Problems playing back MKV files on Samsung BD-D6500 player

[ottawaxblade]

I have ripped several of my blu-ray discs to MKV format and placed on an external hard drive for play back on my Media Streaming Devices (Boxee Box), Blu-ray players (Samsung BD-D6500, BD-D6700) and my tv (Samsung PN59D8000).

The MKV playback works beautifully on all device but my Samsung BD-D6500 blu-ray player.
I thought it may have been a hard drive issue so I decided to copy one of the movies to a 32GB MicroSD card and plugged it into the blu-ray player using a USB card reader. That too caused playback problems. I've decided to do low level formatting of the various drives (hard drive, USB thumb drive, MicroSD card) still has issues playing it.

What happens is that the player seems to pause / play every 8 seconds or so and "loading" appears on my screen and another 8 seconds of the movie will play and then "loading" happens again etc. etc.

I've contacted Samsung and they told me that it comes down to how I created the MKV and that there may be unsupported codecs causing the problem.

Does anyone else have the Samsung BD-D6500 blu-ray player and experiencing these problems? Anyone have any suggestions / solutions as I've just about had it with this player.

[ryanjk333]

Sorry, but from my experience, just because a TV or blu ray player has a USB port, doesn't mean it's qualified to play a 30+ gigabyte video file. And for some reason, certain devices have a hard time playing an MKV with a VC-1 encoded video stream in it...not sure why...do you know what type of video stream is in the MKV file(s) that are problematic on the device?

A friend of mine has a pretty fancy TV (a Samsung) and he's tried playing things off an external hard drive directly connected via USB and if the video is a full blu ray quality MKV file like what MakeMKV makes, it freezes quite a few times throughout to try to load. Only smaller MKV files re-encoded in x264 will work perfectly, but that does cause somewhat of a reduction in overall video quality and can be very time consuming to do.

Your best options as far as I know are to play these large MKVs on a hardware media player like a Popcorn Hour or Boxee Box, which are designed with enough processor, graphics power, and proper codecs to handle these files, or connect a higher end computer to the TV and play them on that.

[ottawaxblade]

The sole reason I purchased that blu-ray player to begin with was the fact that it was supposed to be able to play back MKV files.
I had no idea that it would have a file size limitation. That being said, I'm going to try one of my smaller sized MKV files and see what happens.

On that note, is there a recommended tool to shrink my mkv files into a smaller size without quality suffering to much?

[ryanjk333]

Yeah, there isn't exactly a specific file size limitation...it's just that the larger files are just a bit to much for some basic players to handle...for some reason I'm not exactly sure of. If you have the program MediaInfo installed on your computer, you could use it to find out all the details of the problematic MKV file(s) and post that info here so we can better understand the details of the files you you are working with.

Anyway, a real popular program for converting your video files down is Handbrake....just Google it. I would suggest converting it to an x264 MKV. When done properly, it'll look great and be very compatible with hardware and software players.

Also, the fact that your player claims to play MKV files actually means very little. If Samsung said they support MKV, it really means nothing unless they also say what type of video and audio codecs they support as well. Inside these MKV files is a video track and there can be one or more audio and subtitle tracks as well. What these video and audio tracks are encoded in is very important. If your player supports AVC video but not VC-1 video, then it'll play an MKV file with AVC video inside but not an MKV file with VC-1 encoded video inside. So the codecs your player supports (or doesn't) are as important to know as the type of files (MKV, MP4) it supports. Which codecs and the overall file sizes are your concerns here, I would say, unless someone else can shed some more light on the issue!

[ottawaxblade]

Yeah, there isn't exactly a specific file size limitation...it's just that the larger files are just a bit to much for some basic players to handle...for some reason I'm not exactly sure of. If you have the program MediaInfo installed on your computer, you could use it to find out all the details of the problematic MKV file(s) and post that info here so we can better understand the details of the files you you are working with.

Anyway, a real popular program for converting your video files down is Handbrake....just Google it. I would suggest converting it to an x264 MKV. When done properly, it'll look great and be very compatible with hardware and software players.

