Audio Track Names on the AppleTV

HandBrake for Windows support
Forum rules
An Activity Log is required for support requests. Please read How-to get an activity log? for details on how and why this should be provided.
Post Reply
EvilDrJerkBerg
Posts: 11
Joined: Sun Mar 25, 2012 5:06 am

Audio Track Names on the AppleTV

Post by EvilDrJerkBerg »

I'm encoding a movie with multiple commentaries using Handbrake's "--aname" parameter. The names look fine in iTunes and on the AppleTV 1, but on the AppleTV 3 and iPad all I see is the language name "English", which doesn't help much given all 5 tracks are English.

Has anyone found a fix for this, either in Handbrake or using a 3rd party tool?

Thanks!
nightstrm
Veteran User
Posts: 1887
Joined: Fri Mar 23, 2007 5:43 am

Re: Audio Track Names on the AppleTV

Post by nightstrm »

This occurred when they switched to iOS as the base platform for AppleTV. Call it a bug or a feature, even Apple-purchased content shows up this way. Instead of displaying the track name, they now only show the language (I believe before it showed both). At this point, all we can really do is send feedback to Apple requesting that they change this behavior.

www.apple.com/feedback
EvilDrJerkBerg
Posts: 11
Joined: Sun Mar 25, 2012 5:06 am

Re: Audio Track Names on the AppleTV

Post by EvilDrJerkBerg »

Thank you very much. I'll submit feedback, but given how long the ATV has been iOS-based I guess I won't hold my breath.
phibertron
Bright Spark User
Posts: 211
Joined: Thu Oct 22, 2009 2:37 am

Re: Audio Track Names on the AppleTV

Post by phibertron »

I dont have an apple tv to test on, and not sure if this is releted to the issue or not on the apple tv

I think its possible to add a track name in handbrake, havent done a search yet to check
In any case say you wanted to change it after the fact, or forgot add a name
It is possible to add/change them

http://doom10.org/index.php?topic=1490.0
In itunes and apple devices, when there are multiple tracks

It will display each track as <language> ( <Type Track #> )
For ex: English ( Audio Track 1 )

If the trak.udta.name atom or userDataName
is populated it will use that in place of <Type Track #>
For ex: English ( Dolby Surround )

Itunes and apple devices are not reading the trak.hdlr.name or handlerName
that I can use with name= for a track

How I currently deal with it is I use mp4box like this

mp4box
-add Video..h264:lang=en:name="AVC Video"
-add Audio_track2.aac:lang=en:group=1:name="Mono"
-add Audio_track3.aac:lang=en:group=1:disable:name="Stereo"
-add Audio_track4.aac:lang=en:group=1:disable:name="Dolby Surround"
-add Audio_track5.aac:lang=en:group=1:disable:name="Dolby Pro Logic"
-add Audio_track6.ac3:lang=en:group=1:disable:name="AC3"
output.mp4


I use the mp4track.exe to check to see what is there

mp4track "output.mp4" --list

track[1] id=2
type = audio
enabled = true
inMovie = false
inPreview = false
layer = 0
alternateGroup = 1
volume = 1.0000
width = 0.00000000
height = 0.00000000
language = English
handlerName = Mono
userDataName = <absent>

I then add the userDataName string with mp4track.exe

mp4track "output.mp4" --track-id 2 --udtaname "Mono"

I use the mp4track.exe to check to see that it is there

mp4track "output.mp4" --list

track[1] id=2
type = audio
enabled = true
inMovie = false
inPreview = false
layer = 0
alternateGroup = 1
volume = 1.0000
width = 0.00000000
height = 0.00000000
language = English
handlerName = Mono
userDataName = Mono

So now when i go to select a track I can know what it is, For ex:

English ( Mono )
English ( Stereo )
English ( Dolby Surround )
English ( Dolby Pro Logic )
English ( AC3 )

as opposed to

English ( Audio Track 1 )
English ( Audio Track 2 )
English ( Audio Track 3 )
English ( Audio Track 4 )
English ( Audio Track 5 )
Deleted User 11865

