Popcorn Hour BD network playback

[diogen]

Keep in mind that some of the latest TVs (I've seen LED/LCD LG and Samsung) have a network capable 1080p player built-in.
I don't know about ISOs and lossless audio but most of the MKVs I tried play just fine.

So, keeping your rips on a NAS is a good idea even if you don't have such a TV.
When you get one in 1-2-3 years it will be capable to play your movies the moment you connect it to your home network.

Diogen.

 

[mike123abc]

Keep in mind that some of the latest TVs (I've seen LED/LCD LG and Samsung) have a network capable 1080p player built-in.
I don't know about ISOs and lossless audio but most of the MKVs I tried play just fine.

So, keeping your rips on a NAS is a good idea even if you don't have such a TV.
When you get one in 1-2-3 years it will be capable to play your movies the moment you connect it to your home network.

Diogen.

Interesting. I had not thought of the TV angle. The only issue I had with the MKV's is preserving chapters, plus I am a sucker for a good menu (although some BD menu's still look they they were thrown together by a third grader).

 

[dfergie]

Strange, I use make mkv and have no problems keeping chapters, but I prefer to keep the whole disc for the navigation ...

 

[mike123abc]

Strange, I use make mkv and have no problems keeping chapters, but I prefer to keep the whole disc for the navigation ...

Well I probably just did not do it right, and did not mess with it. My problem of course is now I have so many images it would be a major chore to go through and redo them.

 

[TheForce]

Right now I am storing my video projects, both 2D and 3D on a computer running Vista 64bit. Is anyone here using a simple network large hard drive for storage and access by the popcorn hour? Seems that the power costs to keep a storage device online would be much lower with just a hard drive on the network than a whole computer.

 

[dfergie]

Mine are just hooked directly with USB 3 - 1.5 gig & 3 - 2 gig drives, I need to hard wire to my bedroom ...

 

[TheForce]

Did you mean Tb drives? When you say "directly" do you mean to a computer on your network? I'm going to look into a 3 Tb network connected drive.

 

[dfergie]

Yeah TB, I connect 2 at a time via USB ...

 

[dangue]

I will say that the prospect on playing BluRay ISOs without having to use my computer has me intrigued. But it looks like this product has been around for nearly two years and a product refresh is likely to be announced in January. I'm leaning towards holding off on purchasing until the specs of that new box are announced. Then I can either get the newer model or (hopefully) benefit from the current model having it's price reduced.

 

[dangue]

Yeah TB, I connect 2 at a time via USB ...

Do you rotate drives because it's not compatible with a USB hub, or for some other reason?

 

[diogen]

The only issue I had with the MKV's is preserving chapters...

There are different variables at play here:
- what is the video encoded with;
- if x.264 - what version;
- what is the decoding hardware/software;
- what splitter (if on PC).

The x.264 encoder is still in active development.
If you use the latest version, it actually might not be handled properly by the hardware decoders, i.e. standalone players.
IIRC, sub-pixel rendering is (was?) one of those features.
Same with the splitter: if not done properly you can lose audio/subtitles/chapters information during playback.

As a general rule, you can merge chapters info into a MKV afterwards using mkvmerge, for example.

But I think all those problems will be worked out in a year or two...

Diogen.

 

[John Kotches]

Just FYI, I use a competing product (Dune HD).

I have used AnyDVD HD to rip all of my HDDVD collection to Blu-Ray for network playback as well as a number of blurays. I also ripped my DVD-Audio collection to multichannel and stereo FLAC. It took me about 4 or 5 weeks.

Blurays do use a lot of space, but it's relatively cheap. I have a ReadyNAS and 4x 2 TB drives. I still have about 1TB free.

This is an awesome solution for me and I'm adding a second streaming player in the future.

Regardless of which solution you use, it's an excellent way to enjoy your collection.

Sent from my MB855 using Tapatalk

 

[TheForce]

Popcorn Hour A-210 arrived this afternoon and it seems pretty straight forward. I think I'm going to like this!

I already tested it out on my You Tube Channel 3D videos and it worked great on the Vizio 3D monitor.

I'm now formatting an internal 2Tb hard drive. It didn't want to sense the install until I unplugged the USB thumb drive. The options on setup aren't too clear with this. And, I already discovered an error in the manual where they tell you to install a fan. I purchased one with the PCH and I can find no place to mount it. The aluminum box is solid with no vents except the bottom.

Before I started the format of the hard drive I also saw the PCH found my Vista 64 computer ( the only one out of 6 computers on the network and I was able to access several videos I had in the shared public folder. They played fine. Can't wait to try a BD iso file to see how that works.

 

[dfergie]

Actually Don just a file plays fine, I stopped converting to iso's as I have full navigation with just the files... I have discs I haven't watched as I rip first then watch with the popcorn box...

 

[TheForce]

I spent an unusual amount of time trying to figure out how to transfer some video over to my internal 2Tb disk. Kept running into a user ID and password when trying to open the PCH drive. Finally, I found the answer to the default User ID and PW that allows it to open. I'm transferring several iso files now.

Somewhere along the way I got the impression that the iso file appears just like the BD in a bluray player with all the menus and extra features as they are contained in the iso package. Is there a special way to play these files to get that? Earlier when I played the iso across the network just the main movie played with no menu options.

 

[dfergie]

I only have a 200 or so gig drive in my 200 from a laptop, from NTFS formatted EHDD connected drives I have had no problem from either iso's or just the BD file, I just put the little laptop drive in mine cause I had it.

 

[dfergie]

The popcorn internal format is why I didn't (not NTFS) ... at least on my Popcorn 200

 

[Ramy]

So have you tried to stream files?

 

[TheForce]

I've had good luck with streaming iso and m2ts wmv and MP4 as well as playing the iso files on the internal PCH drive. My only negative is that the system does NOT play the iso as a real blu-ray structure which I was led to believe was how this worked. If you want to play the BD iso and see all the extra features, you will need to stick an actual disk in a player and play it. Popcorn Hour is NOT a BD clone player, just a main feature movie player. Maybe there is a widget app that does this but I have not found it yet.

My goal with this box is to get the iso file and other videos off my computer and play them from local drives. I don't want to be streaming the video on my LAN either.

 

[Ramy]

Well if that is the case then I will pass on this box. I can stream from my home computer over the network and just play it through my Blu-ray player.