Video conversion for itunes/Apple TV?

General General Discussion
1

hi guys,

I know there are a few Steve Jobs machine members here…I just bought an Apple TV today and love it. I have all of my Magpul DVDs copied to .avi and .wmv on my hard drive, but want to integrate them to itunes so I can play everything on my TV.

Is handbrake a good choice?

I run windows and my iOS-fu is a little weak.

Thanks
Joseph

2

While I don’t have an Apple TV, I do believe, that yes, handbrake is what you would want. At least on the Mac there are a bunch of presets including various iOS devices including Apple TV

3

Handbrake will work, as will FFMPEG. Handbrake is free. Both will convert your files to M4V, which is what you’d want for AppleTV. I prefer to use QuickTime 7 Pro…it has a direct AppleTV preset, is fast, and excellent quality conversion. It has the disadvantage of costing $29.

4

thanks guys. Ill give handbrake a try, i may just spring for QT Pro, since it will serve me a legitimate purpose!

Glad a decided to verify my hypothesis with youse guys instead of the apple kids, Ive gotten the “good question” answer from them more than once.

5

I’ve used handbrake to make iPhone and iPad versions as well as versions to watch on the computer on a monitor (ie, better than iPhone). Always does a good job…

6

I use handbrake and the apple tv setting

7

I just finished encoding Dynamic Handgun and everything worked great! Now, I have both carbines, dynamic shotgun, and VTAC Pistol 1 to go:ph34r:

8

Handbrake works very well on both platforms and gives you a great amount of control and settings options. I bought the Quicktime 7 Pro upgrade years ago but those features have been incorporated into OSX for some time now so you no longer have to buy it if you have a fairly recent machine and operating system. I don’t know how that works for the PC though. Handbrake is free and is hard to beat without spending $75 to $100 or more.

Handbrake has several Apple presets and you can modify those presets as much or as little as you want to get the exact resolution, file size, and format that you want. I convert many files with the iPhone 3GS preset because it is faster and the file size is much smaller. I dump those files over to a 3GS I use just for streaming so I don’t always have to tie up a MacBook with streaming duties. You’d be amazed at how good those “low rez” 3GS files look being streamed to a TV. If I need higher resolution I use the Apple TV preset in Handbrake to convert the file and stream it from the MacBook. Handbrake allows you to apply constraints such as constant bit-rate or file size so you can tailor it to exactly whatever platform you intend to play it on, and then save your own library of custom presets for each job you need to do. Their online forum is full of lots of people who have been using Handbrake for years and know it inside and out and have probably already answered any question you will ever come up with.

I got rid of cable 2 years ago and got the ATV2 and a Netflix subscription last December so now I spend less than $10.00 a month and have more stuff than I can ever watch. I watch what I want, where I want, when I want to on my phone, computer, or TV. I never watch a program when it is broadcast and I never watch any commercials. I’m never going back. Since I got the ATV2 I haven’t even rented a movie from Redbox.