STP-HD200 DVD playback?

[bznotins]

I'm currently on an EVA8000 and quite happy with it. Thinking about making the switch to the STP-HD200 but I have a couple of questions:

1. Will the HD200 play DVD rips in .iso format?
2. Will the HD200 play BD rips in .iso format?
3. Will the HD200 play BD rips in .m2ts format?

I keep all my DVDs (and soon BDs) on a server in .iso format and the EVA8000 can do #1 but can't touch #2 and #3. All the copy protection has been stripped.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by bznotins

I'm currently on an EVA8000 and quite happy with it. Thinking about making the switch to the STP-HD200 but I have a couple of questions:

1. Will the HD200 play DVD rips in .iso format?

About like the HD100, no menus, no chapters, basically like an MPG file. It plays "folder" DVDs just fine.

2. Will the HD200 play BD rips in .iso format?

No

3. Will the HD200 play BD rips in .m2ts format?

Depends on the audio (no TrueHD/DTS-HD/etc)

[bznotins]

Thanks, Stanger. Looks like I might have to hold out for the EVA9000.

[ojosch]

I purchased one of the new HD-200 units from the first batch (but has not arrived yet of course).

I had a quick question about how to play ripped AnyDVD-HD ISOs. Is there a way to just mount the ISO as a virtual drive on my server and share that drive on the network and can the HD-200 play off it? Or am I stuck ripping as video folders and playing the .mt2s movie file directly, and if I am, can this HD-200 play the raw .mt2s files?

Here is the problem: About half of the time when I rip to video folders and play the .mt2s files on my server PC locally, the primary language is the wrong one, and I don't want to watch the movie in French or with the director's narration attached. I don't want to have to re-encode the whole mt2s file to take out all the other languages before I can watch it in English, so I would like a way to play the ISOs somehow. Or if the HD-200 could somehow read the video folders directly from the index structure and act as if it were the disc it were reading from, allowing all of the menus to work right and all. Am I asking too much? Or does it do this already?

Thanks in advance, for all, of anyone's help

* merged *

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by ojosch

I purchased one of the new HD-200 units from the first batch (but has not arrived yet of course).

I had a quick question about how to play ripped AnyDVD-HD ISOs. Is there a way to just mount the ISO as a virtual drive on my server and share that drive on the network and can the HD-200 play off it? Or am I stuck ripping as video folders and playing the .mt2s movie file directly, and if I am, can this HD-200 play the raw .mt2s files?

For regular DVDs, you could probably do that, but I don't think there's anything that will close that whole loop. I think there's an STVi (if you're using a Sage server) to mount the drive, but on the HD200 you'd then have to go to imported media and pick the DVD. If you're running in standalone mode you'd have to manually mount the ISO on the PC and then play it on the HD200. For DVDs there's no point ripping ISOs since it supports DVDs from folders natively.

For Blu-ray you're SOL, nothing (but PowerDVD/WinDVD/TMT/etc) can play "Blu-ray Discs". You'll have to rip them, and probably convert the audio from TrueHD/DTS-HD to a compatible format (it will play M2TS files though).

Here is the problem: About half of the time when I rip to video folders and play the .mt2s files on my server PC locally, the primary language is the wrong one, and I don't want to watch the movie in French or with the director's narration attached. I don't want to have to re-encode the whole mt2s file to take out all the other languages before I can watch it in English, so I would like a way to play the ISOs somehow. Or if the HD-200 could somehow read the video folders directly from the index structure and act as if it were the disc it were reading from, allowing all of the menus to work right and all. Am I asking too much? Or does it do this already?

You're going to have to use a PC if you want to play fully-functional Blu-ray rips. There's no other option. But to solve the language problem, you just want to rip the video and audio tracks you want, and not all the other fluff. That will save some decent space too.

There's no reencoding necessary to strip languages. I think eac3to can remux with just the audio tracks you want.

