Home Movies over Apple TV

Greetings:
I have a significant amount of home movies on my windows computer in AVI format. I want to save a copy of all AVI files. I also have Quicktime Pro.
What is the most efficient (space saving with best resolution) way of playing the AVI movies on the Apple TV through home sharing on my windows computer.
Is it doing a save as or exporting from the AVI. Can the AVI be streamed? Thanks in advance...j

The Apple TV does not support AVI.
To have any certainty that you are converting your files correctly you should export them from QuickTime in an H264 format.

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Converting home movies to apple tv format

One more question, please.
I converted my 1280 x 720 home movies to Apple TV format in iTunes and they were "downrezzed" to 960 x 540.
Why? And can I avoid this somehow?

I wouldn't worry about it. many people are concerned about the resolution without giving a thought to datarate. Your tv is limited to the bitrate it can play, at a fixed bitrate a 1280 x 720 movie will have less info per pixel (macroblock-technically) than a 960 x 540 so whilst there are more pixels in 1280 x 720 those in the 960 x 540 movie are higher quality and there is little difference, indeed my tests generally show 960 x 540 to be slightly better.
You could reduce the frame rate of 1280 x 720 to allow it to play on the tv, but this will likely introduce jittery motion.

Problems viewing home movies on Apple TV

I would like to watch home movies on Apple TV but while my photographs show fine all the movies I have in iPhoto don't show at all. Is there a setting I need to change to make this possible? Thanks, Phil

I realize this is a late response, but it might help.
Try opening the movie file with iTunes. Right click on the video file, and select Open With > iTunes. If iTunes opens it and plays it, then it is ready to go for AppleTV. If it doesn't, then it is not in a format that iTunes or AppleTV support. This can be a huge time saver if you have a lot of clips.
If you have iTunes copy media to the library, then you are going to eat up a sizeable chunk of disk real estate -- as it sounds like you have a lot of movies. You can turn that option off and on in iTunes preferences. Unless you wanted it copied, I would turn that option off before importing a lot of video.
As someone else mentioned, you can use some free utilities to convert the files en masse. After they are converted, you do the same thing. Open With > iTunes. No need to call up iMovie. Quicktime Player has built-in preset for AppleTV in the Export option. There are automation scripts available to do this if you don't want to use Handbrake or other utility.
In my humble opinion, the AppleTV did not have sharing home movies in mind. At least not movies captured on non-apple devices. WDTV can play m2ts and other file formats with no conversion. I have several TB of home movies, so that was my only viable option. Besides, I don't think there is a way to play 1080p home movies through AppleTV. Nor will it play the 5.1 track from home movies, as that gets converted to stereo in the process.
Hope this helps.

Why am I having trouble burning home movies over 2 hrs?

If it exceeds single layer, I use Dual layer which holds 4hrs of space. I do recall having an issues with anything over 2 hrs previously not use to have this problem. 240 min on the blank DVD, it should allow for 4hrs of home movies, right? Once my optical drive started going out, Apple replaced it. But I still can not burn for example, 3hrs of footage. iDVD goes through the whole process but eject, while it says it is in the burning stage. And I slowed the burn process speed down per Apple.

Hi
Just a thought.
What encoding Quality did You use ?
iDVD 08, 09 & 11 has three levels of qualities. (vers 7.0.1, 7,0.4 & 7.1.1)
iDVD 6 has the two last ones
• Professional Quality (movies + menus up to 120 min.) - BEST
• Best Performances (movies + menus less than 60 min.) - High quality on final DVD
• High Quality (in iDVD08 or 09) / Best Quality (in iDVD6) (movies + menus up to 120 min.) - slightly lower quality than above
About double on DL DVDs.
Yours Bengt W

Turn on home sharing won't work to watch home movies on Apple TV

I have Apple TV 3rd generation. I transferred home movies from my MAC to my Apple TV. I have gone to Apple TV and then Computers and clicked it and there are my home movies. Many times however a message appears to "Turn on my Home Sharing". So I go to my computer and File and first have to turn off and then turn on and put in password and Done. Usually this works but I keep getting the same message and cannot see the home movies. Unplugged Apple TV, unplugged modem and router. Still not working. Any suggestions? thanks

you people are useless!!

