[smdavis1004]

So here is the question I have....I have ripped my videos to blue-ray MKV format keeping the truehd, etc using MakeMKV.


So my PS3 had to have PS3 meida server, my WD HD Live works great with it , but my iphone, Ipad will not accept MKV...my apple tv doesn..etc. etc. etc.


So here is my question: I have a great setup for my home theater. DVD covers, sound, seating, everything. I have been ripping to MKV, but I am wanting to stream to other rooms. So I have tried a few set-top devices....WD HD Live being one of them and Apple TV.


OTher than the point that some of you hate Apple, what video forward are you using? Should i just rip two formats like MP4 for iphone, etc. and then full MKV for my blu-ray HD sound? If I recall, MP4 can't hold trueHD sound....if it can, then I could just do everything MP4...


Any thoughts on any of this?


I would rather stick with one format for everything, but it appears this just isn't going to give me what I want.


Stephen

 

[Alx330]

The only format that will work across all those devices are H.264/MP4.


The iPhone/AppleTV are incapable of playing raw Blu-ray video even jailbroken with XBMC, the hardware simply isn't capable. For audio the best you can get is Dolby AC3 5.1 audio in MP4/M4V no HD audio.


Use an x264 encoder like Handbrake to compress the Blu-ray/MKV files, Doing a version for iPhone seems a waste of time frankly given the resolution limitations that are imposed, stick with the AppleTV preset but if you really want iPhone version it's a lot faster to convert a DVD than Blu-ray.


You do have one other option "transcoding servers" which might work with the iPhone and AppleTV via Airvideo but this will require a very powerful PC running, transcoding the video in real time to make it playable. For the PS3 use Serviio or Mezzmo.


Given the huge amount of time it will take to convert everything or the cost of having a transcoding PC server it might be more stress free to get another cheap media player that can handle the Blu-ray/MKV files as is.