Converting to AppleTV

Hi guys,
After playing with AppleTV I like it enough to convert my collection over. I know how to convert but what to I need to do to get them sorted properly in apple tv? Do I just need to getinfo on each movie and manually update it or is there an automatic way to do this?
Also how do I tag items so they appear as "music videos" as opposed to just "videos"?
Finally, I have a playlist which has music in it marked as podcast. AppleTv sees this as an empty playlist. Is there a way to tag them in such a way so ATV recognizes them correctly?
Thanks in advance.

You can certainly use Get Info, but I've usually found that if I alter metadata for a file that isn't in the main itunes media folder but say referenced in iTunes from an external drive, that the metadata is not updated in the file itself, which is a nuisance if you then copy the file to another iTunes.
There is a drop down for music video in one of the Get Info tags, at least on a Mac.
iTunes cannot collect metadata automatically except for missing album artwork, and then it often fails in my experience.
You have other otions for tagging original file BEFORE adding to iTunes including:
MetaX / Subler on Mac - Subler is probably preferred these days.
MetaX for Windows which is I believe in a more up to date state than MetaX for Mac.
For the playlist I guess you need to change the media kind to musci for each file, even if one is a podcast.
AC

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*** Formatting problems converting for AppleTV

I've converted for AppleTV many times in the past with no problem but I'm experiencing a big problem now.
1. When exporting a full quality QT (self-contained) file from Final Cut Pro and then encoding for AppleTV from that QT file, the result is an AppleTV converted file that has noticeable interlacing. We shoot HDV (1080i). In the past this has not been an issue.
2. I tried exporting for AppleTV directly from the Final Cut Pro timeline and the resulting AppleTV encode is 4:3!!!!! What?
Are there some good 'ole preferences I should be trashing? The interlacing and text quality I'm currently getting just isn't acceptable.
Thanks in advance!

When exporting a full quality QT (self-contained) file from Final Cut Pro and then encoding for AppleTV from that QT file, the result is an AppleTV converted file that has noticeable interlacing. We shoot HDV (1080i). In the past this has not been an issue.
Have the same issue with DV through imovie, I know it's different circumstances but it's the same issue, I'm in the UK and wonder if my problem is because of regional differences in field dominance, you don't say where you are from. Any way my workaround is to take the full quality export from imovie and push it through streamclip to do the de-interlacing and the AVC conversion.,

QuickTime unsyncs sound last minutes on AVI files converted to AppleTV

Hi! I'm sitting up in Sweden with a problem I hope someone has answer to. I realize I'm not the only one in Sweden with this from other discussions groups.
I convert AVI files with QuickTime pro. for my AppleTV. When Playing, at the end of the files / film (5-8 minutes) Sound doesn't sync with image, which is veeeery annoying of course.
I hoped this would go away with Leopard but no no.
I've got an 2 GHz Intel Core Duo with 2 GB mem. Quick Time is up to date as well.
Any clues for us northen Mac fanatics?

PRoblem getting solved with Leopard update...

Unable to Convert for AppleTV

I have some .mov files that I am unable to put on my AppleTV because iTunes will not let me change them. I receive a message "could not be converted because this file does not allow saving or conversion." I also tried to do this using Quicktime, though the options are greyed out. Is there another way to do this?

If you can tell us what these compression codecs are it might give an indication as to why you're having issues.
If you google Techspansion or iSquint try the free iSquint converter designed for video iPods with your .mov file. If it can convert it to an iPod compatible format(also AppleTV compatible file but lower resolution) then you're in with a chance of doing the conversion somehow - if it can't handle it then the .mov may be protected against conversion in some way. The programs I listed are freeware video file converters for Mac, that can be quite handy. Lots of people like the commercial version of iSquint called VisualHub as it's an easy to use program. The others are a bit more involved in terms of settings, but I find MPEGStreamclip to be extremely useful tool. Quicktime/QT Pro don't do everything and some of these other apps come in handy (or are faster!).
AC
Message was edited by: Alley_Cat

Converting for AppleTV

hello,
I extracted some SD-Videoclips (using MPEG streamclip) from a DVD (authored with iDVD some years ago). The extracted clips are QT-movies with a frame size of 768x576 (Codec Motion JPEG A, Integer, Big Endian). Framerate is around 30.
Using Compressor I converted these clips into mp4 with a frame size of 720x540 and 25fps. (Codec MPEG-4 Video, AAC, MPEG-4 SDSM, MPEG-4 ODSM, Hint)
But the resulting clips are not playable on AppleTV.
What is my mistake?

