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mousehouse · 02:32 PM

I just got myself this nice AppleTV for my birthday thinking I can recode some of my DVDs and watch them on widescreen TV. The AppleTV works great but there are still some things I don't understand - maybe someone can clarify. I searched macnn and awkwardtv etc. but not a lot of information seems to be available...

1. What do you guys use for re-encoding? I'm using HandBrake 0.9 but it takes _AGES_ for any movie to re-encode to x264 on my dual 2.3 G5... I'm using the general AppleTV present unaltered. Any hints, tips to speed this up?

2. When re-encoding the DVD "Broken Flowers" it doesn't play on the AppleTV. It sync's allright, but the movie "stutters" and after a few minutes just quits. You're thrown back into frontrow with an empty movie list - which is repopulated in a few seconds. To me this seems to be a bug or speed issue which I don't understand.

3. Why doesn't the AppleTV do some sort of sleeping? I can hear the disk in it most of the time (very quiet room) and it get hot. When I mean hot, it is really hot. I can keep my hand on top of it - but it is very uncomfortable...

4. What's the best resolution for it? My TV supports both 720p HD and 1080 HD ('i' I presume). The AppleTV lets me select both although it feels a tad slower on 1080... As it can only do 720p isn't that a better resolution to use cpu-wise?

Other than that, I love watching trailers on it ;-)

Nexus5 · Sep 1, 2007, 04:09 PM

Originally Posted by mousehouse

1. What do you guys use for re-encoding? I'm using HandBrake 0.9 but it takes _AGES_ for any movie to re-encode to x264 on my dual 2.3 G5... I'm using the general AppleTV present unaltered. Any hints, tips to speed this up?)

Try this
elgato turbo264

or

Miglia VideoExpress

nexus5.

schwaz80 · Sep 1, 2007, 07:16 PM

Can I buy the elGato hardware in the U.S.?

zerostar · Sep 1, 2007, 10:40 PM

I would try this first:
VisualHub: The Universal Video Converter for Mac.

It is considerably cheaper and in my testing just as fast (if not a bit faster) then those USB sticks. the USB sticks work with programs that use quicktime. Sorry but as its stands quicktime encoding to H.264 is SLOOOOW. VisualHub uses ffmpeg which is loads faster. Download the trial and see for yourself, but I think you can only do 2 minutes of footage

There have been mixed reviews and claims that VisualHub had a bit lower quality, but I think that has been fixed in the last update.

mousehouse · Sep 2, 2007, 04:26 AM

Thanks for the replies. One excellent remark somewhere was that you can do both Syncing and Streaming. When I viewed the re-encoded "Broken Flowers" using streaming (over wireless-G no less) it played without problems. Strange that a h.264 movie will not play from the internal AppleTV disk, but will play as a stream. Funny...

I'll have a look into ffmpeg. It's been awhile since I last played with it. Maybe it's better optimized for G5's?

Also the sleep thing is annoying, I think I will use a powerbar with integrated switch so that I can turn it off when not using it...

Parky · Sep 2, 2007, 05:19 AM

Originally Posted by mousehouse

Thanks for the replies. One excellent remark somewhere was that you can do both Syncing and Streaming. When I viewed the re-encoded "Broken Flowers" using streaming (over wireless-G no less) it played without problems. Strange that a h.264 movie will not play from the internal AppleTV disk, but will play as a stream. Funny...

I'll have a look into ffmpeg. It's been awhile since I last played with it. Maybe it's better optimized for G5's?

Also the sleep thing is annoying, I think I will use a powerbar with integrated switch so that I can turn it off when not using it...

Don't keep turning off the Apple TV when you are not using it, it is designed to be left on at all times for a number of reasons.

Do you know that you can put the Apple TV into standby mode? While this is still not off, it is slightly better than just leaving it on totally. Even in standby the disc can operate, as you can still update content and it can still access the Apple servers for updates. (I suspect for instance that the 'trailers' menu pages are updated in the background).

If you do keep turning the Apple TV on and off you will actually be rebooting it every time and putting the internal components under a lot of repeat thermal stress, i.e. heating up and cooling down, that can cause problems in soldered joints and connectors and the expansion and contraction of the materials causes minute movement.

mduell · 05:37 PM

Originally Posted by mousehouse

1. What do you guys use for re-encoding? I'm using HandBrake 0.9 but it takes _AGES_ for any movie to re-encode to x264 on my dual 2.3 G5... I'm using the general AppleTV present unaltered. Any hints, tips to speed this up?

