HD200 and Blu-Ray playback?

[S_M_E]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

AnyDVD HD @ 20% off

"approximately 111.49 USD"

Thanks but no thanks. WHS costs less than that...

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by S_M_E

"approximately 111.49 USD"

Thanks but no thanks. WHS costs less than that...

Wow, I'm glad I got my license before they changed. Much cheaper than that and it is lifetime.

[briands]

Originally Posted by S_M_E

"approximately 111.49 USD"

Thanks but no thanks. WHS costs less than that...

Can you explain how you are using WHS to replace the need for AnyDVD?

[stanger89]

WHS is the answer to every question of course.

[S_M_E]

Originally Posted by briands

Can you explain how you are using WHS to replace the need for AnyDVD?

I use my Vista (previously XP) workstation to rip and/or encode my DVDs using dvd decrypter to remove protection and I've used a number of products to convert them to avi, mkv or mp4. Lately, I've been using handbrakegui and trying the new mediaShrink tool from EP. I then transfer the VIDEO_TS folder or the encoded file to WHS.

[evilpenguin]

I'll agree that for AnyDVD HD by itself, that price is a little crazy. But when you take into consideration that it enables BR playback *straight from the drive* onto any HD200 on the network it suddenly becomes a steal in my eyes

[stanger89]

dvd decrypter doesn't work with AACS or BD+ protection on Blu-ray.

[Rob]

For those of you with HD200's. Is playback of Blu-ray .m2ts files studder/freeze free or are there still hiccups on some disks? I've about convinced myself (well my wife too) to upgrade one or maybe two of my hd100's, but would like to know the blu-ray playback is solid since it is the only reason I'd be upgrading. I guess I should also ask if the HD200 works as well at everything else as the hd100 does?

[HelenWeathers]

Originally Posted by Rob

For those of you with HD200's. Is playback of Blu-ray .m2ts files studder/freeze free or are there still hiccups on some disks? I've about convinced myself (well my wife too) to upgrade one or maybe two of my hd100's, but would like to know the blu-ray playback is solid since it is the only reason I'd be upgrading. I guess I should also ask if the HD200 works as well at everything else as the hd100 does?

I've dealt with about 200 of the BD movies so far and the HD-200 in Media Extender mode plays them all.*

In Media Player mode about 90% play without issue.

*I had one movie from Criterion (The Man Who Fell to Earth) that had only one sound track and it was LPCM. The LPCM track had to be converted to AC3 for this one to work.

[S_M_E]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

I'll agree that for AnyDVD HD by itself, that price is a little crazy. But when you take into consideration that it enables BR playback *straight from the drive* onto any HD200 on the network it suddenly becomes a steal in my eyes

That was the point I was making, it costs more than an entire OS. I wouldn't pay 50 for AnyDVD, let alone 112 and 112 is with 20% off. I don't own an extender either.

[Rob]

Helen, Thanks for the feedback. That is great news.

[cncb]

Originally Posted by S_M_E

That was the point I was making, it costs more than an entire OS. I wouldn't pay 50 for AnyDVD, let alone 112 and 112 is with 20% off. I don't own an extender either.

?? Actually you are making 2 different points. He is saying it is worth it because it turns all your HD200s into Blu-ray players.

Speaking of which, I know that Sage still has several things to implement (menus, advanced audio decoding, etc.) but the HD200 can already do something that stand-alone players can't do. It can resume playback of a disc with Java content at the correct point/time instead of forcing you to restart from the beginning!

[S_M_E]

Originally Posted by cncb

?? Actually you are making 2 different points. He is saying it is worth it because it turns all your HD200s into Blu-ray players.

He said: "I'll agree that for AnyDVD HD by itself, that price is a little crazy."
Which is the point I was making when I said it cost more than WHS; an entire OS. $112.00 (including the 20% off) is just crazy talk...imo. That some people think it's worth a crazy price is beside the point.

[Rob]

Good grief here we go again. Just like the HD200 is too expensive thread. Prices allocate scarce resources. Some people think a price of a given thing is too high and they do not buy it and it does not make them crazy. Others think it is not too high and they buy it and it does not make them crazy.

I for one would not spend a nickle on WHS because I already have XP pro and it does what I need it to. Does not make you crazy for having WHS and does not make me crazy for not wanting it.

