HD300 playing MKV catch?

[gabrielcab]

I'm about to completely migrate from MCE to sagetv, but before i sell all my pc's and change it with the HD300, i'd like to know what its the catch of this extender? what it is not capable of do? i know it sounds like a stupid question but people who are using it should known if something is missing as maybe incapable of fast-forward, no subtitle select, no multi audio change, anything? or it could be a near "perfect" product? my top priority is MKV playbacks right now.

[stanger89]

Essentially, what it can't do is things that require an app outside of SageTV to do. Things like Hulu Desktop, Netflix (via web browser), full BD support (menus), etc.

If all you're looking for is media playback it's very complete. It's not perfect, but the only really big thing it's missing is BD menus (it supports BD playlists, title, chapter, audio selections), and native Hulu/Netflix (Playon is a workaround, though arguably the Roku box is a better one).

It does support seeking, chapters, subs, and audio selection in MKVs.

Are you currently using the TV functionality of WMC? If so you'll actually be using the HD300 as an Extender to SageTV, rather than "standalone" as a Media Player. Which brings up the other consideration, the HD300 is pretty robust by itself, but it really is better with SageTV running as a backend. You get more customizations and the like.

[gabrielcab]

Thanks stanger, One question, what does this means "DolbyTrueHD down-mix requires the DolbyDigital core track to be present"? If i have a receiver that its DolbyTrueHD capable, would i still have problems?

[stanger89]

No you shouldn't. That's refering to if you had a TV or AVR that didn't support TrueHD, since the extender can't handle TrueHD decoding, it relies on the AC3 core if it needs to decode a TrueHD track. HD DVDs never had a AC3 core, and my understanding is MKV doesn't support TrueHD+AC3 core tracks, so when you convert a BD to MKV the core is removed.