Best Player that supports avi on BR-R

[DrDemento]

Ok I will make this short since I don't want to type a book. As of now I have a OPPO DV-970HD that can read DVD+rw disks with AVI and XVID containers as is with no conversion.

This set up works but with only 4.7 GB of space I have now 1000+ DVD disks with content it's a bit crowded. So over the past week I was thinking of upgrading to a Blue ray burner, some BD-RE so I can get the process down, and a Blue Ray player similar to the OPPO that plays AVI and XVID files from a BD-RE without converting them.


The reason I can't convert is the files are small and compressed which I enjoy and I would be able to fit 25+ movies on each disk knocking my collection down to a manageable 200


Finally I realize it would be easier to just get some hard drives and load the files though the players USB port but I am still very un trusting of 1TB+ hard drives and would hate for one to crash and loose countless data. This is why I prefer solid backups.


Thanks guys!
-David

[DrDemento]

The only other option I see if moving my collection to DVD+R DL disks which have double the space but I would need 800+ disks and would cost me over 400 dollars.

Also I was hoping to spend less than 200 dollars for said blue ray player...

[usually_quiet]

I know for certain that recent LG Blu-Ray players play media files from USB hard drives (2GB or less capacity, not powered via USB is best), USB sticks, Blu-Ray discs, and DVDs, but I think newer Blu-Ray players from most of the other big names in the consumer electronics industry have similar abilities as well. Some of these players play DivX files as is, but due to fees required by DivX/Rovi to use the DivX name, many will only play them if the FOURCC ID is changed to Xvid with FOURCC changer or something else that can replace the FOURCC ID in an AVI file. FOURCC changer modifies the file so you should make a copy of the file first in case something goes wrong.

[DrDemento]

Yeah I read a few posts about the DivX being sketchy on some players forcing some to buy European players to get better compatibility.

Does anyone have a name of a "certified" player? I have over 10,000 movies and would hate to FOURCC ID change them all.


I am not even picky and don't even plan on using mkv files or even H.264/MPEG-4 but it would be nice to have since most TV media is in that format.

[usually_quiet]

H.264 and MKV (with some limitations) probably won't be a problem if a Blu-Ray player plays DivX. While we are at it what other features do you want? 3D, WiFi, Netflix, Hulu Plus, Pandora, Facebook etc.

[DrDemento]

H.264 and MKV (with some limitations) probably won't be a problem if a Blu-Ray player plays DivX. While we are at it what other features do you want? 3D, WiFi, Netflix, Hulu Plus, Pandora, Facebook etc.

Well they can be included but I don't really need them. Just wanted to know which player has the most divx/xvid codec support that plays on Re writable Blue ray media using I guess a UDF? file system or ISO I don't know I didn't try my hand at burning them yet.


Just don't want to spend hours re-encoding or using some goofy codec editor just put the disk in and play the files.

[usually_quiet]

The Philips BDP2185/F7 is the only DivX certified Blu-Ray player I could find so far, but is not the kind of quality product you want. All the higher-quality US-model players I found within your budget that support avi, play XVid but not DivX unless the FOURCC ID is changed to XVID.

[fritzi93]

... I realize it would be easier to just get some hard drives and load the files though the players USB port but I am still very un trusting of 1TB+ hard drives and would hate for one to crash and loose countless data. This is why I prefer solid backups.

Perhaps you should re-think this. You're insisting that your archive media be playable on a standalone BD player, which is going to limit your options. Let me propose this:

1) By all means, archive your videos to BDRs, as data discs. So long as they are readable on a computer's BD drive, you're good, and can re-copy to whatever at any time.
2) Get a media player like the WD Live and some powered 2 TB external hard drives.

A dedicated media player with external hard drive(s) will be a lot less fussy about codecs and containers than any standalone BD player. You won't be handling physical discs all the time when you just want to watch something; it'll all be there in one place, on hard drive. I can't emphasize enough just how much more convenient this is than handling physical discs.

Or take it one step further and use duplicate external hard drives, (or triplicate, as I do), to ensure that one fooked hard drive doesn't mean lost data. While I still make BDR backups of Blu-Rays I purchase (for alternate viewing locations in my house), I've stopped archiving my extensive captures to physical media. Yes, this means a lot of hard drives, but it's worth it, IMO. You do realize, don't you, that it will take you considerable time to burn all your stuff to BDRs? I shudder to think how long it would take for me to do it.

Good luck.

[usually_quiet]

Something else you should know. BD-RE is for temporary use only, and almost no BD-R media qualifies as archival quality. There was a recent French study that performed testing on BD-R media to find out if any was good enough for archival data storage. See http://club.myce.com/f33/french-study-bd-r-archival-329441/

Panasonic's 4x BD-R was the only media tested that passed. The most reliable media that is easy to find in the USA and not overly expensive, Verbatim, failed rather quickly.

[DrDemento]

Wow thanks guys I had no idea that Blue ray media wasn't long term. I mean I guess if I can get more than 10+ years out of them I would consider them effective hell 50 years and we may have a new form of media.

Anyway I will re consider hard drives if I can get about 5 or so 2TB ones working I may be able to use them and keep the psychical data on the disks around as a backup so if the drives crash I just copy them back over.