Home Movies on Apple TV

I understand that I can watch home movies on my computer via apple tv. I am planning on buying a second generation apple tv but before I do so I would like to make sure that there is a way to watch the home movies which I have imported into imovie on the apple tv. Can someone point me to some directions as to how I get home movies which stored in imovie into itunes? Under the "Advanced" menu there is "Choose Photos to Share". Does this mean that I need to first get my movies from imovie to iphoto and then from iphoto to itunes? My apologies in advance if I am missing something really obvious here.
Thanks,
Andrew

I realize this is a late response, but it might help.
Try opening the movie file with iTunes. Right click on the video file, and select Open With > iTunes. If iTunes opens it and plays it, then it is ready to go for AppleTV. If it doesn't, then it is not in a format that iTunes or AppleTV support. This can be a huge time saver if you have a lot of clips.
If you have iTunes copy media to the library, then you are going to eat up a sizeable chunk of disk real estate -- as it sounds like you have a lot of movies. You can turn that option off and on in iTunes preferences. Unless you wanted it copied, I would turn that option off before importing a lot of video.
As someone else mentioned, you can use some free utilities to convert the files en masse. After they are converted, you do the same thing. Open With > iTunes. No need to call up iMovie. Quicktime Player has built-in preset for AppleTV in the Export option. There are automation scripts available to do this if you don't want to use Handbrake or other utility.
In my humble opinion, the AppleTV did not have sharing home movies in mind. At least not movies captured on non-apple devices. WDTV can play m2ts and other file formats with no conversion. I have several TB of home movies, so that was my only viable option. Besides, I don't think there is a way to play 1080p home movies through AppleTV. Nor will it play the 5.1 track from home movies, as that gets converted to stereo in the process.
Hope this helps.

I have numerous music movie clips that I have not purchased through iTunes, can I stream these "home" movies to apple TV? And if this is not possible, is there another complete program available that I can purchase to have my music movie clips stream to a

I have numerous music movie clips that I have not purchased through iTunes, Is it possible to stream these "home" movies using iTunes to apple TV?
And if iTunes will not allow it, is there another complete program available that I can purchase to have my music movie clips stream to a TV and/or another computer?
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

Thanks, Winston C, I've actually tried everything you suggested. I'm thinking now that the Home Sharing problem likely is related to Bonjour--I've seen several people mention this with similar (but not identical) problems. The solution that seems to work for some people is to uninstall and reinstall Bonjour. Frankly, I don't want to go through the trouble given that the iOS 7 release is imminent.
One thing that I haven't tried is resetting the ATV to factory settings. I'll give that whirl.
Thanks for your advice!

Syncing Home Movies to Apple TV

Running iLife '09 with all latest updates ...
I recently bought a Sanyo VPC-FH1A camcorder (HIGHLY recommend it by the way) ... bought it because it had the Apple logo on the side and was touted as the first camcorder to adopt "iFrame" format from Apple ...
What I was looking for was EASY ... I want to pop out the SDHC card, copy it to my iMac via an external card reader, and mess with it later, just like I do with my still camera, i.e., copy my .jpegs to a folder and import/edit the files in iPhoto later, and synch them to my AppleTV ... ALMOST got all of that.
The problem I'm having is that the movies that come off the camcorder (.mp4's) immediately play in Quicktime, iMovie, and in iTunes (i.e., no conversions required) ... however, those movies added to the iTunes library do NOT sync to my AppleTV ... I have to go the the Advanced ... Make Movie Compatible with AppleTV ... that process esentially cut the file size by a factor of 4, and named the new file with a .m4v ... ??? ... then it synced fine ... problem is, iFrame is already about 1/4 size of "true" Hi-Def, and this is 1/4 of that ... maybe when AppleTV plays it, it decodes the compression back to my original iFrame quality?
I have other older home movies that I painstakingly converted to .mp4's, and they sync just fine (used MPEG Streamclip) ... when I do a Get Info on the two new files, it looks like the same codec's are used ... any ideas how I can not have TWO copies of every single video clip? Actually, THREE, since my new camcorder shoots videos & stills (very nicely and easily I might add ... HIGHLY recommend this camera) and so my first attempt at dumping stuff to the Mac ended up with everything in iPhoto ... it would be nice to have them stored there as the original video source, but I'd like to have iTunes just have a Link to the videos rather than yet another copy, which I then have to convert for playing on AppleTV too ...
Thanks,
Mike G

You camera shoots 1920x1080 video. An Apple TV supports 1280 by 720 pixels at 24 fps and 960 by 540 pixels at 30 fps.
Your 1920x1080 video needs to be converted to 960x540 for use on your Apple TV.

