way i can get these dimensions is by doing what tommylotto suggested and turning anamorphic to custom (still not sure if i should be doing this or not, all of my original blu-ray mkv's are 16:9 which is exactly a 1.78:1 ratio)
Yes this is a good point; I would only say that of course you'll only benefit from this if you also want to output the same file at wider than 1280 pixels; if it's just for the iOS devices then you won't see the extra information. A good solution for truly universal encodes though and good to know about.
Actually, the old AppleTV is limited to 720p sources, but outputs 1080p and should take advantage of all that extra resolution.
I'm hopeful Apple eventually adds a 1080p output mode to the new AppleTV as well; this is the main reason I'm continuing to encode using custom anamorphic even though I'm in the process of replacing all of my first-generation AppleTVs with new ones.
BlackMangoTree... Do you turn off the filters under High Profile when encoding SD DVDs? Why or why not? When should I use filters? Thanks, I am going to encode my SD DVD library first before moving on to my BluRays. This is all for ATV2/iPad/iP4
For those trying to stream 1080p to their ATV2 are you doing it via a wired or wireless connection?
It is my experience that it is very difficult to wireless stream 1080p content to a non-appleTV device. I can stream 1080p fine via a wired connection. I'm wondering if this is a network issue rather than a Hardware issue.
It is my experience that it is very difficult to wireless stream 1080p content to a non-appleTV device. I can stream 1080p fine via a wired connection. I'm wondering if this is a network issue rather than a Hardware issue.
Right now I'm doing it wireless but I have a dual-network router with N traffic completely separated out. I only have a couple of devices that use that stream with the ATV2 being the only constant.
I downloaded today Lion of Judah trailer and do see some stuttering but I've also played 1080p trailers for Harry Potter 7; True Grit; and other 1080p files with zero playback issue. I don't know that it just isn't an issue with that trailer itself. There's some movement in the HP7 trailer and it plays flawlessly.
Ultimately I'll hook it up wired connection but don't see why wireless would be a problem assuming traffic levels and router quality.
14 hours to encode a 1080p MKV file to 720p?????
On a brand new Mac Mini? Are you kidding me??? This is starting to sound quite senseless. Just to make the ATV2 usable we have to jump through these hoops? Easier to stick to the Windows Media Center based HTPC. Takes less than a half hour to rip a blu-ray image to disk and you are done. Full 1080p playback with menus, subtitles, HD Audio, everything. ATV2 is going back to the store I think.
On a brand new Mac Mini? Are you kidding me??? This is starting to sound quite senseless. Just to make the ATV2 usable we have to jump through these hoops? Easier to stick to the Windows Media Center based HTPC. Takes less than a half hour to rip a blu-ray image to disk and you are done. Full 1080p playback with menus, subtitles, HD Audio, everything. ATV2 is going back to the store I think.
14 hours ? lol
I have a 2009 MacMini takes about 4 hours when i go from 1080 to 720
On my iMac i7 an hour.
Blu ray image, you need mega TB's to store all your movies with them file sizes.
I have a 2009 MacMini takes about 4 hours when i go from 1080 to 720
On my iMac i7 an hour.
Blu ray image, you need mega TB's to store all your movies with them file sizes.
Yeah, but you're talking about huge files around 30GB or more in size. I don't know about you but I don't plan on storing huge MKV rips when Netflix and iTunes allow me to access the movie again at any time from their own storage facilities. It's just not worth it to me. Western Digital makes nice hard drives but I don't like them that much. 
Converting to m4v to get sizes down to something more manageable with near Blu Ray quality makes more sense. It shouldn't take anywhere near 14 hours though on a new Mac Mini. You probably went crazy with your settings. And Handbrake allows you to queue up files to be encoded so you can just let it do its work when you're away from home or sleep. Or use a smartphone app like logmein ignition to access your Mini whenever you're not using it to resume the encoding. Put it to work and get your money's worth out of that little processor!
Converting to m4v to get sizes down to something more manageable with near Blu Ray quality makes more sense. It shouldn't take anywhere near 14 hours though on a new Mac Mini. You probably went crazy with your settings. And Handbrake allows you to queue up files to be encoded so you can just let it do its work when you're away from home or sleep. Or use a smartphone app like logmein ignition to access your Mini whenever you're not using it to resume the encoding. Put it to work and get your money's worth out of that little processor!