Review this technical note from apple:
http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/technotes/tn2007/tn2188.html
If you prefer to encode using customized settings, use the MPEG-4 Export Component located in the QT7 Export Dialog:
File/Export - Export-Movie to MPEG-4
-paul

My downloads from uTorrent are converting to Appletv but are not there when I look for them. Any suggestions?

I am downloading movies to my pc and that is not a problem, nor is the conversion to Apple TV but when I go into AppleTV the downloaded movies are not there...they seem to have disappeared into the ether somewhere. Any suggestions? Any and all gratefully accepted. Should add that this has not been a problem in the past.

We cannot help you with this here.

Convert to AppleTV, no audio

I have some video clips recorded on my digital camera in mpg which I am able to play in both iTunes and Quick Time but not on the apple tv.
I have just bought Quick Time Pro to be able to convert the files to the apple tv format. But when I do so the audio disappears. I have also tried the conversion possibility in iTunes.
What can I do?

QuickTime (and the apps that use it) can't extract audio from muxed file formats.
Use MPEG Streamclip (free) for the conversion.

Editing a DVD converted to AppleTv in iMovie

Hi
Is there any way to edit a DVD that I have already converted, using Handbrake to Apple TV with iMovie? I am specifically interested in splicing two dvd movies into one show for Apple TV.
Steppenwolf

Is there any way to edit a DVD that I have already converted, using Handbrake to Apple TV with iMovie? I am specifically interested in splicing two dvd movies into one show for Apple TV.
If they include chapter and/or subtitle tracks, remove them so iMovie '08 will import and edit them as a single project.

Movies converted for AppleTV won't sync to 2nd gen iPod touch with iTunes 8

I have about 40 movies that I converted to "Apple TV" format with Quicktime Pro. They all play fine on my Apple TV. But only one of them will sync with my new 2nd gen iPod touch... and that one was converted by someone else for me to Apple TV with iSquint!
iTunes tells me the remaining videos cannot be played on this iPod. ***? They play in iTunes, they play on the Apple TV... what's the difference with the iPod?
So now I'm having to completely reconvert all my movies to iPod format with the function in iTunes 8 "Create iPod or iPhone version" but this is PAINFULLY SLOW!!! One video on my brand new 3.06Ghz iMac Intel Core 2 Duo took FOUR HOURS
Anyone else having this problem? Anyone else find a faster way to fix it???
HELP!!

It just does.
You can do it quicker using other tools.
For instance I have a hardware device called Turbo.264 which shifts the conversion off the computer and is much quicker.
You can read all about it here :-
http://www.elgato.com/elgato/int/mainmenu/products/Accessories/Turbo264/product1 .en.html
Ian

New features in iTunes for AppleTV

You can now import iMovie files directly into iTunes, DV footage too. It looks perfect, except for the ratio being stuck at 4:3 (annoying).
You can then - in iTunes - convert to AppleTV.
If they sort out the ratio issue, then this, I think, is a big deal and a sign of things to come.

You can now import iMovie files directly into iTunes, DV footage too. .......You can then - in iTunes - convert to AppleTV.
You have always been able to do this. Be aware though that there is a file size limit of 4 Gb in itunes, so DV is likely best converted outside of itunes.

Size/time limit for AppleTV movie files?

Scenario: I have a few hundred iMovie projects that I want to convert to AppleTV movies. My first project was just under two hours, and it converted fine. The second project was just under three hours total (33GB .DV file), and it crashed at 99% completion on two separate tries, giving me a cryptic error message (15+ hours processing time each attempt -- aargh). I am using the latest version of QuickTime Pro to convert the projects, and not running anything else during the conversions.
Right now the only solution that seems to work is to split anything over 2 hours into two parts, which seems kind of pointless and diminishes the advantage of the whole AppleTV concept in the first place. Granted most of the projects are around 2 hours, so most of the time it won't be an issue, just on the longer iMovies.
Anyone know if there is a size/time limit to files that you can convert? Would it be better to import the .DV files into iTunes and try to convert them there instead? Or is there a way to do it from iMovie (I am using the original iMovie HD version from a few years back). Thanks.