All is set up ok but when I view a home movie the apple tv reverts to the menu at random times, sometimes every 30 secs or so, sometimes plays for mins before cutting out and then i have to enter menu, go to movies and select the movie then resume play bu

Whwn viewing home movies the movie cuts out back to the general menu at random, forcing me to enter menu again, reselect the movie and hit resume button.
this happens everytime I try to play a movie, maybe after 1 min of play then again after 3 mins, next time it might play for 6 mins then cut out and so on. The macbook pro is not reverting to sleep mode or closing down and the wifi signal is strong. So is the apple tv an expensive load of junk or what?

Welcome to the Apple Community.
Intermittent problems are often a result of interference. Interference can be caused by other networks in the neighbourhood or from household electrical items.
You can download and install iStumbler (NetStumbler for windows users) to help you see which channels are used by neighbouring networks so that you can avoid them, but iStumbler will not see household items.
Refer to your router manual for instructions on changing your wifi channel or adjusting your multicast rate.
There are other types of problems that can affect networks, but this is by far the most common, hence worth mentioning first. Networks that have inherent issues can be seen to work differently with different versions of the same software. You might also try moving the Apple TV away from other electrical equipment.

How to watch home movies on Apple TV?

I have home movies in IPhoto taken with my Canon Elph. Can I watch these on Apple TV? If so where do I find them?

Niel wrote:
Double-click the movie in iPhoto, find it's path from the Open Recent item in the File menu of the QuickTime Player, choose Go to Folder from the Finder's Go menu, enter the path after deleting everything following the final /, and drag the movie files into the open iTunes window. .........
I'm sure that will work, but is it all that necessary, surely it's simpler to drag the movie from the iphoto window to the itunes window.
If it is in the wrong format try advanced/convert selection for Apple TV. Some files may not convert this way, if so, come back for another method based on the type of file you have.

My Home Movies on Apple TV

I have an AppleTV managed from a Vista PC. All works fine for most things except my home movies. They start life as good quality avi or mpg files produced on my PC (1-4 gig each).
However Apple TV and itunes won't recognise them as avi's or mpg's. How do I make them into something that Apple will recognise - and keep my high quality? I have found some mp4 converters, but my videos either won't convert because of their size or end up as low resolution copies which are unwatchable.
I also have major problems retaining the original 16:9 format. Everything seems to want to distort it into the antiquated 4:3 format.
Any help appreciated.
Thank you guys!
Mike

However Apple TV and itunes won't recognise them as avi's or mpg's.
TV only recognizes/plays a limited number of media compression formats:
Video formats supported
 H.264 and protected H.264 (from iTunes Store): Up to 5 Mbps, Progressive Main Profile (CAVLC) with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps (maximum resolution: 1280 by 720 pixels at 24 fps, 960 by 540 pixels at 30 fps) in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
 iTunes Store purchased video: 320 by 240 pixels, 640 by 480 pixels, 720 by 480 pixels (anamorphic), or high-definition 720p
 MPEG-4: Up to 3 Mbps, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps (maximum resolution: 720 by 432 pixels at 30 fps) in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
Audio formats supported
 AAC (16 to 320 Kbps); protected AAC (from iTunes Store); MP3 (16 to 320 Kbps); MP3 VBR; Apple Lossless; AIFF; WAV; Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound pass-through
Photo formats supported
 JPEG, BMP, GIF, TIFF, PNG
In addition, TV will also pass through properly encoded AC3 5.1 audio to a external amplifier. (Files are not compatible with Front Row, iTunes, iPhone, or iPod playback on a Mac. Whether or not you can do something with them on a PC I don't know.)
How do I make them into something that Apple will recognise - and keep my high quality?
Convert unsupported/proprietary compression formats to those listed above. (Some may be converted by iTunes if you have the proper codecs installed.)
I have found some mp4 converters, but my videos either won't convert because of their size or end up as low resolution copies which are unwatchable.
I tend to prefer MPEG Streamclip (free) for conversions. Once again you need the proper codecs installed for use. (See MPEG Streamclip web pages for amplifying information for the platform you intend to use. I.e., versions available for both Eindows and Mac platforms.) I normally convert at the same resolution as the source file. Quality is generally most affected by the target video data rate of your conversion. You can experiment a bit here to discover what works best on your system for the content (HD, SD, dimensions, etc.) involved. (I use 1400-1500 Kbps for SD content to be viewed on iPhone, iPod, and TV or as high as 3.5-4.5 Mbps for HD/AC3 content for TV only.)
I also have major problems retaining the original 16:9 format. Everything seems to want to distort it into the antiquated 4:3 format.
both 16:9 and 4:3 conversion presets are programmed into MPEG Streamclip. In addition, you can crop source (input) or target (output) dimensions (as desired as well as crop/scale/center content if desired) for other formats like 1.67:1, 1.80:1, 2.35:1, 2.40:1, etc.

