Help with Blu Ray Player Question

[Cornholio77]

Ok i have come to the point that I am tried of some of the many restrictions the xbox 360 has playing certain movie file types formats etc.

So i am planning to give in and buy a blu ray player. Heres the issue. I have a large collection of movies that i have added to my external harddrive over the years. Some are not playable on the xbox due to them being m4v, mkv or they are larger than 4gb and i get tired of using Yamb etc. So heres my question. Are there any fair priced bu ray players that now come with usb input so that i can simply play pretty well all movie formats via the usb port and not disc? if so i am hoping to find one at a mainstream store like Wal Mart etc. i dont want to have to buy online

Question 2 - Is there also a way to play files larger than 4gb in any file format on one of these blu ray players you guys suggest? In other words, lets say i have 6gb movie that is in mp4 format. Can i play this on the blu ray player if i have a partition formatted as HFS+? Is this not only a restriction with xbox but also with FAT32? in other words is it the FAT32drives that will also not allow files over 4gb to be added? See, the xbox still won't play mp4's larger than 4gb even if the format is HFS+ (unless its wmv i guess) so i am looking for a blu ray player or some type of media player i can buy that will solve this issue. Again, i would prefer not to buy online but if i had to i would. So any suggestions first for players from big box stores would be great !! Please help

[jagabo]

Ok i have come to the point that I am tried of some of the many restrictions the xbox 360 has playing certain movie file types formats etc.

So i am planning to give in and buy a blu ray player.

Are you insane? It's fine to get a Blu-ray to play Blu-ray discs but they aren't much better than the xbox 360 or PS3 for media files. Get a decent media player like the WDTV Live, Seagate Free Agent Theater, Netgear NeoTV, Boxee Box...

http://www.iboum.com/net-media-players.php

They're made by companies that specialize in playing media files. Not companies that specialize in game consoles, disc playback, etc. that just want to add a tick mark to their feature list to get you to buy their device -- and don't care how well they support the features.

[jman98]

Please listen to jagabo's fine suggestion about a media player. They're cheaper than you might think and many of them are VERY small form factor devices. My Western Digital WDTV and Roku together take up less space than my BluRay player. All DVD and BluRay players have limitations on playback that you won't get with a dedicated media player.

By the way, Roku is generally NOT a good choice as a media streamer. It's really a "watch internet TV channels on my TV" kind of device. I just wanted to mention how small such specialized playback devices like media streamers and the Roku are.

[jagabo]

That's not to say that the standalone media players are perfect. They have their quirks and bugs. But they play a much wider array of containers and codecs than any Blu-ray player or console.

[Cornholio77]

So far so good on the info guys !! The closest city to me is Saskatoon Saskatchewan so if i can find one there it would be nice !! Any big box stores carry some of these media players you mentioned??

[oldfart13]

So what prevented you from going down to a Wal-Mart store in Canada and buying a Seiki BD660 like the rest of us? Plays DVD, Blu-ray discs. Also plays files from flash drive and powered hard drives plugged into the USB port. Plays Avi, Divx, MKV (not all though), RMVB. Some people have complained about the build quality and that you can't do Netflix but that did not dissuade me from buying one. Oh, it's also easy to make it region free for DVD AND Blu-ray discs. I also have the WDTV Live Plus for other stuff but both units make for a nice solution other than going the HTPC route...

[Cornholio77]

gonna check out wal mart soon and find a good one (maybe that seiki one). Also for people who like streaming internet shows to their tv via a media player, how is the quality?? I find it hard to believe there are dedicated free sites that stream good quality shows for tv viewing. I dont mean sites like youtube etc. I was assuming when you stated above "watch internet TV channels on my TV" you meant sites that stream tv shows, sports etc.?? If so that would be handy too and is legal in canada from what i hear (except for sports). So is there a decent media player that streams internet video in good quality to tv as well? And i am not on mac btw. I trolled the net a bit tonite looking for free sites that stream tv since that peaked my interest and found a few but wondered when streaming to tv via a media player will the quality be crap?? Or was the above poster referring to something else??

[jman98]

Welcome back, Corholio77.

Internet channels = Hulu, Hulu Plus, Vimeo, etc. Usually it does NOT include YouTube as Google severely restricts access to YouTube via streaming media players. As far as specific channels like you are thinking about, in the case of Roku you would have to research and see if there is a Roku channel for what you specifically want to see. The streaming media quality is quite good in my opinion.

There's some unconfirmed talk that it MAY be possible to get web only streaming channels to work on Roku through the Plex channel you can load for free. I've got some info on how it may be possible to get ESPN3 to work this way, but I haven't tried it yet. Do note that the process is complex and there are no confirmed reports of it working. However, if this does work it would very likely be possible to get similar channels working that are only supposed to stream to PCs.