What is the recommended format/method for video conversion?

[rliepins]

Hello all

I've been pulling my hair out trying to convert my blu-rays and dvds to a format the echo can play. I've been mainly using Handbrake and have had some limited success.

Going from the tech specs, I see that the echo can play MPEG1, MPEG2, H.264 and WMV9 video and AC3, MP3, PCM, and WMA for audio.

I also found that converting using a constant framerate is required.

Are there any other tricks and ideas? Will the echo be able to natively play DVD structured folders? I do see that it will play a blu-ray rip (nice!). What tools do people usually use other than Handbrake? Are there any good Handbrake presets or configurations anyone can pass along?

Will DTS be supported and if not, how do people convert it to AC3 or some such supported codec?

This may be obvious to some, but a good cookie cutter method would help many people, I would think.

[shortcut3d]

High Profile or Apple TV 3 with tweaked Frame Rate Same As Source - Constant Frame Rate seems to work for me.

[kingwr]

I think the answer will have to wait until Ceton gets the kinks worked out of playback in the Echo. All of my DVD rips are straight MPEG2 video from the DVDs (the audio is reencoded by the video is straight rip) and they play great on the PC and other, older Media Center extenders, but not the Echo.

[schro]

I have been pulling my hair out on this as well - Ideally, I want to keep everything at full quality. I seem to be able to make the video work on the Echo, however, I can't seem to pull off any sort of audio other than the Prologic Downmix.... and to me, there's no point in having a ton of great audio gear and hitching it up to a 2 channel source!

[schro]

High Profile or Apple TV 3 with tweaked Frame Rate Same As Source - Constant Frame Rate seems to work for me.

I gave this a try but I'm getting stuttery video whereas the original file will play just fine.

[bobbob]

sorry but if the echo cannot play media in its existing format then its pointless. even my raspberry pi ($35) can play any media i throw at it.

i installed Win 8 on Friday. I sat there thinking about the pros and cons and the only con i could think of was the echo may never work for me. once i had finished p1ssing myself laughing i immediately started installing Win8. i love it

[jagrime2]

I was never able to figure any setting that worked consistently. I got some files to play fine for a few minutes but even lower quality files didn't seem to playback well. I would hope that this gets resolved in the future and really look forward to a low power/profile extender. I had planned on using the echo in my basement media room but I need it to play my movie library especially movies for the kids.

[shortcut3d]

High Profile or Apple TV 3 with tweaked Frame Rate Same As Source - Constant Frame Rate seems to work for me.

I gave this a try but I'm getting stuttery video whereas the original file will play just fine.

Interesting, I have encoded 4 movies using these settings and they all work. The default Apple TV 3 would stutter badly, more like a freeze then start. Maybe I'm not sensitive enough to the stutter (I think I am overly sensitive) or its possible my TV is somehow masking it. Lastly, it could be a network issue. However, I have the Echo in a less than ideal network segment at the moment going from Gigabit to 100mb to Router to Gigabit. I am also running off a 2011 Mac mini 2.7GHz Dual-core i7 with a 2.5" 2TB WD Green drive for storage and 512GB Samsung 830 SSD for the OS. The recording drive is not blazing fast and the Broadcom NeXtreme Gigabit NIC has never been raved about either.

[schro]

High Profile or Apple TV 3 with tweaked Frame Rate Same As Source - Constant Frame Rate seems to work for me.

I gave this a try but I'm getting stuttery video whereas the original file will play just fine.

Interesting, I have encoded 4 movies using these settings and they all work. The default Apple TV 3 would stutter badly, more like a freeze then start. Maybe I'm not sensitive enough to the stutter (I think I am overly sensitive) or its possible my TV is somehow masking it. Lastly, it could be a network issue. However, I have the Echo in a less than ideal network segment at the moment going from Gigabit to 100mb to Router to Gigabit. I am also running off a 2011 Mac mini 2.7GHz Dual-core i7 with a 2.5" 2TB WD Green drive for storage and 512GB Samsung 830 SSD for the OS. The recording drive is not blazing fast and the Broadcom NeXtreme Gigabit NIC has never been raved about either.

I find it highly unlikely that it is a network issue when the original file will play just fine sans audio with no stutter (the file size is about 5x larger). Looking at the network monitor, it is a rather even 10mbit for the AppleTV3 compressed file.

The network path is PC <-> Gig-E switch <-> MOCA Adapter <-> 10/100 Switch <-> Ceton Echo

Across the board on MOCA (I have 4 adapters throughout the house), I am able to get a reliable ~95-100mbit transfer speed. The HTPC is able to peg a Gig-E connection to another box on the same switch, so its not a drive throughput issue either. Processor was less than 10% utilized as well....