AVCHD, Photos App, and Apple TV 4 Playback

Question

davidosus Author

Level 1

49 points

AVCHD, Photos App, and Apple TV 4 Playback

Late 2015 iMac. El Capitan. Photos app. Apple TV 4. All software up to date.

Frustrating.

Photos app recognizes a Sony Camcorder and easily imports its AVCHD videos. They play within the app.

These videos will not play on an Apple TV 4 (Home Sharing, Photos) - their format is not recognized.

Drag a video from the Photos app to the Desktop and into iTunes and it plays on an Apple TV 4 (Home Sharing, Home Videos).

The videos are identical.

The solution is to export them through Quicktime Player to 1080p and back to Photos. Ridiculous.

Why won't videos play within Home Sharing, Photos?

Posted on Jan 23, 2016 10:53 AM

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Answer 1

Protodd

Level 4

2,092 points

Jan 23, 2016 11:06 AM in response to davidosus

Not all formats will be playable on all devices. You can try using the Plex or VLC apps as they support a wider variety of media formats.

http://www.apple.com/tv/specs/

Video Formats

H.264 video up to 1080p, 60 frames per second, High or Main Profile level 4.2 or lower

H.264 Baseline Profile level 3.0 or lower with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps per channel, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats

MPEG-4 video up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats

Photo Formats

JPEG, GIF, TIFF

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Answer 2

Protodd

Level 4

2,092 points

Jan 23, 2016 11:11 AM in response to davidosus

Here is a very old thread but is pretty informative AVCHD - IMOVIE - APPLE TV - CONFUSION

and a few more...

http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/how-can-i-import-mts-avchd-files-without-loo sing-quality.1662203/

http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/how-do-you-manage-avchd.1401477/

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Answer 3

davidosus Author

Level 1

49 points

Jan 23, 2016 11:39 AM in response to davidosus

Thank-you for your replies.

Not all formats will be playable on all devices.

These movie files play on a Mac in iTunes and Photos. They play on an Apple TV 4 in Home Sharing, Home Videos.

They do not play in Home Sharing, Photos.

The same movie file. The same movie format.

Seems to me that the issue is not the format but rather Home Sharing, Photos.

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Answer 4

Jan 23, 2016 11:47 AM in response to davidosus

Drag a video from the Photos app to the Desktop and into iTunes and it plays on an Apple TV 4 (Home Sharing, Home Videos).

The videos are identical.

Actually they're not.

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