AppleTV to support Dolby5.1 Natively

Discuss encoding for devices and presets.
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petvas
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Re: AppleTV to support Dolby5.1 Natively

Post by petvas »

Cavalicious wrote:What are your audio settings in the AppleTV?
Dolby Digital is on. If I convert the DVD with AC3 audio only, then it works
ammulder
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Re: AppleTV to support Dolby5.1 Natively

Post by ammulder »

I tried the Dolby PLII + AC-3 at 160kbps with today's SVN build and it worked fine on the Apple TV (I got Dolby Digital on my receiver).

No luck on the iPhone though. I started with the old Apple TV preset and changed it to two-pass as well as changing the audio. After the first iPhone failure I also tried bumping the average bitrate down to 1500. In both cases, I can get the movie into iTunes (and play it there with audio), but when I sync to the iPhone I get the message that the movie was not copied to the iPhone "because it cannot be played in this iPhone". Is there some particular setting I need to change to support the iPhone? I notice the iPhone preset has a still lower bitrate (though it looked like the iPhone tech specs claim 2.5mbps is supported) and has Anamorphic disabled, but I thought an earlier post said Anamorphic should work for Apple TV+iPhone support. Is there a resolution limit to movies for the iPhone (the one I tried was 839x358 with strict Anamorphic)?

Thanks,
Aaron
realityking
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Re: AppleTV to support Dolby5.1 Natively

Post by realityking »

Try using the iPod High Rez Preset und choose the AC3 option. The AppleTV Preset uses x264 options the iPhone can't handle.
flipper01
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Re: AppleTV to support Dolby5.1 Natively

Post by flipper01 »

Well I wanted to throw in here and I am sure it is known but I was playing around with the latest build and I love it. this is a great dev group. The only issue I have which is not that big of a deal as I can wait is that no matter what you do the files generated from the new build will not play at all on an iPod classic or the new ipod nano. But the appleTV and iphone work awesome and both devices get the right audio (i tested with the ipod hi-rez preset and the Pro Logic II - AC3 audio option). I tested every preset including straight low rez and it crashes the nano and classic. If you care about those devices (i do because of the wife) I would wait till the official release. Love some of the new features in the new build as well. Especially the new queue.

keep up the great work

Andrew
sgt-baker
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Re: AppleTV to support Dolby5.1 Natively

Post by sgt-baker »

Is there any way that we could get a small sample file to play around with? I mean for those of us who are complete morons and can not, for whatever stupid user induced error, get the latest SVN rev to build?

-Sgt. Baker
nightstrm
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Re: AppleTV to support Dolby5.1 Natively

Post by nightstrm »

ammulder wrote:I tried the Dolby PLII + AC-3 at 160kbps with today's SVN build and it worked fine on the Apple TV (I got Dolby Digital on my receiver).

No luck on the iPhone though. I started with the old Apple TV preset and changed it to two-pass as well as changing the audio. After the first iPhone failure I also tried bumping the average bitrate down to 1500. In both cases, I can get the movie into iTunes (and play it there with audio), but when I sync to the iPhone I get the message that the movie was not copied to the iPhone "because it cannot be played in this iPhone". Is there some particular setting I need to change to support the iPhone? I notice the iPhone preset has a still lower bitrate (though it looked like the iPhone tech specs claim 2.5mbps is supported) and has Anamorphic disabled, but I thought an earlier post said Anamorphic should work for Apple TV+iPhone support. Is there a resolution limit to movies for the iPhone (the one I tried was 839x358 with strict Anamorphic)?

Thanks,
Aaron
In order for anamorphic to work, you need to install an uncommitted (as far as I know) patch to have HB use both the matrix + pasp; then anamorphic will work on both devices. It is the b-frames that are getting you when using the AppleTV preset.
ragboy
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Re: AppleTV to support Dolby5.1 Natively

Post by ragboy »

I encoded using latest build, PLII plus AC3. Rename to m4v, move to itunes, when I play from ATV I get "The format was not recognized". Plays fine on my mac. Will try on my other ATV that uses DD receiver.

EDIT: Doesn't work on either ATV, same error.

BTW, great work, its getting there, very exciting. My new mac pro is encoding at 130FPS average, and this is on my test of chapter 11 of The Fifth Element. All crazy action. This seems faster than what 0.9.1 is doing.

EDIT2: using svn r 1274
Last edited by ragboy on Sun Feb 17, 2008 12:20 am, edited 2 times in total.
GMcDowellJr
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Joined: Mon Feb 11, 2008 1:15 am

Re: AppleTV to support Dolby5.1 Natively

Post by GMcDowellJr »

Cavalicious wrote:Let the flooding of "How do I compile SVN" begin! :P
Well, for a first timer I gotta say, if you search the forum a bit (and this thread in particular - hint, hint) it's really pretty easy! Of course I'm not really sure what I did or why it worked or what all the new buttons and options are for yet but hey, I'm having fun and that's what it's all about!

