Playback Software Options

[Hammerhead]

I've been rethinking my home theater setup and have almost decided to get rid of my Samsung player and go with an HP Mini Stream running some sort of software BluRay player along with AnyDVDHD and VirtualCloneDrive to mount ISOs and run my movies and other media that way.

Can you guys recommend some software that will function with a Windows machine? I am well aware of PowerDVD 15, but I came across 'Kodi' (XBMC) which looks pretty good and... is not almost $100 to purchase.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Roycal]

HP Stream mini is a good choice but you do need PDVD to complete the experience. There are no "free solutions" if you want the full experience that replaces the standalone players. Power DVD is the only way to go if you want a trouble free experience.

For the HP Stream Mini, be prepared to replace the installed SSD with at least 128GB and add memory to the shipped memory. It adds around $200 USD to the total cost and requires minimal technical abilities and covered by numerous Youtube "how to" videos.

HP Stream Mini is not a "plug and play" solution, but is the cheapest so far if you have some patience and technical skills .

 

[Hammerhead]

HP Stream mini is a good choice but you do need PDVD to complete the experience. There are no "free solutions" if you want the full experience that replaces the standalone players. Power DVD is the only way to go if you want a trouble free experience.

For the HP Stream Mini, be prepared to replace the installed SSD with at least 128GB and add memory to the shipped memory. It adds around $200 USD to the total cost and requires minimal technical abilities and covered by numerous Youtube "how to" videos.

HP Stream Mini is not a "plug and play" solution, but is the cheapest so far if you have some patience and technical skills .

PDVD it is, then.

I've built more systems than most users will see in their natural lives, so twaddling around with hardware isn't a problem. My plan was to eventually set up a USB RAID1 enclosure of some sort for primary storage at home. The reason I picked the Mini was that I was looking for something that would serve as an HTPC replacing my finicky Samsung BD player, but also be reasonably portable, so that I could take it with me as needed along with an external USB drive to make my ISOs portable.

Still pondering the choices that are out there, but it seems for a couple hundred bucks, the Mini along with PDVD will likely do the trick.

 

[gereral1]

PDVD it is, then.

I've built more systems than most users will see in their natural lives, so twaddling around with hardware isn't a problem. My plan was to eventually set up a USB RAID1 enclosure of some sort for primary storage at home. The reason I picked the Mini was that I was looking for something that would serve as an HTPC replacing my finicky Samsung BD player, but also be reasonably portable, so that I could take it with me as needed along with an external USB drive to make my ISOs portable.

Still pondering the choices that are out there, but it seems for a couple hundred bucks, the Mini along with PDVD will likely do the trick.

I use wdlive box wired thought my network direct to my server PC. Works fine. My movies are on the HD drives. It has to be network cabled wired as the WiFi blows. Surprised no civiva messages over the past 3 years....... 100 bucks.... No anydvdhd, no powrrdvd software. This is my cheap solution to streaming.

 

[Roycal]

I use wdlive box wired thought my network direct to my server PC. Works fine. My movies are on the HD drives. It has to be network cabled wired as the WiFi blows. Surprised no civiva messages over the past 3 years....... 100 bucks.... No anydvdhd, no powrrdvd software. This is my cheap solution to streaming.

That's interesting if true. Got a link?

PDVD is around $100USD. Cheaper if you can wait for a sale. PDVD is the only software player that really works.

Also, be very careful with suggestions of products that imply replacement of AnyDVDHD. So far there are none .

 

[gereral1]

I bought my box at best buy. You simply hook it thru HDMI into you TV and share files on your PC via windows shares. Then select the movie on wdbox and choose lab connection. Not wireless and it will stream. Also does Netflix. I swear I've never seen a civix messgage. Be warned setting up windows shares can be a pain. Also my collection is compressed to around 12-15 gig per movie and my forced sub's are all done as shown on my YouTube channel hometheater series.The is tons of info online on this. If you buy a WD box do not update the firmware. The first box I did and it lagged. Spent more time buffering then playing. The second box works perfect. Do some research before buying. In a perfect world another PC with anydvdhd and power DVD would work lime a charm. Problem is I own a lifetime license and I think they stopped offering them.....

 

[Roycal]

I bought my box at best buy.QUOTE]

I encourage you to keep posting those "how to videos". But I doubt if any of them magically eliminates AnyDVDHD .

 

[gereral1]

OK I'll pull out the camera and stream insurgant to my box to see if cinavia message appears...... If it does not then I guess I've stumbled upon another loophole... Test this week as I'll be home for the long weekend. Thank god.......sitting in a truck all week sucks but pays 73,000 or more a year

 

[Roycal]

OK I'll pull out the camera and stream insurgant to my box to see if civicix message appears...... If it does not then I guess I've stumbled upon another loophole... Test this week as I'll be home for the long weekend. Thank god.......sitting in a truck all week sucks but pays 73,000 or more a year

That's cool. Maybe you should talk about that more. Ever considered the Alaskan Ice Roads? That pays a lot .

 

[gereral1]

That's cool. Maybe you should talk about that more. Ever considered the Alaskan Ice Roads? That pays a lot .

Nope. I would never drive an 80,000 lbs truck over ice.

 

[Roycal]

Nope. I would never drive an 80,000 lbs truck over ice.

If you are Canadian Truck driver, you should seriously consider it . Ice road truckers make over 100KUSD in 3 months of driving. It is extremely lucrative and not that impossible to the prepared drivers.

