Which Media Player (Hardware) can play the MKVs...Sony S480

[pcg0506]

....does not....

Hi Im just searching a device which can play the mkvs made by makemkv directly. I read many threads about problems with BD-Player over USB. So my new Sony BDP S480 is really great plays everything top. But no mkvs made by makemkv.......
So if anyone can tell me a Hardwarer Device that plays the mkvs without problems. I would be thankful...
And no, i don't want to use a PC. I want a device like a BD Player or e.g. i heard this one should work: Western Digital TV HD Live Streaming ... does anyone can confirm?
Many greetings
Peter

[crowfax]

I have the WD TV Live and it plays the MKV's perfectly. The only bug is that it's still picky about PGS subtitles and only seems to want to display them if the file has been remuxed with MKVmergeGUI. This is easy enough to accomplish as when I copy the MKV files onto my portable drive I just do it using MKVmergeGUI, it takes the same amount of time that copying would by itself.

[paulster]

Popcorn Hour. Its limitations are it doesn't decode TrueHD natively so you'll need to convert to FLAC or embed a Dolby Digital track if you don't have an external decoder, and it suffers from the usual LCPM issue that everything else does at the moment (i.e. convert LPCM tracks to FLAC).

It does PGS and forced subtitles properly though, so is a good solution for watching BluRay rips.

[Ratmice]

My Dune Smart D1 plays everything I have thrown at it, including MakeMKV .mkvs

[crowfax]

It does PGS and forced subtitles properly though, so is a good solution for watching BluRay rips.

I've been looking at the PCH's for a while. Which model do you have?

[paulster]

I've got a C-200, which is soon to be replaced in the product lineup with a C-300 (faster processor essentially).

There are still some annoying bugs but no show stoppers. One MKV-related annoyance is that if you have more than one subtitle track flagged as forced (e.g. you have English, English Forced, Spanish, Spanish Forced, French and French Forced subtitles) it is a lottery which one will be displayed, i.e. it doesn't choose the forced track to match the audio language being played. I've logged it and asked them to fix the logic behind this so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

I think that's the largest annoyance I've found with MKVs on it though.

The other MKV bug I can think of is the Avatar PGS subtitles don't work properly, which seems to be because they use transparency of something funny like that which upsets it. The alternative at the moment is to mux in a downloaded subtitle track until they fix it, but it is a known and accepted issue with this particular title.

I use mine purely as a transport for DVDs and BluRays in a combination of full-disc ISOs and MKVs for feature films, so I'm not interested in the value-added features like YouTube et. al. For video playback, in spite of its lacklustre user interface (which is going to be overhauled on the 200 series to match the new 300 series interface) it's a great machine.

[crowfax]

Yeah the Avatar subtitles are funny. I think i fixed them by converting them to IDX subtitles. The WD TV Live only just got PGS support and it's buggy as hell, I might re-rip Avatar and see what happens with it now it's a few firmwares more in.

Thanks for the info, I'll look into the C-300. Do you know if there are there any US retailers, or is it direct order only?

[paulster]

The C-300 hasn't been officially announced yet so you'll have to keep watching for it.

I've no idea who sells them in the US as I bought mine from a UK retailer before I moved across the pond. I believe Amazon carries them though, which is always good because of their return policies.

[bald_eagle]

I've been watching mkv files made by makemkv without problems on my Panasonic BDT215 player.

[crowfax]

I've been watching mkv files made by makemkv without problems on my Panasonic BDT215 player.

Do chapters work? Multiple audio and subtitle sources?

[bald_eagle]

I've been watching mkv files made by makemkv without problems on my Panasonic BDT215 player.

Do chapters work? Multiple audio and subtitle sources?

I don't know yet, sorry. The movies I've been watching without any problems were created without chapters and no multiple audio nor subtitle sources.
In another post (http://www.makemkv.com/forum2/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4395) it is reported that the Panasonic 110 model does not support chapters.
The main difference between the 110 and the 215 is that the 215 has wifi included and the 110 does not.
So I guess that the 215 does not support chapters neither.
I may test the audio and subtitles issues later.

[samtoy]

I own a Popcorn Hour A-210 and have to correct some infomation:

The A-200/210 and the A-300 does *not* play MKV properly with Blu-ray PGS subtitles embedded (which is the MakeMKV default of course!).

The PGS subtitles are displayed like 2 seconds too early and stay up to 5 seconds too long on the screen. This is a known bug of those devices and is discussed in several postings on the PCH forums. It's known for a year now but they don't seem to fix it in the firmware .

It's pretty annoying and I'm still looking for an alternative device (WD TV Live??) that shows the PGS subs correctly and with the right timings. Maybe someone can give me some advice on that.

[crowfax]

The WD TV Live Streaming (the 2011 edition with the USB port on the front) displays PGS subtitles inside MKV files correctly, but only if the PGS subtitles have been compressed with zlib. This is the default action when muxing with MKVmergeGUI, which is presumably what the firmware developers used.

I doubt MakeMKV will ever be able to do that as it rips the PGS subtitles off the disc as it reads it, and so far as I know, zipping the subtitles would require the final length to be known.

Anyway, point is, there is no reason why the WD TV LS shouldn't be able to display them when they're not zipped. I've emailed WD and requested that it be fixed in the firmware, and I know others have as well. Maybe they'll fix it soon.

[samtoy]

Thanx, crowfax, for all that interesting info.

I will give the WD TV Live Streaming 2011 a look soon. Let's hope they fix that zlib BS.

Has mike_admin been informed about this? Maybe he plans to add zlib compression for PGS streams in the next MakeMKV version anyway and a fix from WD is not needed anymore..

[crowfax]

Has mike_admin been informed about this? Maybe he plans to add zlib compression for PGS streams in the next MakeMKV version anyway and a fix from WD is not needed anymore..

Mike would have to comment, but I'm not sure it can be done as the subs get pulled off the disc. Besides, other people shouldn't have to cover for WD's poor firmware development.