Apple TV can't play my movies!

kebosma

Registered
I downloaded a cartoon for my little boy, I think it's an .mpg- file.

I put it into iTunes, where I can play it. After this, I tried to synchronize my Apple TV, but it won't send the file. I gives an error message instead, saying that my Apple TV cannot play the file..... :mad:

I thought that everything in iTunes could be played on Apple TV as well?

Does anybody know what's going wrong here?
 
Nope, not everything iTunes can play can be played on Apple TV. The easiest and fastest way to get this movie to play is to drop it on iSquint - http://www.isquint.com - and let it produce a compatible file. Your .mpg file probably is an MPEG-1 movie file. AFAIK, only MPEG-4 files can be played out of the box (without hacks) on the Apple TV.
 
Thanks, I tried it and it works! :)

What do you think, will Apple in future SW updates for the Apple TV include more codecs and support for more file formats for video? I takes a lot of time to convert each movie...
 
I don't think Apple will add that support. From their point of view, MPEG-4 and h.264 is the way to go. And if most of your files either come from the iTunes Store and converted DVDs, there isn't a real problem. Simply convert the DVDs using handbrake or VisualHub (the big sister of iSquint).
 
handbrake is - http://handbrake.m0k.org -; VisualHub isn't. I find VisualHub to be a great "one stop shop" for converting stuff for the AppleTV. HandBrake is simple, straight-forward, but only for DVDs, so you'd need iSquint in addition. Free: HandBrake + iSquint. One tool only, but at a price: VisualHub.
 
MPEG Streamclip will also do conversions to MP4/H264. If your source content is MPEG2 you will need Apple's MPEG2 component.
 
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