My cheap HP Blu-ray player can play them. I imagine that if they can play AVCHD discs, they should be able to play the MKV.

To be fair, I only tried a sample of ESBR in the format, and it was a long time ago.

canadianbs101 said:

To be honest, I haven't ever tried burning an mkv to my player. Looks like I have more homework to do. I have a Panasonic DMPBD60 that supports AVCHD.

canadianbs101 said:

To be honest, I haven't ever tried burning an mkv to my player. Looks like I have more homework to do. I have a Panasonic DMPBD60 that supports AVCHD.

If the MKV is in AVCHD format then I think you can just remux the file into a blu-ray disc using tsmuxer and burn it using imgburn.

I have the Sumvision Cyclone MKV 2 media enclosure and this seems to play anything i throw at it (apart from files that have used the newer mkvmerge with its compression header, but running it though an older version first, which only takes a few seconds and everything plays fine). It outputs DTS fine. You can either stick  a drive into the enclosure, use an external hard drive , or both. transferring files is easy as you just plug it into the PC or use it over a network.

canadianbs101 said:

Does anyone have any recommendations/horror stories?

It was a dark and stormy night, and a very healthy & wealthy husband and father of two had just purchased an HD media player. Little did he know he was about to fall victim to a depraved junkie low on cash and high on meth ...

i have a modded wdtv hd gen 2. and i have to say it was worth it for the ability of the mods. the factory firmware is garbage. i have been a wdtvforum member for a while and most wdtv owners will tell you that pch has no chance holding up to the modded wdtv. dont worry about wd factory updates because they do not matter. the wdtv modders update constantly and make vast improvements. i have only had 1 mkv file cause a problem which was easy to fix by remuxing with an older version of mkvmerge. i have modded my wdtv to do everything i want. and the moviesheet features alone are epic. i have never had a problem with dts though it will not play ogm and that is the only file type i ever saw it not play. i would recommend getting the wdtv live version because it has even more functionality then the gen 2 model i have. once you know how to do the mods and make moviesheets you will be glad you did not blow $300.00 on a popcornhour. but dont buy it if your not going to mod it. the mods are easy to do once you understand them. i have my own personal backgrounds and screensavers. but i intend to get a live soon because there is a new mod being developed for the live player that is going to make the interface look amazing. also the live can be modded to support dvd menu,s. here is what a moviesheet looks like. i have moviesheets for every 1 of my 2000 movies. next i have to make them for my tv shows:) there are endless variations of moviesheets to choose from this is just 1 version. and with thumbgen designer you can design your own from scratch. bottom line wdtv modded kicks popcornhour,s lilly ass.  

hope i caught you before you bought a pch. but the best thing to do is plan on the mods before buying the wdtv. to learn about the mods and what can be done with wdtv go to http://wdtvforum.com/main/   and start reading. all you need to do the mods is the wdtv and a 2 gb usb stick. all the custom firmware and osd mods are free. so is thumbgen and thumbgen designer for creating moviesheet,s. i spent a little over $100.00 on my gen 2 wdtv and live is not much more. worth every penny spent and time invested. not to mention portability. i can scoop up my player and a hardrive of choice and carry it to any friends house and hook it up in 2 minutes. when i turn on the player i give my friends the remote and let them scroll through movies. each moviesheet lists a film cover,synopsis,and video/audio specs. and then when they decide on a flick and go into the folder you see a final fullscreen screenshot of my choice for the kicker. also note the pic above of the moviesheet does not show you the movie cover thumbs at the bottom of the sheet like the player does. in addition to seeing the sheet you see 7 thumbnails of movie covers which fill in the blank space at the bottom of the sheet. and then you just scroll left or right through the movie cover thumbs. buy a wdtv mod it and thank me later.

here canadianbs have a look at the new osd mod that is being developed for the live player right now. the rolling smoke animated menus are sick!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4DC1apgPLg&feature=player_embedded

Currently, I just hook a laptop up to the TV - I know I'm a little behind the times.

I have a cheap TV in the bedroom that can play media off a USB hard drive/memory stick, it can read AVI and MKV, the manual says it can play HD content, but it can actually only decode Xvid/DivX (no h264 - so, really, it's useless for HD).

Considered getting a WDTV and modding it with a firmware to allow it to play disc-based media off a compatible USB optical drive. However, the price is comparable to a standalone BD player with MKV support, which would also have the advantage of being able to play original DVDs and BDs without having to rip/decrypt first.

Anyone use XBMC on a jailbroken Apple TV?

ChainsawAsh said:

I'd love to use a program like XBMC, but there's too much about it that just pisses me off.

Can anyone recommend a program similar to XBMC that lets you customize sorting and actually change the metadata yourself instead of forcing you to stick with specific file names and metadata that it pulls off the Internet?

hey ash thumbgen does that. it can create metadata and nfo that you type in. here are some snaps i just made a sheet real quick for the whole bloody affair. 1 main thumbgen page, 2 moviesheet creation page, 3 metadata creation window, 4 the sheet i made.

thumbgen is the best metadata/moviesheet program hands down. i use it for creating moviesheets for all of my movies and tv shows for presentation on my wdtv. very easy to use and very flexible on the options. that was a rough quick sheet i made just to show you guys. not actually the 1 i will use on my wdtv. but you can see how powerful thumbgen is in metadata creation as well as nfo.

Moth3r said:

Considered getting a WDTV and modding it with a firmware to allow it to play disc-based media off a compatible USB optical drive. However, the price is comparable to a standalone BD player with MKV support, which would also have the advantage of being able to play original DVDs and BDs without having to rip/decrypt first.

 

sadly you wont have menu support for bd discs. but dvd menus will work. the wdtv modders are always improving who knows maybe 1 day. a modded wdtv is the cheapest best alternative to an htpc running a media center. from organizing playlists to moviesheet presentation. but i am a little confused what you meant moth3r. if you are playing a disc from an external optical drive there is no need to rip first.  you would rip the disc for storing and playback from an external hard drive. though i see little need for an external optical drive when using a wdtv. most people would own a dvd or bd player already for playing discs. the grand purpose of a wdtv is for media playback from an external hard drive. rip your dvd/bd collection to a hard drive organize by genre or alphabetic folders however you prefer. now there are a few ways to use your hard drive with the wdtv. you can hook up 2 hard drives direct to the player. or more with the usb hub support that comes with the wdlxtv custom firmware. or you can hook all your drives up to your computer and stream media to the player through the use of a wireless router. this is cool feature because you can have a wdtv in every room of the house and stream media to any room in the house from your computer. also i dont know much about the wireless side of the wdtv but it does have support for apps like facebook and others. also the wdtv can be a separate torrent downloader. there are so many functions for wireless networking a wdtv live i dont even know what all it can do. there may be some newer media players that have these functions but i wouldnt know because i have never needed anything more then my wdtv. im starting to feel like a wdtv commercial but i just hate to see people go out and spend way more money for players that can not even compare to a modded wdtv. good luck guys.