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Visual Hub 1.31 is coming tomorrow. DD5.1 Support for AppleTV!!!

The updated VisualHub is only doing Quicktime (MOV) containers with an AC3 track, a variant of the AC3 hack we already had on AppleTV 1.x.

I'm trying to convince the VisualHub guy to do proper MPEG-4 instead, as the Apple movies are done, thus far unsuccessfully.

Wading into the VisualHub forums in support of this might help. I'm not sure they understand why it matters, over there.
 
Do you want Vhub to replicate what Apple it doing so that you can at least play back the file on the 360 even if it is only AAC that is decoded? For that, I can understand where you are coming from and agree it would be a nice approach to take. But if your goal is to have a single file that has AC-3 that can be passthrough-ed from both an aTV and 360 to an external audio decoder, then I am afraid there is no solution for that right now (unless the 360 can recognize AC-3 tracks in a .mov like it seems the aTV is now able to do?).

If Apple is storing their AC3 in a private stream inside the mp4, then it is unlikely an xbox 360 or any other device is going to be able to properly recognize that file anyway. MS (or any other mf) would have to decide to replicate exactly what Apple's new "standard" is for that to work properly. And we all know how often those two agree on how video in the marketplace should be handled.
 
This is great news. But I really hope they are MP4's so we can properly tag them with MetaX...
 
EvilRob said:
The updated VisualHub is only doing Quicktime (MOV) containers with an AC3 track, a variant of the AC3 hack we already had on AppleTV 1.x.

I'm trying to convince the VisualHub guy to do proper MPEG-4 instead, as the Apple movies are done, thus far unsuccessfully.

Wading into the VisualHub forums in support of this might help. I'm not sure they understand why it matters, over there.
Click to expand...

Do you want to say tha this solution worked with AppleTV 1?

Why is this a bad way to implement DD support?
 
petvas said:
Why is this a bad way to implement DD support?
Click to expand...

Because it's an AppleTV-specific hack that produces files that are useless everywhere else. We already had something like that for the AppleTV 1.x, with the lossless AC3 encoding trick. No one wanted to go there. I think once the initial excitement wears off, no one will want this approach either.

For a large collection, putting them into an AppleTV-specific format rather than standards-compliant MPEG-4 is a non-starter.
 
EvilRob said:
Because it's an AppleTV-specific hack that produces files that are useless everywhere else. We already had something like that for the AppleTV 1.x, with the lossless AC3 encoding trick. No one wanted to go there. I think once the initial excitement wears off, no one will want this approach either.

For a large collection, putting them into an AppleTV-specific format rather than standards-compliant MPEG-4 is a non-starter.
Click to expand...

How do we know that what Apple does is a standard that will play on all devices that support mp4? Apple creates an MP4 stream that has three files in it, one h.264 video file, one ac3 stream and one h.264 audio file (stereo). I don't think that this stream will be playable anywhere else than the Apple TV.

Better to have mov files that work pretty well with my AppleTV than no Dolby Digital support at all...
 
I do this for a living. I've already demuxed an Apple-supplied movie with an AC3 track to have a look at it, and I've already tested it on several other players and chipsets I have sitting around the office.

The Apple-supplied movies are legal MPEG-4. They play on anything that supports the profile. The private AC3 stream is quietly ignored. This is the utility of standards like MPEG-4, to ensure interoperability just like this. We're not dealing with crap like AVI and DivX here, we're dealing with a documented standard with specific requirements and known behaviour.

Better to have mov files that work pretty well with my AppleTV than no Dolby Digital support at all...
Click to expand...

False dichotomy. The two options are not mutually exclusive.

No one is trying to stop you from using MOV containers if you want to. Good luck with that, I hope it goes well. ;)
 
EvilRob said:
I do this for a living. I've already demuxed an Apple-supplied movie with an AC3 track to have a look at it, and I've already tested it on several other players and chipsets I have sitting around the office.

The Apple-supplied movies are legal MPEG-4. They play on anything that supports the profile. The private AC3 stream is quietly ignored. This is the utility of standards like MPEG-4, to ensure interoperability just like this. We're not dealing with crap like AVI and DivX here, we're dealing with a documented standard with specific requirements and known behaviour.



False dichotomy. The two options are not mutually exclusive.

No one is trying to stop you from using MOV containers if you want to. Good luck with that, I hope it goes well. ;)
Click to expand...
How easy would be for Visual Hub and Handbrake to create such mp4 files?
 
petvas said:
How easy would be for Visual Hub and Handbrake to create such mp4 files?
Click to expand...

I don't know, actually. That question is better answered by the VisualHub guy, I think. It's possible to craft one by muxing the various streams into it yourself, but that's a huge amount of effort vs. a polished tool like Handbrake or VisualHub. Still experimenting with that here.

There are some comments from the VisualHub guy over in the thread you originally linked to. It doesn't sound like this will make it into the version he is releasing tomorrow, but to be fair, it's very early days. Frankly, I'm impressed he responded as quickly as he has.

