Looking for a wide screen TV that'll play all video formats

[jacatone]

I download a lot of videos that are in avi, mpeg4, mkv., etc. Anyone know of a 32 inch LCD or LED TV that'll automatically play these file formats from a USB flash drive? Thanks.

[loster]

For full format support you need a home theater pc, standalone devices like the Western Digital TV Live are easier to use with less supported formats. TV's generally have the least amount of format support (except for standalone dvd players). Most likely xvid/divx in an avi container or h.264 in an mp4 container.

[DarrellS]

Samsung 32" 1080p UN32EH5300FXZA for $439.99 at Newegg. Best Buy has it on sale also but I can't get to the cart to see how much it is. Probably around the same price. It has Clear Motion Rate 120 for action movies, sports and games. Three HDMI inputs, Ethernet and WiFi to connect to your network and the internet. Two USB ports and digital audio out. Smart TV for surfing the internet. AllShare for sharing content and ConnectShare for viewing media from a thumbdrive, external drive or a network drive on your PC.

According to the Samsung site, it can play anything from your PC with your PC's codecs and supports these files with it's own decoders...

File Extension... *.avi *.mkv *.asf *.wmv *.mp4 *.3gp *.vro *.mpg *.mpeg *.ts *.tp *.trp *.m2ts *.mts *.webm *.divx
Container........ AVI, MKV, ASF, MP4, 3GP, VRO, VOB, PS, TS, WebM
Video Codec...... DIVX (3.11, 4.X, 5.X ,6.1), MPEG4 (SP/ASP), H.264 (BP/MP/HP), Motion JPEG, WMV v9, MPEG2, MPEG1, VP8, VP6
Resolution....... 1920x1080 .......... 1920x1080 ......... 1920x1080 ........... 640x480 ........ 1920x1083 ....... 640x480
Frame Rate....... 6-30 ........... 6-30 ........... 6-30 ........... 6-30
Bit rate (Mbps).. 30........... 30........... 30.......... 30.......... 30.......... 8 ............... 30 ............... 4
Audio Codec...... AC3, LPCM, ADMPCM (MA, MS), AAC, HE-AAC, WMA, DD+, MPEG (MP3), DTS Core, Vorbis

[hello_hello]

My Samsung TV plays pretty much all the standard types of video I've wanted it to.... AVI, MP4, MKV etc
Unfortunately though it doesn't support anamorphic video in MKV/MP4 files..... it displays the video as though it has square pixels. If you don't have a lot of anamorphic video then it's obviously no big deal. My Sony Bluray player displays anamorphic video in MKV/MP4 files correctly, whereas the Samsung Bluray player in this house doesn't, so maybe it tends to differ from manufacturer to manufacturer in regard to what they support.

Don't take any DivX HD certification to mean much. There's a Sharp DivX certified TV in this house. DTS support is optional for DivX HD certification and the Sharp TV doesn't support it. It also doesn't diaply anamorphic MKV or MP4 video correctly.

If it wasn't for the anamorphic thing, I'd recommend the media players built into Samsung TVs, but if that's not important to you then Samsung TVs have pretty decent media players.

I've never used one myself, but if the media players built into Sony TVs have the same capabilities as their USB Bluray players.... well aside from a PC, the Sony Bluray player is the best media player in this house (pre-Cinavia model). The picture looks a little more natural than the Samsung Bluray /TV media players and on the odd occasion the Samsung players refuse to play something for what seems to be no logical reason, the Sony Bluray player usually will.

[usually_quiet]

I download a lot of videos that are in avi, mpeg4, mkv., etc. Anyone know of a 32 inch LCD or LED TV that'll automatically play these file formats from a USB flash drive? Thanks.

I bought an 32-inch LG LCD TV that plays video in a number of different containers from a USB storage device, although not .mkv. I also bought an LG Blu-Ray player for my parents that can play .mkv files, plus the same files the TV can play, from an optical disc or USB storage device.

loster is correct. You need to be aware that there are more limitations on the kind of video and audio that a TV, Blu-Ray player, or even a dedicated media player like a WD TV Live can play, compared to what a computer will play. My TV and the Blu-Ray player have worked well, but they have only been used to play files that I captured and converted myself, knowing what they can play. You are going to be playing files that someone else converted, and perhaps not in a way that anything other than a computer can play correctly.

[hello_hello]

The first thing I said to the sales guy when I went TV/Bluray player shopping a couple of years ago, was "if it doesn't play High Profile, Level 4.1, 1080p h264 video inside an MKV, don't show it to me". That and Xvid/AVI support was all I really cared about. For me, anything else was more of a bonus. As I didn't know at the time TVs could play 3D video via USB, I was happy to learn it could.