[Narflex]

I hope you don't mind me correcting you here stanger but the HD200 CAN playback DVD ISO files with full menu, chapter, subtitle and audio support. Nothing special needs to be done. It only works in standalone mode currently though.

We're also working on being able to handle BD ISO files and also BD folder structures as well in order to support detection of the main movie files and then playing those streams with some limited chapter support. (I'm not referring to BD menus and the interactive features; that's a whole other thing)

We're also investigating TrueHD/DTS-HD decoding on the HD Theater. Nothing official to announce there; but we are looking into decoding it and then passing the 6/8 channel PCM over the HDMI connection.

[jm9843]

Originally Posted by Narflex

We're also working on being able to handle BD ISO files and also BD folder structures as well in order to support detection of the main movie files and then playing those streams with some limited chapter support.

We're also investigating TrueHD/DTS-HD decoding on the HD Theater. Nothing official to announce there; but we are looking into decoding it and then passing the 6/8 channel PCM over the HDMI connection.

Would this only be available in stand-alone mode as well? No matter, this is good news!

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Narflex

I hope you don't mind me correcting you here stanger but the HD200 CAN playback DVD ISO files with full menu, chapter, subtitle and audio support. Nothing special needs to be done. It only works in standalone mode currently though.

Wow, is that new on the HD200 (or a recent HD200 firmware)? Last time I tried it (I think it was on the HD100, but I could be confused) it treated it like an MPEG file.

That's pretty cool. You've made a lot of people quite happy. Oh, I might know what my issue was, I probably tried it in extender mode.

We're also working on being able to handle BD ISO files and also BD folder structures as well in order to support detection of the main movie files and then playing those streams with some limited chapter support. (I'm not referring to BD menus and the interactive features; that's a whole other thing)

We're also investigating TrueHD/DTS-HD decoding on the HD Theater. Nothing official to announce there; but we are looking into decoding it and then passing the 6/8 channel PCM over the HDMI connection.

Awesome, I'm happy to be wrong in situations like this

[mtyme]

Originally Posted by Narflex

We're also working on being able to handle BD ISO files and also BD folder structures as well in order to support detection of the main movie files and then playing those streams with some limited chapter support. (I'm not referring to BD menus and the interactive features; that's a whole other thing)

Since it's not directly stated, is this something you're working on for both versions of HD extender?

Originally Posted by Narflex

We're also investigating TrueHD/DTS-HD decoding on the HD Theater. Nothing official to announce there; but we are looking into decoding it and then passing the 6/8 channel PCM over the HDMI connection.

Kinda the same question as above, except in this part you specificly mention the HD Theater, so I'm assuming this isn't something you're investigating for the HD 100?

[elcano]

Originally Posted by Narflex

It only works in standalone mode currently though.

What exactly is standalone mode? Obviously it is not literal because it will need to read the files from somewhere. I hope that in addition to External USB drive, it can also read from a SMB NAS, or via streaming from a UPnPAV server. What protocols are supported?

I have not been able to find any information on the details of the new standalone mode.

[Brent]

Originally Posted by elcano

What exactly is standalone mode? Obviously it is not literal because it will need to read the files from somewhere. I hope that in addition to External USB drive, it can also read from a SMB NAS, or via streaming from a UPnPAV server. What protocols are supported?

I have not been able to find any information on the details of the new standalone mode.

Information on the standalone mode is in the HD200 manual

In standalone mode it can access externally connected USB drives, find files from network shares, streaming via UPnP, and access online content such as YouTube, Google Video and other online podcasts.

[kurt711]

Originally Posted by Narflex

We're also investigating TrueHD/DTS-HD decoding on the HD Theater. Nothing official to announce there; but we are looking into decoding it and then passing the 6/8 channel PCM over the HDMI connection.

