Play DVD on Apple TV 4 via Plex App

How to play movies form DVD disc on Apple TV 4 via Plex App?

This is not a difficult task, for playing DVD movies on Apple TV 4 with Plex, you just need to rip the DVD movies to the Apple TV 4 compatible MPEG-4 / H.264 AVC video codec with AAC audio, then transfer them to Plex Media Server, this Plex media server could be your own or it could be a friend’s who has shared their Plex media server with you. 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 watch DVD movies on Apple TV 4 via Plex app.

Note: This guide is for the official Plex application for Apple’s tvOS, which limits it to the 4th generation Apple TV and above.

Why Rip DVD to MPEG-4 / H.264 AVC video codec with AAC audio

Plex for Apple TV 4 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 4 via Plex. To add DVD movies to Plex Media Server on Apple TV 4, you will need to transcode movies from DVD disc to Apple TV 4 supported file formats.

Apple TV 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

In this case, you need to rip DVD movies to MPEG-4 / H.264 AVC video codec with AAC audio for playing on Apple TV 4.

How to Rip DVD to MPEG-4 / H.264 AVC video codec with AAC audio

If your DVD discs 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 DVD Ripper for Windows | for Mac with the combo function to not only strip off copy & region protection from DVD disc but also convert DVD movie to Apple TV best compatible file formats for watching on TV via Plex app.

Windows Version Brorsoft DVD Ripper take as example, Mac Version share the same steps, just keep in mind you have download the right version, Windows platform .exe files cannot be installed on Mac OS – and vice versa.

Step 1: Import DVD movie.

Launch Brorsoft DVD Ripper, and click the button like a disc to add DVD 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 4 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 4.

Then you can set the output folder by clicking “Browse” icon as you need.

Tips: If you wanna edit DVD 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 4 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 DVD to H.264 HD Video

Click the “Convert” icon, the DVD to Apple TV 4 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 4 via clicking on “Open” button effortlessly. Now you can transfer the converted DVD movies to Plex Media Server, and then you are able to watch them via plex app on Apple TV.

I also share some of my experiences on this page:

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Play DVD on Apple TV 4 via Plex App