Thanks Winston & Alley Cat for your insights -- I figured I would just do a straight QT conversion to the proper specs and did manage to find it by digging around a bit. In Export(Share) / QuickTime / Expert Settings there is a preset for AppleTV buried deep in there.
Sorry, I feel like a bonehead for not being able to locate this option earlier. I thought QuickTime Pro was one of the few apps that could only do this conversion, thinking that my version of iMovie HD (circa 2006) was too old to have the AppleTV preset. (Must have been added during one of the QuickTime updates.)
Anyways, success to report. I tried re-converting the file (2 hours 47 minutes length) and it worked this time. The total conversion time was actually quite a bit faster than QT Pro plus it takes one less step now. I don't know why it is so much faster than QT Pro, but it compressed to the right specs H.264 AAC codec and aspect ratio.
BTW, I really, really like my AppleTV. Not perfect, but it sure is cool and everyone who comes over and sees it is kind of blown away by what this little box can do.

AppleTV Syncs Video But Not Sound-Sometimes

When I sync my AppleTV with the movies in my iTunes library, sometimes when I play them on my AppleTV I don't have any sound! Picture is fine. When I play the files on my iMac from my music library everything's fine. Anyone have any idea why the sound doesn't get synced sometimes?

Hi.
The movies are from iTunes music store, some homemade, some dvds I've made from old VHS converted for AppleTv with HandBrake.
They play fine, all of them, on my iMac from my iTunes library.
The AppleTv is synced through my wireless network Airport Extreme. The AppleTV is connected to my HD TV with HDMI.
It's only on a few movies that the sound "disappears" on. No common denominator that I can find, except that they were converted with HandBrake but 99% of them play ok. And why would they play in iTunes on my iMac and lose the sound when synced to AppleTv? The video is perfect!
Thanks.

Does Drobo Play Well With AppleTV?

My media collection is filling up my Mac Mini and I am starting to look for an external drive the can play my movies smoothly on my AppleTV.
I have been considering the "Drobo" because of the ease of use, self back-ups, easy to add more space when needed and heals itself in case of hard drive failure, plus having Firewire 800.
However I have read that it has a noisy fan, slow and gets hot.
Noise - Should not be an issue for me since I will be streaming the media to another room.
Slow - My understanding is that it does slow down and chops up your video if it decides to do some backing up while you are using it, but I only use this Mac Mini as a media server, so hopefully it does not decide to do its thing while I am using it to listen and watch my media.
Hot - Not sure about this one, I normally leave my Mac Mini On 24-7, an would like to do the same with the Drobo. Not sure if the Drobo goes to sleep along with it's fan or does this Drobo need to be turned off.
Let me know what you guys use for external drive and if you leave your external drive on 24-7.
Would love to here from Drobo users and if your happy on how it works with Apple TV 2.

I've got a Drobo with 8TB of drives giving about 5TB of storage with built-in backup/redundancy.
Funnily enough I've never used it for AppleTV, and it's actually been disconnected for a few months after I moved my Mac Pro. I mainly use it for photo/home video archival and for storing clones of working OS installations.
The fan on the 4 bay Drobo unit can also be somewhat noisy. While it's a nice solution, I do not trust it alone for backup, and as it's not currently connected I'm using other external drives for that.
While it has Firewire, it's not exactly blazing fast for either read or write but that's not important for AppleTV anyway.
Personally I have always tended to use external drives for iTunes media storage - so long as I back these up I regard them as expendable. My current strategy for iTunes media backup is to use Home Sharing to copy material between a cheap 2TB USB WD Elements drive connected to my Mac Mini and a 2TB drive in my Mac Pro.
I have used lots of WD and Seagate drives over the years but the last Seagate I bought put me off big time due to noise/clanking/clicking and general sounds of impending failure echoed by many on the web - this was a 1.5TB external I just don't trust and don't use, they may have improved again now.
The more expensive WDs these days often have annoying extra 'CD partitions' implemented by firmware, the cheaper 'Elements' series don't, they're no slouches either.
With 1TB portable external drives available, I think these are also an option for external storage and in fact I was happily using a 500GB portable external on the Mini until it started to fill up.
I think the main thing is to ensure you have backups for purchases, or things you don't want the hassle of ripping (CDs etc) and/or converting for AppleTV use again (time vs cost perspective).
Secondly you need to establish the size you currently need and for at least a year or so for new additions.
If you want built-in redundancy also consider the WD Studio series which come in 2TB and 4TB RAID configurations allowing 1TB or 2TB of automatic backup, they also offer USB and FW.
There will be many other options out there.
AC