Thank you and I am very hopeful you will be successful at doing so soon. I'm a new SageTV user and bought the HD200 on first day just because it sounded like a great extender. Adding HD audio decoding even if its PCM would make this the best purchase I ever made. I get my HD200 today and can't wait to play with it. I have SageTV setup on my Windows home server and very nice and easy setup. Now I know why Sage has such a cult like following..yup drinking the Koolaid slowly myself

[ojosch]

Thanks for all you guys's info on this. It is much appreciated.

I'd even be happy to be able to simply play mt2s files like now, but to have a button on the remote to toggle through all of the language tracks that are available within that mt2s file that is being viewed. Could this feature be easily implemented without too much development?

[AzJazz]

Just to make sure I'm on the same page:

I theoretically just wasted $150 on an internal Blu-Ray drive for my PC. I mistakenly assumed that SageTV would be able to play from the drive using the "Play DVD" menu option on the Sage Server. That didn't work (I learned this today)

So, if I got my hands on an HD200, would I be able to play BR discs from my desktop SageTV server PC? Or, could I get a SATA => USB drive box, and play BR discs through the USB port on the HD200?

[Lucas]

Originally Posted by AzJazz

Just to make sure I'm on the same page:

I theoretically just wasted $150 on an internal Blu-Ray drive for my PC. I mistakenly assumed that SageTV would be able to play from the drive using the "Play DVD" menu option on the Sage Server. That didn't work (I learned this today)

So, if I got my hands on an HD200, would I be able to play BR discs from my desktop SageTV server PC? Or, could I get a SATA => USB drive box, and play BR discs through the USB port on the HD200?

You would need to rip the BR disc to your server's harddrive and include the path in your import library.

When this feature is available, you should be able to play the m2ts files from the ripped disc.

I don't think it would be possible to read directly from the disc.

[AzJazz]

Originally Posted by Lucas

You would need to rip the BR disc to your server's harddrive and include the path in your import library.

When this feature is available, you should be able to play the m2ts files from the ripped disc.

I don't think it would be possible to read directly from the disc.

Sigh ... oh, well. I guess that some year from now I'll probably need the BR player to play a PC game, so it won't be a total waste of money.

I just bought the entire "Planet Earth" Blu-Ray series from Costco, too - I was really looking forward to watching those. In a year or two when somebody finally releases a multi-disc Blu-Ray player for under $200 to replace our current multi-disc player in the family room, I'll be good to go.

At least I can disconnect it now and have an additional SATA connection for a sorely-needed new hard drive. Getting access to the blocked SATA ports on my motherboard resulted in temporarily damaging my PC last night. Fortunately, I was able to reattach a dislodged press-on heatsink, and the system appears operational for now.

Cheers!

[johnnytyler]

Originally Posted by Narflex

We're also working on being able to handle BD ISO files and also BD folder structures as well in order to support detection of the main movie files and then playing those streams with some limited chapter support. (I'm not referring to BD menus and the interactive features; that's a whole other thing)

We're also investigating TrueHD/DTS-HD decoding on the HD Theater. Nothing official to announce there; but we are looking into decoding it and then passing the 6/8 channel PCM over the HDMI connection.

That would be FREAKING awesome

If so I will replace my HD100 with the HD200, can't wait, I'm drooling while typing this.

[Beefcake550]

It would be flipping awesome with the HD200 could handle TruHD and DTS-MA. By handle, I mean either situation:
1) just leave it alone and bitstream it out the HDMI port.
2) decode it and send it out as LPCM over HDMI port.

Either way. I don't think my life could get much better from an A/V sense if that happened!

[eded9698]

Can the HD200 play ripped Blu-Ray movie from the Sagetv server or SMB shared folder?

* merged *

[Kirby]

Originally Posted by Narflex

We're also investigating TrueHD/DTS-HD decoding on the HD Theater. Nothing official to announce there; but we are looking into decoding it and then passing the 6/8 channel PCM over the HDMI connection.

Does this mean that you wont (cant or dont want to) just bitstream the TrueHD/DTS-HD audio?