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Rip DVDs w/ Dolby Digital 5.1 sound & Play over Apple TV?

sJv said:
This is for Leopard users. Download Handbrake 0.9.2 from here:

http://handbrake.fr/

optional: Rip DVD's to hard drive first using Mac The Ripper. While handbrake for Mac can rip and encode, it is nice to rip up a bunch of DVD's, then queue them up in handbrake to run overnight.

Fire up handbrake. Point it to your DVD or your hard disk with the first ripped movie to encode. 

Select the Destination you want the file to be encoded to. I be sure to use an m4v suffix - HB wants to name it .mp4 for some reason. Chapter markers only work with files that end in .m4v. You can always rename it later if you forget.

Under Codecs: select AVC/H.264 Video/ AAC + AC3 Audio.

Hit Start.

You can queue up more movies by selecting Source, making sure the destination and file name is what you want, select the codec, and Add to Queue.

Use MetaX to tag your movies when done.

The above settings work great on action movies. If you want to save space with an older or lower quality movie, you can lower the bit rate to 2000, and select ProLogic II in the Codec settings.

The nice thing about Handbrake with the new AAC + AC3 setting is that it will pass AC3 to your surround sound receiver, or play stereo via the RCA jacks if you dont' have a receiver. It will not play on your iPod or iPhone, though. I find it best to encode separately for those devices as you can fit 4X more movies on your device due to the more tuned file size.

-steve
Click to expand...

So is this group pretty much in agreement that this is pretty much the way to go if you want 5.1 sound?

Question:

If you don't want to que up a bunch of movies via a MTR rip, can you still do it just using hand brake?

Thanks
 
rhett7660 said:
So is this group pretty much in agreement that this is pretty much the way to go if you want 5.1 sound?

Question:

If you don't want to que up a bunch of movies via a MTR rip, can you still do it just using hand brake?

Thanks
Click to expand...

Of course you can just use the dvd disc straight to handbrake, or even open several instances of Handbrake, I used to rip up to 3 movies at the same time.
 
Krevnik said:
Cause you are doing it wrong. :p

Seriously though, you need to select the option for Handbrake to create an AC3 track. That is the Dolby Digital you are thinking of. AAC 5.1 isn't. Neither is Dolby Surround or Dolby Pro Logic II.
Click to expand...

Thanks. Today I learnt something new!
 
thank to Krevnik, I can see my movies in dolby digital on my atv.
Now I tried to set up handbrake with two audio tracks, let's say italian on track 1 and english on track 2, both with dolby digital.
I can see and change both tracks on itunes on my imac but I can see the same movie only in english on the atv.
Actually, I can see the both languages on the atv, but on the italian track the movie has no sound.
Where am I wrong?
Ciao.
paolo
 
I am very confused. Is it confirmed that the new update now makes movies 1) ripped with Handrake to an apple tv preset and 2) converted using VH using apple tv preset unusable?
 
uva25 said:
I am very confused. Is it confirmed that the new update now makes movies 1) ripped with Handrake to an apple tv preset and 2) converted using VH using apple tv preset unusable?
Click to expand...
There is a problem with encodes that only have a DD5.1 audio track and no AAC track. Files that have both AAC and DD5.1 work fine. If you're using the AppleTV preset in Handbrake (which encodes both audio tracks by default) you should be fine.
 
paolobr8 said:
thank to Krevnik, I can see my movies in dolby digital on my atv.
Now I tried to set up handbrake with two audio tracks, let's say italian on track 1 and english on track 2, both with dolby digital.
I can see and change both tracks on itunes on my imac but I can see the same movie only in english on the atv.
Actually, I can see the both languages on the atv, but on the italian track the movie has no sound.
Where am I wrong?
Ciao.
paolo
Click to expand...

I can't speak for the new 2.3 firmware, but on 2.2 and older the ATV could only cope with one AC3 track per file.
 
What about files encoded with Visualhub on the "Apple TV 5.1 + 2.0" preset?

This presumably duplicates the handbrake setting, since it's clearly indicating two audio streams in the same format. Call me paranoid, but I just wanted to be absolutely sure with 250+ movies and 650+ tv shows in my library, 95% of which recorded either with the handbrake 0.9.2 profile or the visualhub profile... :)
 
Nimiety said:
What about files encoded with Visualhub on the "Apple TV 5.1 + 2.0" preset?

This presumably duplicates the handbrake setting, since it's clearly indicating two audio streams in the same format. Call me paranoid, but I just wanted to be absolutely sure with 250+ movies and 650+ tv shows in my library, 95% of which recorded either with the handbrake 0.9.2 profile or the visualhub profile... :)
Click to expand...