ETA shows 14 hours but I am hoping that is incorrect and the actual will be more inline with what you say about 4 hours. It is still cranking away. I did not mess around much with settings. Basically what I read in this forum. I picked the "High Profile" preset and in Picture Settings I set Anamorphic to custom, Width 1744 Height 720 and checked Keep Aspect Ratio. That's it. Is there anything I should do differently?
I had posted on another thread too but this one seems more active
I also use the custom anamorphic setting suggested in this thread and it seems to work great. When playing it on the computer you can clearly see the image is bigger at 100%. And it plays fine on all my apple devices (atv2, iphone4, ipad) and it looks great.
Just to jump into the quality setting conversation, I have been using 23 for my 720p blu ray conversions and the results look great, can't see a difference between it and 21. Haven't gone lower than that but can't imagine it getting any better.
One other think i wanted to mention, curious if others had to do this as I haven't seen it on other threads (though haven't read them all). When I first played my ripped movies on the new atv i wasn't getting dolby digital on my receiver. After a lot of fussing around I change the dolby setting in the audio menu on the atv to 'on' instead of 'auto'. And that worked. Not sure if anyone else ran into that.
Thanks,
Peter
I also use the custom anamorphic setting suggested in this thread and it seems to work great. When playing it on the computer you can clearly see the image is bigger at 100%. And it plays fine on all my apple devices (atv2, iphone4, ipad) and it looks great.
Just to jump into the quality setting conversation, I have been using 23 for my 720p blu ray conversions and the results look great, can't see a difference between it and 21. Haven't gone lower than that but can't imagine it getting any better.
One other think i wanted to mention, curious if others had to do this as I haven't seen it on other threads (though haven't read them all). When I first played my ripped movies on the new atv i wasn't getting dolby digital on my receiver. After a lot of fussing around I change the dolby setting in the audio menu on the atv to 'on' instead of 'auto'. And that worked. Not sure if anyone else ran into that.
Thanks,
Peter
Encoding
You guys are asking way too much out of this poor box. Blu-ray spec is 40Mbps and something like 4 or 5 reference frames.
With bitrate, you can increase the limit as high as you want. If your source material is existing BD/HD-DVD/HDTV content, you won't go over whatever the original was. There's no point trying. If you render your own video (CG or raw HDMI from some HD camera), then it may be worth it for archival, but not for your viewing library.
With reference frames, you can re-encode with 20 RFs, but lemme tell you... you ask a lot of your video decoder. That means 20 * 1920x1080 frames need to be kept in the decoder's buffer for reference in case some frame later uses a portion of previously-encoded data. The ONLY advantage you get is marginally smaller files because you can re-use encoded macroblocks more often. Stick to 4 reference frames. If the motion estimation doesn't get what it needs in the last four frames, your chances of getting something reusable go way down anyway. You're stressing out the codec for no good reason.
And *NO*, it is not higher quality to use fewer RFs -- that shows a complete ignorance of what reference frames are and do. It is not higher quality to use more either. Your encode may be slightly more efficient in terms of space used (up until about 5) but visual quality is going to be about the same. (Obviously, if you have your encoder set to output a specific file size, and change bitrate to suit, then that's a different matter. But don't do that unless you're putting it back onto optical media or a thumb drive.) EDIT: Nevermind -- I misunderstood. RF != "reference frames". Sorry -- there are files on the web that badly abuse ref. frames.
As to this new ATV, I'm disappointed. I don't see the point in buying one if your intentions are to hack or jailbreak it. The jury is out on pure hardware capability, due to it being a proprietary design. The original ATV has, for sure, 1080p output capability, and (if you're willing to give up WiFi) a PCIe slot you can reclaim for outboard decoding to make up for the neutered nVidia accelerated video decoder. Add to that a well-supported CPU, hard drive (which the ATV2 does. not. have. -- I'm looking at you Mr. Mango), and tons of I/O (including full-size USB port)... If you don't plan on using the ATV2 as Apple intended, why bother? I don't get it. It's so much less flexible.
Can this thing even support HD Audio if... *IF*... some team manages to write a bootloader to put a custom OS on it? If not, you're going to be re-encoding at least the audio specifically for compatibility. AC3 is the only real option. DTS isn't supported in MP4/M4V. You need a receiver capable of HD Audio for 5.1+ PCM. Very very very few receivers support bitstreamed AAC, so it must be converted to 2-channel PCM. Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA are both out for the same reasons. Sheesh. Just buy a WDTV or Popcorn Hour or Dune.
