Sony's BDP-S370- Usb play capabilities- Discussion

[sudheerp99]

I have a western digital 500gb HDD and I got it formated to FAT32. Once connected it says " the device connected to the USB is not supported".

I had the same issue with WD 500G HDD , telling that the "USB device device connected is not supported". (I tried it after formating to FAT32 using free s/w GUIFORMAT)

Then I realized that this version of WD HDD (WD passport) was mounting 2 devices when connected to a Windows-XP PC,
1) A removable HDD
2) A CD rom (contains the WD software)
It was the second one which was creating the problem with BD 370. The first one was actually showing in the Sony BDP 370 menu. (ie there were two USB devices shown)
If you select the first USB device from the menu, it shows the files and plays it correctly.
This issue is resolved in the July 2010 firmware upgrade for the BD 370.

 

[mittal_v2002]

Bumping a very old thread as I could find this as the most suitable existing thread to discuss my query.

So far in this thread people have been discussing the capability of BDP S370 wrt external HDD, however, I could not understand if people discussing here about their experiment with HDD is with portable HDD (without separate power supply) or with externally powered HDD.

I have a 320GB WD HDD that is externally powered, and I have used this with BDP. But for the sake of convenience I want to use a portable HDD that is powered by USB itself.

Can someone comment if the USB port on BDPS370 is capable enough to power a portable HDD or are there any adverse effect of it being used for prolonged periods ? 3-4 hours on a stretch ? on BDP or on HDD.

I don't have a portable HDD and need to buy a new one hence wanted to check if this is wise to invest in one.. as I can buy a much larger capacity if I go for a powered HDD for the same price....

Cheers..

 

[vinodj]

I'm using a WD 1TB portable HDD and works perfectly fine with BDP S570 which is similar to S370. I have watched full length movies and kept connected for more than 1 day and found no issues either with the BDP or HDD.

 

[mittal_v2002]

I'm using a WD 1TB portable HDD and works perfectly fine with BDP S570 which is similar to S370. I have watched full length movies and kept connected for more than 1 day and found no issues either with the BDP or HDD.

Thanks Buddy..

One more confirmation about the partition on HDD. Is it a single partition or you have multiple ? if multiple, are all these FAT32 or some are NTFS as well. Does the player identify all FAT32 partitions or just the first one ?

cheers

 

[lonecheese]

For the life of me, I cannot figure out why any of my H.264 MP4s aren't working over USB (or DLNA for that matter) If I encode with ffmpeg instead of x264, it seems to work, but the quality is terrible. I've attached the profile...any help would be greatly appreciated. I apologize for the poor formatting.

General / Container Stream #1
Total Video Streams for this File.................1
Total Audio Streams for this File.................2
Total Subtitle Streams for this File..............1
Video Codecs Used.................................AVC
Audio Codecs Used.................................AAC LC / AC3
SubTitle Codecs Used..............................text
File Format.......................................MPEG-4
Play Time.........................................20mn 53s
Total File Size...................................383 MiB
Total Stream BitRate..............................2 561 Kbps
Title (Tag).......................................The Dundies
Encoded with......................................HandBrake svn3507 2010090701

Video Stream #1
Codec (Human Name)................................AVC
Codec (FourCC)....................................avc1
Codec [email protected]
Frame Width.......................................720 pixels
Frame Height......................................480 pixels
Frame Rate........................................23.976 fps
Total Frames......................................30060
Display Aspect Ratio..............................16:9
Video Standard....................................NTSC
Scan Type.........................................Progressive
Color Space.......................................YUV
Codec Settings (Summary)..........................CABAC / 3 Ref Frames
QF (like Gordian Knot)............................0.224
Codec Settings (CABAC)............................Yes
Codec Settings (Reference Frames).................3
Video Stream Length...............................20mn 53s 669ms
Video Stream BitRate..............................1 855 Kbps
Video Stream BitRate Mode.........................VBR
Bit Depth.........................................8 bits
Video Stream Size.................................277 MiB (72%)
Video Encoder.....................................x264 - core 104 r1703 cd21d05
Video Encoder (Settings)..........................cabac=1 / ref=3 / deblock=1:-2:-1 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=9 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:1.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-4 / threads=12 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=0 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=240 / keyint_min=23 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=18.9 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Date of Original Encoding.........................UTC 2010-09-08 19:33:35
Color Primaries...................................BT.601-6 525, BT.1358 525, BT.1700 NTSC, SMPTE 170M
Transfer Characteristics..........................BT.709-5, BT.1361
Matrix Coefficients...............................BT.601-6 525, BT.1358 525, BT.1700 NTSC, SMPTE 170M

