Help - Looking for a Blu Ray player that doesn't play Blu Rays!

AsSiMiLaTeD

Ok that doesn't actually exist and is not technically what I want, but hopefully the title was confusing enough to get some replies.

What I'm actually after is a media box that will play my Blu Ray rips. I have all my Blu Rays ripped down to MKV at FULL video and audio resolution, these are essentially a 1:1 copy of the movie. I have all these loaded up on a 6TB external drive at the moment, and want to plug that into a player and play those files directly from that drive.

Things I want (must-haves):

• I need to be able to play a full resolution blu ray rip MKV file direction from a hard drive thru the USB port. I want the movie to look and sound exactly like it would off the disc
• I need it to be able to handle an external of 6TB in size
• I need something that sits up front with the rest of the gear and is simple and easy to use and that I can integrate with my universal remote

Things I don't want:

• I don't want to stream the MKV file across a network via something like Plex or even a shared folder on a NAS
• I don't want an HTPC, wanna keep this simple and clean

Things I don't need (but don't care if they're present):

• I don't need DLNA or any type of file sharing support
• I don't need streaming apps like Netflix or Amazon
• I don't need any type of library functionality with tags or artwork
• I don't need a disc drive

I have Apple TVs in every room and know they won't work. From what I can tell the Amazon and Nexus boxes won't work, and looks like the Roku and WD TV could potentially play those files but not pass thru the lossless audio. So all the popular options that I know of are out AFAIK.

Let's assume for the moment that price isn't an issue, does what I'm looking for even exist? If there is a Blu Ray player on the market that'll do everything I want I'm open to that, but where most seem to drop off the list is supporting a larger hard drive.

TIA for any help guys

EndersShadow

WD Live TV.... Done

Will also decide lossless audio. Happens to have Netflix and all that jazz as well.

Also 2 USB 3.0 ports and a app for your phone you can use.

Only issues are remote can be a fit flaky with regard to the IR sensor. I use the app on my iPhone 90% of the time. Sometimes you have to unplug and replug it in to bring it out of sleep mode. Lastly the fast forward doesn't go as smooth or seem as fast as a dvr'd TV show or a on demand rental.

Honestly not that big a deal.

I got one for say 60 bucks online.

AsSiMiLaTeD

You're saying the WD TV does support a full quality BluRay rip in the MKV container? How large of a hard drive do you have attached and how big are your BluRay rips on average? I think you may have an older generation box actually...

Also, it looks like the current WD TV model lacks things like Netflix and Amazon and overall isn't great for streaming, which I actually kinda like. It seems to cater more to playing your local media which is exactly what I want. I can't tell for sure if it'll do the full lossless audio but is worth trying at this point I think.

EndersShadow

I have uncompressed blu ray rips and they are encoded in Dts-MA or TrueHD. The rips average about 20-30 gigs for blu ray.

I am using a 3 TB drive and I know of folks using multiple hard drives with a external powered hub with 6TB OR MORE total and it's working.

You want the WD TV LIVE the older one, not the Hub. I don't know if the newer ones work with lossless audio but I'm sure the info is out there.

This is the one I bought last year.

jeremymarcinko

http://www.accessories4less.com/make-a-store/item/yambda1020bl/yamaha-bd-a1020-3d-universal-blu-ray-player-w/wi-fi/1.html
I am fairly certain any of yamahas Aventage br players 1020 and later will do what you need.

txcoastal1

Songs will work with NtFS formatted drives

Nightfall

Xbox One will play MKV's off an external hard drive, as well as Pandora, Netflix, YouTube, SlingTV, and Hulu. I'm sure this isn't what you're interested in but I'm just throwing it out there. It has TOSLINK and HDMI.

AsSiMiLaTeD

I actually have an Xbox One here (bought it strictly for Forza), I'll test it out and see how it works. Hmmm, I have a PS4 as well...

Nightfall

The app you want is called "Media Player". I watch MKV's that are in full surround sound on it all the time, from an external hard drive. As far as I know the PS4 cannot play MKV's from an external hard drive, but try it out. Let me know if the PS4 can, for my own curiosity.

cascius

Otherwise use a good old Boxee Box. I have two and while they're getting a bit old, they're unbelievable at format support. I've switched to Plex on Chromecast, but that's not what you're after. I still need to find a better player for my home theater.

