New $99 AppleTV finally plays 720p @ 30fps

[SicMX]

Finally 30fps support for 720p

"H.264 video up to 720p, 30 frames per second, Main Profile level 3.1 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps per channel, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats"

http://www.apple.com/appletv/specs.html

Now i can finally start thinking about converting my 720p MKVs to the AppleTV/iPhone 4 format

[John the Ripper]

Question for the devs: Do you know if the AppleTV and/or Universal presets will be updated for the new model?

[jamiemlaw]

When it comes to presets for devices that don't support certain features (e.g. the old Apple TV, iPod Classic) the main function of the preset is to ensure that the settings don't exceed those. For devices that support pretty much everything, like the iPad onwards, you don't need a preset specifically for it: "High Profile" with an added width/height restriction (if necessary) will do just fine.

Obviously the "Universal" preset won't be updated as it still needs to support the old Apple TV.

[SicMX]

a AppleTV/iPhone 4/iPad/iPod Touch (4G) preset would be awesome!

High quality 720p on all devices

[John the Ripper]

When it comes to presets for devices that don't support certain features (e.g. the old Apple TV, iPod Classic) the main function of the preset is to ensure that the settings don't exceed those. For devices that support pretty much everything, like the iPad onwards, you don't need a preset specifically for it: "High Profile" with an added width/height restriction (if necessary) will do just fine.

Obviously the "Universal" preset won't be updated as it still needs to support the old Apple TV.

Aha, gotcha, thanks for that. I guess I should stick with Universal for the sake of my ol' iPhone 3G.

[lukeradical]

I guys

Can someone help me adjust the CLI command for AppleTV to update it to 720p and 30fps?


./HandBrakeCLI -i DVD -o ~/Movies/movie.mp4 -e x264 -q 0.589999973773956 -a 1,1 -E faac,ac3 -B 160,auto -R 48,Auto -6 dpl2,auto -f mp4 -4 -X 960 -P -m -x level=30:cabac=0:ref=3:mixed-refs=1:bframes=6:weightb=1:direct=auto:no-fast-pskip=1:me=umh:subq=7:analyse=all

(from http://trac.handbrake.fr/wiki/BuiltInPresets#appletv)

Any other optimisations you can think of for that command? Not interested in supporting older iphones/ipads/tv etc...

cheers

[mduell]

Change the -X 960 to -X 1280.
Drop the -x and following string entirely.

[SicMX]

Is it just me or does the video quality actually look worse on the new AppleTV

I've got a 1080p Sony 40" LCD TV and with Apple TV 1 even regular DVD rips looked fine. Now on the new Apple TV they look like [Censored]. And surround sound doesn't work anymore. Is the video quality issue because of the 720p output or might it be that i have a faulty unit?

Anyone else compared quality of SD (not HD) rips?

[HotDogWolf]

No issue with dvd rips they look fine and surround works fine.

[SicMX]

Surround started working now, very odd. And i might have been too quick to judge on the video quality because i connected the old AppleTV and it does in fact seem very similar. I must have become spoilt with Blu-Ray, that's the only possible reason =)

PS. How come none of the trailers have surround sound?

[TedJ]

If you're talking about trailers from the Apple website, then the funny thing is that many of them do... as 6-channel AAC which the Apple TV can't handle.

[SicMX]

Smart move on Apple's behalf...