Why? Because most BD content is protected from such transcribing. So a dead end there.
2. Since we can't do item 1, there is no reason for question 2 but HD content has no known issue here on those players.
3. None. You listed common solutions but not one will take BD content unless there is no copy protection and this forum FORBIDS discussions about circumventing DRM and more. Don't start that conversation unless you want it locked.
I do have a question for you. If the maker or seller won't talk to you about your concerns, why would you buy their products?
Bob
I am interested in getting a portable media player so that whenever I visit family and friends, I can hook it up to their high definition tv, and watch any given movie from my blu ray collection through a portable media player rather than toting around a bunch of discs. (That way I don't have to worry about anything getting scratched or lost.) However, I am concerned about any possible loss of quality during playback when using these types of products. When I went to Best Buy to talk to them about it, I got conflicting information on this topic from various sales people, and am not sure who or what to believe.
One sales person told me that there would not be any loss of quality during playback with a portable media player. Another sales person told me there is a loss of blu ray quality whenever using any portable media player because it must compress or transcode blu ray files during playback through a HDMI connection. However, when I asked why this is, they weren't able to really give me an answer. I also wanted to know whether or not getting a portable media player with a built in hard drive as opposed to hooking up an external drive would affect playback performance, and again got conflicting information. Can anyone clear this up?
My questions are:
1.) Do all portable media players have to compress, or transcode blu ray files when sent out through a HDMI connection to a High Definition TV? If they do, does this result in a loss of picture quality?
2.) Does hooking up an external drive to a portable media player affect playback performance of blu ray files? If it doesn't, I'm thinking what might make for a better investment is purchase a portable media player, and external hard drive separately. That way in the future, when my collection gets bigger and I'm ready to upgrade my equipment, I can just get a larger external hard drive rather than having to get another portable media player too.
3.) Is there any particular product or products that you would recommend for my needs? I do not care for online features such as being able to access Netflix, Blockbuster, YouTube and things of those nature. I'm just interested in the best playback performance of blu ray files, and the shortest seek times with the portable media players at the lowest possible price. (Also, I don't know if it makes any difference, but what I'm working with is a Windows 7 Operating System.)
What I am looking into:
Currently I am trying out the Western Digital - WD TV Live Hub Media Center with 1 TB Hard Drive from Best Buy for $199.99, but am thinking there may be other products out there that may better suit my needs. So far from trying it out I feel like the time that it takes to locate media on itself is too long, and would prefer a product that is a bit more responsive without much of any seek time. As for the external hard drives, what I'm looking for is the lowest cost per gigabyte. So far the best I have found is at $0.0423 per gigabyte with the Seagate Expansion 3TB USB 3.0 External Hard Drive on Amazon for $129.99, but don't know what portable media player would go good with this should I choose this route.

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