On a totally unrelated topic (and I'd be happy to ask elsewhere in the forum if asked), what resource(s) would you recommend for a virgin developer? Any particular books on the subject you'd suggest?

Thanks for the good times!
ragboy
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Re: AppleTV to support Dolby5.1 Natively

Post by ragboy »

ragboy wrote:I encoded using latest build, PLII plus AC3. Rename to m4v, move to itunes, when I play from ATV I get "The format was not recognized". Plays fine on my mac. Will try on my other ATV that uses DD receiver.

EDIT: Doesn't work on either ATV, same error.

BTW, great work, its getting there, very exciting. My new mac pro is encoding at 130FPS average, and this is on my test of chapter 11 of The Fifth Element. All crazy action. This seems faster than what 0.9.1 is doing.

EDIT2: using svn r 1274
Not sure what happened, but I recopied to itunes, and it worked, strange. AAC audio is out of sync, will be able to check AC3 later.
ammulder
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Re: AppleTV to support Dolby5.1 Natively

Post by ammulder »

nightstrm wrote:In order for anamorphic to work, you need to install an uncommitted (as far as I know) patch to have HB use both the matrix + pasp; then anamorphic will work on both devices. It is the b-frames that are getting you when using the AppleTV preset.
OK. When all is said and done will you be able to encode at full resolution and playback on both Apple TV and iPhone? Or will it be restricted to a smaller size for the iPhone? I'm not sure I'd go for one file for both if it has to be lower resolution than normal for the Apple TV.

Still, very exciting developments!
nightstrm
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Re: AppleTV to support Dolby5.1 Natively

Post by nightstrm »

ammulder wrote:
nightstrm wrote:In order for anamorphic to work, you need to install an uncommitted (as far as I know) patch to have HB use both the matrix + pasp; then anamorphic will work on both devices. It is the b-frames that are getting you when using the AppleTV preset.
OK. When all is said and done will you be able to encode at full resolution and playback on both Apple TV and iPhone? Or will it be restricted to a smaller size for the iPhone? I'm not sure I'd go for one file for both if it has to be lower resolution than normal for the Apple TV.

Still, very exciting developments!
As long as the devs put the code in place (or you do it yourself); I've been running full-resolution (with both loose and strict anamorphic) and CRF for awhile now. And now also AC3+AAC with no problems. The files are larger (in size) than I'd like them to be, but hopefully Steve will release a 32GB 3G iPhone soon. :wink:
EchoRob

Re: AppleTV to support Dolby5.1 Natively

Post by EchoRob »

Some one needs to post the latest SVN for all the people who can not compile it them selfs, we all know there is no support and whatever else.

THANKS
dynaflash
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Re: AppleTV to support Dolby5.1 Natively

Post by dynaflash »

EchoRob wrote:Some one needs to post the latest SVN for all the people who can not compile it them selfs
With all due respect EchoRob. No. Realize there are still crashes, etc. we are working out. We are close ... very close.
ragboy
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Re: AppleTV to support Dolby5.1 Natively

Post by ragboy »

EchoRob wrote:Some one needs to post the latest SVN for all the people who can not compile it them selfs, we all know there is no support and whatever else.

THANKS
You need to be patient. This is free software. The developers/custodians of the code are gracious enough to let us build off the source, helps them test, but they don't need to even do that, and I thank them for the ability.

On top of that, I have compiled lots of other free software, like mplayer/mencoder, and ffmpeg. The latter can be a real b*tch. HB has got to be the EASIEST of all to compile, at least on a mac. The jam process is a no brainer. If you can't do it, just wait, it will be out soon. I have been ripping some tests, and its looking real good. For some reason I have had some sync issues with the aac track, but maybe my atv was syncing in bg or something, seems to be in sync now. The ac3 has been perfect.
lardawge
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Re: AppleTV to support Dolby5.1 Natively

Post by lardawge »

If I am using aac+ac3, what tells qt,fr,itunes,atv to use the 5.1 as the default track? It seems to be defaulting to 2 channel...
Cavalicious
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Re: AppleTV to support Dolby5.1 Natively

Post by Cavalicious »

lardawge wrote:If I am using aac+ac3, what tells qt,fr,itunes,atv to use the 5.1 as the default track? It seems to be defaulting to 2 channel...
The AppleTV recognizes the Surround titled track and plays that one over the defaulted "stereo" enabled one. For everything else, I suspect you are going to have to enable the track you want.
nightstrm
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Re: AppleTV to support Dolby5.1 Natively

Post by nightstrm »

