Help: Stand Alone DIVX/DVD player

Wizard Keyaz

Caf's Confucious
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Dec 24, 2003
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Would it also play mkv files too, if not what can I do to make it able to play.

Currently I download the movies (avi.files), then I save it on a pen stick and then I watch them, but if they are a HD/BD movies it is an mkv file, it doesn't work?

Any suggestions?

Also one more thing, if I play a chinese movie the srt files is saved in the same pen stick but doesn't work, anyway of playing it at the same time?
 
No idea how to get the subtitle files to be read. VLC does it of course.
 
If it supports MKV it will play it, otherwise no. PS3 for example will not play MKVs, you have to turn them into something else (or do as I do, stream them), which most of the time thankfully is simply sticking them into a different container, or just pulling the video out of it. Many tools to do this.
 
WeasteDevil said:
I've been messing with this the past week or so, and it supports MKV very well. It's just a bit buggy at the moment.

http://code.google.com/p/ps3mediaserver/

This is interesting...

http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2009/01/12/wireless-tv-out-comes-to-the-pc-via-the-ps3
Click to expand...

The (wireless) signal must be essentially be VERY strong, as if you are streaming high data such as Blu-ray and HD movies you won't get Quality picture as you can imagine the data transfer rate between HDMI and a scart.

Saying that, anyone know if I somehow converted a MKV file to AVI, will I lose any quality?
 
I use MKV2VOB which can strip out the video and audio from the MKV container and reformat it as an MPEG (or other formats).

Most of the newer HD rips don't even need transcoding so only take a matter of minutes.

You can even specify to split it into chunks based on the media you intend to burn it to.
 
Wizard Keyaz said:
The (wireless) signal must be essentially be VERY strong, as if you are streaming high data such as Blu-ray and HD movies you won't get Quality picture as you can imagine the data transfer rate between HDMI and a scart.

Saying that, anyone know if I somehow converted a MKV file to AVI, will I lose any quality?
Click to expand...

You'll need to use wired gigabit for good 1080p HD movies, wireless will not cut it (yet).
 
Red_Molly said:
Convert the MKV to DVD using AVI2DVD freeware. If you can get hold of a copy of Cinema Craft Encoder SP you'll get a better quality and quicker conversion than the freeware encoders that come bundled, but the freeware do a good job if not.

AVI2DVD is a cracking piece of software.

http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive/convert_mkv_to_dvd_with_freeware.cfm

http://www.trustfm.net/divx/SoftwareAvi2Dvd.php?b2=1

rich
Click to expand...

So will I be able to watch the EXACT same quality or not?

Also if I buy a DIVX player that also upscale DVDs to HD quality will I be able to watch a full 1080p rip (via USB Pen drive) with this player?
 
Well, as far as I am aware, no! Because the Video DVD standard doesn't support HD. You can have a 1080p .vob though, but a DVD player wouldn't have a clue what to do with it. Also, as far as I am aware, a .vob only uses MPEG2, so if that is the case, it will get remuxed. Also remember that DVD can only store up to 9GB.

These Blu-ray rips you have, what size are they?
 
WeasteDevil said:
Well, as far as I am aware, no! Because the Video DVD standard doesn't support HD. You can have a 1080p .vob though, but a DVD player wouldn't have a clue what to do with it. Also, as far as I am aware, a .vob only uses MPEG2, so if that is the case, it will get remuxed. Also remember that DVD can only store up to 9GB.

These Blu-ray rips you have, what size are they?
Click to expand...

I fully understand that part of it, what I am saying is if I was playing a AVI file which was converted from MKV to AVI, would I still be able to get 1080p.

As the player itself upscales a DVD to the highest quality it can, I am thinking if I play a converted AVI file it might give at least a minimum 720p, right?
 
First, an MKV is a container, it's not a standard for video or audio, it's just a different way to organise the data, subtitles, etc.

As for upscaling, the one thing you have to know about that is that it's no different to the digital zoom on a camera. If a film on a DVD or in an AVI or whatever is at say at 720x256 (512), then blowing that up is not giving you any new data, all it is doing is guessing the colours to put between the pixels, and nothing more.
 
WeasteDevil said:
First, an MKV is a container, it's not a standard for video or audio, it's just a different way to organise the data, subtitles, etc.
Click to expand...

Well I am going to try and see what happens, I am going to convert MKV to AVI and see if there is a difference, even though I don't think I would be able to, but I'll see.

One more thing Weaste, would you say buying an Upscaling player is a waste of time?
 
AVI is a container as well, but with different features. Inside you are going to get video either in MPEG2, VC1, or MPEG4.

If you have a BD player, why would you want an upscaling DVD player, when the BD player will do just that and play BD?
 