Audio Stream #1
Codec.............................................AAC
Codec (FourCC)....................................40
Audio Stream Length...............................20mn 53s 717ms
Audio Stream BitRate..............................252 Kbps
Audio Stream BitRate Mode.........................VBR
Number of Audio Channels..........................2
Audio Channel's Positions.........................Front: L R
Sampling Rate.....................................48.0 KHz
Audio Stream Size.................................37.7 MiB (10%)
Audio Stream Language.............................English
Date of Original Encoding.........................UTC 2010-09-08 19:33:35

Audio Stream #2
Codec.............................................AC-3
Codec (FourCC)....................................ac-3
Audio Stream Length...............................20mn 53s 696ms
Audio Stream BitRate..............................448 Kbps
Audio Stream BitRate Mode.........................CBR
Number of Audio Channels..........................6
Audio Channel's Positions.........................Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling Rate.....................................48.0 KHz
Bit Depth.........................................16 bits
Audio Stream Size.................................67.0 MiB (17%)
Audio Stream Language.............................English
Date of Original Encoding.........................UTC 2010-09-08 19:33:35

Subtitle Stream #1
Format............................................Apple text
Codec ID..........................................text

 

[lonecheese]

Well I've tried removing one stream at a time and multiple combinations, but nothing works. It appears that the video encode is simply not being recognized or not working well with either audio stream. Pretty stumped at this point. Unless anyone has some suggestions, I'll start re-encoding with different settings to see if I can find a format that works.

 

[KDM]

I tested a BDP-S370 with a 500 gig WD Essentials HDD which was apparently factory formatted with NTFS. Although the BDP-S370 powered up the disk drive, a message stating that it could not recognize the device hooked onto the front USB port was displayed on the TV screen.

 

[arnab_d]

the profile seems fine... i guess you have tried removing the AAC audio stream and keeping just the AC3 audio stream..if not pl try that..
it could be a reason though not likely...
are you creating this MP4 file by converting media from some other format? if so what was the original media video stream codec?
Does the S370 give any error message?

 

[vinodj]

I find you have multiple audio streams, dual audio does not work on BDP S370. I had few files with dual audio which could not play on Sony BDP.

 

[MPMPMP]

Why S370's DLNA player send all the videos a frequency of 60Hz to TV, although source video was shot in a frequency of 50Hz or 25Hz. This applies to all videos from a network or USB. This is a really stupid feature, which causes the video to be jerky. The only option is to drop the hdmi sending to 570p when the video is smooth but the resolution far from the hd. Hopefully this will be corrected soon !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[lonecheese]

the profile seems fine... i guess you have tried removing the AAC audio stream and keeping just the AC3 audio stream..if not pl try that..
it could be a reason though not likely...
are you creating this MP4 file by converting media from some other format? if so what was the original media video stream codec?
Does the S370 give any error message?

I find you have multiple audio streams, dual audio does not work on BDP S370. I had few files with dual audio which could not play on Sony BDP.

Thank you both for your input. The MP4 was converted from a DVD. The only change I made after the encode was switching the extension from m4v to mp4 (neither worked anyways). I have tried removing each of the streams so that it contains only video and one audio. I'm going to try encoding from source again with different settings.

The S370 gives me the ubiquitous "file is corrupt or unsupported" error message when it tries to read the files. I'm trying to play them off of a FAT formatted USB drive. Sure hope I can find a way to remux instead of re-encode. Thank you again for the suggestions.

 

[mittal_v2002]

I find you have multiple audio streams, dual audio does not work on BDP S370. I had few files with dual audio which could not play on Sony BDP.

I am sure I played some files with multiple audio streams via USB drive on BDPS370 successfully. I will try to find the file and post the Media info details..

 

[mittal_v2002]

I don't have a portable HDD and need to buy a new one hence wanted to check if this is wise to invest in one.. as I can buy a much larger capacity if I go for a powered HDD for the same price....

Cheers..

