Sony BDPS370: Watching large Blu Ray rips

[mittal_v2002]

I have the following setup with me at the moment for watching some Hollywood flicks ..

• 42" Toshiba Full HD LCD / Sony BDP S370 Blu Ray Player / Onkyo S3300 HTS
• Toshiba Portege M600 laptop, with a DVD Multi Recoder, 60GB HDD and 3GB RAM. (No HDMI port or a dedicated graphics/sound card in laptop.).
• WD HDD (externally powered) 320 GB / A few pen drives & SD cards with USB adapters ranging from 1 GB to 8 GB.

There is around 6 months time, till I get any more gadgtes (a HD Media player on the list). so till then I have to live with what I have.. so trying to use this in the most optimized way.. (who won't ..hehe) ..

As my BDP does not support HDD larger than 32 GB and a single file size more than 4 GB so it is not possible to watch the 1080p Blu Ray rips directly on the TV in this setup, as most of these rips are > 15 GB..

Please suggest what is the best way to use the existing setup to utilize it to the fullest possible without adding any more hardware ..I can think of the following

• Download large files (MKV, M2TS etc, mostly 1080p resolution) and split these into 4GB chunks and play through USB port on BDP.. What is the best s/w (freeware or shareware, without watermarking etc) to use for this.. speed of conversion, splitting etc is not a concern.. quality is....I will have time to watch 2 movies at the max per week ..
  
• Download the relatively small size files (i.e. < 4 GB, mostly in 720p resolution) and play these through the usb port on BDP... considering the up-scaling factor what is a better with respect to video & audio quality when viewed using my setup

• 4GB file with 720p resolution, that will be up-scaled to full hd by BDP
• 4GB file with 1080p resolution that will be played as it is.

Any more idea from the gurus who have used the similar techniques. I am sure people would have got into the similar situations as there are only a few lucky people who would buy all the hardware in a single go ..

Plzzzzzzzzz help ..

Cheers

 

[arnab_d]

The Sony BDP370 can support large several hundreds of GB USB HDD connected to it.. However it needs to be formated in FAT32. I have formatted a 250GB USB HDD in Fat32 and am using it to play BD rips thru the SonyS370.
However FAT32 poses a limitation of 4GB per file as you have pointed out rightly.
I guess your WD HDD is XFAT formatted or NTFS formatted hence S370 is not able to recognize it..

[ad] you can split your large 1080p rips using tsMuxer program.
its splits mkv, m2ts, ts files into smaller size files w/o any loss of quality (atleast perceptible loss of quality!)
Put all the splits files in a single folder on the HDD and connect it to the S370.
It will play 'em sequentially.. however there would be a 1-2 second blip as it changes file.. you'll get used to it !

Using the txMuxer you can split 1080p files into smaller 1080p resolution files with each retaining it's 1080p resolution so there is no loss of information per frame.

 

[mittal_v2002]

The Sony BDP370 can support large several hundreds of GB USB HDD connected to it.. However it needs to be formated in FAT32. I have formatted a 250GB USB HDD in Fat32 and am using it to play BD rips thru the SonyS370.

Thanks a lot for the above. That reminded me of an abandoned HDD 160GB that I had landed to a friend.. and this used to be FAT32. I brought that back and voila... i could play movies through that.. though only tested a few files which are all under 4GB.. but I am happy with that.. This will now work as my temporary media play for the time being ..

Cheers

 

[mittal_v2002]

I noticed y'day that I am not able to play .mkv files and .avi files on BDP S370. however it is playing M2TS and MP4 without any issue.

How can I make it play MKV and AVIs. Some loss-less conversion tool is available ?

 

[arnab_d]

hi
you should be able to play both MKV and AVI as Sony BD S370 supports both formats.
However maybe there is some issue in the MKV .. sometimes 1080p MKV are of type "Profile High 5/5/1" Sony is unable to play these.. so you need to convert these to Profile 4. To do this you need to use the tool tsMuxer.

