Samsung BD-P1590: MKV/MP4 playback?

[Ai Haibara]

I have a Samsung BD-P1590 that's using the current firmware. Until recently, though, I didn't really know what was in each update (so I was surprised when I found one of the updates added the ability to access YouTube ).

I noticed one of the recent updates mentions adding support for playback of MKV/MP4 videos:

Ver 2.02 : SEP. 3. 2009
1. Youtube/Blockbuster e-Contents service.
2. MKV/MP4 file playback.

...and this question in their FAQ section mentions that you can't play them from the USB port, because it doesn't support USB 2.0:

Blu-ray Disc Players : My BD-P1590 Does Not Stream Videos From A USB Thumb Drive, Why?

The BD-P1590 does not support USB 2.0 which is needed to playback movie files from a USB thumb drive. Consequently the BD-P1590 will not stream videos from a USB thumb drive.

MKV and MP4 video files must be burned to a CD/DVD/BD disc for playback.

The BD-P4600 and BD-P3600 are the only current Blu-ray models capable of movie playback via a USB thumb drive.

However, I haven't been able to get the player to recognize ANY MKV or MP4 on a data disc (that they're even there). Because the above is all I've seen regarding the support (I don't even know if it's not on all versions of the BD-P1590), I can't even tell if:

A) the videos have to be in a certain folder
B) the disc has to be formatted a certain way
C) what kind(s) of video/audio it actually supports IN those two containers
D) whether or not it'll even list MKVs or MP4s that don't meet any criteria the player is looking for
E) the videos have to be accessed a certain way from the player's menus

...etc.

At this stage, it's really just a novelty for me, but it'd still be nice to know.

[c3max]

I have the same problem. I am running firmware v.2.05

I have tried many variations of files and disc formats and can't get an MKV or MP4 to even show up.

I always get a "No Program is found." error, which sounds like the video player application is missing in the firmware.

I decided to contact Samsung, and I have just gotten the run around twice. They state that MKV/MP4 support is a new feature with no documentation for how it works. That is obvious! Both times they told me to reset the firmware and reload the newest version, neither time was any different.

I guess any vendor can make the claim that their bluray player has MKV/MP4 support and just not include an application that can play the files, especially if their players are sigma based.

[Ai Haibara]

One thing I've heard is that the videos may need to be exactly 1280x720 or 1920x1080, though I could've sworn that most (if not all) of the videos on the range of DVD data discs I tried were encoded using those resolutions.

[c3max]

I have tried files with those resolutions and they do not work. It is pretty obvious that something is missing, because when I put in a disc and select video, it doesn't even try to read it like it does when I select music or photos from the menu.

[Ai Haibara]

Yeah, if I could even get the player to recognize/show there are MKV/MP4 files on the discs, it would be a start. (But then, it'll turn out they need to be burned to a BD data disc... (Just kidding, but I hope not...))

[alex8642]

Hello guys and gals, I also have a Samsung BD-P1590 blu-ray player with firmware version 2.05. I have tried a few things here...

1: I tried burning the file to the disc (should have worked lmao right? but no samsung lies haha!)

2: I used a program called TsMuxer to mux the mkv's into AVCHD with a blu-ray structure and it began to load until it said disc couldn't play. (In other words I made a blu-ray disc on a DVD... Just like you can put a DVD on a videoCD)

3. I learned that mkv's CANNOT PLAY if they are in DTS 5.1. This is NOT supported by any current blu-ray players. So somebody may wish to try and make a disc with the file on it BUT make sure you remux the audio with 4.1 instead of 5.1... I have been told this is a fix. though I really do not have the time to mess around and try it... Maybe one of you will have better luck? Maybe also use the resolution of 1920x1080 as well as mentioned in a previous post? One of us will get lucky I am sure and then everyone will be much happier when they can play mkv's on their blu-ray player haha!

Kindest Regards,
Alex8642

p.s. I included a screenshot of the program I used to mux the movie resident evil extinction. I might also mention there is a guide on youtube that works for most blu-ray players... I do not know if the samsung blu-ray players support AVCHD so this may be a lost cause. Either way give it a shot

[Ai Haibara]

I only really tried one experiment with AVCHD on the player, but I'm not sure it liked it (I actually chose to create it to be compatible with the PS3, but the PS3 didn't like it, either... ), so it still might support AVCHD... but that defeats the purpose of trying to get the MKVs and MP4s to work.