I bought a WD Elements 500GB portable drive yesterday. It is pre-formatted to NTFS and I need to reformat this to FAT32 so that it is recognized by BDPS370. Wondering if I should continue with the default Cluster size of 4k or should I increase that to 32k/64k. As the USB drive will be primarily used for large Media files so I am not bothered about the space wasted due to large cluster size if this provides better performance..

However the other question is, will BDPS370 recognize the large cluster size ?

Also, I am running Windows 7 on my laptop that does not support formatting the drive larger than 32GB. what freeware can I use for the same ? I wasted 6 hrs yesterday to realize that Windows 7 can not do it.. when it gave an error after 6 hrs of formatting action.. ... When will Microsoft improve ??

Cheers

 

[derek]

Hi. I formatted my WD Passport 320Gb as FAT32. I downloaded some movies to my hard drive, mkv extension, all were at least 5.7Gb and thus too big to copy to the 320Gb drive. I did check that the BDPS370 could see the 320Gb in the front USB port. Since the MKV files were too large I thought that trying to split them to segments of less than 4Gb would be the thing to do but I could find no app to do it. I'm running Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit. The MKV files play great on my monitor but I'd prefer to get them on the WD 320Gb USB drive and watch them on my LG 42LED5300 tv Any recommendations on an app to split the MKV files so that they meet the FAT32 requirements of the BDPS370 would be nice

regards. derek

To format the WD Passport 320Gb as FAT32 I used Paragon Hard Disk Manager.

 

[HiFiamp]

You can use mkvtoolnix to split the files. Pl search the forum, there was a thread stating about this tool.

Also you have formatted your HD in FAT32 which is having a limit of 4GB for a single file. You can format it in NTFS which will enable you to copy file larger than 4GB.

 

[derek]

You can use mkvtoolnix to split the files. Pl search the forum, there was a thread stating about this tool.

Also you have formatted your HD in FAT32 which is having a limit of 4GB for a single file. You can format it in NTFS which will enable you to copy file larger than 4GB.

Hi. Will that allow the player to recognize the >4Gb files onthe usb drive that is plugged into the front port of the s370?

 

[derek]

I found that burning the Alice In Wonderland 7.94 Gb MKV file to a dual-layer dvd+r disk will be recognized by the bdp-s370 player and will play fine.

 

[deba]

I found that burning the Alice In Wonderland 7.94 Gb MKV file to a dual-layer dvd+r disk will be recognized by the bdp-s370 player and will play fine.

Are you getting correct Aspect Ratio of the Movie because I found that the 370 plays all files in the 16:9 Ratio and thus trims the left and right side of the file.

Alice in Wondeland has 16:9 ratio so it will fit well but take a Movie which has say 1:2.40 Aspect Ratio and see whether it displays properly.

I played a "Mama Mia" MKV File and it trimmed the aspect ratio to 16:9 making it quiet difficult to watch.

Thanks.

 

[prankey]

I found that burning the Alice In Wonderland 7.94 Gb MKV file to a dual-layer dvd+r disk will be recognized by the bdp-s370 player and will play fine.

Thats a good news! Seems this player recognize UDF filesystem on a DVD which Samsung BDPs wont recognize! Samsung was hesitant even to register a bug report and work on it. Hence had to return C6900. Can you please confirm if burning around 4.3GB (full DVD single layer) MKVs are read properly with rewind and forward? I would appreciate an update.

Also, if someone could update on whether Sony could play MP3s across multiple folders as Samsung was restricted to play only a SINGLE FOLDER and even generating playlists beyond a folder would not work.

 

[mittal_v2002]

Hi. Will that allow the player to recognize the >4Gb files onthe usb drive that is plugged into the front port of the s370?

Nopes.. it will only identify the FAT32 partition.

I have a 500GB portable HDD, and I have made 2 partitions. 150 (NTFS) + 350 GB (FAT32). I have a few files which are larger than 4GB so I store these on the 150 GB partition. and the smaller ones on 350 GB partition.

The BDP only identifies the FAT32 partition. If I want to watch some file larger than 4GB, i will split that and store into FAT32 partition and can watch it in parts on TV. hope this helps.

However, I have found a problem with mkvtoolnix. Sometimes it works fine. bit at times the splitted files show some pixalation in the video.

This pixalation also happens when I try to convert the profile for some files from 5.1 to 4.1 as Sony BDP only support profile 4.1.

Any suggestions for that ?