Also, the fact that your player claims to play MKV files actually means very little. If Samsung said they support MKV, it really means nothing unless they also say what type of video and audio codecs they support as well. Inside these MKV files is a video track and there can be one or more audio and subtitle tracks as well. What these video and audio tracks are encoded in is very important. If your player supports AVC video but not VC-1 video, then it'll play an MKV file with AVC video inside but not an MKV file with VC-1 encoded video inside. So the codecs your player supports (or doesn't) are as important to know as the type of files (MKV, MP4) it supports. Which codecs and the overall file sizes are your concerns here, I would say, unless someone else can shed some more light on the issue!

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll let you know what I find.

[firionicable]

This has also been my problem when I am trying to insert a MKV file to a disc and then play it to my Bluray player.. How is it possible?

[ryanjk333]

This has also been my problem when I am trying to insert a MKV file to a disc and then play it to my Bluray player.. How is it possible?

I don't think you can put an MKV file on a DVD or blu ray and expect the player to be able to recognize and play it, if that's what you're asking. The OP is talking about putting an MKV file on a USB hard drive and connecting it to the blu ray player's USB port. If you put a video on a disc to play in a player, it'll have to be converted back to DVD video or blu ray format first in order for the player to recognize and play it.

[ottawaxblade]

I've used DVDFab to shrink my MKV files that were created with makemkv to 8GB and they seem to play however, the audio seems to get out of sync. Any one else having this problem?

[Icetrips]

Hi ottawaxblade,
I have the same setting.
Your problem is the speed of your MicroSD.
30 000Mb a movie for around 1h30.
This should give you something like 5.555Mb/s+. (+ the re-read ratio since the file is big)
Probably your microSD doesn't run at this speed or can't maintain it.

Like ryanjk333 said, you can't consider any MKV working if you doesn't have tried it before.
Some of them are variable or don't have correct index for allow easy (playback capability).

You can reencode the movie to reduce the bitrate. (Handbrake)
or use a external hard drive usb 2 or 3 (most of them easily maintain 15Mb/s).

But if you want to be sure your movie will work, you need to reencode it.
Handbrake mp4 format x.264 with one audiotrack is my recommendation.

DVDFab is always a bad choice. DVDFab doesn't encode the "Standard" way so when a non-pc trying to play it... it's always trouble. Some hardware like it more than other. With your Samsung, the only working setting that you can try with DVDFab is encode MPEG2... this will work on your Samsung if the bitrate is not too big. lol

[stanking]

I know different models will have different capabilities, but my Samsung BD-E5300 supports the following codecs:
For MKV: Video - VC-1 AP or H.264 BP/MP/HP; Audio - MP3, Dolby Digital, DTS
For MP4: Video - MP4 (mp4v) or H.264 BP/MP/HP; Audio - AAC

Also, if resolution is below 1280x720, it will accept 60 fps max
If resolution is above 1280x720, it will accept 30 fps max
Attempting framerates greater than these limits may cause stuttering during playback

[setarip_old]

@ottawaxblade

Hi!

Samsung BD-D6500, BD-D6700

Logically, based on the model numbers, one should expect that your BD-D6700 has greater capabilities than does your BD-D6500.

Have you determined the video codecs used in the problematic discs? I'd speculate that they use VC-1 Interlaced, which has troubled many players since the beginning of standalone Blu-ray players...

[Chetwood]

I've contacted Samsung and they told me that it comes down to how I created the MKV and that there may be unsupported codecs causing the problem.

Of course. It can't be due to the fact that Samsung's players suck in general, especially those in TVs that can't play internal (PGS) subs.

[kuBoENT]

I know this is a long shot but I have been trying to find out why my blu ray player keeps freezing when I try and play mkv files. I was just wondering if this is the same reason or a completely different reason. Also the files play fine on my computer, only problems when playing on the blu ray player.

[setarip_old]

To say that Samsung players are "EXTREMELY selective" would be a major understatement...