Nightfall

nbrowser wrote: »

Same here, great games actually. I do however take delight in going head to head with this fjosh* drivatar and beating it mercilessly lots!

*sorry to this gamertag...nothing personal...who am I kidding? lol One of these days, a true head to head race

I still don't have Horizon 2, I'm more into the sim (ish) Forza 5. Forza 6 will be coming out sometime around November, you going to pick it up? We'll have to play that if you do. Otherwise I'm always ready to play 5 if you get it.

nbrowser wrote: »

I've found the One to be surprisingly good for handling media and it's toslink out to my HK3490 sounds quite good but I know I'm bypassing the One's internal DAC in favour of the one in the receiver. It'll take external drives easily and is actually fairly easy to to use.

I don't think the XB1 has a DAC, all its outputs are digital.

Is your XB1 hooked up in your bedroom? I thought you had an Onkyo that has HDMI?

AsSiMiLaTeD

I actually prefer the Horizon games to the regular Forza series, not sim quality but I love the open world concept is great for a racing game

EndersShadow

Can the Xbox One do two things?

1. Play MKV's (seems yes)
2. Decode them with lossless audio (TrueHD, DTS-MA)?

If so buying one becomes much easier as while I like the WD Live TV quite a lot, it can be finniky with remote controlling (hence using the app).

Also helps I want one before Halo 5 comes out lol....

AsSiMiLaTeD

I've tried a few MKVs that play fine otherwise on the Xbox One via the Media Player app and unfortunately it doesn't work for me. I get really jerky playback and then eventually an error screen. Also, before it did crash there was no way of easily browsing and selecting the audio tracks, it would show be the language of the tracks but not which one is DTS or DD.

I'll play with it some more, but initial attempts did not o so well.

For those who are using it, are you playing full 1:1 size BluRay rips? And are you using a portable drive or a self powered full external hard drive?

98Badger

Check out the Dune media players. It looks like they meet your requirements. I couldn't find the max capacity for connected drives, but I'm willing to bet you will be fine. I have the older H1 player and it was pretty much among the very best players when it came out. It's a little long in the tooth now, but still does the job very well. Video quality is on par with my Oppo 93.

http://dune-hd.com/eng/

EndersShadow

I should mention my 3TB external is one that is a powered unit. I dont "think" USB powered units would be a problem with the WD Live TV, but you would want to double check.

Additionally a nice feature is that you can map the drive connected to your WD Live to any computer in the house and transfer to and from it (which could be slow depending on your network).

Thought I would mention that.

mrbiron

AsSiMiLaTeD wrote: »

For those who are using it, are you playing full 1:1 size BluRay rips? And are you using a portable drive or a self powered full external hard drive?

My guess would be that is your problem with the portable. Without the wall wart, the drive is running out of push on the USB bus alone. Those files are just too large without the dedicated power.

Now if you are using an external with power, then there is something else amiss.

AsSiMiLaTeD

The drive worked fine playing from the Oppo I had, but I'll try a powered drive and see how it works.

I'm still not seeing a way to find the audio track I want, but will look again.

EndersShadow

^I have only encoded my rips with 5.1 or Lossless (whichever is higher) so I dont know how (or if you can) do that with the WD Live TV.

cascius

You might have to build yourself a xbmc android box. Otherwise, I still highly recommend a boxee box. Those can be had for $50 used, and I've had no problem playing 45mbit/s mkv rips with DTS and whatnot. Few boxes on the market can do that unless you go the xbmc route.

Good luck!

AsSiMiLaTeD

So the Boxee will do full bluray mkv with the dts-ma and Dolby TrueHD tracks?

EndersShadow

AsSiMiLaTeD wrote: »

So the Boxee will do full bluray mkv with the dts-ma and Dolby TrueHD tracks?

Have you encoded multiple audio formats in a single rip and watch to switch between them? Or just one format per rip?


I've had no issues with the WD decoding DTS-MA, TrueHD, 5.1, etc. I simply havent attempted to encode more than one audio format for a given file and then switch which one is playing.

