Popcorn Hour BD network playback

[diogen]

I believe the Sigma Design 8635 started the media player business.
There is just one difference between the 8635 and 8634, used in BD players - the latter can deal with DRM.

Differences between players' capabilities are mostly due to firmware.

Diogen.

 

[mike123abc]

Well nearing 10TB as I finish converting all my HD DVD images to BD.ISOs. It is a real pain for television series. I converted the first season of Star Trek, 29 episodes plus specials, and the 5th season of Smallville (interesting still not available on BD). Each episode done in its own BD.iso format.

Still awaiting the 25 blu rays from Red2blu program... I ended up converting one NAS to TV shows and one to BDs. I have yet to start on my archive of Dish Network programs on external HD. This has turned into quite the project. It is nice to have all the BDs and HD DVDs converted. I must say ClownBD has been great for all the HD DVDs.

I got a few new BDs this week, Supernatural season 1, Zodiac, and The Book of Eli. Thanks to slysofts' anydvd I just ripped them right away to my library.

So, now I will probably take it easy and do DVDs and Dish Network transfers. I also have a bunch of TiVo to convert. TiVo is at least easier since I can copy the binary data over vs having to use component output from Dish into a MPEG4 recoder.

 

[dfergie]

I've been recording first run shows that I might want to keep like Caprica, SGU & Survivor with my Hauppauge then removing the commercials before I watch with VideoRedo and putting on externals... works good and don't have to mess with commercials at all... I have done this with music sources also and have a pretty good library started of music, movies & TV series for my WDTV along with converting my SG1 dvd's to mpegs...

 

[mike123abc]

Yeah, the Happauge unit is what I have to convert component to MPEG-4. It is a daunting task ahead of me with several external USB drives to convert, and edit out the commercials. Well I guess the conversion of 300 discs was pretty daunting, but I got through it. It would be nice if Dish had the TiVo PC transfer feature, it would save a lot of time (and no loss of quality with the conversion).

 

[dfergie]

I reverted back to the out of box software with my Hauppauge for the variable bit rate option and run it at around 13.5 with max at 17 bitrate with good results... (a little high for AVC authored dvd's, but perfect for BD & the media player)

 

[dfergie]

Ordered one of these today... my WDTV won't do lossless audio...

 

[dfergie]

This box rocks! and have only played with less than an hour...

 

[mike123abc]

This box rocks! and have only played with less than an hour...

Now you get to convert all your HD DVDs into bluray format ISOs! Then they will really work nice with the popcornhour box.

 

[dfergie]

Now you get to convert all your HD DVDs into bluray format ISOs! Then they will really work nice with the popcornhour box.

Checked out the Eagles Farewell Tour I did that too a year or so ago last night... I need to convert all the BD's I have ripped to ISO's, going to check out my HD DVD's that I converted to mkv's tonight...

 

[dfergie]

Checked out the Eagles Farewell Tour I did that too a year or so ago last night... I need to convert all the BD's I have ripped to ISO's, going to check out my HD DVD's that I converted to mkv's tonight...

HD DVD mkv's work perfectly, ripping more... I put a 2.5" HDD in the unit yesterday (pull out of a laptop)upgraded the firmware last night, need to get a hub so I can keep it connected to the network.

 

[Ramy]

I need one of these boxes, but it will be a while before I can afford one.

 

[dfergie]

Bought another 2 TB Go flex drive to consolidate some stuff on... one thing I have noticed is that some video recorded from the Hauppauge has audio sync issues that have never cropped up before...

 

[diogen]

... one thing I have noticed is that some video recorded from the Hauppauge has audio sync issues that have never cropped up before...

I've seen two recordings, claimed to be from Hauppauge, that had (or not) audio sync issues depending on splitter used (when playing on PC): Gabest, Haali, VLC, etc.
And it was just a constant delta, i.e. using something like ac3filter in the playback graph allowed to eliminate that.

Diogen.

 

[dfergie]

There is an audio adjustment available with the popcorn hour, haven't tried it yet... these same recordings have been fine with the WDTV and converted to either AVCHD for playback on dvd or BD ...

 

[mike123abc]

I have transferred items from Dish using the hauppage. I did make them into BD ISOs (yes I know, I do everything in BD ISO), and have not had any audio issues. The PCH had a lot of weaknesses with file playback that were corrected with updates, but the BD ISO has worked where direct file play back would have issues. So, I just changed everything into a BD ISO.

Perhaps convert one of the programs with audio issues into a BD ISO and see if the problem goes away.

 

[digiblur]

I'm not familiar with the Popcorn box, but for my bluray rips I convert them to MKVs with Handbrake. It takes a bit to convert them but it works very well with excellent quality by using some presets I found on another forum. I then use Ember Media Manager to have it automatically rename the MKV to a proper movie name with the year and pull the movie poster and XML info on it, so the Boxee Box can quickly create a new movie "tile" for it.

 

[diogen]

IIRC, audio sync issues are most of the time the product of modern encoding: I, B, P frames.
And this applies to practically any video source: OTA, satellite, cable, etc.

The video will start recording on an I-frame (full picture frame).
Considering these frames can be up to 1 second apart (on satellite), it is important to properly handle the audio track.

"Snowballing" audio sync - when the delta gets larger over time - is most often the product of inferior editing tools...

Diogen.

 

[dfergie]

That's just it though, the sync is perfect thru other mediums...

 

[dfergie]

I'm not familiar with the Popcorn box, but for my bluray rips I convert them to MKVs with Handbrake. It takes a bit to convert them but it works very well with excellent quality by using some presets I found on another forum. I then use Ember Media Manager to have it automatically rename the MKV to a proper movie name with the year and pull the movie poster and XML info on it, so the Boxee Box can quickly create a new movie "tile" for it.

I've had good luck with make mkv...

 

[dfergie]

The little 2" drive I thought was dead (from a laptop) is still working... downloaded the youtube app last night, this is the best interface I've seen so far for it other than from a pc..