# Video Converter Software(MKV to AVI)



## twicksisted (Dec 4, 2011)

I have all of my Blu-rays archived as MKV files on a NAS drive.
I recently bought a Sony BDP-S480 networked Blu-ray player and it cant stream/play these MKV files :/

http://www.sony.co.uk/product/blu-ray-disc-player/bdp-s480

According to the Sony website it can play only the following filetypes:
XviD / WMV9 / MPEG-1 / MPEG-2 / MPEG-4 AVC


So my questions are:

Which of these above formats would be best quality to use?
What software can I use to convert them (preferably free and one that can use CUDA would be great).

I searched google for software and theres so many to choose from I thought id ask opinions to save the hassle of getting a crappy one


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## Athlon2K15 (Dec 4, 2011)

handbrake,gotsent


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## cheesy999 (Dec 4, 2011)

twicksisted said:


> Which of these above formats would be best quality to use?



what Athlon said for Handbrake

the best quality format would be MPEG-4 AVC (or h.264 as it's also known)


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## twicksisted (Dec 4, 2011)

thanks for the suggestions... my i7 2600k should do well for conversion but ive heard that CUDA is better, can this handbrake program use CUDA? I have like 180 movies to convert lol


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## cheesy999 (Dec 4, 2011)

twicksisted said:


> thanks for the suggestions... my i7 2600k should do well for conversion but ive heard that CUDA is better, can this handbrake program use CUDA? I have like 180 movies to convert lol



Cuda is *supposed* to be better,but from what i've seen it normally doesn't offer that much improvement from the CPU

Handbrake is CPU only though

If you want CUDA try looking at Freemake


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## twicksisted (Dec 4, 2011)

giving handbrake a try now... will test it on one file to make sure it can play on the blu-ray player first cbefore doing all 180 movies 

Seems to fly on my processor, 14 minutes to make a high quality mpeg 4 of a 1:45 long movie


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## cheesy999 (Dec 4, 2011)

twicksisted said:


> giving handbrake a try now... will test it on one file to make sure it can play on the blu-ray player first cbefore doing all 180 movies
> 
> Seems to fly on my processor, 14 minutes to make a high quality mpeg 4 of a 1:45 long movie



your lucky, 14 mins is about half an hour of footage on a phenom ii x4 

EDIT:It may appear to transcode twice, it's not making duplicates that's just how multi-pass encoding works


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## twicksisted (Dec 4, 2011)

ok it finished ... the quality is pretty crappy... made a 1gb file out of a 5.5gb source file MKV.
Im guessing i need to play with the constant bitrate (QP) setting.

Whats a good number/setting for this to be on?
My original MKV files are all very high quality (5gb - 12gb files straight from blu-ray)

(FIXED)

QP 1 seems to be no compression... im trying it out with the file again, seems like this run is 21 minutes instead of 14 so hopefully it will be better


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## dir_d (Dec 4, 2011)

take back the Sony and get a Samsung that can play MKV over DLNA with Serviio?


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## twicksisted (Dec 4, 2011)

dir_d said:


> take back the Sony and get a Samsung that can play MKV over DNLA with Serviio?



Hmmm wish i could! i bought it 2 weeks ago from PC World... can only take items back less than 7 days old unless they have a fault.
I think i may put this one on my telly upstairs and get a samsung for my cinema room though... just money is a little tight round this time of year


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## dir_d (Dec 4, 2011)

Well does the Sony have DLNA support?


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## twicksisted (Dec 4, 2011)

yes

http://www.sony.co.uk/product/blu-ray-disc-player/bdp-s480#pageType=TechnicalSpecs


It is also supposed to play MKV files but dosent recognise the files whwen i try to stream them from my NAS.. i have to use my laptop and VLC to play these inxstead which is far from ideal


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## cheesy999 (Dec 4, 2011)

Just try renaming the file extension from MKV to MP4 and it will probably play anyway

and i think you will get a higher quality video using AVG Bitrate with 2 pass encoding then a constant quality


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## dir_d (Dec 4, 2011)

It seems that people have had your blu ray player streaming MKV over DLNA with Serviio but its tricky. Goto these forums ( http://forum.serviio.org/viewforum.php?f=11 ) and set it up correctly with your NAS using their sony profile. You should get it working and at the most you will have to convert your MKV's to the older 4.1 format.


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## twicksisted (Dec 4, 2011)

nice i see that you can run servio on a nas too... ill give it a bahs on pc first and see if i can get it to work before messing around with my nas config


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## Dbiggs9 (Dec 4, 2011)

i use badaboom 5k-8k rate, looks good and uses cuda.


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## dir_d (Dec 5, 2011)

Get it working?


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## twicksisted (Dec 5, 2011)

not really, my bluray player diddnt like the MPEG4 file :/
I havent tried the servio yet as i was playing a bit of Tribes Vengeance Beta, then skyrim, then BF3(and drinking a lot of beer lol)... will probably go to bed now and give it another bash tomorrow


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## dir_d (Dec 5, 2011)

Bah...let me know when you try Serviio.


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## Wile E (Dec 5, 2011)

twicksisted said:


> I have all of my Blu-rays archived as MKV files on a NAS drive.
> I recently bought a Sony BDP-S480 networked Blu-ray player and it cant stream/play these MKV files :/
> 
> http://www.sony.co.uk/product/blu-ray-disc-player/bdp-s480
> ...



If your player uses DNLA for network playback, just use PS3 Media Server over your network. You won't have to convert anything that way. It will do it on the fly.

I know it says PS3 in the title, but it works with much more than just the PS3. http://www.ps3mediaserver.org/


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## twicksisted (Dec 5, 2011)

Alright! PS3mediaserver works a charm streaming off my PC to my bluray player... only about 10 files arent supported which isnt bad out of 180 

Servio diddnt work for me, i could see it on the bluray player but all of the files were unsupported, perhaps theres a setting I need to enable.

Wile E, can I install Ps3mediaserver on a NAS drive?


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## Easy Rhino (Dec 5, 2011)

twicksisted said:


> Alright! PS3mediaserver works a charm streaming off my PC to my bluray player... only about 10 files arent supported which isnt bad out of 180
> 
> Servio diddnt work for me, i could see it on the bluray player but all of the files were unsupported, perhaps theres a setting I need to enable.
> 
> Wile E, can I install Ps3mediaserver on a NAS drive?



if your nas is x86 then yes.


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## twicksisted (Dec 5, 2011)

makes this a very attractive offer in comparison to a NAS!
HP ProLiant Turion II N40L MicroServer - £100.. | ...

£100 cashback!


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