Plex is absolutely amazing – very nice for organization and management of your files – and OpenPlex automatically installs PlexConnect on your Mac, easily generates certificate files. I thought it might be helpful to share my experience around Plex and Apple TV.
I have an ATV 3 that connects to my computer in the other room via wifi. And then installed PlexConnect to make it work with my ATV. What I wish to do is to stream .mkv, .avi and other non-apple approved video formats from the network drive to the Apple TV. Any easy way? I’ve heard of options mostly involving airplay work arounds. Anyone know what the most seamless one would be?
After digging deeper into technical specs of the ATV, I got some clues. It is essential to know the best codec for playing on Apple TV at first. And in this page, I will introduce a simple way to enable you play MKV/AVI movies on Apple TV via PlexConnect/OpenPlex without any limit.
Since neither MKV or AVI is well supported by Apple TV, a possible solution I’ve worked out is to convert MKV/AVI to Apple TV supported format for streaming using PlexConnect for more convenient playing and sharing. Along with some help from third party program like Pavtube iMedia Converter for Mac, it can be done effortlessly.
This video app is professional on fast transcoding MKV/AVI to Apple TV/Plex with M4V format without quality loss. In addition, it not only supports MKV/AVI videos, but also handles Blu-ray, DVD, ISO and various common video formats, like MXF. MTS, MOV, MP4, AVI, WMV .etc. Now download this tool and follow the instructions to convert MKV, AVI videos to Apple TV for streaming via Plex or other media server.
[Guide] How to play MKV/AVI files via PlexConnect
1. Load original MKV/AVI files Click “Add Video” button on the main interface to load your MKV/AVI files to the program. (Drag&Drop function is included.)
2. Click on the dropdown menu of “Format” and then move your pointer to “HD video > “H.264 HD Video (*.mp4)” which is the compatible format for Apple TV. You can also choose the format from the “Apple TV” sublist. Here we recommend you to choose H.264 HD Video. Then you can set the output folder by clicking “Browse” icon as you need.
Tips: With the right settings you can retain the quality of the original videos while also saving space. This is particularly helpful when streaming over your network, depending on your network quality. Simply click Settings bar and you can tweak the settings to your satisfaction and even save it as preset.
3. Start MKV/AVI to ATV Conversion Finally, hit the “Convert” button at the bottom of the main interface to start the conversion.
After the conversion, click “Open” to quickly find the converted movies. Then, download and install OpenPlex on your Mac, and start streaming these converted MKV/AVI files from Mac for Apple TV watching at ease.
Below is a tutorial for setting up PlexConnect on local network to stream videos to Apple TV without jailbreak.
Tip: For Windows users, Pavtube Video Converter Ultimate is also a helpful app to encode videos for further usage. A nice info is that H.265 encoding/decoding is supported by the latest version.
