If the anamorphic stuff required updated (ie self-built) contribs, that could explain the disparity between manual changes and HB output? I only got QT-compatible video after using my own contribs, but that could just have meant I'd screwed up before.jbrjake wrote:We're getting conflicting reports here, so someone's incorrect. If adding the transformation matrix works on the AppleTV when you do it in manually QuickTime, it should work just as well with anamorphic encodes from post-revision-353 HandBrake builds. And it's been reported that it doesn't. The other possibility is that someone broke maurj's anamorphic work, but no one's fessed up to that.
Initial Impressions of the Apple TV
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Yeah, I believe it required a patch to libmp4v2, so it would have needed contrib libs newer than 0.8.0b1.hawkman wrote:If the anamorphic stuff required updated (ie self-built) contribs, that could explain the disparity between manual changes and HB output? I only got QT-compatible video after using my own contribs, but that could just have meant I'd screwed up before.
Anyway, dynflash just tested to settle this, and the answer is HandBrake 0.8.5b1's anamorphic will work on the AppleTV.
Video plays back at the correct aspect ratio.
However, he said he couldn't tell the difference between an anamorphic encode and a default downscaled encode of the same source, viewed with the AppleTV on his 1366*768 set. So the @tv must have a relatively nice scaler.
iTunes will happily tag a short movie I converted to have AAC5.1 (it was anamorphic, too). You do seem to be right about artwork though, which is bizarre.Cyander wrote:Some worse news about 5.1... iTunes ignores tags in m4vs/mp4s with 5.1 surround in it. So while iTunes will stream them to the Apple TV no sweat, you can't get cover art or the like.
Yes, if you delete the .mp4 artwork first you can then add any artwork you want and it displays in Apple TV fine. You can do this in iTunes. Of course, any changes you make after syncing will require a resync.
I've been testing using "Parsley is Atomically Delicious" to set description, artwork, etc. and that works fine. But using iTunes to do the same seems to work just as well, except that you need to use Comments instead of Description. But PAD seems a little quicker and more fully featured for setting annotations, so I'll probably stick with that. Does anyone know a way to set ratings on these (PG-13, etc.) so they show up in iTunes?
As others of said, anamorphic works with the manual QTPro tweak, but I also can't really see a difference between that and the non-anamorphic scaled version. Still, I will use anamorphic when I can.
I've been using the AC3 5 ch audio encoding, and have the Apple TV connected with optical audio. I haven't had any audio dropouts yet, but have spent most of time testing video settings, not audio.
I'm not an expert at this stuff by any means, but I'm pretty happy with the ATV and quality of what I've produced so far. But I'm not aiming for DVD quality either. I look at it as convenience over quality, just like mp3's vs CDs, flacs, etc.
I love MediaFork! It's the best. Thanks to everyone involved with the project.
I've been testing using "Parsley is Atomically Delicious" to set description, artwork, etc. and that works fine. But using iTunes to do the same seems to work just as well, except that you need to use Comments instead of Description. But PAD seems a little quicker and more fully featured for setting annotations, so I'll probably stick with that. Does anyone know a way to set ratings on these (PG-13, etc.) so they show up in iTunes?
As others of said, anamorphic works with the manual QTPro tweak, but I also can't really see a difference between that and the non-anamorphic scaled version. Still, I will use anamorphic when I can.
I've been using the AC3 5 ch audio encoding, and have the Apple TV connected with optical audio. I haven't had any audio dropouts yet, but have spent most of time testing video settings, not audio.
I'm not an expert at this stuff by any means, but I'm pretty happy with the ATV and quality of what I've produced so far. But I'm not aiming for DVD quality either. I look at it as convenience over quality, just like mp3's vs CDs, flacs, etc.
I love MediaFork! It's the best. Thanks to everyone involved with the project.
Dro: are you using MediaFork 0.8.0b1 and passing-through a Dolby Digital AC3 track (i.e. not extracting it to AAC)? If so, I'd be surprised if the AppleTV is playing it. Do let us know if so.dro wrote:I've been using the AC3 5 ch audio encoding, and have the Apple TV connected with optical audio. I haven't had any audio dropouts yet, but have spent most of time testing video settings, not audio.
Or are you using a recent svn build of Handbrake, and extracting to 5.1 AAC?
- maurj.
Yeah, normally that'd work fine, but it refuses to play ball for an AAC5.1 track. The default preview is regenerated automatically... Which kind of sucks. Haven't tried setting artwork with Atomic Parsley yet.maurj wrote:Hi hawkman,
Try deleting the existing artwork (the auto-generated one based on a frame of video). You should then be able to add your own. I think you're only allowed one artwork for these video files.
- maurj
[esit] Atomic Parsley doesn't help.
Last edited by hawkman on Mon Mar 26, 2007 1:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Okay, here is what many hours of testing and encoding samples with atv out of our latest svn.
Anamorphic: works, right out of HB. No need for any qt hack whatsoever.
5.1 6 channel: Has already been covered in detail here http://handbrake.m0k.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=757 but basically AppleTV will not recognize aac 5.1 six channel but, on the other hand, it also doesnt affect your ability to play the movie either. Without encoding six channel we mix 5.1 down to dolby 1. Both will play fine with atv.