I guess it'll make (yet another) OK Netflix streamer though. Just like a Wii, or PS3, or iPhone, or computer...
You guys are asking way too much out of this poor box. Blu-ray spec is 40Mbps and something like 4 or 5 reference frames.
With bitrate, you can increase the limit as high as you want. If your source material is existing BD/HD-DVD/HDTV content, you won't go over whatever the original was. There's no point trying. If you render your own video (CG or raw HDMI from some HD camera), then it may be worth it for archival, but not for your viewing library.
With reference frames, you can re-encode with 20 RFs, but lemme tell you... you ask a lot of your video decoder. That means 20 * 1920x1080 frames need to be kept in the decoder's buffer for reference in case some frame later uses a portion of previously-encoded data. The ONLY advantage you get is marginally smaller files because you can re-use encoded macroblocks more often. Stick to 4 reference frames. If the motion estimation doesn't get what it needs in the last four frames, your chances of getting something reusable go way down anyway. You're stressing out the codec for no good reason.
And *NO*, it is not higher quality to use fewer RFs -- that shows a complete ignorance of what reference frames are and do. It is not higher quality to use more either. Your encode may be slightly more efficient in terms of space used (up until about 5) but visual quality is going to be about the same. (Obviously, if you have your encoder set to output a specific file size, and change bitrate to suit, then that's a different matter. But don't do that unless you're putting it back onto optical media or a thumb drive.) EDIT: Nevermind -- I misunderstood. RF != "reference frames". Sorry -- there are files on the web that badly abuse ref. frames.
As to this new ATV, I'm disappointed. I don't see the point in buying one if your intentions are to hack or jailbreak it. The jury is out on pure hardware capability, due to it being a proprietary design. The original ATV has, for sure, 1080p output capability, and (if you're willing to give up WiFi) a PCIe slot you can reclaim for outboard decoding to make up for the neutered nVidia accelerated video decoder. Add to that a well-supported CPU, hard drive (which the ATV2 does. not. have. -- I'm looking at you Mr. Mango
), and tons of I/O (including full-size USB port)... If you don't plan on using the ATV2 as Apple intended, why bother? I don't get it. It's so much less flexible.Can this thing even support HD Audio if... *IF*... some team manages to write a bootloader to put a custom OS on it? If not, you're going to be re-encoding at least the audio specifically for compatibility. AC3 is the only real option. DTS isn't supported in MP4/M4V. You need a receiver capable of HD Audio for 5.1+ PCM. Very very very few receivers support bitstreamed AAC, so it must be converted to 2-channel PCM. Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA are both out for the same reasons. Sheesh. Just buy a WDTV or Popcorn Hour or Dune.
I guess it'll make (yet another) OK Netflix streamer though. Just like a Wii, or PS3, or iPhone, or computer...
As to this new ATV, I'm disappointed. I don't see the point in buying one if your intentions are to hack or jailbreak it. The jury is out on pure hardware capability, due to it being a proprietary design. The original ATV has, for sure, 1080p output capability, and (if you're willing to give up WiFi) a PCIe slot you can reclaim for outboard decoding to make up for the neutered nVidia accelerated video decoder. Add to that a well-supported CPU, hard drive (which the ATV2 does. not. have. -- I'm looking at you Mr. Mango
Can this thing even support HD Audio if... *IF*... some team manages to write a bootloader to put a custom OS on it? If not, you're going to be re-encoding at least the audio specifically for compatibility. AC3 is the only real option. DTS isn't supported in MP4/M4V. You need a receiver capable of HD Audio for 5.1+ PCM. Very very very few receivers support bitstreamed AAC, so it must be converted to 2-channel PCM. Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA are both out for the same reasons. Sheesh. Just buy a WDTV or Popcorn Hour or Dune.
I guess it'll make (yet another) OK Netflix streamer though. Just like a Wii, or PS3, or iPhone, or computer...
Well said, my intentions for my ATV2 are purely for the concept of AirPlay, and the future possibilities of running apps and such. I am not expecting it to do 1080p or anything better than AC3 audio. Thankfully I have a PS3 if I want to do that stuff, plus I can play Blu-ray.
AirPlay is going to be awesome though, and well worth the $99 price alone for me. If I was looking to buy a streamer for 1080p I would not buy the Apple TV (old or new), it is clearly not what it is intended for.