4. What's the best resolution for it? My TV supports both 720p HD and 1080 HD ('i' I presume). The AppleTV lets me select both although it feels a tad slower on 1080... As it can only do 720p isn't that a better resolution to use cpu-wise?

1. Buy a faster computer, or use 'easier' encoding settings. The Handbrake guys are trying to maximize quality for each preset, so they add in all the options that a device (ATV, PS3, iPod, etc) supports. If you're more concerned with encoding time than quality, you can change a lot of those settings.

4. What's the actual native resolution of your TV? If you don't know, what's the model number?

Nexus5 · Sep 2, 2007, 05:00 PM

Originally Posted by schwaz80

Can I buy the elGato hardware in the U.S.?

Elgato Systems American Online Store

nexus5.

LeeG · Sep 2, 2007, 11:41 PM

One big vote here for VisualHub - I use it routinely, it is fantastic.

L

mousehouse · Sep 4, 2007, 04:36 AM

I'll give VisualHub a try... for about $20 it seems a nice way to go!

With regard to Perky's remark about not turning the AppleTV off, I think your statement is incorrect. The electrical characteristics of semiconductors will change over time, and this effect is accelerated when they are running hot. Of course, the debate then is "how hot is hot".

Anyway, it never sleeps - and does suck up about 40W of power I read somewhere. IMHO the disk can spin down, presumably even when just streaming and the whole device can go to sleep and use Wake-on-LAN style technology for waking up on a sync request. Right now my AppleTV is happily scrolling Photo's on a TV screen that is turned off. Totally useless...

Nexus5 · Sep 4, 2007, 06:35 AM

Originally Posted by mousehouse

Anyway, it never sleeps - and does suck up about 40W of power I read somewhere. IMHO the disk can spin down, presumably even when just streaming and the whole device can go to sleep and use Wake-on-LAN style technology for waking up on a sync request. Right now my AppleTV is happily scrolling Photo's on a TV screen that is turned off. Totally useless...

Press the "Play" button on the remote for more then 5 seconds, see what happens. No more "happily scrolling Photo's on a TV screen that is turned off".

nexus5.

edge.it · Sep 4, 2007, 08:44 AM

ok so i see if everyone here is recommending visual hub, i DLed and heres what i came up with.

orig. file
3ninjas.avi-1.55GB -- im not sure what this was encoded with
visualhub
3ninjas.mp4-2.72GB -- i checked off H.264 encoding/add to itunes/optimize for AppleTV

are all of my reencoded movie files going to be bigger with at times lesser quality. it might just be this one case but it seems the orig. file has richer colors then the new one. and its questionable has better blacks too.

mduell · Sep 4, 2007, 05:02 PM

Reencoding will always end up with a lower quality file; depending on the settings it may be larger or smaller.

k squared · Sep 4, 2007, 10:40 PM

Originally Posted by edge.it

ok so i see if everyone here is recommending visual hub, i DLed and heres what i came up with.

I've tried Visual Hub (and all the other encoders) and keeping going back to Handbreak. Sure h.264 encoding takes a while, but encoding with the apple TV settings from a ripped DVD produce great results.

mousehouse · Sep 5, 2007, 02:31 AM

Thanks for the tip about the remote, didn't know it was _that_ much like an iPod ;-)

My LCD is a JVC LT32X70, doing 1366x768. Very nice screen btw, the AppleTV stuff looks really great.

edge.it · Sep 5, 2007, 09:33 AM

can handbrake only encode to H.264 from a DVD disk? not just any random movie file?

mousehouse · Sep 5, 2007, 04:00 PM

I've tried a few different movies with Handbrake, including divx. They all work...

edit... oops. never did a dics... from the wiki:

HandBrake's main form of input is ripped DVDs that you have stored as VIDEO_TS folders or .iso images on your hard drive. It can also read directly from some DVDs, right from your computer's optical drive.

It also has limited support for some .vob, .ts, .m2t, and .mpg files. These include television broadcasts captured with an EyeTV or HDHomeRun. HandBrake, however, does expect that all MPEG-2 streams are set up like a DVD (with 2048 byte blocks) and are properly formed, so don't expect it to read everything.

HandBrake will not accept videos that have already been encoded by another source. This includes .avi video files you may have downloaded, files from Google Video, etc..

edge.it · Sep 6, 2007, 08:43 AM

this is geting absurd. i have been reincoding my entire video collection and i have lost of 200GB due to the larger file sizes. one file went from 800MB to 3.5gb, with almost no quality difference. noticeable at least.

mousehouse · Sep 7, 2007, 03:47 AM

You could try lowering the quality settings or the bitrate. The default AppleTV bitrate in Handbrake is 3.5Mbps...