Help Me Stream Anime to my Blu-ray Player (DLNA or over netbios)

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#1

Ok, I’m not sure whether I should post in Joining The 21st Century… A/V-Wise or Help Me Get Intertubes TV!. I would post in either of those existing threads except I have a requirement of needing subtitles.

Unfortunately, my Blu-ray player (the LG BD390) doesn’t support the .ass subtitle format which a majority of anime fansubs use. I’ve taken to either trying to find an encode with the .srt, .sub, etc., subtitle formats or finding a separate .srt file that the Blu-ray player can read. Further, the BD390 doesn’t support flac and vorbis audio formats which further limits my options.

I was using my 6 year old AGP machine running windows XP to store and stream the files. I have since got a new machine and now my 4 year old Core 2 Duo E6600/ATI X1800 machine running Windows 7 Ultimate has taken over that duty. The bad news is that that BD390 doesn’t pick up the file sharing directory with Windows 7 as it did with XP. I’ve tried various tricks with intermittent successes (mostly no successes). I’m tried using Windows Media Player to share files, but the BD390 sorts all the files in one directory instead of organizing them as they are stored on the hard drive. It’s a big mess. I prefer the neat organization as they were listed from the XP machine.

Simply reconnecting the XP machine is sort of a last case scenario. I’d have to buy more hard drives, and it’s a sub par system to use if I ever decide to start transcoding video to get subtitles or compatible audio that way.

I went to Best Buy and a Geek Squad rep suggested the WD TV Live Media Player or the Roku. My issue with them is that they seem to be hardware solutions colliding with my BD390. The BD390 already performs many of the same features, and I do not believe they allow their features to work over the network. The WD TV Live Media Player is at least designed to connect to the TV, but my TV only has one HDMI input which the BD390 uses (my cable/DVR box uses the TV’s component inputs). Also, it would be a headache for me to reconnect audio cables to my receiver (I’m almost out of digital inputs anyway).

So, I’d prefer a software solution that would let me view anime with various subtitles and audio formats. I don’t really care about streaming Hulu or Pandora to my BD390 although I wouldn’t be upset if I had the option. For instance, should I stream VLC output or would I have to do it manually for every file?

I’ve been looking at the Twonkyserver, but I can’t tell if it’s really what I want. The site doesn’t really explain how it performs giving my narrow requirements. So, suggestions, advice, or corrections to my presumptions are welcomed. Despite my misgivings, I’m not close minded to buying a hardware solution or reconnecting my AGP machine if I had assurances I could play subtitles and various audio formats. Thanks.

#2

Man, given all the help you gave me in the other similarly named thread, I wish I knew more. I got nothing.

(.ass, heheh)

#3

Thanks.

(Yes, I know… I have little doubt that’s one of the reasons it’s popular with fansubbers.)

#4

Does the blue ray player have an internet connection? You can try updating the firmware, maybe one of the updates will have the format support you are seeking in it.

#5

It does has an internet connection which is how I can stream anime from my PC. But, the player is circa March to June 2009, and has been discontinued since about March 2010 for a newer model. I bought the BD390 in December 2009 (price was too good, and the cancellation wasn’t announced then). LG has put out more firmware, but only two or three since then. And, its firmware is up to date.

That said, the newer models may reconcile some of my issues, but I can’t drop $200-400 on a new player when this one works fine. It’s just I didn’t realize at the time fansubbers’ were trending towards the .ass subtitle format. I thought they were using .srt. Still, knowing that would not have helped me much then anyway.

#6

Idea: Convert the subtitles from .ASS to .SRT. Subtitle Workshop does this, I think.

http://www.urusoft.net/products.php?cat=sw

You may be able to automate the process with a little script-fu. If Subtitle Workshop can’t do it from the command-line, then there are unix scripts out there I found for converting ASS to SRT that could probably be re-written in a language with which you’re more comfortable.

#7

Can you not get them in .MKVs and just convert them to a format your player likes?

#8

Ah yes, forgot about this. And, I didn’t know you can use it to convert files in batch.

Anime fansubbers are pretty much sticking to matroska (.mkv) format these days, but there are re-encoders who will convert .mkv to .avi soon after another group has made a matroska encoded file. Years ago, .avi was the norm. But with h.264 and 6 channel audio becoming the rage, those days have passed.

