Anything similar to Sony BDP-S5100 that also will play Divx?

[Henderson]

I just got the Sony S5100 and I love most everything about it. Wi-Fi has been perfect, it plays just about every file type I have, including .flv, and coupled with Serviio I can access anything on my networked drives and play those files.

But the big drawback that I thought I could live without is that it won't play anything Divx, but it's starting to get annoying since probably at least 1/3-1/2 of my movies are encoded with Divx.

Is there any comparable player out there for about the same price that will play everything the Sony S5100 does and also Divx? It must also have USB access for external drives as the Sony does.

Thanks for any suggestions.

[usually_quiet]

I just got the Sony S5100 and I love most everything about it. Wi-Fi has been perfect, it plays just about every file type I have, including .flv, and coupled with Serviio I can access anything on my networked drives and play those files.

But the big drawback that I thought I could live without is that it won't play anything Divx, but it's starting to get annoying since probably at least 1/3-1/2 of my movies are encoded with Divx.

Is there any comparable player out there for about the same price that will play everything the Sony S5100 does and also Divx? It must also have USB access for external drives as the Sony does.

Thanks for any suggestions.

I looked at a half-dozen or more current model Blu-Ray players recently (from Philips, Sony, Panasonic, LG and Samsung) priced at $200 or less for someone else with a large collection of DivX files. The only DivX-certified Smart Wi-Fi Blu-Ray player I found was the Philips BDP2105/F7, which is nowhere near as good as the Sony S5100. Everything else either required changing the FOURCC ID from DIVX to XVID for playback, or did not list XVid or DivX as playable.

[Henderson]

Yes, that's been my experience digging around also, but I was hoping I missed some choices. So I either have to jump between 2 DVD players (which isn't that bad, I have a Philips that plays Divx/Xvid avis along with any standard DVD disc type, but no other formats that the Sony covers). Or I can just keep converting everything eventually to Xvid (which is usually my preference anyway) and use the Philips mostly for other region DVDs.

Thanks for the info on your research into it.

I have to admit though, the player is absolutely perfect other than not playing Divx files. I was going to connect it wired directly to my router with a cat5 cable thinking I'd get better streaming video, but it's been absolutely flawless with the wi-fi setup. I should add especially after buying it on sale for $93. Can't beat the price and the superb performance.

[Noahtuck]

I may be wrong as I have not messed with it in a long time, but isn't there some software that allows you to change the FOURCC ID from Divx to Xvid without having to actually re-encode the entire file ?

[johns0]

Xvid codec includes 4cc changer.

[Henderson]

Holy crap, that worked! I Googled and found AVI 4CC Changer and downloaded it from Digital Digest and just tried it on a file by changing the 2 boxes to xvid, and sure enough, it plays just perfect on the Sony player.

Thank you! This saves me from having to do any conversions at all, not something I was looking forward to because it just takes so much time.

/does a happy dance

Edit: And in checking all the shortcuts in my Xvid installation, it seems it's already there as Nick's FourCC Changer. This is just perfect! Thanks again for the info.

Edit 2: And it seems there's a similar small program to change H264 down to a level that will play on the Sony as well called H264 Level Editor. I've only run into 2 files I needed to use it on so far, but it's great that there are alternatives to re-encoding the files.

[rws70]

Guys,
This is really helpful. I needed a streaming box and DVD player so I went for the Sony BDP-5100 instead of the Western Digital media player.

I am trying to use AVI FourCC Changer on an avi file so it will play on the Sony.

VLC media player says the video codec is H265 - MPEG-4 AVC (part10) (x264)

Audio: A52 Audio (aka AC3) (a52)

So far I can not get it to play on the Sony.

AVI FourCC shows the codec as x264 ... not sure what to change it to?

Can you help? I have not tried the other software mentioned H264 Level Editor. Will that help? Can anyone provide a quick step by step? Thanks!

[Brad]

You need to change the container format from AVI to MP4, for starters (remux).

[Henderson]

Out of about 1000 files I transferred to a 2TB drive, using either of those tools I mentioned worked on the majority of them. I did have to finally breakdown and re-encode maybe 2 movies only that neither program would get to work on the Sony. I also thankfully found a way to batch convert movies with Avi FourCC Changer, which was great when doing series with 100s of files in them.

But definitely try the H264 Level Editor first. When I open it, I always get a Runtime error, but just closing that box brings up the fully working editor as it should. It works pretty much the same as the Avi FourCC Changer tool does. In the top box, navigate to the problem movie and select it. Once loaded it will list the Current level, below that in the drop down box is where you make your selection. I use either 4.0 or 4.1 and those always work for me. Then just hit the "Change level" button and done.

If those boxes stay grayed out where you select the level or the "Change level" button, it can't handle that specific file. Or sometimes even though it will let you change a movie, it still won't play on the Sony, that can happen, that happened to me. You'll have to re-encode it at that point. Hopefully you'll run into very few movies like I did that will require it though.

[jagabo]

The LG BP730 is Divx certified.