I guess it boils down to so many drives on the net failing which scares me but in reality I only had one ever break down on me and that is because it fell off my desk as a bare drive. I even have a 500 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200 that is still operational after 5+ years and I even keep it around as just a bare drive no case. Booted it up today and its still recognized and ready. Amazing

[DrDemento]

A note on my last comment I may have to get a media device like WD Live not that I want to use their products since most of the drives or HD enclosures died in months. But something like it.

Anyway I did a test on the Oppo and it doesn't seem to play movies off a Hard drive and I tried to play it in NTFS but nothing would boot and I wasn't given an option for Fat32 only "exfat" whatever that means it didn't work either.

I did however try a micro SD card via a usb adaptor and it actually read and played the movie. It was choppy at first so I may be able to just use a memory stick which may have a faster read speed. This does eliminate one problem since I always wanted to play movies from a data drive rather than a DVD+RW to quickly copy shows over and view them.

[DrDemento]

... I realize it would be easier to just get some hard drives and load the files though the players USB port but I am still very un trusting of 1TB+ hard drives and would hate for one to crash and loose countless data. This is why I prefer solid backups.

Perhaps you should re-think this. You're insisting that your archive media be playable on a standalone BD player, which is going to limit your options. Let me propose this:

1) By all means, archive your videos to BDRs, as data discs. So long as they are readable on a computer's BD drive, you're good, and can re-copy to whatever at any time.
2) Get a media player like the WD Live and some powered 2 TB external hard drives.

A dedicated media player with external hard drive(s) will be a lot less fussy about codecs and containers than any standalone BD player. You won't be handling physical discs all the time when you just want to watch something; it'll all be there in one place, on hard drive. I can't emphasize enough just how much more convenient this is than handling physical discs.

Or take it one step further and use duplicate external hard drives, (or triplicate, as I do), to ensure that one fooked hard drive doesn't mean lost data. While I still make BDR backups of Blu-Rays I purchase (for alternate viewing locations in my house), I've stopped archiving my extensive captures to physical media. Yes, this means a lot of hard drives, but it's worth it, IMO. You do realize, don't you, that it will take you considerable time to burn all your stuff to BDRs? I shudder to think how long it would take for me to do it.

Good luck.

Well copying each disk to a Hard disk is no picnic but to blow your mind I recently re-burned my entire collection of 1,400 disks in A-Z order at 4x speed it took me just under a year. I didn't consider it a waste of time since the collection is my hobby.

[_Al_]

At some point in time there has to come other person or you again and put all those data on your discs into something else, it will happen.

So better to jump on that wagon now (for spared time sake) and pile them up somewhere. So from now on then you can just manipulate your video "in mass".

Sure it will cost you, hardisks, remember one hardisk, second backup a the third one outside of your house somewhere, you might need UPS if they are plugged, possibly networking devices etc.

And now final thought - this is valid for home videos or otherwise unique videos, ..., for movies, tv shows, it is waste of time imho, exept you say it is your hobby, well we all gotta do something ...

[usually_quiet]

Wow thanks guys I had no idea that Blue ray media wasn't long term. I mean I guess if I can get more than 10+ years out of them I would consider them effective hell 50 years and we may have a new form of media.

Anyway I will re consider hard drives if I can get about 5 or so 2TB ones working I may be able to use them and keep the psychical data on the disks around as a backup so if the drives crash I just copy them back over.


I guess it boils down to so many drives on the net failing which scares me but in reality I only had one ever break down on me and that is because it fell off my desk as a bare drive. I even have a 500 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200 that is still operational after 5+ years and I even keep it around as just a bare drive no case. Booted it up today and its still recognized and ready. Amazing

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, especially since I like using optical media too, but only some optical media is reliable for long term storage. With Panasonic 4X BD-R (probably), most CD-R, good DVD+R/DVD-R media (Verbatim AZO or JVC/Taiyo Yuden) your data is fairly safe if properly stored. Anything else may be unreadable within a few years, perhaps less in the case of re-writable discs of any kind. If you were reconsidering DVD dual layer discs, forget about them for long term storage too. Even the best, Verbatim DVD+R DL, is not archival either.

[fritzi93]

Yes, "fairly safe", as usually_quiet says, is a good summation.

This is merely anecdotal, but I've discovered so far 2 RiData BDRs are now unplayable out of ~ 150 I've burned. Since I *always* use ImgBurn and verify my burns, this is a blow to my confidence in BDRs for archival storage. Yes, they're not first-class media, but they were verified. Dunno what else one could do to ensure a good burn on them. Use better media? Sure, but nothing is absolutely reliable. Anyway, those were just Blu-Ray backups, and I re-did them. For anything I consider important, I've used Verbatim BDRs, and none have failed...yet. Oddly, I've also burned over 150 CMC BDRs (Blu-Ray movie backups), and none have failed that I know of.

As to DVD media, I'd never use DLs for anything important. Nothing but Verbatims are reasonably reliable, and even those will fail, and fail more often than their single-layer media.

I see no useful alternative to multiple backups for anything important.

Anyway, I still think a media player is the OP's best bet for playing back a wide variety of video containers/codecs.

[DrDemento]

Just wanted to let everyone know I went with a Media Center I found on Newegg

1080P HD USB HDMI SD/MMC Multi TV Media Player RMVB MKV


Super cheap at just 45 dollars, plays on both NTFS and Fat32 Hard drives, and remote is easy to work (despite the weird fast forward)


I would recommend it and now to find 2-3 (2) TB hard drives to back up my huge movie collection