Beginner's questions

[countryboy]

I'm almost too embarrassed to post here since I know so little about the differences in video files and media servers in general (how they work) while everyone else here is so knowledgeable but here goes. I haven't installed Mezzmo yet but I have some questions before I do:

1. I have a Pre-Release Oppo BDP-93 BD player (replacing the BDP-83) and while it's similar to the BDP-83 it provides additional support for more files. Should Mezzmo work with the BDP-93?

2. I have a new Samsung PN58C8000 Plasma will your software support it?

3. I have several of my dvds backed up on my computer as ISO files and I know the Oppo BDP-93 doesn't support ISO files (don't know about my Samsung TV) but does Mezzmo have the ability to transcode them to something else so they will be recognized and playable on both my devices?

4. If the answer to question 3 is no then what type of file should I be ripping my dvds to so that Mezzmo/Oppo/Samsung can handle keeping in mind I want the best quality possible? Thanks!

[Paul]

I'm almost too embarrassed to post here since I know so little about the differences in video files and media servers in general (how they work) while everyone else here is so knowledgeable but here goes. I haven't installed Mezzmo yet but I have some questions before I do:

1. I have a Pre-Release Oppo BDP-93 BD player (replacing the BDP-83) and while it's similar to the BDP-83 it provides additional support for more files. Should Mezzmo work with the BDP-93?

Yes, Mezzmo should work with the new Oppo BDP and we can make a new device profile for it with the extended formats support.

2. I have a new Samsung PN58C8000 Plasma will your software support it?

Yes, it does.

3. I have several of my dvds backed up on my computer as ISO files and I know the Oppo BDP-93 doesn't support ISO files (don't know about my Samsung TV) but does Mezzmo have the ability to transcode them to something else so they will be recognized and playable on both my devices?

4. If the answer to question 3 is no then what type of file should I be ripping my dvds to so that Mezzmo/Oppo/Samsung can handle keeping in mind I want the best quality possible? Thanks!

At the moment Mezzmo does not support ISO files. I would recommend ripping DVDs to AVCHD (h264/AC3) or MKV (h264/AC3), because that'll give you best quality and also the Samsung supports those files natively. Not sure about the new Oppo though. Do you have a list of formats that it supports?

[countryboy]

Dennis you have any plans to support ISO files in the future?

Is the quality the same between an ISO and MKV file?

The BDP-93 is in Pre-Release which means it's not been released for sale to the general public yet (possibly December or Jan) so while it is stable we've been told to expect firmware updates with fixes, new features and more support for files. So far it supports:

DLNA

Audio:
AAC
FLAC (26-1108 - Inadvertently disabled in this firmware)
M4A
MP3
PCM
WAV
WMA

Picture:
GIF
JPG
PNG

Video:
AVI (DivX/XviD)
MKV (26-1108 - FLAC is still not supported)
MP4
MPEG-1/2 (includes VOB)
M2TS
TS
WMV

[Paul]

We do plan to support ISO files at some point, but there are no immediate plans or development going in this. The first issue is that FFmpeg does not support ISO files and we use that to transcode, so we wouldn't be able to transcode them and most devices will not play ISO files. ISO files are images of the original disk basically, while an MKV can contain various audio/video codecs with different quality. I don't think it's possible to compare the two, as it depends on what an MKV contains.

Thanks for the info on the BDP-93 format support - we can make a specific device profile for it if you could send us some logs.

[countryboy]

One last question would you want to convert a Blu-ray disk into AVCHD instead of MKV files so they can be sent over your server? Would you want to use AVCHD for dvds instead of MKV? Thanks!

[Paul]

Yes, I believe some BluRay ripping software allows you to do that, but I don't have any recommendations at the moment - maybe someone else can recommend some soft

Ideally you want to rip into a "native" format for your device, but if the video codec is the same (e.g. h264), then it doesn't matter whether it's an MPEG-TS or an MKV container. Although an MKV container is more flexible and may give you some additional benefits, if your device supports them (e.g. subtitles).

[countryboy]

Dennis do you plan on supporting URL's and if so how high of a priority is it?

If you did supports URL's would this mean you would be able to stream shows from hulu?

[JohnM]

I would suggest getting anydvdhd from http://www.slysoft.com/en/ If you get it this month you can grab a lifetime license. It will allow other sw to rip. You can check out http://forum.slysoft.com/showthread.php?t=25818

That will provide you links to some general sw to do BluRay. I am waiting for slysoft to publish their CloneBD, I have their other products and they work great. Also be sure to checkout http://forum.doom9.org/

[Paul]

Dennis do you plan on supporting URL's and if so how high of a priority is it?

If you did supports URL's would this mean you would be able to stream shows from hulu?

I believe that the current stand on streaming URLs is more positive than negative, but it's not high on the priority list, so I wouldn't expect it to appear in the next 6 months. I don't know about Hulu, since technically we haven't evaluated various sites and their streaming formats and how we can support them yet. Once active development starts, then I'll have better answers, sorry

[kitsunegari]

I believe that the current stand on streaming URLs is more positive than negative, but it's not high on the priority list,

Is it possible to see the priority list?