Re: Audio Track Names on the AppleTV

Post by Deleted User 11865 »

HandBrake already sets "udta.name", not "hdlr.name".
phibertron
Bright Spark User
Posts: 211
Joined: Thu Oct 22, 2009 2:37 am

Re: Audio Track Names on the AppleTV

Post by phibertron »

Understood
I added the info, as to show how one could change it after fact
Capoland
Posts: 23
Joined: Wed Dec 22, 2010 3:34 am

Re: Audio Track Names on the AppleTV

Post by Capoland »

This very thing affected me too. Except instead of using an Apple TV, I use an iPod touch, and I noticed it when I "upgraded" from iOS 4 to iOS 5. iOS 4 and below display them exactly how I want. iOS 5 gets rid of the names.

There's actually another really annoying change they made that I hate even more! Now in iOS 5, the softsubs are attached to the video frame, rather than the iPod's screen. So they no longer scale to the screen properly when you zoom in and out as you're watching. With videos that have a cinema aspect ratio, it's especially dumb. Since the subs are attached to the video, when it's zoomed out it's much harder to read them! Plus the gray area it uses looks really bad because of it and just wastes a bunch of space. And depending how long the line is, subtitles can actually get cut off, whereas before they scaled to the screen, so that problem didn't exist. Plus you can only have 2 breaks per line now. Before you could have at least 4. It didn't look pretty, but it worked.

Here's some pictures if anyone is curious how bad they look in iOS 5 compared to iOS 4. I had to use an older iPod just to take the iOS 4 pictures.


iOS 4/2G iPod Touch:
Zoomed out
Image
Zoomed in
Image

iOS 5/4G iPod Touch:
Zoomed out
Image
Zoomed in
Image


And here's the Audio Track name problem:


iOS 4/2G iPod Touch:
Image

iOS 5/4G iPod Touch:
Image
phibertron
Bright Spark User
Posts: 211
Joined: Thu Oct 22, 2009 2:37 am

Re: Audio Track Names on the AppleTV

Post by phibertron »

@Capoland

Out of curiosity, what container is that video in?
The reason I ask, is you are able to select soft subs
most of what I do is mp4, which doesnt do that
So Im assuming either you have an app to play that can
or you are using a format in addition to a player to do that
Deleted User 11865

Re: Audio Track Names on the AppleTV

Post by Deleted User 11865 »

Yes, MP4 can contain soft subtitles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG-4_Part_17

…and Apple devices can display them.
Capoland
Posts: 23
Joined: Wed Dec 22, 2010 3:34 am

Re: Audio Track Names on the AppleTV

Post by Capoland »

phibertron wrote:@Capoland

Out of curiosity, what container is that video in?
The reason I ask, is you are able to select soft subs
most of what I do is mp4, which doesnt do that
So Im assuming either you have an app to play that can
or you are using a format in addition to a player to do that
Rodeo is exactly right. I'm just using the standard video app on the iPod. All I do is use Handbrake to import .srt subitles that I created, and encode the video to an m4v container with them. If you're curious, I usually use Aegisub or SubtitleEdit to create various subtitle files.

Actually right now I'm trying to get Handbrake to burn in (Hard sub) some VobSub and .ssa format subtitles into a video, partly to get around this issue, but neither are working properly... The VobSubs end up with some sort of black box around them, and the .ssa subtitles get so pixelated you can only make out the basic shape of the letters. Neither of those issues happen with the original video, only the ones Handbake encodes. So I don't know what the heck is going on there.

But that's a separate issue.
phibertron
Bright Spark User
Posts: 211
Joined: Thu Oct 22, 2009 2:37 am

Re: Audio Track Names on the AppleTV

Post by phibertron »

Thanks Rodeo and Capoland
Post Reply