I have the drive space to convert them myself, but my knowledge on codecs and bitrates, especially for 6 channel audio, is lacking. Many fansubbing groups are moving away from lossy audio formats (mp3) in favor of flac and vorbis.

Plus, I’d prefer not to have worse picture quality than the source. Still, that’s basically what transcoding would do, and I’d prefer to have the trans(/en)coding done on the fly. Again, if there’s software or hardware out there that would allow it to be semi-automated, I’d love to hear about it.

I’ve worked with virtualdub before. However, using virtualdub seems to be a lot of work to use for each anime episode, and I don’t remember it handling 6 channel audio well.

I wouldn’t mind learning to use new software. But, I’d prefer if I could just tell my Blu-ray player to play a file and have a hardware or software solution to just automagically play, convert, or transcode the file on the fly and have it work from the source file. I believe WD TV Live Media Player can do it. However because of my entertainment setup, it’s a hardware solution that requires an amount of manual labor for me to get working.

Am I making sense? Or, am I asking too much and there is no way to do through software yet?

I guess no one heard of or experienced Twonkyserver?

#9

TVersity is supposed to do that but I’ve never had a lot of luck with it. I convert my MKVs to play on my PS3 as mp4 files with http://www.videohelp.com/tools/mkv2vob it doesn’t transcode it just splits the streams or something idk really how it works but it does

#10

mp4 can only support stereo audio, but it looks like mpg supports 5.1 channel audio, and removes the 4GB file size limit. Trying it now…

One problem is that it only supports mkv. Doesn’t seem to let me reconvert already existing mp4.

Edit: It only converts mkv, rar, and ts files. I tested it out an a file and it messed up the subtitles (got stuck), the timing of the video is different from the source, and the audio and video got out of sync. That link may be a good jumping off point if I can find a software than lets me leave the existing video format as is while letting me convert the subs and audio though.

#11

Looks like I can’t leave the video as is because it wants to hardcode the subtitles…

#12

Any luck with Subtitle Workshop? Looks to be less intensive than completely reencoding the video.

#13

I haven’t tried it yet because if the BR player can’t at least play the audio, it won’t do anything with the file. But, it would be nice to have for files that fit the requirements otherwise. Thanks.

#14

Ah. Well. I dunno then.

#15

mkv2vob is a no go for me. It fails to maintain audio/video sync, keeps messing up subtitle conversion, and 6 channel flac audio is unsupported. ):

Lemme check TVersity.

#16

Not hearing/reading good things about TVersity, specifically regarding its mkv support without doing a lot of mussing and fussing. I might be able to get it working, but I’d hate to put a lot (hours/days) of work into it (like a hardware solution) only to wind up unsatisfied.

I’ll keep it in mind though.

#17

Well, I’m close to having a method of extracting .ass subtitles and converting them to .srt. Subtitle Workshop wouldn’t extract subtitles from .mkv. So I got MKVtoolnix and MKVcleaver to do that. Then, supposedly, I can use Subtitle Workshop to convert them.

Supposedly, I could also use MKVtoolnix and MKVcleaver to extract audio from a mkv convert it to DTS, AC3, etc., but virtualdub won’t let me manipulate mastroka files. And, this is all manual, no automation so far. It’s pretty time intensive to to each file.

So, I’m still looking for advice whether the try WD TV Live Media Player, Roku, TVersity, or Twonkyserver.

#18

I forgot to ask why you need subtitles working anyways, those tentacle monsters say the same stuff over and over. :wink:

#19

Lol.

I’m hearing impaired and can’t understand Japanese. I use Closed Captions when watching normal TV/DVDs and subtitles for anime.

Besides, how else will I be able to tell a moan from a groan? d:

JK, tentacle monsters are so 80s and 90s.

#20

Well, I’ve finally figured out how to get the old directory folders to display on the BD390 again under Windows 7. Lotta trial and error.

And, it looks like the latest firmware gave the player the ability to play AAC audio, but not flac nor vorbis. So a major hurdle is cleared. Two if you count being able to extract subtitles.

Turns out I lack codecs to re-convert audio fomats though. Ugh!