If he gets the MP4 files working as well, I will definitely send him some money, and perhaps some beer as well.
 
This is a great update!

I really hope a way is figured out to output as an .mp4

I like to tag all my movies with Rating, Actors, Description and artwork with MetaX...
 
So to clarify:

New release allows 5.1 output through the ATV, but not through any other sources, NOR will it allow for downconversion to a 2.0 track if you move to another device?

What prevent having the 5.1 solution and the 2.0 solution?
 
Superman07 said:
So to clarify:

New release allows 5.1 output through the ATV, but not through any other sources, NOR will it allow for downconversion to a 2.0 track if you move to another device?
Click to expand...

Correct, although Quicktime with Perian 1.1 will playback the audio just fine on my MBP. VLC does not, but I may not have the most recent VLC.

Superman07 said:
What prevent having the 5.1 solution and the 2.0 solution?
Click to expand...

More time to figure this stuff out? Yesterday was the first time anyone outside of Apple was able to take a good look at how Apple packages their 5.1DD movies. Tyler was VERY quick in getting an update to Visual Hub out already and I'm sure he's looking at how to incorporate both audio streams into an MP4 container, like Apple does. The same goes for the Handbrake team.

-steve
 
I've tried this and it works great. There is one problem.

If you record a HD 5.1 video with eyetv do NOT simply drag the *.eyetv file into VisualHub. Doing so makes the audio out of sync. You must first export the video to a mpeg-2 program stream using EyeTV's export. Then drag the mpeg file into Visual Hub..This way the audio is in sync and 5.1.

Otherwise it's great!!
 
dynaflash said:
Like all things ... someone to figure it out and code it.
Click to expand...

sJv said:
More time to figure this stuff out? Yesterday was the first time anyone outside of Apple was able to take a good look at how Apple packages their 5.1DD movies. Tyler was VERY quick in getting an update to Visual Hub out already and I'm sure he's looking at how to incorporate both audio streams into an MP4 container, like Apple does. The same goes for the Handbrake team.

-steve
Click to expand...

Relax!! :) I wasn't trying to be judgmental. I'm not a coder, so a lot of this is foreign to me. I had infered, obviously incorrectly, from conversations yesterday that it seemed like the 5.1+2.0 solution would be the simplest and was relatively painless.
 
billabong said:
This is a great update!

I really hope a way is figured out to output as an .mp4

I like to tag all my movies with Rating, Actors, Description and artwork with MetaX...
Click to expand...

I almost popped for the VH until I realized it was .mov and cannot be tagged with MetaX. Best to wait unless your okay without the tagging in MetaX.

You can still do tagging in iTunes, but its very limited. No MPAA ratings symbols or descriptions.
 
Anyone else getting TERRIBLE download speeds on Visual Hub's website?? It looks like it will take me 3.4 days to download 5.5mb!! Just like the good old days :)
 
So just to clarify, basically this is half-way to what we have all been waiting for... I have a bunch of .mkv 720p encodes, almost all with 5.1 sound. I only want to play these on my computer and on the AppleTV. But I also want to tag them properly in MetaX, and currently, the container its outputting right now is not accepted in MetaX?

One more thing: Now that we know AppleTV can stream files over 4gb and higher bitrates that 4500kb or whatever it used to be, are the settings in VisualHub going to be amped up at all for those of us who care solely about the quality of these encodes, no matter really how much storage space they take up?? Thanks VH for all the hard work
 
EvilRob said:
For a large collection, putting them into an AppleTV-specific format rather than standards-compliant MPEG-4 is a non-starter.
Click to expand...

So your argument is instead of Apple supporting AC3 directly, they should have developed some type of transcode from AAC 5.1 to AC3 within the Apple TV itself?

After all, there aren't many (any?) audio receivers that can interpret AAC 5.1. That's been the problem all along.
 
Wow this is taking LONG!! I am trying to convert an mkv/720p/ac3(5.1) with Go Nuts selected and the first pass is taking a hot minute. I am on an iMac 2.0 Core 2 Duo.
 
EvilRob said:
The Apple-supplied movies are legal MPEG-4. They play on anything that supports the profile. The private AC3 stream is quietly ignored. This is the utility of standards like MPEG-4, to ensure interoperability just like this. We're not dealing with crap like AVI and DivX here, we're dealing with a documented standard with specific requirements and known behaviour.
Click to expand...

But that "profile" requirement is the important part. Quicktime, as an example, doesn't support anywhere near the range of profiles that are "legal" based on the .mp4 standard. For example, placing subtitles as vobsubs in a private stream, as is done by nero digital, is both completely .mp4 compliant and completely unsupported by quicktime. Only very basic .mp4 files (h.264 video, stereo AAC audio) can be used with any certainty at this point. Up until the very latest versions of quicktime, users could not select alternate audio tracks included in a .mp4, though that is a very basic functionality. The funny thing is, even divx and xvid encoded videos are .mp4 compliant, as are .mp3 audio tracks. Apple will never support them of course, but they meet the specs.
 
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