How to Paly Blu-ray on Apple TV via Plex

With the reveal of Apple's fourth-generation Apple TV, the media streaming service Plex now are available for free on new Apple TV App Store. Now, If you have large collection of movies on Blu-ray disc and also own a Apple TV 4/3/2, it would be a good option for you to add all your Blu-ray movies to Plex Media Server on Apple TV so that you can conveniently access and watch them on your big screen TV.

Media compatibility and video quality limitations vary by device. Plex for Apple TV uses playback systems provided by the Apple TV. In this case, formats that can be played by DLNA or from a USB drive on TV may not be available for direct playback by Apple TV via Plex app. To add Blu-ray movies to Plex Media Server for watching on Apple TV with Plex app, you will need to transcode your Blu-ray movies to Apple TV supported file formats.

Apple TV is compatible with the following video formats:

H.264 video up to 1080p, 30 frames per second, High or Main Profile level 4.0 or lower, Baseline Profile level 3.0 or lower 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

Tip!: To watch Blu-ray on big screen TV via Apple TV with Plex installed, you need to strictly follow MPEG-4 / H.264 AVC video codec as well as AAC audio.

If your Blu-ray movies are commercial ones with copy & region protection, you will still have to remove the protection first. Here, we provide you a hassle free tool called  Brorsoft Blu-ray Ripper with the combo function to not only strip off copy & region protection from Blu-ray disc but also convert Blu-ray movie to Apple TV best compatible file formats for watching on TV via Plex app.

Moreover, you can choose the desired subtitle for output and select forced subtitles for some unknown languages.

Free download the Blu-ray to Apple TV Converter:

(Note: Click here for OS X 10.5)

How to Rip Blu-ray for Watching on Apple TV via Plex

Note: This guide is for the official Plex application for Apple’s tvOS, which limits it to the 4th generation Apple TV and above. We’ve already described the process of install Plex app on Apple TV 4, so if you haven’t done that yet, go do that now. Then come back here, where we’ll show you how to rip Blu-ray for watching on Apple TV via Plex app.

Step 1: Import Blu-ray movie.

Launch Brorsoft Blu-ray Ripper, and click the button like a disc to add Blu-ray movie. You can tick the box in front of the file you want to rip. If necessary, you can double click the each file to have a preview.

Step 2: Select an output format for Apple TV and set the output folder.

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: If you wanna edit Blu-ray movie, you can click the “Edit” icon to edit, like cropping, trimming, adding watermark effect, deinterlacing, merging, rotating and more.

Step 3: Click “Settings” icon to adjust audio and video parameters.

Click the “Settings” icon and you will go into a new interface named “Profile Settings”. You can adjust codec, aspect ratio, bit rate, frame rate, sample rate and audio channel in the interface according to your needs and optimize the output file quality. 

Note: Optimal settings for Apple TV should be set as Video Size: 1280*720, Video Bitrate: 4000kbps at highest quality, Video Frame rate: 24fps or 30fps, Audio codec: AAC, Audio Sampling rate: 48000hz, Audio Bitrate: 160kbps, Audio Channels: 5.1Channels.

Step 4: Start converting Blu-ray to H.264 HD Video

Click the “Convert” icon, the Blu-ray to Apple TV conversion will start immediately. You can follow the converting process in the “Conversion” interface.

When the conversion finished, you can get the output files for your Apple TV via clicking on “Open” button effortlessly. Now you can sync the converted Blu-ray to Apple TV via iTunes, or USB flash drive, and then you are able to watch them via plex on Apple TV.

Additional for Mac users:

If your are ripping the Blu-ray on Mac, you can also directly play the RIPPED Blu-ray movies on Mac and stream to your Apple TV via "Airplay", please carry out the following steps:

First of all, connect Widescreen television and Apple TV by the HDMI cable, and make sure your Mac accesses the Wi-Fi.

Open the 'System Preferences' of your Mac computer, and click on the 'Displays'. Then you can open the Airplay. Change the 'Airplay Mirroring' from 'Off' to 'Office Apple TV', and it will connect automatically. A couple of seconds later, your Mac and widescreen TV will be connected.

There is an option at the bottom of the window, you can choose to show mirroring options in the menu bar when available.