AppleTV take 2 is out (hurray!)

[entropy1980]

Not sure if this is known but over at Macrumors a guy who works at Apple posted the following:

1) is AC3 sent over HDMI if we are using HDMI?

Yes

2) do we have to use HDMI and the toslink? (i have the onkyo 805 so it can handle the hdmi only).

It will output over both.

3) is the AC3 pass through (receiver/processor decodes it)?
4) any plans for linear PCM for the audio?

I'm sure about the above.

5) any chance we can use the USB port for an external hard drive (i'd love one you can stack onto the top of the ATV that has same look and feel).

Apple hasn't made any public statement about the USB port other than it is for maintenance.

Kevin

Not sure if the AC3 stuff was known previously or not.

[Deleted User 5579]

HB team release DD 5.1 support

don't get your hopes to high.

Oh, too bad. It seems like this will not be an easy or elegant process after all.

[flybynight]

HB team release DD 5.1 support

don't get your hopes to high.

OK, I admit I don't know much (er, anything) about the technical underpinnings of all this video/audio format stuff. But, it seems like it wouldn't take much to take H.264 video and AC3 audio and stuff them into a .mov container. Am I missing something? It sounds like HB can do each of those things separately, then we just need to use QT pro to put them together? Again, sorry if I am woefully naive ... it's probably not as easy as I make it sound, but is it leaps and bounds more difficult?

[flybynight]

...or is just the .mov container the impossible part? I forgot that .mov isn't an option in HB.

[rhester]

I've also heard that the intermittent pausing with high resolution/high bitrate sources bug is gone... sounds to me like they have increased the AppleTV's H.264 specs (vbv-maxrate, etc).

I expect it's more likely they just optimized the H.264 decoder software. I've seen no change in the specs.

Rodney

[ragboy]

I have been doing some experimenting, and I have 3 apple tvs. 2 are now updated to take 2. One is in my office, connected with analog out to lcd tv, the other is in entertainment center with hdmi out to denon AVR3808CI receiver.

The test from visualhub works, but only on the hdmi connection. It seems that apple must be outputting 1st channel qt audio of stereo if analog connection, and ac3 passthrough, if present, through hdmi or toslink. I get NO sound on the test in my office ATV.

I am working on creating a test mov with a HB DPLII track as stereo track 1, and ac3 as track 2, will post results later tonight, after I have tested on both ATVs. It would seem, if that were the case, that would be the best output for HB, a mov container with DPLII as track 1, and raw ac3 as track 2.

Also, noticed in settings, you can now set to 1080p output, but I think only through HDMI, or when ATV detects. My office ATV won't show 1080P, but my other does, and it works.

When new movies started rolling out from apple after macworld, I bought The Core to check it out. It is NOT in 640x360 or whatever, but full 480P resolution of 853x362. When you open file in quicktime, it doesn't show as anamorphic either. Plays great on mac, but when I moved to ATV, it played full screen, at 853x480, not 853x362. Today, after take 2 update, I tried it, and it played at correct 853x362 on the ATV, and was great, definitely DVD quality, or at least, HB rip DVD quality. So to compare, I rented the core in hd on the ATV, its beautiful. Maybe not quite bluray side by side quality, but beautiful, with full 5.1 sound. Was able to start playing within 15 mins of renting, and watched all the way through, no problems. There were a handful of barely noticeable stutters during the entire movie. They were TINY stutters. All in all, I probably won't be renting movies at the corner anymore. And I will tone down my netflix account to maybe 2 a month, maybe cancel.

[entropy1980]

VisualHub can do 5.1 now. It's doable hopefully Handbrake will support shortly...

http://www.isquint.org/cgi-bin/ikonboar ... entry24231

[nightstrm]

Don't hold your breath... I'm not a dev, but I think it is safe to say they won't hack something together just to say they also have the ability. When the HB devs figure out how to do it "properly", they'll add it in.

