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New Apple TV - some files don't play

M

mac&cheesey

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 21, 2008
294
6
I had the old Apple TV. Today, I purchased a new Apple TV. Came home, replaced the old one, got Home Sharing all set up and tried to play some movies. It looks like about half of my library won't play. I think I've narrowed it down to my .m4v files. However, in looking at the specs for the new Apple TV it should play them just fine.

Anyone else having this problem. I was on the phone with Apple for an hour and they couldn't figure it out. The guy even said that the videos are within spec and should play. He is having their engineers look at it and they'll get back to me in a week.

I don't really want to reconvert half of my 1.5TB library if I don't have to.

Also, just to note... All of the files played on the old Apple TV and all of them play in iTunes.

Any ideas?

Thanks.
m&c
 
Same problem here. No idea why it is doing it. It's only happening to some of my MP4 files. I've tried renaming them with the m4v extension and still no luck.
 
Thanks for the reply. Now I know I'm not the only one on the island!

So for you, it's your .mp4 files that are not playing? For me it was .m4v files that wouldn't play.

Do you know what you used to convert the videos? I think I used either Toast or VisualHub. All of my newer ones have been converted with iFlicks and seem to be working fine. In fact, I'm using iFlicks to convert the .m4v's to .mov format. Seems to be working so far. Just frustrating... I feel like I shouldn't have to re-encode a bunch of media that plays in iTunes and played in the old Apple TV. Oh well, until the Apple engineers get back to me that's what I'll be doing.

m&c
 
I used Handbrake.

I found a way to fix the video. I downloaded Subler and updated the meta tags and saved the file as a m4v. It's a pass through conversion so no encoding occurs.

I don't know if it is a problem with the meta tag or somehow the Apple TV is having problems decoding the audio track. I'm going to try to just edit the meta tag and see if that fixes it. I'll let you know what I find out.
 
Ok, it looks like its the meta data. Just open the file with a meta tag editor. I used iDentify. Change something in the meta data. I just added a space in the Short description and save the changes.
 
You might want to try using MetaX for your meta tags. I've used it for hundreds of movies and never had a problem with corruption in the meta data.
 
ASFx said:
You might want to try using MetaX for your meta tags. I've used it for hundreds of movies and never had a problem with corruption in the meta data.
Click to expand...

I used to use MetaX but lately, I can hardly get any return on my searches. I just started using iDentify and it works nicely.
 
Didn't work for me

I tried using both MetaX and iDentify to change some of the meta data of the files with no success.

Also, I tried to use iFlicks to "flatten to quicktime movie" which was also unsuccessful.

The only thing working for me is doing a full conversion in iFlicks to the AppleTV setting. Oh well, at least I can set it to run and then let it go for 24 hours.

I got a call back from Apple Support. They escalated it to their engineers who confirmed the files (based on their format, size and bitrate) should work in the new AppleTV. They want me to send a sample file to them so they can see if they can figure out why it's not working.

m&c
 
I had a similar problem, where most of my playlists would not even show up... I figured out if you go into your itunes library on your mac/pc, you have to make sure that anything music/movie/etc that you want to play on your ATV is "checked". My ATV will not play any content that is not "checked" in my mac itunes library.
 
I have opening some avi files in Quicktime and saved them as mov files. They play fine on iTunes but are not recognized by my TV2. Any idea why?
 
rediffusion said:
I have opening some avi files in Quicktime and saved them as mov files. They play fine on iTunes but are not recognized by my TV2. Any idea why?
Click to expand...

Try using the export function in Quicktime to create an AppleTV compatible file. File, Export and choose from Movie to AppleTV. I like to use the Quicktime 7 player but the newer player should get the same results.
 
Try this, this is what solved some of my HD videos from not playing:

Options, Sound/video:

turn digital audio or whatever from Auto to ON.

Then they should play!
 
Any update to this? I've got one at least that won't work, so far, out of ~500, but haven't had a chance to do a lot of testing yet.
 
Sorry, no update here. Haven't heard back yet from the Apple engineers. My solution is the most obvious one but also the most time consuming... I'm re-encoding all offending files.

m&c
 
mac&cheesey said:
Sorry, no update here. Haven't heard back yet from the Apple engineers. My solution is the most obvious one but also the most time consuming... I'm re-encoding all offending files.

m&c
Click to expand...

That's what I'm doing. So far it seems to be just one disc that was ripped long ago (that had 4 or 5 titles on it - kids stuff), but haven't had a chance to try everything, of course.
 
mrgreen4242 said:
That's what I'm doing. So far it seems to be just one disc that was ripped long ago (that had 4 or 5 titles on it - kids stuff), but haven't had a chance to try everything, of course.
Click to expand...

You guys might want to check out the Automator script ( http://dl.dropbox.com/u/242398/BatchRipActions-1.0.4.dmg ) a guy offers in the How to sticky on the main page of this ATV forum. Has worked like a champ for me for adding tags to movies and tv shows I processed with Handbrake.
 
What is the error message you get?

I get something like "can not load data, try again later"

Some movies work and some don't.

The other problem is the menus into TV shows, podcasts, music are quick. Movies though I watch the spinning circle for awhile, but only sometimes. I wonder if it is related.

I have 3 aTV ver 1 and all movies work fine. I do have about 900 movies on a Drobo.
 
Im a noob when it comes to this stuff. I have some mp4 files that will not open in itunes and allow me to add it to my library. What should i be looking for to determine the problem?
 
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