Daily Tip: How to stream AVI and MKV via iPhone or iPad to Apple TV
Last night I sat down with my iPhone running iOS 4.3, tapped on the freshly updated version of Air Video, connected to my Mac Pro running the beta version of Air Video server, cued up some AVI and MKV files, and streamed them flawlessly to my Apple TV via iOS 4.3's AirPlay. My iPhone wasn't Jailbroken. My Apple TV wasn't Jailbroken. But with a huge geeky grin plastered on my face I was finally watching all those old home videos and DVD rips that were never before supported, in any way, by Apple and their luddite Hollywood licensors.
iOS 4.3 might be a minor update in many ways but it's also a game changer for Apple and iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch users. It turns every one of those devices into a media server (AirPlay) and viewing client (Home Sharing or apps like Air Video) at the same time. And it cuts the tether of iTunes and the shackles of sync to do it.
That an iPad or iPhone had to be the intermediary was cumbersome, that the setup required an on-PC server component was complex, but it was all doable and once done it just worked. If you want to try it out, follow on after the break.
Here's what you need:
- iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad running iOS 4.3
- Latest version of Air Video [$2.99 - App Store link]
- Air Video server 2.4.5 beta [Free - Web link]
Set things up the same way we outlined in our how to use an old iPod touch as an Apple TV tip, but say goodbye to the wires because this is the future and the future is streaming.
Tips of the day will range from beginner-level 101 to advanced-level ninjary. If you already know this tip, keep the link handy as a quick way to help a friend. If you have a tip of your own you'd like to suggest, add them to the comments or send them in to news@tipb.com. (If it's especially awesome and previously unknown to us, we'll even give ya a reward...)
Editor-in-Chief of iMore, Executive Producer at Mobile Nations, co-host of Iterate and ZEN and TECH, cook, grappler, photon wrangler.
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Yyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeessssss!!!!!!!!!!!! This IS a great day for the .mkv container. I, too, have been waiting for this day! I don't want to lose my jailbreak, but anticipation is half the fun, so I'll have to wait a little more. lol
And to think that you didn't even need that so-called "A/V cable" (30-pin connector-to-HDMI + 2nd 30-pin connector) that's coming out tomorrow for the purpose of video mirroring as part of a new feature on iPad 2.
Great stuff!
Just to add, you now don't even need an Apple TV or anything to stream to your TV, you can use the app linked to act as an AirPlay receiver!
http://appshopper.com/utilities/airtuner-airplay-viewer-hd
Yes, it's pretty cool, and I agree that we shouldn't have to route through another device. If Apple would allow apps on the Apple TV, in theory, AirVideo could just run there. Somehow, I doubt Apple would like that.
OTOH, I was playing with the new Home Sharing last night and decided it is basically worthless. You have to have your content in iTunes, in their format, and have iTunes up and running on your computer. I also didn't see an easy way to switch libraries, say if I wanted access to my wife's library. Really lame.
The only thing that is not convenient would be the draining of the iDevice's battery. It would be so much nicer if AppleTV support those files natively, instead of having us to fire up air video every time and have to airplay it to make it work.
That's already an issue with some iOS 4.3 users - the battery drain, only not by AirPlay.
Just wait until Apple TV gets apps, then you can just use zumocast or air video right on it. This is obviously where things are going.
Apple and the film studios will never go near anything that ends in .mkv! And Apple TV does support it, just not natively. All you have to do is jailbreak the Apple TV and load XBMC on it if you want to cut out the middleman (the non-jailbroken iPhone, iPod touch or iPad.
The great thing is that we have choice now...We can choose how to circumvent the AVI/MKV "issue".
Hollywood probably won't let Apple support those formats because they consider us all criminals who do nothing but steal their content. When Apple doesn't have to deal with Hollywood or record labels -- like with the App Store -- they don't seem to care about that kind of stuff as much.
(Though they may think AVI is bad quality and so won't support it
)
Not really -- even when not forced by the mustache-twirling Hollywood Cabal you like to cite, Apple imposes DRM all by themselves ( http://goo.gl/G3vpq )
Short story -- Cory Doctorow (with the consent of his publisher, Macmillan), publishes his book without DRM. Even with Macmillian's intervention, Apple refused to allow the titles in the iBookstore without DRM.
"Unfortunately, I had no such luck with Apple or Sony. True to my earlier experience with Apple’s iTunes store, Apple has a mandatory DRM requirement for books offered for sale for the iPad. I know many Apple fans believe that because Steve Jobs penned an open letter decrying DRM that the company must use DRM because they have no choice. But this simply isn’t true. Sony has the same deal."
(For the record, Apple and Sony require DRM, Amazon B&N, and Kobo were willing to forego DRM if the publisher requests it.)