[entropy1980]

Don't hold your breath... I'm not a dev, but I think it is safe to say they won't hack something together just to say they also have the ability. When the HB devs figure out how to do it "properly", they'll add it in.

I guess I am confused.... If you are able to get 5.1 using VisualHub how is that "hacked together"? I mean if it works it works... no? I guess I just weirded out by all the negative "it might not happen..." going on... if VisualHub can why is it not possible with Handbrake? Not trolling just honestly curious...

[ssj2_goha]

Don't hold your breath... I'm not a dev, but I think it is safe to say they won't hack something together just to say they also have the ability. When the HB devs figure out how to do it "properly", they'll add it in.

I guess I am confused.... If you are able to get 5.1 using VisualHub how is that "hacked together"? I mean if it works it works... no? I guess I just weirded out by all the negative "it might not happen..." going on... if VisualHub can why is it not possible with Handbrake? Not trolling just honestly curious...

From what i Gather on the visualhub site the files they make do have 5.1 audio but those files don't play properly on the computer (no audio). in adition to that they are mov files not mp4 (m4v) this mean all the things like artwork and tagging of the files will not work. The great developers of handbrake wnat to make proper files that will play on all devices and still allow for artwork and tagging. Not the quick hack visualhub has done.

[ragboy]

Don't hold your breath... I'm not a dev, but I think it is safe to say they won't hack something together just to say they also have the ability. When the HB devs figure out how to do it "properly", they'll add it in.

I guess I am confused.... If you are able to get 5.1 using VisualHub how is that "hacked together"? I mean if it works it works... no? I guess I just weirded out by all the negative "it might not happen..." going on... if VisualHub can why is it not possible with Handbrake? Not trolling just honestly curious...

From what i Gather on the visualhub site the files they make do have 5.1 audio but those files don't play properly on the computer (no audio). in adition to that they are mov files not mp4 (m4v) this mean all the things like artwork and tagging of the files will not work. The great developers of handbrake wnat to make proper files that will play on all devices and still allow for artwork and tagging. Not the quick hack visualhub has done.

Artwork and tagging works fine on mov files, I do it all the time.

[EchoRob]

The .Mov files thats VisualHub creates with AC3 sound will play on Your mac with Vlc Mplayer and Quicktime with perian installed. With Visual Hub it's now possible to encode a movie that plays on Apple and qucktime with AC3 audio..Mov files, tagging works just fine.

With .Mov it'd even possible to passthrough AC3 From your Mac using quicktime and perian

VisulHub is da best, the Developer is amazing so quick

That how VisualHub does it and it works perfect. Apple do it differently

The Apple-provided movies are MPEG-4 containers, with three streams, "Main Program" (H.264 video), "Stereo" (AAC audio) and "Surround" (an AC3 bitstream).

[ssj2_goha]

Don't hold your breath... I'm not a dev, but I think it is safe to say they won't hack something together just to say they also have the ability. When the HB devs figure out how to do it "properly", they'll add it in.

I guess I am confused.... If you are able to get 5.1 using VisualHub how is that "hacked together"? I mean if it works it works... no? I guess I just weirded out by all the negative "it might not happen..." going on... if VisualHub can why is it not possible with Handbrake? Not trolling just honestly curious...

From what i Gather on the visualhub site the files they make do have 5.1 audio but those files don't play properly on the computer (no audio). in adition to that they are mov files not mp4 (m4v) this mean all the things like artwork and tagging of the files will not work. The great developers of handbrake wnat to make proper files that will play on all devices and still allow for artwork and tagging. Not the quick hack visualhub has done.

Artwork and tagging works fine on mov files, I do it all the time.

I guess i was wrong. Sorry about that.