I "believe" boxee cant do DTS-MA due to a fight between them and intel on the chipset limitations. I've seen a lot of that on the web in a quick search. So I'd almost rule that one out unless you want it to downconvert...

http://boxeed.in/forums/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=322

Note, dts-ma will never work (it works but with glitches) and must be fixed by intel sdk(driver related), only problem is intel dont support this platform so no dta-ma, and boxee never updates again, so live with it or indeed get a NUC or other player dat plays dta-ma without problems.
[\quote]

cascius

If you would like to send me a sample file I can do a test for you. I think you might be right though about DTS-MA not being supported.

Nightfall

I use a self powered drive with mine okay. Of course the XB1 can do lossless movie tracks, as long as you use HDMI obviously.

You can't look at what codec the file is from the XB1, unfortunately. What I did was put the codec in the folder name for the movie, so.. "Guardians of the Galaxy - 5.1 Dolby TrueHD MKV" would be a folder name.

Maybe this will help you out

http://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-one/xbox-video/mkv-support

AsSiMiLaTeD

Does the Xbox output as DTS or DD, or does it convert internally and output as PCM?

Nightfall

AsSiMiLaTeD wrote: »

Does the Xbox output as DTS or DD, or does it convert internally and output as PCM?

Go into the settings. Press "start" on the controller (that's not called start anymore, it looks like a hamburger) from the main dashboard and go to settings then go to the audio settings. You can choose bitstream, DTS, Dolby, or PCM.

AsSiMiLaTeD

Well, after it was all said and done I still ended up with a BluRay player in the end. The Pioneer BDP-80FD felt like it was designed specifically to meet my needs, everything I needed and nothing I didn't. It doesn't really have any 'real' streaming like Netflix or Hulu and I'm fine with that since the AppleTV takes care of those and is what I'd use to stream those even if this player had them.

It has a BluRay drive which I didn't need since I rip them all down to MKV, but may be nice to have for something like a rental if I ever decided to rent a BluRay. It has the ability to play a full BluRay rip from an MKV file from an attached hard drive, which was my main requirement. It plays those fine without any issues.

Most important it has superb picture quality and the sound is being decoded by the AVR so that's fine as well. It's on par with the Oppo that I had with BluRay and HD content, though I'd expect the Oppo to have better upscaling of DVD and lower resolution content. Supposedly it also has SACD and DVD-A playback, but I've not yet tested those and am not expecting great performance there anyway.

I looked at a few other options more closely and tried a couple:

Given my issues with an earlier model of the WD TV and the fact that the reviews on the current and more recent models show basically the same issues I decided to pass on it even though it appears to have what I wanted. I really want something rock solid with no quirks or issues and I just wasn't confident I'd get that in the WD TV even though a few here have it and seem to be fine with it.

I wanted the XBOX One to work since I've got one sitting right there, but ultimately it was too kludgy (is that a word). I got the stuttering MKV issue solved with using a powered drive, but the interface isn't really that great and I didn't like the way you selected things like the language and subtitle tracks. I also don't think it has quite the video quality of the Pioneer, especially with the really darker scenes where I thought the blacks were a bit off, I believe the videophile term for this is 'crushed blacks'. To be honest I doubt 95% of people would notice this issue unless they had another box to compare it to, so this was less of an issue than the interface. I really don't like the interface AT ALL on the Xbox, but those people at Microsoft are brilliant and as long as I can ONLY get Forza on that platform I'll always have at least one current model in the house somewhere. The interface was enough of an issue that I elected to spend another $300 on the Pioneer vs just using the XBOX that I already had when otherwise the XBOX would have been fine.

I tried the Sony BD-S7200 and it looked every bit as good as the Pioneer but was quirky with MKV playback, I would have one file that worked fine and then another that wouldn't play at all and could figure out a pattern (like audio codec) as to which would play. The Pioneer played both of those fine.

There was a Samsung player in the same price range as the Sony and Pioneer I ended up with, but that player was actually locking up in the store so between that and my history with Samsung I decided to skip it.

I thought about just getting the Oppo 103 but couldn't get past the fact that I was paying for functionality I'd never use, even if it was only a couple hundred or so more than the Pioneer.

Nightfall

Yeah, the Xbox One Media Player apps interface leaves a lot to be desired, but not enough to go spend several hundred dollars on something when in the end it works okay. That would just be crazy.

Enjoy your new player!

tonyb

Glad you found something to fit your needs. Had a good laugh though at the thread title. Was kinda wondering if you would be interested in a cd player that doesn't play cd's. No ? If not, I've got a toaster that doesn't toast anything....maybe ? lol