Another great article from Fortune magazine – it outlines issues people are experiencing with the Apple TV. Apple TV could have been much more than it is, but it has glaring problems and omissions which just make it unusable as part of an entertainment system. This article went so far as to point out some things I wasn’t aware of.

Why Apple TV is a dud

And there are other issues which the article doesn’t mention, but which would break the hearts of home theatre lovers everywhere. For example:

• While Apple TV plugs into HDTV’s, it doesn’t support 1080i or 1080p. Only 720p.
• While Apple TV has an optical audio port, it only supports Dolby ProLogic II by default.
• As the article mentions the Apple TV is best used with iTunes purchased movies. Attempting to play higher quality H.264 on it will result in stuttering video, as the machine is not really powerful enough. By extension, this means that while Apple can upgrade the software capabilities of the device, the machine will never be able to play really high-end content.
• Apple TV neither contains nor supports TV tuners or PVR functionality. You have to use a separate device for these purposes, which lacks sense. The device would be the perfect vehicle for recording TV shows and encoding them for viewing on an iPod later (that is, if it had the horsepower to do so – see the last point).

I hope there will be a second revision of Apple TV which addresses these issues.

Got a Windows Mobile device recently, the HTC P4000 “Titan”. Nice little device that lets me do a lot of Internet related activity (oh and also it’s a phone). I was going to do a writeup on this but someone went ahead and did it for me already – with the added bonus that they’re using a free service through which to sync, rather than running their own Exchange server. Good find!

So, without further ado, if you’d like to easily sync your calendar and contacts with your Windows Mobile device and you’re a Mac (or even Linux) user, check this out:

http://james.manners.net.au/2006/11/13/free-windows-mobile-activesync/

This is a good method because as he mentions, Entourage injects the Exchange data into Apple Sync Services, so you can then deal with the information in your Apple iApps rather than having to rely on third party software.

Keep in mind also, you don’t have to use the mail2web e-mail address on your Windows Mobile device if you don’t want to. I’m using ActiveSync to synchronize my calendar and contacts to Exchange, but my device is pulling e-mail from my Linux-based IMAP server.

Yes, I know. iPhone is coming soon. I won’t be getting one, but it’s not because I don’t absolutely love the thing or want Apple to kick ass with it. More on that later.

This is a guide designed to help you convert video to the new H.264 codec. Special attention is paid to keep the video stream compatible with QuickTime, which is something I find sorely lacking in other HOWTO’s.

This HOWTO has been updated! The quality of the result is now far superior. Check it out.

The following tools are required:

• faac
• gpac
• mpeg4ip
• x264-svn
• libdvdread
• libdvdcss
• mplayer

Audio

rm audiodump.pcm && mkfifo audiodump.pcm
faac --mpeg-vers 4 -q 100 -P -R 48000 -C 6 -I 5,6 -X audiodump.pcm -o audio.aac & mplayer dvd:// -dvd-device ./temp/VIDEO_TS/ -aid 128 -vc null -vo null -ao pcm:nowaveheader:fast  -channels 6

Crop Letterboxing

mplayer -vo null -vf cropdetect dvd:// -dvd-device temp/VIDEO_TS/

This will give you the video dimensions you need to feed to the next command. Replace -vf crop=xxx:xxx:xx:xx in subsequent commands with the output of this!

Pass 1

mencoder -nosound -of rawvideo -ovc x264 -vf crop=xxx:xxx:xx:xx,scale,harddup -x264encopts bitrate=1000:frameref=6:analyse=all:me=umh:subme=7:trellis=2:bframes=1:subq=7:brdo:mixed_refs:weight_b:bime:no_fast_pskip:direct_pred=auto:mixed_refs:nr=200:threads=auto:turbo=2:pass=1 -noskip dvd:// -dvd-device file.iso -o /dev/null

Pass 2

mencoder -nosound -of rawvideo -ovc x264 -vf crop=xxx:xxx:xx:xx,scale,harddup -x264encopts bitrate=1000:frameref=6:analyse=all:me=umh:subme=7:trellis=2:bframes=1:subq=7:brdo:mixed_refs:weight_b:bime:no_fast_pskip:direct_pred=auto:mixed_refs:nr=200:threads=auto:pass=2 -noskip dvd:// -dvd-device file.iso -o movie.264

Merge into one file:

mp4creator -rate 23.976 -a movie.264 movie.mp4

MP4Box -add audio.aac movie.mp4

Note the -rate flag passed to mp4creator. This is important. This must match the frame rate of the source material!

This method can be used on any type of source media, not just a DVD.

-vf crop needs to be adjusted according to the results given by cropdetect, and the desired final size. Aspect will be preserved within the video stream itself.

The Result:

A high-quality MP4 file with 6 channel surround audio and video stored in anamorphic widescreen. Enjoy!

Samples:

Click for larger.