Choppy HD playback

Most likely poor encoding.

In my opinion you've answered your own question. Use mpegstreamclip to convert home made DVDs.

Universal setting will be a compromise for a variety of devices, AppleTV preset should be better for AppleTV, but panning is often an issue anyway I find.

Also, if you're using an older version try one of the nightly builds.

Winston Churchill wrote:
Use mpegstreamclip to convert home made DVDs.

MPEGStreamclip does not get the recognition it deserves in my opinion, very useful tool for the video toolkit.

i use handbrake (and the appletv preset) 100% of the time and have never had any issues with it at all. Never had any panning issues or choppy playback.

Not at my computer right now, are you sure there are any Apple tv presets for HD exports in handbrake.

Winston Churchill wrote:
Not at my computer right now, are you sure there are any Apple tv presets for HD exports in handbrake.

i never said there was.
but to make the appletv preset HD all you need to do is adjust the resolution settings to suit.

Chenks wrote:
i use handbrake (and the appletv preset) 100% of the time and have never had any issues with it at all. Never had any panning issues or choppy playback.

Fair enough, but I've often found panning in any digital video a bit jumpy on AppleTV.

I can remember an episode of lost I purchased from iTunes having awful panning compared to the DVD I later rented.

Was it the encoding, AppleTV, combination of AppleTV/TV, don't know, but as much as I love my AppleTVs there's a silky smooth quality that's missing in comparison to viewing say on the PS3 or a DVD. Convenience of AppleTV means viewing on DVD/PS3 is maybe 1% of my viewing habits these days at most. Speaks for itself really.

Alley_Cat wrote:
I can remember an episode of lost I purchased from iTunes having awful panning compared to the DVD I later rented.

is that not a 50/60Hz issue ?

Long time ago, and I think I played with both settings and it didn't make much difference.

I have to change frequency for itms movies on one tv but on my others, so it appears to depend on the tv.