Those are separate though admittedly intertwined issues. Apple was quick to drop DRM from music and I suspect they'd do the same for video (though Jobs has said there's a tradition of DRM in video which is a worrisome comment). I'm not sure about App Store and what developers would think about DRM-free downloads and their piracy concerns.
However, Apple hasn't prevented AVI and MKV supporting apps onto the App Store, at least not so far.
the real issue is movie studios are just protection their profit streams. they are losing dvd, and in theater sales are declining, and it's just not profitable to make movies if they are going to be pirateable and they lose all the distribution channels like they did with music. The studios will let you stream all that stuff just fine as soon as someone develops an uncopyable digital format. I mean a 100% uncopyable, or at least so hard to do that it's not feasable. With music they already lost. the studios have caved, apple is the big distribution channel. they can't make money off dvds, off full albums, it's not as profitable to pay studio time for marginal artists so we get tons of Beibers. Even artist make the bulk of money off touring not albums nows. All cause they lost control of distribution. if they were really smart, the movie studios, they'd take hulu, form a giant group an all agree to stream only through their own ecosystem. it would suck for netflix and amazon movies, and whatever coinstar dreams up but then they could keep their money. Cause it it's about money. i'm not mad at them though cause when you got people in such hard times nobody is gonna work for free.
My airvideo is only streaming sound, no video. What am I doing wrong? Everything else streams video, like iMovie and photos.
roger - make sure you have the new airvideo server BETA. the release doesn't have the functionality yet. You have to upgrade to the BETA>
I had this problem until I updated and installed the beta. And rebooted everything.
In my excitement, I forgot to mention: No transcoding necessary!
Well, the two that I use (AirPlay and ServeToMe) transcode everything "live" or "on-the-fly", so I guess I should say no more waiting...:D Now, where are those Mad Men episodes...
I've updated everything (iPad, iPhone, Apple TV, Airvideo server) and when I try to stream video via AirPlay all I get is the audio with a box that says "Untitled, Unknown Artist".
I've looked throguh all of the settings on all of the apps with no luck.
What am I doing wrong?
Yeah, same here! Bummer!
This is HUGE for windows media center users. The latest beta now does WTV!! I can't stress enough how awesome this is. No transcoding to get my tv shows to the big screen!
Thanks Rene!
@John: Yes, that's right. haha...The Apple TV just became the Windows Media Extender.
To all AirVideo users: You will need the latest version of AirVideo server as in the latest BETA. Currently, this is v2.4.5 beta 4, not the regular version which is 2.4.3. Just FYI.
Thanks for the info. I was wondering why I was only getting the audio option like the others.
Hi Rene, just wanted to let you know that the Ipod 4th gen. got the new FT icon with iOS 4.3...
@Crunch: Beta! That's what I had wrong. Thanks for the fix. It works!
Kinda like running a Plex Server. Same concept and also this transcoding on the fly will tax your CPU to 100% while it streams recommend to build a cheap media server
That depends on what system you have. What CPU/GPU do you have?
When I ran videos via AirVideo on my E7600 (Core 2 Duo 3.06GHz), it took a lot of CPU yes, but still not 100%. My Core i3-550 (3.2GHz but with Hyper-Threading, which makes a huge difference) is not impacted nearly as much and doesn't get hot either. And yes, Plex and Boxee and whatever else all have XBMC as their core engine with a prettier face, although XBMC is skinnable, too...
Well not 100% but it sure taxes a system. Don't try to get crazy with Photoshop which it's transcoding
if it has to transcode it that's a pain. but either way all my mkv's are 1080p so it's a no go. my wd hdtv already does this pretty good. apple tv is probably a nonstarter for me until it atleast supports 1080p mp4s. at least i can just remux those. but for now my wd hdtv is stupendous and does a ton more then appletv. but good for the appletv faithful.
I agree with the 1080p part. My MKVs and MP4/M4Vs are 40% 1080p and the rest 720p along with a few 480i/p's.
The Apple TV is just a no-brainer at $99 and I have yet to do one thing with it as far as its initial purpose is concerned: a TV/movie rental box. The tight iOS integration is truly remarkable, however, and there is a whole host of things which the Apple TV is uniquely qualified for.
Quick question: I have a WDC NAS which is awesome and while researching as to which NAS to get, I happened upon the WDTV Live (or something to that effect). Which one of them do you have/can recommend?