And the best Bluray player is .....

The PS3 and a great media hub to boot.
 
WeasteDevil said:
AVI is a container as well, but with different features. Inside you are going to get video either in MPEG2, VC1, or MPEG4.

If you have a BD player, why would you want an upscaling DVD player, when the BD player will do just that and play BD?
Click to expand...

Because I would be downloading them, what is the point buying a blu-ray movie for £15 when you can download them in 1 hour
 
How big are these downloads of yours? I've already asked this. It's just that you seem to be concerned about quality, but I'd be surprised if you can download a good quality or pure BD rip in an hour.
 
A dual layer DVD is 9GB, how can a film that could in theory take 50GB on a dual layer BD have its quality remain intact when it could fit 3 times onto a DVD?

Sorry, but what you are basically saying is akin to those of the iPod generation that are quite happy with 128Kb/s music and think that because it's digital it's the same quality as a pure 44KHz 16 bit PCM that you find on a CD. It's not. Take the Lord of the Rings extended edition for example. It is on a dual layer DVD (more than that actually because each episode is on more than one disc), and I know that for a fact because I have a very old Sony DVD player that takes half a second to switch layers (you can even hear it doing so). The video and audio quality on that is greater than your 3.5GB BD rips. Ok, maybe MPEG4 and VC-1 are more efficient than MPEG2, but no matter what resolution you think your movie is at, its bitrate is obviously so low that you are basically watching nothing other than an upscaled DVD at the same time as thinking that you are watching an HD movie, which you are not. The video compression artefacts must be horrendous at 1080p.
 
I agree with you Weaste, but what I am saying is, if you were to make a Blu-ray movie from the original 3.5GB MKV file it will become a minimum of 20GB.

What I am getting at is, if you were to make an AVI file to an Mpeg file you are looking at the size of a 700MB movie increasing to at least 4GB when it becomes a DVD movie.

Before I invest in the Stand alone DVD/DivX player which also has the Upscale facility, what I wanted to know is, if I manage to convert the MKV to AVI I would I still be able to watch at HD quality without actually burning them just save it on a USB pen drive, wth the file remaining at 3.5GB.

Unless when you convert a MKV file to AVI the size of that file increases, like AVI to Mpeg?
 
MKV (and AVI) is just a container, as far as I know, it's not providing any extra compression (the file size would increase/decrease depending on the codec used). If you take the video out of one to stick on a BD disc, then the data shouldn't increase in size at all. To a DVD it probably will, as it would probably need re-encoding into MPEG2, which isn't as efficient.

For example, The Dark Knight is 35GB on a BD encoded with VC-1 - the whole disc data being 40GB or so. There is a list of film sizes here:

http://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=3338

All I'm saying is that if you find a Matroska file of The Dark Knight that is significantly smaller than 35GB, the quality has been reduced.
 
Obviously, it's reducing the bitrate that increases the compression and will start to introduce compression artefacts into the video and the audio. How sensitive to this you are is solely down to each individual and also their setup. Many people still swear that they can't see much of a difference between DVD and BD, or at least not enough different to justify the cost of new players, displays, and replacing their DVD media.

Another problem is that most people do not have the Internet connection to be downloading 30GB files in a reasonable timeframe, never mind the storage capacity required. My PC has close to 2TB (2048GB) of HDD capacity, so that's not a problem for me - yet.
 
WeasteDevil said:
Obviously, it's reducing the bitrate that increases the compression and will start to introduce compression artefacts into the video and the audio. How sensitive to this you are is solely down to each individual and also their setup. Many people still swear that they can't see much of a difference between DVD and BD, or at least not enough different to justify the cost of new players, displays, and replacing their DVD media.

Another problem is that most people do not have the Internet connection to be downloading 30GB files in a reasonable timeframe, never mind the storage capacity required. My PC has close to 2TB (2048GB) of HDD capacity, so that's not a problem for me - yet.
Click to expand...

The thing is Weaste, when people download a Blu-ray movie, it has been compressed 10 folds (ave.) so that they can share so you are looking at 3.5GB is really 35GB, what I am getting at is, I think when you burn that file as a normal BD Format it increases.

Like a MP3 to a normal Audio, but don't quote me on the quality of the music when it is a Normal AUdio CD
 
It doesn't increase in size as you burn it to a BD disc, why would it?

Also, if you think that you can compress a 35GB (already compressed) file down to 3.5GB lovelessly, then I'd like to see how you are doing that.
 
For example, taking some random figures and assumptions, The Dark Knight, if it was a raw video and audio file, would take almost 2TB. Getting it down to the 40GB range in itself is one hell of a lot of compression. 3.5GB?
 
