[~Party Weirdo~]

Hi, I've been looking to upgrade my current DVD home cinema system with a Blu-ray one. I'm trying to find a Blu ray system that will play xvid and x264 files from a USB external hard drive, as I already have all my DVD library ripped to xvid and would plan to do the same with blu-ray disks in future, ripping them to x264. Any suggestions?

[TheBigM]

I know many of them will playDivX/XviD, not too sure about x264. If you have the blu-rays already, just pop them in the player instead instead of faffing about with lossy transcoding?

[~Party Weirdo~]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheBigM

I know many of them will playDivX/XviD, not too sure about x264. If you have the blu-rays already, just pop them in the player instead instead of faffing about with lossy transcoding?

For me using the discs is more faffing about, trying to find the right disk and sitting through all the crappy unskippable piracy warnings and trailers. Much easier to just have all your movies in alphabetical order on one 2Tb drive. The quality difference isn't huge if you rip in high-enough quality.

[Pugwash69]

I have no problem finding a blu-ray disc on a shelf of many. It's not like music, it's going to be an hour or two before you need to faff again!

Anyway, I stream any movies that I lack the physical media of from a network storage device to a ACRyan Play!On mini, which supports mkv and hi def playback. I believe the large "non mini" version can have a blu ray drive fitted but I don't know if they support all the blu ray features.

[grahamcrowden]

Do you not find it a pain having to replace your entire system each time.
Instead of all in one , buy separates.
Had you done that last time you would only need a Bluray player instead of the amp and speakers all over again too.

Speakers and amps usually last much longer than players.

[mooghead]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ~Party Weirdo~

trying to find the right disk

Wow.. your library must cover several acres!!!

[webbie]

Dune make blu-ray media players that can play back blu-ray rips and can optionally include a blu-ray player.

[pinkdragon]

The Sony BDP-S370 will play most file types I have xvids divx avi mp3 even plays alot of wmv files it even runs HD divx and mkv files. I have 2 tbt hard drive connected with usb lead works fine just format in fat32 and away it goes really handy you can also use usb sticks as well plus it does loads of internet channels as well some places selling it for £99.99 it won What HiFi award 5 stars.

[~Party Weirdo~]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mooghead

Wow.. your library must cover several acres!!!

No, I'm just very disorganized, always forgetting to put the disks back in the case (or putting the disk in the wrong case) and leaving things lying about

Quote:

Originally Posted by grahamcrowden

Do you not find it a pain having to replace your entire system each time.
Instead of all in one , buy separates.
Had you done that last time you would only need a Bluray player instead of the amp and speakers all over again too.

My current setup is almost 5 years old, so it's due for an upgrade anyway. I've looked into separates before, but it doesn't work out any cheaper - when I was looking at AV recievers last year, most of the low mid-range models were retailing at £250-350 and hardly any of them had HDMI 1.4 passthrough for example - I would be facing the same cost to upgrade the reciever + blu-ray player than I would just buying a whole new system. Plus the wires are a pain, I prefer the simplicity of an all-in-one system, although I recognize that separates usually give you better audio quality.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pinkdragon

The Sony BDP-S370 will play most file types I have xvids divx avi mp3 even plays alot of wmv files it even runs HD divx and mkv files. I have 2 tbt hard drive connected with usb lead works fine just format in fat32 and away it goes really handy

Thanks, that's a standalone blu-ray player rather than a home cinema system, but Sony are offering those features on their base model then hopefully their all-in-ones will have the same or higher specs. I'll look into it, cheers.

[niall campbell]

well things have moved on from last year

http://www.eu.onkyo.com/products/TX-SR608.html for example

AV receivers have HDMI 1.4 now and even better Audio Return Channel so whatever is on the screen will be played by the amp.

Get a PS 3 and it will act as a media player as well

my xbox 360 does this and my external hard drive is connected by ethernet to router which means its also wireless

what about the telly ? has it got ethernet as well as DNLA ? If it has DNLA then the USB port may well access a USB hard drive ? My hard drive is a RAID as well , so everything all backed up

http://www.hdmi.org/manufacturer/hdmi_1_4/index.aspx roll on tv's with HDMI 1.4 and only 1 internet connection for everything .............. hope hard drives go down this route as well

[grahamcrowden]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ~Party Weirdo~

No, I'm just very disorganized, always forgetting to put the disks back in the case (or putting the disk in the wrong case) and leaving things lying about


My current setup is almost 5 years old, so it's due for an upgrade anyway. I've looked into separates before, but it doesn't work out any cheaper - when I was looking at AV recievers last year, most of the low mid-range models were retailing at £250-350 and hardly any of them had HDMI 1.4 passthrough for example - I would be facing the same cost to upgrade the reciever + blu-ray player than I would just buying a whole new system. Plus the wires are a pain, I prefer the simplicity of an all-in-one system, although I recognize that separates usually give you better audio quality.

Thanks, that's a standalone blu-ray player rather than a home cinema system, but Sony are offering those features on their base model then hopefully their all-in-ones will have the same or higher specs. I'll look into it, cheers.

Separates are not supposed to work out cheaper than an all in one - not initially anyway.
But separate units are superior in every way and if you get decent speakers and an amp to start with they will last far longer than any player will .

An all in one is a false economy but it takes several years for that to become clear , but you do get better quality into the bargain.

As for wires. What wires?
You still have speaker cables between speakers and the unit .
All an all in one saves is the single connection between player and amp

[dorgo]

I have this one LINK

is connects up to my 2TB NAS on my network and streams all types of files using DLNA, don't know about the x264 as i dont have any in that file format.

[You_mo]

My Panasonic BD60 plays standard definition xvid and divx off a usb stick. If I want to watch high definition .mkv files, I have to encode the file to a either a AVCHD DVDdisc or AVCHD SDcard. It's a pain. Maybe the WDTV Live with a separate audio system might be what you're looking for?

[niall campbell]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dorgo

I have this one LINK

is connects up to my 2TB NAS on my network and streams all types of files using DLNA, don't know about the x264 as i dont have any in that file format.

yes DNLA compliant is a must

PS 3 fits into your network lovely and hard drive with ethernet is GREAT

[~Party Weirdo~]

I've tried DLNA devices before, very slow and clunky, takes ages to browse through files. Maybe things have moved on.