Do movies play on non-hacked Apple TVs as well?

[Sven]

Hi,

I tried out iFlicks on my MacBook Pro and i really, really like it.
Now i am considering to buy an Apple TV since i'll soon have all my
movies in iTunes thanks to iFlicks. On the iFlicks site it's all about
hacked Apple TVs. Do i have to hack an Apple TV so that it can play
the movies converted with iFlicks? I'm not to keen to bother with
hacking an Apple TV.

Thanks for your advise!

Sven

[Jendrik Bertram]

If you are using most of the presets like Apple TV or Universal your videos will work fine on the Apple TV. The iPod and iPhone preset will also work, but has worse picture quality. The 720p and 1080p presets might work in some cases, but it is not guaranteed.
The option for the hacked Apple TV is useful if you just want to flatten the videos to a QuickTime Movie, which saves you the lengthly encoding.
Just let me know if you have any further questions.

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[Sven]

First of all thanks for the fast reply and i'm sorry to ask stupid
question. I am sort of new to the whole codec and re-enconding topic.
I use iFlicks to create quicktime compatible container. If i
understand you correctly this means i'd need to hack an Apple TV to
play the movies, right?

[Simon]

Sven
As explained by Jendrik, the "AppleTV" format will work on non-hacked
Apple TVs. If you are creating a quicktime compatible container,
whether they work on a non-hacked Apple TV will depend on the codec
originally used. Generally speaking if you have an "avi" file that you
then put in a quicktime container with iFlicks, it's unlikely to work
on a non-hacked Apple TV.

I don't know how much you know about the hacking, but it is very
straightforward these days and does not involve opening the little box
of wonders. Simply install from a usb stick. A factory restore will
remove the hack if required later.

Simon

[David Wang]

I have an AppleTV, and i usually use the universal or AppleTV format, which works prior to me hacking my AppleTV. The only difference is that now i can run Boxee/XBMC and play .avi natively, that's all. But i prefer to let iFlicks do the metadata and the conversion to a format suitable for all Apple products, esp iPhone.

[Nathan G]

I will give my experience as I feel the same way as you.

I don't want to hack my TV either.

I have NO problems playing ANY converted TV show or Movie on my apple TV.

The only time problems arise is when I was using iflicks with my Turbo .264 stick. The audio would get out of sync

This was of little issue as the speed difference with small. (i was using the original Turbo .264 stick).

When encoding HD videos I use either Visual Hub or Handbreak. Mainly Visual Hub...

I then use iflicks (flatten setting) to add the metadata.

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Nathan G

austi...@gmail.com

Without deviation from the norm... progress is not possible. 

[Sven]

I have quite a lot of 720p videos so i guess i might have problems.

> austinn...@gmail.com

[Nathan G]

Try using handbreak (it is free).

Then with the resulting file send it to iflicks.

Then use the "flatten" setting.

This takes a few seconds (or longer depending on file size).

The resulting file will have metadata that WILL play on your TV.

Just make sure you are using the TV setting in Handbreak

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/iflicks?hl=.

Nathan G

austi...@gmail.com

[Jendrik Bertram]

On 15.11.2009, at 19:13, Nathan G wrote:

Try using handbreak (it is free).

Then with the resulting file send it to iflicks.

Then use the "flatten" setting.

This takes a few seconds (or longer depending on file size).

The resulting file will have metadata that WILL play on your TV.

Just make sure you are using the TV setting in Handbreak

The Apple TV setting in iFlicks is very similar to the one used in Handbrake (same goes for iPod, iPhone and Universal). So if you are not necessarily processing many mkv files you shouldn't notice much of a difference. If you are looking for more advanced settings, I would go the way Nathan described.

[Sven]

Cheers guys! This was very helpful!!

[Sven]

Hi,

I bought an Apple TV and found out that 95% of my movies won't play on
it. As Jendrik mentioned the encoding to Apple TV format takes
literally forever and therefore i decided to hack the Apple TV. I
Still need to reconvert most of my movies (i forgot the "hacked apple
TV" option earlier) but this goes much much faster.

:)

[Sven]

But unfortunately still max 20% of my movies work on the hacked Apple
TV. Hhmmm. Guess i have to sell it and either go for a Mac Mini or
wait for the Boxee box to arrive in Spring.