AppleTV: can I watch movies from third parties?

Question

Is there a way to watch Divx movies I usually watch with QuickTime or VLC player on my mac, on Apple TV ?

If I buy Apple TV I would like to watch movies I downloaded from third parties, and not only I bought through iTunes.

Does it work ?

thanks

Answer 1

As seen on Apple website, the supported video formats are:

• H.264 video up to 720p, 30 frames per second, Main Profile level 3.1 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

• Motion JPEG (M-JPEG) up to 35 Mbps, 1280 by 720 pixels, 30 frames per second, audio in ulaw, PCM stereo audio in .avi file format

So in order to play your DivX movies you have either to transcode them into a supported format using tools like Handbreak, or to jailbreak it so it will support more video formats.

In my humble opinion, Apple TV is the best device for streaming music, listening/watching podcasts, streaming your photo libraries from your mac to your TV, and if you are an iTunes store fanatic then buying/renting movies from the iTunes store.

If your main interest is watching divx/mkv's, then I would suggest you to look for something else.

Answer 2

Not without hacking the AppleTV. Out of the box you can only watch quicktime movies without divx.

Answer 3

Another option you could try is AirFlick, which can stream unsupported formats from a Mac to an AppleTV. It requires VLC to be installed on the Mac to transcode on the fly, and it's certainly not perfect, but I've used it with varying degrees of success.

If you go the offline transcoding route (which is what I do), don't forget to check out the Elgato Turbo H.264 USB dongle, which can speed up this process considerably.

Answer 4

You can jailbreak Apple tv, put XBMC mediacenter on Apple tv and use "pelisalacarta" add-on or, for the moove in English put "icefilms" add-ons for to access at icefilms movie library with your Apple Tv!