It certainly did not.
 
NightStorm said:
It certainly did not.
Click to expand...

So that means VH converted files have no audio at all, or does it mean they don't have 5.1 audio but still have the 2 channel stereo audio?

Is it all files touched by VH, or just those in a .mov container, meaning that the .mp4 containered converted files still work?
 
uva25 said:
I am very confused. Is it confirmed that the new update now makes movies
1) ripped with Handrake to an apple tv preset and
2) converted using VH using apple tv preset unusable?
Click to expand...

Note that VH has 3 choices for appleTV
1) AppleTV (which is an MP4 I think, with 2 channel AAC audio)
2) AppleTV 5.1 (which is a MOV, with 5.1 channel Dolby Digital audio only - if your amp can't handle the dolby digital surround then you get no sound)
3) AppleTV 5.1+2.0 (which is an MP4 with 5.1 Dolby Digital AND 2.0 AAC audio)

People are saying that files made like #2 do NOT work with the new AppleTV update.
 
GregA said:
Note that VH has 3 choices for appleTV
1) AppleTV (which is an MP4 I think, with 2 channel AAC audio)
2) AppleTV 5.1 (which is a MOV, with 5.1 channel Dolby Digital audio only - if your amp can't handle the dolby digital surround then you get no sound)
3) AppleTV 5.1+2.0 (which is an MP4 with 5.1 Dolby Digital AND 2.0 AAC audio)

People are saying that files made like #2 do NOT work with the new AppleTV update.
Click to expand...


GregA - thank you - this is exavtly what I'm looking to confirm. The new version (SVN only) of handbrake will convert avi's but it is very unstable and crashed every time on my system, so visualhub is still the best (and by far the easiest) choice to bring on new content like that into the AppleTV on a Mac. I just want to be sure that the 650+ TV shows I have already converted aren't all going to be audio-free. :)
 
just use handbreak

use handbreak, select ipod high rez default settings, and change audio to AC3+AAC, you have a file that will play on ATV, iphone, and ipods. there is no point really to increase the resolution of a ripped dvd or other file, you end up with the same quality, but a larger file size
 
knockturnal said:
use handbreak, select ipod high rez default settings, and change audio to AC3+AAC, you have a file that will play on ATV, iphone, and ipods. there is no point really to increase the resolution of a ripped dvd or other file, you end up with the same quality, but a larger file size
Click to expand...

The problem is that handbrake doesn't (yet officially) support encoding mkvs or avis, only dvd sources. Also, handbrake isn't as streamlined by automagically adding files into itunes. Maybe not a problem for some, but when you're converting 20-30 files a week, saving that extra step helps.
 
Hi all - along the same line here - what about the case of wanting to use visualhub to convert .avi files to itunes format?

I am not sure how to check what audio tracks are in video file. Does anyone know? Let's for now, assume it is just stereo.

So, when converting in visualhub, i would just select the 'appletv' preset? Only would i select the appletv5.1 or appletv5.1+2.0 if i knew that the .avi's contained a surround sound track right? So, again if anyone can tell me how to check what audio tracks the .avi's have, that would be much appreciated.

thanks.
 
I would consider using Handbrake (which also has presets for AppleTV). The latest version of Handbrake can take AVI files as input, and it supports creating files with both a stereo and surround sound track that work with computers, iPods and the AppleTV.
 
I have found handbrake very buggy (Crashes) for video conversions....

On the topic of copyright protections, i assume there are some dvd's HB can't rip and only say MTR can? There is a great automated ripping script in this forum, but i see not much use for it since it doesn't make use of something like MTR...The first dvd i tried from my collection (the pianist) had bad sectors at the end, so assume the rip is useless.

Brett
 
You mean the 'Automating DVD Backup with FairMount, HandBrake and iTunes' threads? You know what Fairmout is?
 
yes, those are the threads i mean.

In hindsight, it was actual bad sectors on my first dvd! Even MTR said so!:). Just off to a bad start! I read a bit more about fairmount. Guess it should work great except for those dvd's that have a certain ARccOS protection. When i come (if) that, i guess i'll use MTR or something.

thanks.
Brett
 
I've done a couple hundred DVDs with Handbrake now and it works reliably for me. The only problem I've had is with certain Disney titles where I just rip and encode directly in Handbrake rather than go through a ripper first. I use DVDFab on Windows and RipIt.app on Mac.
 
So does the new Handbrake 0.9.3 "universal" setting push AC3 5.1 surround to Apple TV via optical to receiver?
 
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