 

[ddjmagic]

The WD Live isn't a 'proper' Blu-ray player so it won't ever check for Cinavia.
It doesn't support full BD menu/navigation either, so it isn't comparable to PowerDVD in that aspect.

 

[gereral1]

The WD Live isn't a 'proper' Blu-ray player so it won't ever check for Cinavia.
It doesn't support full BD menu/navigation either, so it isn't comparable to PowerDVD in that aspect.

Like I said you guys all know I just rip the movie. Streaming bluray its pointless to have menu but different strokes for different folks.... All I know is the way I extract, compress, deal with forced subtitles, and stream gets me movies my room and living room without any problems. I sit back and read all these posts about old and new movies and am lost why users have so many issues with backing up media to play. Oh well I've already done everything I can do to show users how to do this. What I have not shown is the madvr mpc setup I'm using now with standard and exclusive modes. With reclock, mpc and madvr all my movies look amazing. The blends even look better than my hardware Sony bluray player. I use to struggle with Dolby atmos truehd sound in mpc but the madvr mpc combo fixed this. Still using media browser old plugin for my graphic interface. This is the only reason why I will never upgrade to windows 10. I like owning my operating system on a CD! Helps me have more control when setting up new computers and building them from scratch.

Off topic: Those laptops with restore images are a joke. Most users forget transfer the partition over to a usb key. So when their hard drive fails they are screwed. Windows can be placed on a CD, partition, USB key or you can even download it from Microsoft with a valid key.......

Got to wrap this up, back to work....

 

[ddjmagic]

I know, lots of people just rip the main movie. I doubt anyone doing that would ever consider using PowerDVD w/AnyDVD for playback of those files.
PowerDVD w/AnyDVD is really just if you want to playback 'full' BD rips with menu/navigation, the same as a standalone player would.
JRiver/Kodi/Emby/Plex/MPC/VLC/WD live or any of the many other playback options are not comparable as they are really meant for main movie playback only.

That's why AnyDVD is so great, it potentially opens up so many options/possibility's, which one is 'best' is completely down to preference and what the user wants to achieve

 

[gereral1]

I know, lots of people just rip the main movie. I doubt anyone doing that would ever consider using PowerDVD w/AnyDVD for playback of those files.
PowerDVD w/AnyDVD is really just if you want to playback 'full' BD rips with menu/navigation, the same as a standalone player would.
JRiver/Kodi/Emby/Plex/MPC/VLC/WD live or any of the many other playback options are not comparable as they are really meant for main movie playback only.

That's why AnyDVD is so great, it potentially opens up so many options/possibility's, which one is 'best' is completely down to preference and what the user wants to achieve

I agree with you. I just like to have movie only to save hard drive space. All those extras can add 10-15 gig to the movie. I hate my ati graphics thru powerdvd. On my 70 inch Sony I can see bad blends on shades but running the same movie thru madvr mpc it looks amazing Using powerdvd as a main player might be OK on smaller TVs.

 

[Roycal]

I agree with you. I just like to have movie only to save hard drive space. All those extras can add 10-15 gig to the movie. I hate my ati graphics thru powerdvd. On my 70 inch Sony I can see bad blends on shades but running the same movie thru madvr mpc it looks amazing Using powerdvd as a main player might be OK on smaller TVs.

Movie only archives are fine but the original posters question was how to create a seamless experience from standalone blu ray player to HTPC.
PDVD is the only real product that does that. Not sure why you would have any resolution problems with PDVD as it plays the original resolution out to HDMI. Maybe that's a problem with your hardware?

BTW, gereral, I thought you liked PDVD. There is no free way around it if that's what you are thinking

 

[gereral1]

It has to do with color spacing thru hdmi. You have to tweak destop gamma and hdmi contrast and brightness to match the correct black levels. If not yout tv will show boxes in the blacks because there is no info to be processed in the videos picture. This will take to long to explain on here. LCD thu hdmi suffers from the correct levels thru the ati shaders and controls. With a normal monitor everything looks sweet. ATI shaders thru powerdvd suck. mpc madvr with reclock makes the movie shaders look great on color blends from light to dark and also allow glitch free playback or 29.976 material. I do not like the piture quality coming thru powerdvd. Mind you Ive got a 70 inch tv so I see minor things in the picture that a 50-55 inch would not pick up.

 

[Roycal]

Will have to check out mpc madvr. Surprised to hear that PDVD is inferior in quality to a free mpc madvr but I only have a 50" so probably couldn't tell anyway.
Unfortunately mpc madvr probably won't work with most of my backups as they are mostly full menu types.

 

[gereral1]

I got my with all the settings already done in a nice package. Google it. Tell me your results. I'm sure you will see a big difference. The one I've got has exclusive window and normal window modes. Also you can play m2ts tracks off the blurays disk for testing because this version uses the lav filters which support Dolby atmos passthru. If you try this on other free players your video will freeze or jump out of sinc.... Maybe I'll do a video on madv reclock and lav setup in mpc.

When I get home I'll give you the name of the install I used. Where I notice the difference is panning mountain scenes the landscape does not glitch. It baby smooth and the shaders in the sky from dark to light blue has 0 banding and from whites to greys. Tweaking the catalyst HDMI levels will ensure your powerdvd and Netflix will be smooth without pixilation thru web player. Same goes with YouTube videos. So you get the correct levels via desktop gamma and HDMI . I've got my pc setup so I can edit pictures and videos video from different color levels.

 

[Roycal]

Looking forward to checking that out. Let me know where to download the installer when you get the chance .
BTW my HTPC is Win 8.1