[jman98]

What loster said. All we get around here is new people joining to bitch about how their TV won't play their downloaded files. If you're willing to spend a lot of time re-encoding stuff to make it work, I guess you can go this route, but just using a small form factor media streaming device that's not quite so picky is a better approach. And note that there is some chance that the specs DarrellS posted may mean that if a file doesn't match those resolutions EXACTLY that it won't play at all. We've had reports of that too, but I don't remember specific models or manufacturers.

[DarrellS]

What loster said. All we get around here is new people joining to bitch about how their TV won't play their downloaded files. If you're willing to spend a lot of time re-encoding stuff to make it work, I guess you can go this route, but just using a small form factor media streaming device that's not quite so picky is a better approach. And note that there is some chance that the specs DarrellS posted may mean that if a file doesn't match those resolutions EXACTLY that it won't play at all. We've had reports of that too, but I don't remember specific models or manufacturers.

Yeah, there were notes on the page that I got the info from that if the files weren't encoded correctly or there was a problem with the container that the files would not play. If you trust your encodes then there shouldn't be a problem but who knows what you're going to get off the internet. It won't play DRM and I read somewhere that it won't play AAC in an MKV container (only in MP4). My WDTV has problems with AAC in MKV also which is why I either remux to MP4 (which still gives me problems at times) or encode the audio to something that the WDTV will play like AC3 or MP3.

It didn't say whether it supported header stripping in MKV either. A lot of players don't. My WDTV doesn't and a whole lot of MKV on the internet were encoded with header stripping. Took me a while to figure out why some of my MKV would play and some of them wouldn't.

A cheap BluRay player like Hello_Hello mentioned would be an option. My little brother bought a Philips BluRay player at Walmart that will play MKV on a data disc. I'm not sure that it has thumbdrive support though which would make it useless to me. I haven't used my Philips DVD player with thumbdrive support since buying my WDTV a couple of weeks later. IMO, DVD is out dated with the ability to hook a 2TB drive to your TV. Even larger thumbdrives are becoming affordable. I think I paid $24 for my 32GB thumbdrive a few months back. They were over $100 when they first came out.

My friend spent over $300 on a BluRay player with wireless networking and a good router and then ended up buying a $1,000 Toshiba laptop and uses the laptop to watch movies through the HDMI out. If your PC is close enough to the TV then that would be your best option. Assuming you have a video card that has A/V out or HDMI out. It's the most econical option and what I tried to talk my friend into before he spent almost $2,000 on DVD recorder and above mentioned equiptment. He already had everything that he needed in his PC. A good capture card, a good video card and a good sound card but he didn't want to run unsitely cables. He then could've spent the money on a good TV to replace the old Westinghouse.

If I was in the market for a 32" TV though, I'd probably buy the one mentioned above or I'd probably pay a little more for the 40" model. I paid a lot more for my 40" Samsung three or four years ago and although it takes a thumbdrive, it only plays jpegs and mp3. My brother bought the lesser 32" a year later and it plays everything that the above model does but it doesn't have networking and internet. Best Buy has that model UN32EH5000FXZA on sale for $379.99. Here are the specs... easier to read...

[hello_hello]

My Samsung TV is a Plasma and it's a couple of years old now, but I assume they basically use the same media players in all their TVs. I encode all my video using High Profile, Level 4.1, and usually either keep the original AC3 audio or convert DTS to AAC, but either way, my Samsung TV has no issue playing DTS, AC3, AAC or MP3 audio in an MKV file. I don't actually have any MP4s. I always remux them as MKVs. Oddly enough AAC isn't mentioned in the table above for either MKV or MP4, but my Samsung TV certainly has no problem playing it.

It's not mine, but I'm fairly sure the Sharp TV in this house plays AAC audio in an MKV. Thinking about it, it's DivX HD certified, so I'm pretty sure that means it has to.

The problem with using a Bluray player now is the Cinavia factor, which is why I mentioned mine's a pre-Cinavia model. You'd probably be hard pushed to find a non-Cinavia inflicted Bluray player these days as it became compulsory in all new models about a year ago. There might be the odd manufacturer still selling an older model without Cinavia. Last time I looked Oppo still had one.

Hardware decoders seem to be getting cheaper and more capable, so unless a manufacturer is really pinching the pennies, format support shouldn't be the issue it once was. Even the hardware decoder in my smartphone will happily decode High Profile, Level 4.1 at 1080p with AAC audio. I can't remember if it officially supports MKV (it's an Android phone) but the third party media player I use certainly does.

To be honest if all we get around here is new people joining to bitch about how their TV won't play their downloaded files, I must be posting in a different videohelp forum, because I'm not sure I've come across that many of them, and often the problem relates to header compression removal when muxing, and not the video and audio contained within as such.