BD Ripper (3D Plus) Nice progress on Apple TV support... but...

[ChillyK]

DVDFab has come a long way in supporting the Apple TV. I experimented this weekend with some BD rips using an MP4 profile for iPhone 4, but with the resolution upped to 1280x720 w/ 4.5 Mbps rate (about all the ATV can handle) and the new 5.1 multichannel sound setting.

The encoding speed was awesome: I averaged 57 frames/sec (yeah!), the video quality was quite good and there were no audio sync issues (huzzah!). So it seems that if you ensure your nVidia drivers are up to date, the CUDA acceleration works really well.

However, the audio output is still 2-channel AAC Dolby Pro Logic II - yes, it's still surround sound (yeah!) and it sounds pretty good, but is not a substitute for AC-3.

So, I am still living with the process of xxxxxxxxx to encode Blu-Rays for the time being (which is like watching paint dry - I'm lucky to average 17 frames/sec, starting after the extra 20 minutes required to re-encode the audio).

Are we getting any closer to supporting an AC-3 passthru? I'm not complaining, I'm just asking...

Regards to the team for their continued work on DVDFab,

ChillyK

[roperdan]

Also still waiting for 5.1 sound

I feel your pain. I record "multichannel" audio in the iPhone format but it still plays in 2 channel audio out of my apple TV (first gen). Does anyone know how to rip a DVD or BD to an apple TV format that will actually play in 5.1 channel sound?

[rfryar]

I feel your pain. I record "multichannel" audio in the iPhone format but it still plays in 2 channel audio out of my apple TV (first gen). Does anyone know how to rip a DVD or BD to an apple TV format that will actually play in 5.1 channel sound?

Now I do not own an Apple TV but I have a similar need with my TiVo. I need h264 and can have 5.1 AC3 audio. Here is my process..

1) I created a custom MKV profile to set my H264 level requirements (You can just copy the MKV profile, and look at the apple tv profile for the video settings.
2) The audio on the DVD profile is set to pass thru. On the BD profile I needed to encode to AC3 audio.
3) Once DVDFab is done and creates the MKV, I use a little program to extract the video and audio and remux them into a MP4. (See link). There is several requirements of this program see the link.

Works for me, it sucks that it is two steps but it is the best I found as the MP4 profile options are still a bit lacking in DVD Fab.

This same script should work for the Apple TV MP4s.. You just need to ensure that the H264 video stream is set to the right level and bitrates.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=448424

Rick