Home Movies to Apple TV Format ?

I had 67 reels of 8mm film spanning 25 years scanned in which created about 4.5 hours of video. I used iMovie and iDVD to create 3 DVDs with about 1.5 hours of video on each. I have chapters for every different part of the films resulting in about 90 chapters over 3 DVDs. Now I want all this content in iTunes and available in Apple TV. I'm not sure the best format so I'm looking for recommendations before I spend 672 hours converting these. So far I could:
1) Put all 4.5 hours into one movie and have 90 chapters. I think this would be hard to find the chapters that I want using the current Apple TV software, and one large file might be harder to manage.
2) Split the movie up into 90 individual movies by chapter. This would make finding a chapter very easy since it would be the title of the movie. Having 90 movies in the Apple TV movie section would be really bad since Apple TV can't currently group movies.
3) Break the movies up into say three movies, with about 30 chapters each. This seams like a crappy compromise.
4) I could have 90 movies, one per chapter, like option #2, but I could make them TV shows and episodes. That way with the current Apple TV software I could group them all as 90 episodes under one TV show which is easier to manage. I sort of liked this but I could not get my sample movies to show up as iTunes as TV shows even after changing the metadata to say they were TV shows. Am I missing something here ?
Has anybody done this or can you offer any suggestions ?

I wouldn't worry about it. many people are concerned about the resolution without giving a thought to datarate. Your tv is limited to the bitrate it can play, at a fixed bitrate a 1280 x 720 movie will have less info per pixel (macroblock-technically) than a 960 x 540 so whilst there are more pixels in 1280 x 720 those in the 960 x 540 movie are higher quality and there is little difference, indeed my tests generally show 960 x 540 to be slightly better.
You could reduce the frame rate of 1280 x 720 to allow it to play on the tv, but this will likely introduce jittery motion.

Get an old VHS home movie over to iBook and iPod ?

i have an old VHS home made movie i like to get in to my iBook and so over to the iPod.
is there a program to do that?
anyone here who have done that before?

Is there a program to do that?
While software is required for the actual "capture" of the video data, this problem primarily requires a hardware solution. To start, you need some sort of an analog-to-digital converter. This can be a dedicated device or something as simple as a digital handicam you may already have laying around your house. (You have to check owner's manual to see if such an option is available on your particular model.) Dedicated devices tend to come in two output formats -- compressed DV and MPEG. Connectability is usually via FireWire for DV and USB for MPEG. If you plan to edit the material, the DV format is generally preferable. Capture software will depend on the format of the converted output. iMovie, FCX, and FCP will handle DV. If you don't already have one of these applications, then Vidi (free) is a good alternative. USB devices usually come with their own proprietary capture software and may or may not include compatible MPEG editing software.
Hope this helps.

When I use iMovie 11 to capture HD video from my Handycam, there is a loss of quality that is very noticable when vewing on apple tv3. What is the best way to get full HD video quality for home movies on apple tv?

I currently capture HD 1080i video from my Handycam using iMovie 11, then convert the .mov files to .mp4 using Aunsoft Video Converter. Then view the videos on apple tv. The quality is definitely lacking. Not sure if the loss of qulaity is from using iMovie 11 or the Aunsoft software. Any ideas on how to capture HD qulaity video and view on Apple TV?

I currently capture HD 1080i video from my Handycam using iMovie 11, then convert the .mov files to .mp4 using Aunsoft Video Converter. Then view the videos on apple tv. The quality is definitely lacking. Not sure if the loss of qulaity is from using iMovie 11 or the Aunsoft software. Any ideas on how to capture HD qulaity video and view on Apple TV?

Playing home movies on Apple TV

Apple TV seems to have changed. I create my movies in Final Cut Pro and share them in itunes. When I go to play them on my TV from Apple TV, I now get a "buffering bar" across the bottom of the screen. As my movie is approx 30 minutes long, it buffers, then plays a bit of the movie, then stops to buffer again. So to watch my 30 minute movie will take more than an hour as I have to wait for it to buffer all the time.
Is this normal, and is there anything I can do to speed it up?
Thanking you in anticipation,
alanfromgawler east

Hello alan
Check out the article below to troubleshoot the connection between the computer and the Apple TV.
Apple TV (2nd and 3rd generation): Troubleshooting Wi-Fi networks and connections
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4546
Regards,
-Norm G.

Home Movies over Apple TV

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