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  1. I am trying to find a very simple solution to be able to play family videos from a hard drive. I tried one option, but when I selected the clip from the hard drive it would only play the audio like it didn't have a correct codec or something. When I installed VLC after logging into my account, it played just fine.

    I want a very simple solution for not techy people. I want them to be able to go to the box and select a folder icon or something of the like and browse for the hard drive. I am looking for as few clicks as possible.

    Anyone have a solution? I am trying to stay under 40, but if that's not possible that's good to know.
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  2. Uncompressed? Why not at least lossless, such as Lagarith or UT Video Codec? A much smaller size. But those video codecs aren't really designed as final formats.

    And what was wrong with VLC Player? You want the others to be able to play with something like Windows Media Player? I use MPC-HC. No problems at all. It's another player - like VLC - that comes with the needed codecs. For some players they might need to install codecs or you'll have to compress using codecs they already have.

    I don't know what 'logging into my account' was all about. I don't have to log into anything to play videos.
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  3. Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear on my post. I am looking for an android media player box that you would plug a hard drive into like this:

    https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07VS2179D/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

    When I was talking about "logging in" I was referring to having to log in to google play to get the vlc media player app on android.
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  4. You're right - I misunderstood. I thought you meant software media player.

    Then the obvious question is "Why uncompressed"? Why not encode to MP4 with AVC/x264 video and AAC audio? Any hardware media player can play that.

    Your login procedure sounds just like what non-techie people wouldn't want to do. They'd want to plug a flash drive into the player and just have it work. Maybe someone else will have a better suggestion.
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  5. Member
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    You could get a box with Kodi preinstalled and use its media player. You could test it on your box before letting others try it.

    The issue with Android Boxes is that since the majority of them use phone version Android, there's many different types of included media players, which as you've found, sometimes do a poor job of video playback and it's always a good idea to get a better player. Personally, I like MX Player (get the Pro version to stop the ads).
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  6. The decision to be uncompressed was a difficult one, but it's the purest form of the video and it's not that much more costly to do so for my situation. I don't want to get to a point in the future where I wish I hadn't compressed it for $40 or so. I am going to be giving members in my family a media player and a hard drive so they can watch whatever family videos they want.

    I am going to be testing several media players to see if any of them can play an uncompressed AVI.
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  7. Abandon this idea, uncompressed only, it would fail in many cases even if you get a player ready for one setup.
    I do this all the time, keeping two videos at the same time, lossless version or almost lossless (still not sure why you keep insisting using term uncompressed) and encoded mp4 (comfortable bitrates). This you can achieve either creating two directories in a directory. Videos have the same name in those directories , or keep them in one, if extension is different.
    To keep archives with encoded files together , at the same place, crystallized after years as to keep sanity and order with many files.
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  8. I see, you want uncompressed because you want no codec at all. Bad idea anyway, keep both lossless and encoded and you even save space.
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    +1 to having two versions of the file. Uncompressed for archive and compressed H.264 in a .mp4 or .mkv wrapper for compatibility. This allows viewing the files on other devices (what if the media player you provide fails?) and easy sharing. As evidenced by the numerous threads with posters asking how to shrink their files to levels, "That 1GB Blu-Ray file looks great!", most people don't notice or care about quality over size, especially uncompressed over a well done re-encode. Better you do it properly than they or someone else do it to save space or make it portable for play on other devices like phones or tablets.
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