[MJA]

are these players any good?I saw stacks of them at walmart selling for $125 I think

[Ai Haibara]

Ours seems to work okay, though the menus are a little clunky, IMHO. I haven't had any problems with it, really, but I also haven't compared it to any other player (our only other BD player is my sister's PS3, and she doesn't have it connected to an HDTV), so I couldn't comment on the quality or any differences between the Samsung and any other players.

It doesn't have built-in wireless, so I also had to connect an antenna to the Ethernet port, but that's only a minor annoyance.

[tnabrian]

I have had a lot of success making avchd discs for the Samsung P1590. Out of about 30 discs made I only had 3 that wouldn't play. I've been using the guide I found here http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive/convert_mkv_to_avchd_for_ps3_and_blu-ray.cfm. Except the newer version of TS Muxer has an extra option "AVCHD disc". So follow the guide but instead of ticking "Blu-ray disc", tick "AVCHD disc". Not all the resolutions I used were 1920x1080 or 1280x720. Some of them were other resolutions and they still work fine. Some of the mkv's I've ran through tsmuxer would throw an error because of the subtitles not being timed right or something like that so I would un-tick the subtitle box so it could mux and it would then create the avchd files just fine. I use Nero burning rom to make the discs. Use DVD-ROM (UDF), under UDF tab change udf level to 2.50, and no multisession. The only thing I haven't had good luck with in TS Muxer is compiling multiple mkv's into one avchd disc. I tried it with mkv episodes of south park but the Samsung rejects the discs.

[Craig Fuqua]

I know it's an old thread, but it popped up in Google when I searched for Samsung USB and "no progam is found."

I'm not positive of my model number, but it came free with my (Samsung) TV. Here's what worked for me: use only DVD-R disks (the manual doesn't list +R) or BD-R. I've been able to play 720p and 1080p material converted from MKV via MultiAVCHD in both PAL and NTSC formats. I think it needs the resolutions listed by tnabrian, so let M-AVCHD "uncrop" video that has had its horizontal bars removed. That said, I think I've gotten by without uncropping, so feel free to experiment.

I can't get MKVs to play on it via USB or disk. If the player does DLNA, that would be one way to avoid these hassles.
I end up doing everything in my Samsung TV, which is MKV-capable.

Problems with MultiAVCHD:
The popup menu only works for 1080p, at least, on my Samsung BD player.
Uncropping will fail if half the difference between the video resolution and 720 or 1080 is an odd number. It creates a very simple AVS script that divides the difference in half and expects an integer in return. For example, if the video is 1280 x 530, the difference to 720 is 190. Half of that is 95 and the AVS script will blow up. I encode these in MeGUI, which I should probably always do in case there's a problem and I need to regenerate the output.

[jman98]

Craig Fuqua - Generally we don't like people digging up old threads, but I've seen less helpful times that it was done. I realize that this thread started to go off on a tangent early on, but converting from MKV to AVCHD or BluRay format kind of defeats the purpose doesn't it? At that point the files are no longer MKV files. It's kind of like bragging about converting a Divx file to DVD to get any random DVD player to play it that was having problems playing it as a Divx file.

Some manufacturers only include USB ports for firmware updates. Samsung doesn't make some of the most consumer friendly players so I'm not surprised at all that it won't touch MKVs via USB.

The "odd number" problem you mention is actually probably a divide by 8 or divide by 16 issue and you are looking at it from the wrong end. I bet you can only uncrop successfully when the resolution is divisible by 8 or 16. The ones that are blowing up on you are not exactly divisible by those numbers.

[Craig Fuqua]

The situation is that the player will not play MKV files, so another format is required. I think it's reasonable to interpret the "purpose" as being able to watch the videos on the BD player. The best solution is "use other hardware," but that's not practical for everyone. I have a TV that plays MKVs via USB, but I have to convert if I want to offload files to a disk that I can pop in the player.
Also, the line of AVS script that has the probem is
bordersizeY=int((720-height(b))/2) # where "b" is the video.
I realize the int() should be handling the situation (although the final output would be 1 pixel short), so it's possible the problem is actually in the next line, which tries to use bordersizeY in addborders(). I haven't actually tried this in almost 8 months, so my memory's pretty hazy.