[EchoRob]

OK, the easiest way to do this is selct the Aplle TV preset change the container to.mkv select AC3 pass through once the movie is encoded open it with quicktime pro make sure you have Perian installed once the movie has loaded save it as a self contained movie and waaalaaaa Drop it in itunes now your move will play on ya AppleTV Take 2 with Ac3 Audio whooohooo

P.S make sure you have the Latest Itunes and quicktime installed otherwise this will not work

[flybynight]

OK, the easiest way to do this is selct the Aplle TV preset change the container to.mkv select AC3 pass through once the movie is encoded open it with quicktime pro make sure you have Perian installed once the movie has loaded save it as a self contained movie and waaalaaaa Drop it in itunes now your move will play on ya AppleTV Take 2 with Ac3 Audio whooohooo

P.S make sure you have the Latest Itunes and quicktime installed otherwise this will not work

Any other reports to confirm that this works? Almost sounds too easy!
No issues with audio/video sync?

Anyone tried making a file with H.264 video, AAC audio and (deselected) AC3 audio in a .mov file? I'm reading reports that this is basically what Apple is doing, except in a .m4v file, but I know nothing... Just looking for an easy way to keep my 5.1 and rip my DVD library onto my Mac! The people that are able to make this stuff work are awesome!

[zedsdead]

The .Mov files thats VisualHub creates with AC3 sound will play on Your mac with Vlc Mplayer and Quicktime with perian installed. With Visual Hub it's now possible to encode a movie that plays on Apple and qucktime with AC3 audio..Mov files, tagging works just fine.

With .Mov it'd even possible to passthrough AC3 From your Mac using quicktime and perian

VisulHub is da best, the Developer is amazing so quick

That how VisualHub does it and it works perfect. Apple do it differently

The Apple-provided movies are MPEG-4 containers, with three streams, "Main Program" (H.264 video), "Stereo" (AAC audio) and "Surround" (an AC3 bitstream).

.Mov containers do not allow Artwork to be added in iTunes from what I remember. Also, Visual Hub does not do Chapter Markers, and that is a must for me. Sticking with Handbrake.

[flybynight]

.Mov containers do not allow Artwork to be added in iTunes from what I remember. Also, Visual Hub does not do Chapter Markers, and that is a must for me. Sticking with Handbrake.

.Mov files can have artwork added in iTunes. Chapter markers are a big deal - agreed!
Since it looks like Apple is using .mp4 (or .m4v), is there any chance that HB will allow AC3 passthrough with that container?

[dynaflash]

is there any chance that HB will allow AC3 passthrough with that container?

Hmmm. we hadnt thought of that.

[sgt-baker]

The addition of an AC3 pass-thru to a second stream would be nice. The file would be like those apple produce and would still play on ipod's and the like, but retain the 5.1 when played on the atv.

[flybynight]

is there any chance that HB will allow AC3 passthrough with that container?

Hmmm. we hadnt thought of that.

Reading the forums for a while, one gets the impression that there are a lot of things that are thought of... and then turned down for whatever reason. The fact that any of you/us have thought of it seems to have very little bearing on wether or not it will happen.

[roundy]

.mov containers only allow tagging some of the fields that .m4v files allow. For example, both .mov and .m4v allow tagging of the name, artwork, and year (just to name a few). But, .m4v files also allow tagging of Rating (G, PG, R, etc.), Director, Actors, Screenwriter, etc. Another downside is that MetaX won't even open a .mov file I test encoded with the new VisualHub 1.31.

And there is that whole chapter thing.

My main problem is that only 1 of my AppleTV's is connected to a receiver. The other one is connected to a LCD TV using the HDMI connection. I haven't had a chance to see what happens I play my test DD5.1 file on the TV. Probably nothing good. This is why we need a tool that does what Apple does (the whole .m4v with 2 audio streams thing.)

[dynaflash]

This is why we need a tool that does what Apple does (the whole .m4v with 2 audio streams thing.)

Thats a good idea.

[lordeagle]

This is why we need a tool that does what Apple does (the whole .m4v with 2 audio streams thing.)

Thats a good idea.

I don't remember who answered me (Scott maybe), but I thought AC3 wasn't a "recognized term" in the MP4 container. Has that been bastardized by Apple then?