From what I've seen, iTunes defaults to the stereo track, but you can change to the surround one if you want (you'll get silence unless you have the proper equipment to output it). I'm not sure if this behavior is just because the AAC track is first, or if there is some logic involved.
lardawge
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Re: AppleTV to support Dolby5.1 Natively

Post by lardawge »

Cavalicious wrote: The AppleTV recognizes the Surround titled track and plays that one over the defaulted "stereo" enabled one. For everything else, I suspect you are going to have to enable the track you want.
Unfortunately it leave out Front Row unless I am missing a way to select an audio track...
ragboy
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Re: AppleTV to support Dolby5.1 Natively

Post by ragboy »

lardawge wrote:If I am using aac+ac3, what tells qt,fr,itunes,atv to use the 5.1 as the default track? It seems to be defaulting to 2 channel...
It will default to your 2 channel in itunes or on your mac. But on ATV it depends on your audio setting on DolbyDigital. If you have it OFF, it will play the stereo track, if you have it on it will play the AC3 track, even though it is disabled on your mac. I have 2 apple tvs, one with analog out, the other hdmi out to dd receiver, and have tested this with latest svn build 1278.
BobVB@mac.com
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Re: AppleTV to support Dolby5.1 Natively

Post by BobVB@mac.com »

ragboy wrote:I encoded using latest build, PLII plus AC3. Rename to m4v, move to itunes, when I play from ATV I get "The format was not recognized".
I did a number last night with various options, tagged them with MetaX and had the same problem. Solution turned out to be simple: Even though MetaX will allow you to set the genre to anything, and tv 2.0 will now show movies that aren't genre='movie' in the movie list it won't recognize them when you go to play them.

All I did was switch the iTunes genre to 'Movie' in the non-playing movies and they worked fine after that.
ragboy
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Re: AppleTV to support Dolby5.1 Natively

Post by ragboy »

I was testing with HERO, and having serious sync issues. So I grabbed a sampling of several DVDs in my library to backup with version 1289, most recent. They are all syncing great, and when I load into itunes, I get all chapters, and also in tunes, there is a little button that actually allows me to change from English (Stereo) to English (Surround) and vice versa. Very cool. So far no sync issues, but will test again with Hero shortly. These work fantastic with a workflow of HB, then to MetaX, and into itunes. They look like a purchased movie from apple, the only difference is chapters don't have names, and you get surround with these.

Now, I just wish these changes they made to mpeg4ip were made public, and there was a way to mux this way outside of HB. I have already worked out all my methods to backup my hddvds. I have the video ATV compatible, and ac3 streams, just need a good way to mux them. The visual hub ffmpeg method doesn't work very well. Hopefully atv takes off, and mp4box will be updated or something.

Here is a screenshot.
Image
jbrjake
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Re: AppleTV to support Dolby5.1 Natively

Post by jbrjake »

ragboy wrote:Now, I just wish these changes they made to mpeg4ip were made public
HandBrake's not like Apple -- we believe in transparency.

The changes have *always* been public, from the moment they hit the HB SVN repository:
http://trac.handbrake.fr/browser/trunk/ ... h?rev=1261

EDIT:
Wait, I can phrase that better--

HandBrake's not like Apple -- to us, transparency is about more than menu bars.
ragboy
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Re: AppleTV to support Dolby5.1 Natively

Post by ragboy »

jbrjake wrote:
ragboy wrote:Now, I just wish these changes they made to mpeg4ip were made public
HandBrake's not like Apple -- we believe in transparency.

The changes have *always* been public, from the moment they hit the HB SVN repository:
http://trac.handbrake.fr/browser/trunk/ ... h?rev=1261

EDIT:
Wait, I can phrase that better--

HandBrake's not like Apple -- to us, transparency is about more than menu bars.
I did see that, and I see your set of patches in the repo for mpeg4ip. If I compiled mpeg4ip with those patches, would mp4box work with ac3, or would the mp4box code need to be updated to include your new methods?
lardawge
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Re: AppleTV to support Dolby5.1 Natively

Post by lardawge »

I do have to give a shout out to the dev team! This is awesome! Nice job guys :lol:
ragboy
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Re: AppleTV to support Dolby5.1 Natively

Post by ragboy »

OK, I think I found a bug. I just happened to grab HERO for some testing, and having sync issues. But just to make sure it wasn't just HERO, I grabbed like 5 other movies, pretty much randomly. They all synced great, work in iTunes, and both atvs, analog and hdmi. But I reencoded HERO again, with svn version 1289, and the aac and ac3 audio are definitely out of sync. The only difference, I think, is the subtitles. This is the only movie I have turned subtitles on. I am doing a second encode, using english audio, and no subtitles, and see what happens. I see 1294 is ready, but from log, don't see any changes that would effect sync, could be wrong.

I am on Mac Pro 2008 with 10 gigs ram, running 10.5.2.
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