I can't say i have any experience with the NAS so i couldn't say. from looking at the website they seem to be for two different purposes. the NAS devices seem to merely be networked storage (servers) but the WDTV is like the appletv in that its specifically a streamer w/o hard drives. My advice is rely on you're own intelligence rather then what anyone else says. read the specs and the reviews. find out exactly what you need and what you can compromise on. example Hdmi out, networking, wireless, netflix, exactly what codecs your files are, and what you're willing to convert, do you need 1080 hd or can you live with 720p, is playing music more important the videos, is reading your itunes important or just reading your folders and tags. Oh another thing is the interface. if you can use both devices do it and see if you can live with the interfaces. at least check out a device demo on youtube.
me hd video was important. if appletv could play 1080p mp4s i'd have one. i didn't have so many mkv's that i was unwilling to take 5 minutes and remux the ones i have. But it won't. Plus i don't think it plays avi and my entire old non hd dvd collection was ripped to avi so if it doesn't play them i'm not reripping or converting cause i don't have the discs anymore and it's time consuming.
i think there are negatives with the wdtv, the interface is ok but it surely lacks that apple polish and sheen. One BIG annoyance is it does not always see my network shares. i've figured it out that you just have to wait sometimes and also when i have ethernet plugged in and my wireless both connected to my network it confuses my wdtv and it sees none until i turn off the wireless (which is easy cause it's a button on my laptop). It's not playlists work great but i had to export all my itunes playlists and convert them to m3u. Again, i was willing to do that and it actually wasn't hard since i already had all my playlists in itunes saved in a folder. But i don't play music on my wdtv much cause i live in a small apartment now. I mean i got my for $80 at costco so like Peter and his Appletv below, it the wdtv was a no brainer for me. But that's cause it fit my needs and i was able to tolerate the trade offs in the music support. but it does do music well, there's no lag when navigating. But again my tags are great, my folder structure is immaculate, itunes doesn't touch mine, and all my album art is imbedded which helps. oh that's another thing the wdtv doesn't have great thumbnail support for videos so you it's a pain to get cover art for videos to work. Plus i don't think it works as a "network share" only through "media share" which is like using windows media player as the server. Oh it also works with tversity, though i don't use it. But i say do your research, find out what you want and go with your gut, cause it's more about your needs then my opinion, Then you'll be happiest and not have buyers remorse.
i've gotten so sick of lousy hardware support for mkv that I just transcode everything out of it now with mkvtools or handbrake. I don't mind having stuff in iTunes in mp4... but I'm tired of battling with mkv and really don't want to have to build a HTPC just because of one stupid container that open source zealots insist on using. I'm just fine with mp4...
understood. i was in a similar boat so i ripped tons of stuff directly to mp4. there is software that will convert mkv to mp4 w/o recoding, called xenonmkv and it's free. i had an xbox and it wouldn't play mp4s. now my wd does so i just don't convert them.
Edit: i mean the xbox wouldn't play mkvs so i ripped a lot to mp4 (& avis). sorry i missspoke.
Wdtv is admittedly great, with fantastic native codec support, but apple tv will kick it's butt in integrating with all your IOS devices.
I just got an Apple Tv yesterday, just ahead of the iOS updates, and I must say I do find the Remote app a bit confusing. If my Apple TV is sharing my PC library, it seems odd that I then have to choose between them in remote.
The multiple mode ( where the music comes from different systems, all in sync) works really well when it works (it started to get upset if I changed songs on the PC instead, for instance.) and I got a few iTunes crashes today, I suspect that's why we just got a new, new update today
Peter Solubleapps.com/MailShot
honestly i have no need to interface with my apple devices on my tv. All it has to do is read the 2 terabytes of video i have stored on my hard drive. It recognizes everything and plays them. I don't even need it to read my itunes as my folders and tags are all perfect and it reads all my playlists fine. I mean at like $79 -$99 and doing more for me that was a no brainer. I used to use an xbox 360 which will at least do 1080i so again that was a no brainer over the appletv. and i got a ton of avi too. but xbox can't play files over 4 gbs in mp4 format. And it got some 12 - 18gb mkvs that i want to see in all their glory. Avatar looks outstanding. To each his own. For me codec support and being able to play HD were a must as i already got the other stuff in my 360 so apple tv would have been a downgrade.
You may also refer to the following step by step guide on how to Convert and Import AVI to iTunes so as to Transfer and Play AVI Files on iTunes/iPad/iPhone/iPod/apple tv successfully at http://www.bigasoft.com/articles/how-to-import-avi-to-itunes.html
it also applies to mkv, wmv, mpg, and more
Did you stream 720p mkv files? Did the iPad pass it on as 720p? Also, did you try 1080p mkv files?
Just google search Step by Step Guide on How to Play AVI on Apple TV or Apple TV 2
you will find a simple solution
Just google search Step by Step Guide on How to Successfully AirPlay AVI, MKV, WMV, DivX, MP4, MOV Movie Files to Apple TV?
you will find a simple solution
Boxee for iPad (http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/boxee-for-ipad/id449599856?mt=8) does this very nicely too. If you like Boxee and the social/watch later paradigm it's a very good choice. It'll even stream MKV/AVI/etc files from a USB drive on Time Capsule, all wirelessly, all without lag or glitch.
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