Apple TV and .mkv

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Apple TV and .mkv

I have a home theater PC and have about 140 movies on my HD (that I have copied from DVDs I own). I have used MakeMKV exclusively to rip the DVDs into a single folder called VIDEOS. I also have, for another TV, a first gen Apple TV. From iTunes, I have selected the VIDEO folder on the HTPC to import for the Apple TV. Less than half of the movies show up in iTunes for me to transfer to the ATV. All the movies were ripped using the default settings. How can I get the missing movies onto the Apple TV?

Posted on Oct 30, 2011 5:24 AM

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Answer 1

Oct 31, 2011 5:14 AM in response to Norwestie

As standard Apple TV does not support MPEG2 (as used on a DVD) nor does it support the .mkv container (even if it contains H.264 or MPEG4). MakeMKV wraps the MPEG2 from the DVD inside a .MKV container leaving the MPEG2 unaltered.

It is possible to 'jailbreak' and Apple TV and install either Plex (Apple TV2 only) or XBMC (both generations of Apple TV) both of which can play .MKV files and MPEG2.

If your wanting to convert DVDs to an Apple TV (non jailbroken) friendly format your better off using Handbrake rather than MakeMKV as Handbrake will convert to a standard MPEG4 or H.264 format.

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Answer 2

Apr 28, 2012 5:10 PM in response to Norwestie

I found an applescript floating around. Google for 'Apple TV MKV re-wrapper'.

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Answer 3

Apr 30, 2012 5:37 PM in response to Craig Temple

Hi there,

That's the script I made to convert and watch MKV files on AppleTV.

It can be found here:

http://www.tvmutiny.com/threads/watch-mkv-videos-on-appletv-without-re-encoding. 5/

It's the script I actually use myself (it's modified from one I made to get avi files to play on the AppleTV 1 (sadly, avi files don't play on the ATV 2 or 3). It's dead-simple to use, you just drag and drop your MKV and a MOV gets made automagically. You can then import that into iTunes and it will play great on your AppleTV, iPhone, iPad, etc.

There's quite a bit of Mac and AppleTV expertise there, so feel free to join up and ask more questions.

Cheers!

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