Thankfully it works this way or the one thing that we all have to have would be too expensive....

[briands]

Originally Posted by S_M_E

That was the point I was making, it costs more than an entire OS. I wouldn't pay 50 for AnyDVD, let alone 112 and 112 is with 20% off. I don't own an extender either.

I still did not see your alternative that allows using BD with WHS without AnyDVD...

BTW, there are OSs that are cheaper than WHS... so they must be better...

[sleonard]

So any application that costs more that the OS it runs on is crazy?

I'll agree that when I first saw the price I choked a bit and though real hard about the high price and the fact that I think that BD movies are also too much and that I would also have to buy a BD drive and decided that I was not ready for Blu-Ray yet but the price I paid for XP never entered into the equation.

If you need to use a $1500 CAD program does that mean you need to find an OS that will cost you more than $1500? If you use a free version of Linux does that mean you are crazy if you use anything but freeware?

S

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by S_M_E

That was the point I was making, it costs more than an entire OS. I wouldn't pay 50 for AnyDVD, let alone 112 and 112 is with 20% off. I don't own an extender either.

Frankly OS costs are out of this world IMO, $99 for WHS is hard to stomach IMO. But how else you going to play BDs?

Cyberlink PowerDVD Ultra costs $90
Arcsoft TotalMedia Theater costs $70
Corel WinDVD 9 Plus (Blu-ray) costs $80

All of which have trouble with more BDs than AnyDVD HD, are updated less frequently, and don't do you any good as far as playing Blu-ray in other apps or devices.

Originally Posted by S_M_E

He said: "I'll agree that for AnyDVD HD by itself, that price is a little crazy."
Which is the point I was making when I said it cost more than WHS; an entire OS. $112.00 (including the 20% off) is just crazy talk...imo. That some people think it's worth a crazy price is beside the point.

Come back when you have Blu-ray and an extender and your opinion may carry some weight.

[MarkV]

AnyDVD HD has the advantage of doing well what it is meant to do.

It's way(!) better than dorking around with other solutions (I feel like I own them all - I have more than a couple). I think I have one iffy DVD that DVDFab5 platinum worked with and Anydvd did not like, but DVDFab and blu-ray don't mix (found that out as I transitioned from dvds to buying blu-ray).

Also, if you have lots of diskspace (I do, but need more), you can use anydvdhd to rip a bd to .iso and mount it with an .iso mounter. That really removes a future need to rerip as the extenders start to support (we hope) the "new" audio codecs. I tried this today on accident and it worked well.

I have purchased 2 lifetime licenses and own gamejackal as well (don't use it enough to know how good it is), but have no other affiliation with SlySoft.

[appelm]

Originally Posted by Rob

For those of you with HD200's. Is playback of Blu-ray .m2ts files studder/freeze free or are there still hiccups on some disks? I've about convinced myself (well my wife too) to upgrade one or maybe two of my hd100's, but would like to know the blu-ray playback is solid since it is the only reason I'd be upgrading. I guess I should also ask if the HD200 works as well at everything else as the hd100 does?

I've only ripped a half-dozen movies or so.. I've gotten them all to work eventually. But, I have had some problems. Interestingly, the two animated movies I've tried, "Horton Hears a Who" and "Madagascar 2", would not play via the BD folder structure. The movie would play but be stuck on the menu navigation background movie. I had to move the biggest m2ts file out of the folder structure for it to play. Other movies played fine.

However, I did have a problem with some stuttering on some movies that I fixed by re-ripping the movies. When I first ripped the movies my PC was busy doing some comskip work or possibly some batched video conversions (using ipodifier). I was surprised to find that this seemed to cause some stuttering in the movie file. I confirmed it was in the movie file because it would skip in the same place every time. When I ripped again I did it when the PC was idle and all turned out fine. I'm using anyDVD HD.. anyone else notice this type of behavior? Is it normal? I was a bit surprised because I figured it was just copying the file with error checking.

[cncb]

I was under the impression that playback already supports extracting the core Dolby Digital signal from Dolby TrueHD. I only have one disc to try this with (John Mayer) but it doesn't seem to be working for me (I only get stereo PCM)? Anyone get this to work?

Also, multichannel PCM (PCM on the disc itself, not decoded from something else) is not supported yet, right?