Neither feature causes any problem whatsoever with adding artwork.
Video encoding settings: jury is still out as to whats best, and I expect it will stay that way, becoming more of a personal preference (may also depend big time on the size of your tv) . I have been doing alot of testing with Constant Quality using jbrjakes crf option and have been getting some very promising results on a 42" lcd.
Anamorphic: works, right out of HB. No need for any qt hack whatsoever.
5.1 6 channel: Has already been covered in detail here http://handbrake.m0k.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=757 but basically AppleTV will not recognize aac 5.1 six channel but, on the other hand, it also doesnt affect your ability to play the movie either. Without encoding six channel we mix 5.1 down to dolby 1. Both will play fine with atv.
Neither feature causes any problem whatsoever with adding artwork.
Video encoding settings: jury is still out as to whats best, and I expect it will stay that way, becoming more of a personal preference (may also depend big time on the size of your tv) . I have been doing alot of testing with Constant Quality using jbrjakes crf option and have been getting some very promising results on a 42" lcd.
I'm probably misunderstanding the technical aspects of audio encoding.maurj wrote:Dro: are you using MediaFork 0.8.0b1 and passing-through a Dolby Digital AC3 track (i.e. not extracting it to AAC)? If so, I'd be surprised if the AppleTV is playing it. Do let us know if so.dro wrote:I've been using the AC3 5 ch audio encoding, and have the Apple TV connected with optical audio. I haven't had any audio dropouts yet, but have spent most of time testing video settings, not audio.
Or are you using a recent svn build of Handbrake, and extracting to 5.1 AAC?
- maurj.
Yes, I'm using MediaFork 0.8.0b1, and I leave the Audio Language 1 setting at English (AC3) (5 ch). Is that passthru? I don't see any other options for "5.1" or "6 channel". The only audio setting I change is I bump up the bitrate to 192.
I encode the video using AVC/H.264 Video / AAC Audio, x264 (h.264 Main).
The resulting .mp4 file shows that it only has 2 audio channels in QT Pro. L and R stereo. I can edit the artwork fine.
My Denon receiver plays the video+audio fine, and shows Dolby Pro Logic II. I have sound coming out of all 5 speakers.
So is that "real" surround sound, or is it emulated? Should I be doing this some other way?
dro, MediaFork 0.8.0b1 mixes 5.1 source down to stereo only. Our next release has features to extract 6 channel surround as well as mixes down to dolby prologic 1.dro wrote:Yes, I'm using MediaFork 0.8.0b1, and I leave the Audio Language 1 setting at English (AC3) (5 ch). Is that passthru? I don't see any other options for "5.1" or "6 channel". The only audio setting I change is I bump up the bitrate to 192.
So, you are seeing the right things with the version you are running.
Re: Anamorphic encodes
Could someone please explain to me a little bit more about Anamorphic. I tried reading the DOC on it and I haven't bought a QT Pro 7 key to experiment with it. If I want to RIP something like most of my widescreen movies, say LOTR - Fellowship or any of those, do I want to check the Anamorphic PAR and use QT Pro like you have done? What does that accomplish? Does a straight rip viewed via Apple TV actually distort the original aspect ratio?Rockin' Az wrote:wyvern
Thankyou! That is the exact experiment I was hoping someone would perform!
Based on your post I think we could conclude that while the Apple TV doesn't handle anamorphic encodes automatically, you can use Quicktime Pro (as outlined in wyvern's post above, or my earlier post) to manually specify the scaling so that anamorphic encoded video displays correctly.
This is good news. I have quite a few files with anamorphic encoding (using 3ivx and Diva mainly, one with Mediafork). I now know that if I manually hint the files, they should work fine on an Apple TV if (when) I get one.
My final question for any encoding experts out there - does manually specifying the scaling using QT Pro, defeat the purpose of an anamorphic encode in the first instance? In other words, is it worth encoding future video using anamorphic? What are the benfits (quicker encodes etc)?
If it is worthwhile, and if there is enough interest, I could put together a quick how-to (or at least an initial draft) - though it seems a fairly straightforward process.
Rockin' Az
I'd say it's best not to use anamorphic until the next version of handbrake is released (unless you compile it yourself from svn) as that will output QuickTime friendly anamorphic files - so it won't matter that you don't have QuickTime Pro. The Apple TV apparently plays those fine, undistorted, so you an have the full benefit of your anamorphic files 
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Rockin' Az
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roland.g
There is a good primer on anamorphic video at http://handbrake.m0k.org/trac/wiki/AnamorphicGuide. One of the advantages of anamorphic outlined in that article is quicker encoding speeds (15% if I recall). I find anamorphic encodes give a better picture (for files played using vlc), but it is probably a matter of personal taste.
As pointed out by hawkman, it is probably best to wait until the next handbrake beta before ripping (or re-ripping) your video.
Rockin' Az
There is a good primer on anamorphic video at http://handbrake.m0k.org/trac/wiki/AnamorphicGuide. One of the advantages of anamorphic outlined in that article is quicker encoding speeds (15% if I recall). I find anamorphic encodes give a better picture (for files played using vlc), but it is probably a matter of personal taste.
As pointed out by hawkman, it is probably best to wait until the next handbrake beta before ripping (or re-ripping) your video.
Rockin' Az