Optimising video for itunes and appletv - Help please!

I'm trying to understand the how itunes handles video and how it is optimised for different devices.
If i've attached my iphone and itunes syncs over a video, does it automatically optimise the version being sync on the the iphone.
I've noticed there are two options when converting a video, convert for ipod and convert for appletv.
Is there any difference between the two?
Also. I seem to remember a statement form apple saying that any movies/videos purchased or rented over appletv would be a higher quality than those bought on a mac or iphone/ipodtouch. Is this true.
Really i'm looking to understand how video works between a mac, apple tv and a iphone/ipodtouch and does it make any difference to the quality of the video which source i buy it from?
Thanks

HI Matthew,
I don't have the answer to your question directly but MacWorld has great information on just what you are searching for: http://www.macworld.com/ I have a subscription to the magazine and read it front and back and they always have information on just what you are trying to find. There's blogs on their site too. http://www.macworld.com/
The video would be QuickTime format, iPod would be MP3. Go here for info:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1532
Carolyn

Enhancement requests do seem to be worthwhile in the end...

Having requested the continuous/shuffle music video playback several times in the last 18 months or so, and urged people to do so via...
http://www.apple.com/feedback/appletv.html
...it has finally been implemented and I'm chuffed to bits.
Well done Apple, this is a superb enhancement though why so long to implement ?
Personally I feel this was a huge oversight for AppleTV ever since it was realeased, and seriously hindered both use of AppleTV as a media extender and obviated the point of buying music videos unless you watch them on portable devices which I don't.
I had become increasingly negative about the prospect of ever seeing this feature
appear - this cat doesn't wear a hat so I'll have to eat something else instead!
I am now likely to spend a fair amount on music videos at iTunes Store having vowed not to do so again as having to select each one manually to play was tedious to say the least.
Really baffles me how Apple have missed the opportunity for revenue from music video sales via AppleTV, particularly when iPods had the shuffle feature.
As I commented a few weeks ago I think perhaps priorities since 2.0 update have been to get the store up and running properly before implementing enhancement requests or new features.
Very pleased Apple have finally implemented this extremely useful feature, it may not be pointless in using the link above, it just takes time.
So the next thing we should do is think of things to officially lobby for in future updates.
My top 3 would be:
1 - Allowing connection via USB to rescue data from AppleTV for users who've had hard drive accidents/msihaps and haven't backed up recently - fact of life it happens even if you're careful! Files with DRM are safe from unauthorised use and those without DRM are no less secure than they were before anyway. This could even be done by only allowing AppleTV to dump media to an external USB device instead of allowing an external connection to AppleTV itself, and could be controlled from say a backup menu option. Alternatively full manual bidirectional drag and drop of media via iTunes to/from AppleTV could be implemented with a mode to prevent a new sync library connection wiping existing content.
What's in it for Apple? Huge boost in consumer confidence that Apple allow them to easily recover their personal files in the event of a problem - there should be no need to hack or dismantle AppleTV just to get at your data. Just think of all those people saying thank heaven I had an appleTV as my Macbook died and I'd forgotten to backup those wedding photos etc. We see examples of frustrated users almost daily with this problem.
2 - Additional codec support - it's all very well saying h264 is the best thing since sliced bread and the current Apple/Apple Store standard, but the limited video codec support is probably the biggest hindrance to AppleTV becoming an extremely popular media device. It has the slickest interface of commercial products but many prospective customers have files in long established older formats that are incompatible without prior time consuming and quality degrading transcoding. Locking down AppleTV in this way alienates many potential users. The argument about the source of files in other formats may have some validity, but it is not Apple's job to infer that a user's file is of dubious origin simply for not being in h264 format. I am not condoning filesharing/torrents etc merely saying that most people have older files in older formats they want to use without conversion. Many DVD players allow playback of DivX (never use it myself), and if there's a licensing issue offer playback as a per device plugin option paid for by the user in the same way the QT MPEG2 pluging is offered.
What's in it for Apple? Happy customers who would simply use something else like a PS3 to view their files and not buy AppleTV. New customers who would not have purchased otherwise. Happy customers who no longer need to trasncode files to watch. You'd be happy with being able to use older files, but would also get the benefit of using iTunes Store for new things.
The overhwelming thing would be a sense of 'fair play' gained by the consumer. For me personally since 2.0+ the device's overwhelming iTunes Store based menu design sticks in the craw and has relegated MY content to the bottom of menus. Give us the best of both worlds - an iTunes Store top level section for purchases and separate simple top level sections for combined personal/purchased media as in software 1.0/1.1. In essence declutter the menu system for playback lumping all the purchasing/preview/search options together.
3 - Tricky. Most useful would be an AppleTV SDK and 3rd party plugins/apps via iTunes paid and/or free similar to the iPhone model - I can live without widgets/visualisers/social networking plugins etc but they would be valuable to many users. As far as I know the iPhone Apps have been a huge success - no reason why not on AppleTV too, though commiting to this pathway would probably be very expensive in terms of developing a secure/sandboxed environment for running apps/plugins unless they could port the iPhone software fairly simply.
Anyhow, once again delighted Apple have added the music video feature - I will start buying music videos from iTunes music store again. Bad for my wallet but good for Apple and AppleTV. Perhaps I should be thankful and consider how much I've saved not buying music videos in the last 18 months or so.....
What would you like to see? Some things will be impossible/hardware limited, others quite feasible.
Discuss, but also use the formal feedback link to give enhancements any chance to appear!
Let's all help make AppleTV a success, and hopefully the media extender to beat!
AC
typos - Message was edited by: Alley_Cat