WeasteDevil said:
For example, taking some random figures and assumptions, The Dark Knight, if it was a raw video and audio file, would take almost 2TB. Getting it down to the 40GB range in itself is one hell of a lot of compression. 3.5GB?
Click to expand...

I thought the Mp3 file to a Standard Audio file (Normal CD you buy from shops) is an example

Like a normal Mp3 song is around 3mb but when you burn it as a normal Audio format it increases to about 50mb per song
 
Wizard mate, sorry, but you have a serious misconception about how this works, and there is not really any point being technical either. CD players only understand what is in their standard, and that is 16 bit at 44Khz. CD players do not know what an MP3 is. They don't understand compression.

Why do you think that BD and HD-DVD discs were developed? Because they actually need that storage space. If it were possible to fit a HD movie into 3.5GB, then DVD as an optical disc format would have sufficed. There is a reason that some films can take up to 50GB of space.
 
As I said, a lot of people say that they can't notice much difference. I can, the difference is very large for me. You can go back to your MP3 onto a CD example. CD is 16 bit (2 bytes) x 44.1Khz x 2 (stereo channels) bits per second, basically meaning that during recording the audio was sampled on a range between -32,000 and +32,000 in resolution 44,100 times per second on both left and right. So around 1,411,200 bits/second or 1,411 Kbps or 1.4 Mbps. That's all an audio CD player understands, there is no compression, it's just raw audio sampling.

Now, take your MP3 which has compressed that down to 128 Kbps in many cases. The idea of audio and video compression is firstly to remove parts of the data that the average human ear/eye is not sensitive to. Then try to look for repeating patterns and only store the changes not the whole thing, and then try to use some bit compression to get it down as small as possible. You can go on and on like this using all sorts of techniques to make the file size as small as possible. The trouble with audio on a CD though is that unlike DVDs and BDs there is no compression. So to burn an audio CD it has to be at that 1.4Mbps - so if you have an MP3 at 128Kbps you want to make a CD out of, it has to be upscaled by either repeating the data or using some algorithm to try to guess what the missing data was. This is why an MP3 will get bigger when burnt to an Audio CD.
 
Cheers for that mate, but what I don't get is Weaste is, how come when I watch a Blu-ray rip of a movie compared to a DVD rip, the sound quality and the picture quality is amazing.

They say "You get high quality because of the x264 codec which has better compression than xvid at equal bitrates"

So what you are saying makes sense, but what my eyes and ears tell me is something opposite, when you compare a DVD rip and 720p/1080p rip, as you can CLEARLY notice it.

How about me borrowing you my Rapidshare account and you download 2 movies of the same movie and see if you can spot the difference?

I know you are saying that people are fools to think they can spot the differences.
 
I'm not saying that a BD rip is the same quality as a DVD rip, in most cases it will not be depending on the sizes of the files. There are too many variables in this to explain it in a simple manner though. What I am trying to say is that a DVD rip of 1GB or a BD rip of 4GB are not of the same quality as the original DVD and BD respectively, and that most probably the BD rip of 4GB doesn't really offer that much difference to an upscaled DVD, or at best will offer DVD quality just at a higher resolution. This is down to the codecs, and yes, the MPEG4 based ones are much better than MPEG2 based ones at getting size down while retaining the quality. Any sort of compression is bad IMO, but it's something that is necessary, because disc sizes and data transfer rates do not exist to have the raw file.

That 2TB figure I came up with for The Dark Knight was based on a 1080p image (1080i would be the same because movies are recorded still in the main at 24 frames per second), and it comes from these assumptions.

1 frame 24 times per second.
1 frame is 1920x1080 pixels by 32 bits per pixel (4 bytes).

That gives us for video data only (no audio) 32x1920x1080x24 or the staggering sum of 1,592,524,800 bits per second or 190MB per second. That's 11.4GB per minute, over a 2 and a half hour movie is 1.7TB for video alone.

The day will come when we don't need to do compression, but we are nowhere near it at the moment, but the major point is that you can compress to a certain level without the human eye/ear noticing any difference at all, which is a good thing in that we can use resources more effectively. My original point simply was that a good quality BD that is ripped to 4GB cannot offer the same quality, but many people will not really notice the difference, especially when cost come into the equation, because at the end of the day there is a ratio between cost and quality that provides the perceived value to the consumer, and it is this that can possibly effect the objectiveness of the said consumer. On a technical level it is different.
 
Wibble said:
And the best Bluray player is .....

The PS3 and a great media hub to boot.
Click to expand...

If buying PS3 make sure you get a MKI or MKII. They can play SACD too. That functionality was removed from MKIII - I guess to protect the sales of more expensive stand-alone SACD players.
 
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