Samsung BD-D5500 Audio/Video DeSync During MKV Playback Over USB

[jeremyofmany]

I did a search in the "DVD & Blu-Ray Players" forum using "BD-D5500" and did not find any relevant threads.
I have a Samsung BD-D5500. I also have a Kingston 8GB flash drive and Seagate 500GB HDD connected to a SATA-to-USB adapter. When I watch MKV files, the audio frequently falls out of sync with the video.
It is less frequent with 4.5GB MKV files and far more frequent with 5 or 6GB MKV files (depending on the bitrate).
Is there a problem with my player or is it simply a drawback of playing back high quality video over a USB2.0 connection?
I cannot afford a Popcorn Hour or Patriot Box Office unit (the BD-D5500 was a gift) and I do not have an optical drive nor do I want to go back to burning DVDs.
Is there anything else I can do?

[jonkeo]

Similar problem with my Samsung Tv except instead of audio sync my BluRay rips to MKV will just stop abruptly. I restart the video, FF past the failure point and keep watching. Extremely annoying but others have reported it. Trying new ways to get around it with buying another WDTV live box.

[jeremyofmany]

I restart the video, FF past the failure point and keep watching. Extremely annoying but others have reported it.

I have found simply by pausing and resuming it, the audio and video go back in sync... but for how long...

[fritzi93]

Are you using at least a *high-speed* USB 2.0 cable? If not, get one from Amazon for about $5 bucks. Wouldn't cost you much to try it.

When I first hooked up an external hard drive to my new TV to play MKVs I made from some of my Blu-rays, the video would get kind of glitchy occasionally. Only on fast-motion, high(er) bitrate scenes. No desync though. This was with an old USB printer cable I had. Replacing it with a good quality cable solved the problem.

As to thumb drives, viewing MKVs from one also plays a bit glitchy at times, same thing, higher bitrate. Which was a surprise to me, as I have newish decent Transcend thumb drives. Mind you, the allowable bitrate for my TV to play H264 from USB drive is 20 mbs, and my MKVs are strictly Level 4.0 and top out at about 15 mbs.

Anyway, it's always a good idea to rule out the easy things first, and cabling is a good place to start. Good luck.

[jeremyofmany]

I am noticing now that the same thing happens when I playback MKV files from DVDs.
This makes no sense to me because if I put in a BluRay disc, the whole movie plays fine with no issue, yet if I put in a DVD backup (single .MKV file burnt as Data on a DVD), the desync occurs.
Any idea why?

[jman98]

It could be that your MKV files have encoding options that are problematic for your player to play. While this does NOT explain the DVD disc problem, please note that playing any hard disk drive via a non-self-powered enclosure is asking for problems. This is such a common issue that I honestly do not own and refuse to buy any enclosures that do not come with their own power supplies. Just not worth the risk. Note too that good media is hard to find and most US/Canadian stores only sell crap media. It could also be that your DVD discs are low quality and this is causing some playback issues. Note that if you burned bad media at the fastest possible setting you are just begging to have playback problems.

For your edification, here's a list of possible playback devices arranged in order from "plays fewest formats, has the most problems" to "plays the most formats, has the fewest problems":
TV -> Xbox/PS3 -> Roku -> DVD player -> BD player -> streaming media player like Western Digital -> PC
Anyone who wants to swap the Roku and Xbox/PS3 in my list will get no argument from me.

[jonkeo]

I agree with your list. The Xbox and Roku have given me more than a fair share of headaches and frustration. My Western Digital WDTV Gen 1 with an enclosured hard drive worked perfectly for years (until DTS came along).

[jimbet]

you have to convert the audio from DTS to AC3 and its ok.i was have the same problem and thats because my tv dont play audio DTS

[jimbet]

MKV2AC3 its a free tool convert the audio and it will play normally.

Thanks

[jonkeo]

Yeah, I was doing that for a while and it worked fine but it was just one more extra step I didn't want to put up with.

[jeremyofmany]

For your edification, here's a list of possible playback devices arranged in order from "plays fewest formats, has the most problems" to "plays the most formats, has the fewest problems":
TV -> Xbox/PS3 -> Roku -> DVD player -> BD player -> streaming media player like Western Digital -> PC
Anyone who wants to swap the Roku and Xbox/PS3 in my list will get no argument from me.

I have changed my setup. I moved my PC behind my TV in my liviing room. I connected the HDMI out on my AMD HD Radeon 6870 to the HDMI Input #1 on my 26LG30AU display. I connected the audio outputs on my Auzentech X-Fi Forte 7.1 PCI-E Sound Card to a basic speaker/subwoofer system (I also have a pair of Sennheiser PC-350 Headphones).

Problem solved and inconveniences eliminated. Cheers.