Download it and give it your original MKV file.. then in the input tab, there is a check box called change level. enable that and next to it in the list menu select 4. Then in the output click the M2TS Muxing option.. then hit enter.

you will get a new mkv file which is profile 4.. the Sony can play this easily.

I am not sure why your AVI files are not playing.. maybe it has a codec which is not supported by the Sony.. which is quite unlikely..

Can you try playing that same AVI file on your Laptop... if you have something like KMP Player you can do a Media Info and capture the output of that and post it...we can take a look and see if there are any obvious issues with the AVI file.

Good luck and wishing you a very happy new year

regards
Arnab

 

[mittal_v2002]

hi
I am not sure why your AVI files are not playing.. maybe it has a codec which is not supported by the Sony.. which is quite unlikely..

There AVI files are mostly the videos of kids shot at home using my digicam (canon ixus) that supports 1080HD capture. I converted one of the videos to divx and it played.. but I will download the media info and tsMuxer today and will post the media info.

thanks for clues on MKV. Will try that tool..

 

[bp2]

Does anyone know if Sony will update the BDP-S370 so that I can recognize NTFS formatted USB memory sticks? Seems to be such a "tease" to be able to use memory sticks but not be able to use them if formatted NTFS or XFAT, especially given the number of 4gb + video file sizes available.

Thank you very much.

Brian.

 

[denzong]

How can I make it play MKV and AVIs. Some loss-less conversion tool is available ?

have you tried playing lossless files. i am planning to buy this device but dont know if it will play my flac files as most of my music is in flacs
can you please test and let me know if it plays or not. if it does not support then i am going in for a media player
thanks in advance

 

[denzong]

hi
you should be able to play both MKV and AVI as Sony BD S370 supports both formats.
However maybe there is some issue in the MKV .. sometimes 1080p MKV are of type "Profile High 5/5/1" Sony is unable to play these.. so you need to convert these to Profile 4. To do this you need to use the tool tsMuxer.

Download it and give it your original MKV file.. then in the input tab, there is a check box called change level. enable that and next to it in the list menu select 4. Then in the output click the M2TS Muxing option.. then hit enter.

you will get a new mkv file which is profile 4.. the Sony can play this easily.

I am not sure why your AVI files are not playing.. maybe it has a codec which is not supported by the Sony.. which is quite unlikely..

Can you try playing that same AVI file on your Laptop... if you have something like KMP Player you can do a Media Info and capture the output of that and post it...we can take a look and see if there are any obvious issues with the AVI file.

Good luck and wishing you a very happy new year

regards
Arnab

have you tried playing lossless files. i am planning to buy this device but dont know if it will play my flac files as most of my music is in flacs
can you please test and let me know if it plays or not. if it does not support then i am going in for a media player
thanks in advance

 

[abyshines]

Can anyone tell me if the SONY BDP S370 player can be linked to the PC using USB port on the back side?

 

[mittal_v2002]

have you tried playing lossless files. i am planning to buy this device but dont know if it will play my flac files as most of my music is in flacs
can you please test and let me know if it plays or not. if it does not support then i am going in for a media player
thanks in advance

FLAC: It certainly did NOT play.. I tried at least 2-3 samples,

 

[buxx]

Can anyone tell me if the SONY BDP S370 player can be linked to the PC using USB port on the back side?

no, thats only there to attach a usb flash drive

 

[deba]

S370 cannot maintain the original aspect ratio of film and plays it in 16:9 format only and thats a big drawback.........8-((

 

[abyshines]

S370 cannot maintain the original aspect ratio of film and plays it in 16:9 format only and thats a big drawback.........8-((

There is an option to play the Movie in original file format,you need to set it properly.

 

[arnab_d]

Under "Screen Setting" there is a parameter "Screen Format".. play with that.. I think if you set the "fixed aspect ratio" option then it will retain the original aspect ratio of the original content.. its a bit confusing admitedly!!