Separate media library for iPod / Apple TV?

[monty77]

I've been pondering the purchase of an Apple TV for a while but one thing that bothers me is having to have 2 versions of each file in my library .. one for iPod/iPhone and one for the AppleTV.

...I could just rip them all at AppleTV quality but then it'd be a massive waste of space to use the same files on the iPod/iPhone.

How do others get around this?

At the moment I'm using my DVD player with unconverted XVid/DivX files which is clunky and I'd like to move away from it.

Cheers,
Adam

 

[MikieMikie]

Read the Handbrake tests, the first thread, the sticky one. Yeah. That one.

 

[eddyg]

How often do you transfer movies to the iPod? Wouldn't it be nice if you encoded for atv and then simply recoded the atv file for iPod on demand at sync time.

Yes it isn't quick - but it saves space.

No product as yet, but it is possible, and does work using freeware only.

Cheers Ed.

 

[monty77]

Read the Handbrake tests, the first thread, the sticky one. Yeah. That one.

I already know which formats both devices can play, and I also know that that I'd want best quality (largest file size) for ATV and whatever will give me the smallest file size for the iPhone/iPod - you can't have it both ways is the conclusion I've drawn but thanks for pointing out the thread

Adam

How often do you transfer movies to the iPod? Wouldn't it be nice if you encoded for atv and then simply recoded the atv file for iPod on demand at sync time.

Yes it isn't quick - but it saves space.

No product as yet, but it is possible, and does work using freeware only.

Cheers Ed.

Very often unfortunately, it's my travel companion so I rotate media a lot. Agreed that your proposed solution would be nice for a lot of other users however.

2 media libraries it is I guess .. can I at least split my iTunes Movie/TV Show library into 2 so ATV wouldn't have to scroll through 2 versions of each file??

Thanks,
Adam

 

[markfc]

Just manually choose what movies you want to sync to the AppleTV.

Untick the iPod format movies and they won't show up on the AppleTV.

 

[zedsdead]

I've been pondering the purchase of an Apple TV for a while but one thing that bothers me is having to have 2 versions of each file in my library .. one for iPod/iPhone and one for the AppleTV.

...I could just rip them all at AppleTV quality but then it'd be a massive waste of space to use the same files on the iPod/iPhone.

How do others get around this?

At the moment I'm using my DVD player with unconverted XVid/DivX files which is clunky and I'd like to move away from it.

Cheers,
Adam

The new Anamorphic Settings on Handbrake 0.9.2 work with the iPhone, and the quality at even 1500-2000 is on par with dvd's. Just make sure you start with the iPhone preset, then up the res and add anamorphic. It is the best current way to have just one file that plays on everything. 5.1 works with it as well.

Is it as good as the Apple TV setting, no, because of the B frames and all, but it is damn close.

 

[Scarpad]

Well I was doing alot of my encodes using the Touch Preset in HB and tweaking up to get near ATV specs, but I've gone away from this as the ATV preset offers the best image on my ATV with a higher Bitrate. So I unfortunately do maintain two libraries, my ATV's goes thru my mac mini, my library with all the files for my portable devices is on my pc and a seperate set of Hard Drives, that way I don't have to worry about scrolling thru two versions.

 

[monty77]

Thanks everyone .. useful info here!

...on quick question. If I encode into Apple TV with 5.1 sound, will I have to have an amp connected to get any sound at all?

Thanks!
Adam

 

[zedsdead]

Thanks everyone .. useful info here!

...on quick question. If I encode into Apple TV with 5.1 sound, will I have to have an amp connected to get any sound at all?

Thanks!
Adam

No, the movie will have two audio files, 1st a Dolby Pro-Logic II stereo track, and a 2nd 5.1 AC-3 Pass Through. The Apple TV can be set to output either one. Your computer will automatically read the 1st stereo track (as will iPods if you chose the iPod settings).

 

[Yvan256]

I've been pondering the purchase of an Apple TV for a while but one thing that bothers me is having to have 2 versions of each file in my library .. one for iPod/iPhone and one for the AppleTV.

[...] How do others get around this? [...]

The method I'm using is to have two files: one for the TV, one for my iPod touch. I use the best settings for the TV and H.264 iPod at 512kbps, 480xY* pixels with stereo 44.1 kHz at 80 kbps audio.

I do end up with two files, but the one for my iPod touch is around 300-500 MiB while the one for my TV is usually around 1.2-2.0 GiB. That means I can fit a whole lot more movies on my iPod touch, not to mention that at these specifications the iPod touch files don't take too long to encode (granted, this is on a Core 2 Duo Mac mini, if you have a G3/G4/G5 your mileage may vary).


* whatever height is required to keep the aspect ratio.