Chenks wrote:
to be honest, adding playlists (or whatever it is) for just music videos is of no use to me.
it is playlists for tv shows that i need. ie the capability of playing episode 1 to 5 of a particular season back to back.
Funny isn't it, how we all do things differently, have different preferences, enhancement wishes etc.
For me it's not really a big chore to watch an episode then to manually start the next assuming I or Mrs AC are still awake!
For episodes of short duration say 5-15 minutes I appreciate this could get annoying, and for longer episodes I suppose we are used to Play All type options on DVDs.
If these are iTunes TV Shows you're stuck at the moment, but if they're say 'home recordings converted for AppleTV' you could theoretically get round it by setting their types to Music Video. Clumsy but it should work.
I'm sure you can see the benefit of playlists/shuffling for music videos that may be 3-4 minutes each on average. I rediscovered dozens of iTunes Store music video purchases last night and thought 'yes, this is one of the big reasons why I bought AppleTV initially' - it did not say anywhere that AppleTV could not do this somewhat logical task - assumptions are dangerous though and invariably you only find out the full capabilities of products when using them.
additional codec support ? i would say there is no chance of this. x264 is pretty standard theses days (if you discount the pirate industry). x264 is even used for HD TV in the UK.
I agree, there's more chance of Tony Blair making a comeback!
Piracy is rife and I do not support it.
My views on fair use of media you personally own are quite different.
It's not the codec/container that's the issue it's how the material was acquired in the first place - it may simply be your home videos, digitised off-air recordings etc that is in a 'legacy' format that you don't want to transcode. We know from the modders that most other SD formats are playable on the current hardware so that's not the issue.
Take say an Elgato EyeTV device - I can record anything off-air, edit and transcode for AppleTV or just transcode unedited automatically. How much more sensible it woudl be if AppleTv simply supported the MPEG-2 transport stream playback rather than wasting time and computing/power resources doing the transcode.
I have some some standard video-CDs I made on a PC in the late 1990's, how nice it would be to be able to play the MPEG-1 content back without fiddling - it's not as though converting to h264 will do anything for the quality!
AC

Converting to AppleTV

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