Easiest way to playback mkvs on AppleTV 3 (no jailbreak)

[freedomsbeat212]

I'm running a mac mini in my home office as a media server and all was well until I upgraded my plex/appletv2 to an AppleTV3. I do like the new features of the 3 and the speed difference (and airplay mirroring works great), so rolling back to the 2 isn't ideal..

I've heard of options mostly involving airplay work arounds. Anyone know what the most seamless one would be? Plex from my ipad worked but kinda stuttery

[runawayprisoner]

The most seamless one would be to convert the MKV into MP4 files. The upside is that you can then share your iTunes library with your Apple TV, and you won't have to use AirPlay anymore. The Apple TV just automatically fetches the video from your iTunes library over the network and plays it back.

Your iPad can also do the same while using Home Sharing. So one iTunes library can serve video contents to all of your iOS devices wirelessly.

[TheStu]

I use AirVideo at home for that sort of thing. My desktop hosts up the videos, and will transcode them on the fly if necessary, I then use AirPlay within AirVideo to beam it to my AppleTV.

Converting all of them over to an iTunes compatible format would obviously work as well.

[AkumaX]

let's take a step back here.

when you encode a video, you use a video compression codec, and an audio compression codec.

then after its done, you stick both parts (or more, such as subtitles), into a container.

in this case, .mp4, .m4v, and .mkv are ALL containers.

typically, you will encode videos using the h.264 codec. the raw file created (container-less) is typically in a .h264 "file".

most players can't play "raw" files. so you have to stick them in a container.

you can always extract raw video from containers.

knowing all this, you can easily go back and forth between .mp4 container and .mkv container, because you would just extract the underlying video (demuxing) into .h264 raw video and change containers (remuxing)

(note: renaming a file from .mp4 to .mkv is not the same thing as "changing" containers - you have to use a program to do that)

[TheStu]

Originally Posted by AkumaX

let's take a step back here.

when you encode a video, you use a video compression codec, and an audio compression codec.

then after its done, you stick both parts (or more, such as subtitles), into a container.

in this case, .mp4, .m4v, and .mkv are ALL containers.

typically, you will encode videos using the h.264 codec. the raw file created (container-less) is typically in a .h264 "file".

most players can't play "raw" files. so you have to stick them in a container.

you can always extract raw video from containers.

knowing all this, you can easily go back and forth between .mp4 container and .mkv container, because you would just extract the underlying video (demuxing) into .h264 raw video and change containers (remuxing)

(note: renaming a file from .mp4 to .mkv is not the same thing as "changing" containers - you have to use a program to do that)

Ok, let's take a step forward. Knowing that he is on a Mac Mini, what software would he do to do that?

And knowing that I am using Windows 8, what would I use to do that? Handbrake in both cases or...?

[Tempered81]

Can you use airvideo to serve streaming HD .mkv's with realtime conversion to the Iphone, and then from the Iphone use Airplay mirroring to send it to the HDTV?

[runawayprisoner]

Originally Posted by TheStu

Ok, let's take a step forward. Knowing that he is on a Mac Mini, what software would he do to do that?

And knowing that I am using Windows 8, what would I use to do that? Handbrake in both cases or...?

On Mac OS X, you can use Subler.

http://code.google.com/p/subler/

Note: Mountain Lion has a codec issue with Subler. The fix is also documented in that Google Code site.

I typically just do a conversion with Handbrake since most family videos I record aren't in MKV. But if you have MKVs... then Subler will make your life a lot less miserable.

[AkumaX]

Originally Posted by TheStu

Ok, let's take a step forward. Knowing that he is on a Mac Mini, what software would he do to do that?

And knowing that I am using Windows 8, what would I use to do that? Handbrake in both cases or...?

Subler for OSX (as runaway prisoner pointed out)

For Windows, there's a multitude of programs.. but most recently I've had very good results with XMediaRecode.

Select .mkv file
Choose output format (Apple iPad, whatever)
*important* under Video Tab, make sure you select Video Copy
Add Job, Encode

Since it's just copying the video, there is no video encoding done. Essentially it's just taking out the video stream from the .mkv and putting it in an .mp4.
The whole thing should take less than 5-10 seconds.

Notes:
- for simple mkv conversion to mp4
- (if the mkv had multiple audio tracks, you can select which one you want)
- from the looks of it, it seems like the audio has to be re-encoded to aac (no audio copy)
--- this might be necessary if the audio is not "apple compatible", such as ac3 (.mp4 container doesn't officially support ac3 or mp3, so apple playback would throw a fit)
- this will only work if the underlying stream (the raw h264) was already "apple compatible":
--- there are some video files that are ridiculously compressed using very advanced encoding techniques that apple quicktime and stuff might not like. if it doesn't play in itunes, then it won't copy to iphone/ipod/stream to apple tv
--- in this case, you really would have to re-encode the video portion

_______

Different method: use MKVExtract to extract raw video and audio, then use YAMB to mux back into mp4 container (assuming the video and audio files are already "apple compatible")

[TheStu]

Sweet! Thank you guys

[freedomsbeat212]

Originally Posted by Tempered81

Can you use airvideo to serve streaming HD .mkv's with realtime conversion to the Iphone, and then from the Iphone use Airplay mirroring to send it to the HDTV?

I'm doing something similar with plex - plex server to iPad/iphone to appletv. Seems to get bogged down/stuttery, especially at anything above dvd quality (works fine for xvids, 720p+ mkvs are stuttery)

[Tyranicus]

Originally Posted by runawayprisoner

On Mac OS X, you can use Subler.

http://code.google.com/p/subler/

Note: Mountain Lion has a codec issue with Subler. The fix is also documented in that Google Code site.

I typically just do a conversion with Handbrake since most family videos I record aren't in MKV. But if you have MKVs... then Subler will make your life a lot less miserable.

I had know idea this could be done. I just tried it on an mkv, and it worked flawlessly. This is amazing.

[rumpleforeskin]

Originally Posted by TheStu

Ok, let's take a step forward. Knowing that he is on a Mac Mini, what software would he do to do that?

And knowing that I am using Windows 8, what would I use to do that? Handbrake in both cases or...?

Im not as familiar with mac as i am with windows but surely this is a matter of choosing mp4 as his container when muxing his encoded video instead of mkv?

MKV is not even an option for a lot of video encoders I have used on my mac

mkvtoolnix (MKVmerge) is a good option for your windows 8 question.

[AkumaX]

Originally Posted by rumpleforeskin

Im not as familiar with mac as i am with windows but surely this is a matter of choosing mp4 as his container when muxing his encoded video instead of mkv?

MKV is not even an option for a lot of video encoders I have used on my mac

mkvtoolnix (MKVmerge) is a good option for your windows 8 question.

it is, it's just the education that mp4 and mkv's aren't "different video files", but are just "wrapped" differently

hmmm, orange juice in a glass bottle or plastic bottle? lol

[Eug]

I've had endless problems converting MKV to iTunes compatible files with Subler. I usually could get it to work, but even when it worked there often would be weird playback issues like audio sync problems.

Finally, I just gave up.

It's moot now though since I'm just playing my video files directly on my jailbroken Apple TV 2. Since you have both, could you use both your Apple TV 2 and Apple TV 3?

[silverwind]

MKV2M4V from the Mac Store for easy and fast conversion to .m4v.

Or, play it as an mkv using Beamer.